A photo of two persons walking near a river. One of them is pointing at a nearby illuminated pontoon.
A photo with pieces of imprinted paper taken from books.
A semi transparent imprinted and unfolded paper with some text on it.
A semi transparent imprinted and folded paper with some text on it.

Meet the 2nd Year Students: Tala Safie

Oct 05 2017

I am a graphic designer and art director from Lebanon. After graduating with a BFA in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut in 2013, I worked in a Beirut-based design studio on a range of projects covering different media and design platforms, such as publications, visual identities, exhibitions, packaging, and websites. Outside of client-based work, my self-initiated projects, driven by a particular interest in editorial design, revolve around exciting collaborations with creatives from different fields.

Mare Nostrum is a double-spined publication that juxtaposes land and sea, focusing on the perilous Mediterranean migration prompted by the war in Syria. The “land” component loudly features detached and generalized news headlines of bigoted announcements and regulations, whereas the “sea” component subtly reveals personal testimonies of women, men, and children, who were in the midst of the sea crossing. Both sea and land components have the same chronology and timeline: when read next to each other, added meanings and absurd realizations can be concluded. This is a project for Warren Lehrer’s Visual Literature class (Fall 2016).

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