Dubai, a modern cosmopolitan, has the entire world enthralled with its city structure’s design and beauty. This fascination with the design of the city is the inspiration behind Hani Mahfouz’s installation which will be on display d3, titled ‘The Skyline’.
‘The Skyline’ celebrates the detailed hidden master-plan behind the jagged, geometrically planned structure of Dubai, with its buildings, skyscrapers, and roads coming together in a beautiful harmony. The modern city holds a blend of cultures, with a variety of contrasts, features, and ethnicity, which the artist reflects in a widely unrealistic, yet perfectly coordinated color scheme.
The Journey of Hani’s Eventful Life
Hani Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1965, graduated from the faculty of Fine Arts at Alexandria University in 1988. He started working as a graphic designer in 1990 to establish his own graphic studio in Cairo under the name of “h|m|d” in 1997, with the main principle of making a new artistic-commercial direction. The installation is presented by Brandinc. A creative, boutique branding and marketing solutions agency operating in Cairo and Dubai that develops smarter products to help grow businesses.
It happened almost overnight that Hani Mahfouz became a household name, but since then Hani Mahfouz Designs (HMD) has become one of the most recognisable Egyptian brands on the market. But it's been a long trip to get to where he is now, and Hani Mahfouz's path towards becoming the benchmark name in Egypt's graphic design industry wasn't the smoothest or most predictable. Mahfouz studied Interior Design in the College of Fine Arts, and did so almost as a contingency plan. Even after graduating, he fell into his first job in graphic design almost entirely by accident. Having completed his undergraduate studies, and with five days left of his army service, Mahfouz would stumble into his first role a small advertising company.
Having taken up a part time job at a firm, he had also begun doing his own freelance work, and at that point decided it was the time for him to have his own space. Thus was the beginning of what would become the now distinguished HMD brand. Slowly but surely he began to garner footing as a freelancer but it wasn't until 2002 that the game really changed for him. And once again, it was almost completely an accident.
What essentially began as a scheme to boost business would become the trademark of his brand, and after the largely unexpected success of the stationery, Mahfouz made a shift in plan, and began selling his notebooks straight to bookstores like Diwan, instead of distributing them for free. From what started off essentially as a latch-ditch attempt, the brand would only grow, and along with it, so would the business.