40MUSTAQEL showcases the typographic details and teamwork behind its bilingual magazine Isdar

Through Isdar, Cairo-based independent design studio 40MUSTAQEL documents and celebrates the evolving nature of design discourse beyond Western-centric perspectives. This self-initiated Arabic-English biannual paperback aims to challenge and expand the boundaries of bilingual publishing, with its inaugural issue centred around the theme of language, answering questions such as “Why do the iterations of non-standard written Arabics that populate scribal traditions of the past not make their way into print?” “How does a single page create hierarchies of interpretation and meaning?” and “Can our design of script be a point of resistance?” The idea for the magazine had taken root in the studio’s early days, when the team shared a collective desire to document and share “fleeting conversations and areas of interests” between colleagues, collaborators, and other practitioners. “These conversations were often active ingredients in our process and how we approach different projects,” the studio notes. At the same time, the team has consistently shown an interest in all things print, with everyone owning their own personal library of publications, intriguing prints, and ephemera. This interest stems not only from their capacity for artistic expression and typographic experimentation, but also because, regionally, publications have always been regarded as cultural artefacts that are tangible and enduring – particularly important in areas that are often under-documented. With all of this considered, “we always knew we wanted to work on our own self-published magazine,” they say, “and open up the space for ourselves to experiment with that.”