Our Branding
2013
For Art Dubai’s 2012-2013 branding and PR campaign, we’re turning to the UAE community-at-large, inviting artists, photographers and arts enthusiasts to collaborate and contribute to a visual narrative that will reflect Dubai’s essence and its varied urban fabric. We’re looking to you to participate in a project that aims to shed light on Dubai’s diversity and capture its many layers and nuances. These visuals will be woven together into a series of collages by our creative director, Hani Charaf, who created the campaign.
To be a part of this narrative, send us photos that reflect your experiences in and of Dubai and what the city means to you, whether iconic or quirky -- from the widest landscape to the smallest detail.
You don’t have to be a professional photographer: we’re inviting amateurs as well as professionals, and images can be taken with a camera, phone, in colour or black and white, or using instagram, hipstamatic or any other type of app. Even grainy, blurry, over-exposed or under-exposed images can be used to build a nuanced and diverse patchwork of our environment.
This project follows Art Dubai’s tradition of, each year, inviting an artist or collective to participate in creating the fair’s branding in the build-up to the fair each March. In 2009, we collaborated with Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin; in 2010, with Sinisa Vlajkovic; in 2011, with Sam Irons; and in 2012 with Dubai-based photographer Mohamed Somji.
Over the past six years, Art Dubai, the leading international art fair in the Middle East and South Asia, has become a cornerstone of the region’s fast-growing contemporary art community. The seventh edition of Art Dubai takes place March 20-23, 2013, and celebrates the fair’s role as an essential meeting point in the art world.
Your images could be featured throughout the year in the lead up to the fair; in adverts and magazines from across the world, on billboards and in catalogues, on tote bags and on our website, among other collateral.
Entries will be accepted from September 26, 2012 through to January 15, 2013, although the earlier you submit, the more likely your images may be included.
ART DUBAI 2013 CAMPAIGN CRITERIA:
| • | The Art Dubai 2013 campaign is open to anyone based in |
| the UAE | |
| • | Submitted images must be taken in Dubai |
| • | You can submit as many images as you like |
| • | Make sure to include the location of each image as this |
| will be used as the title of the image | |
| • | Images don’t need to be in high res. but do need to have |
| a min size of 1mb | |
| • | Photographs do not have to be in digital format. Any |
| print or film submissions will be accepted if scanned and | |
| sent to us digitally |
Open Call Submission Form
2012
In autumn 2011, Art Dubai launched a new visual identity, created by graphic designer Hani Charaf of Kemistry Design.
Art Dubai’s new identity is based on an open system combining two elements: graphic block abstractions of the Arabic letters forming ‘Art Dubai’, together with a new English typeface. The blocks morph into different configurations, mimicking the ever-changing nature of the contemporary art world, and our home city of Dubai, plus the process of building up the art fair and gallery stands each year.
The new visual identity does not limit itself to a logotype; it is rather a system aiming to reflect Art Dubai’s programmes, which include a diversity of projects and initiatives; it represents the fair’s aim to constantly revisit and develop its programmes, and be a particularly flexible, innovative model of an art fair.
Continuing Art Dubai’s tradition of working with an artist to create a new campaign each year, we have also collaborated with Dubai-based photographer Mohamed Somji on the images for 2012. The identity for Art Dubai 2012 references the dates of the fair - that it falls within spring - and is inspired by the history of the city, the details of life that could appear universal in nature yet are particularly UAE. The flower patterns that form the background images for posters, adverts, invitations, entrance cards and so on were photographed by Mohamed Somji and Hani Charaf all over Dubai: from the tablecloths in local Mindi restaurants, to the shops in the textile souk, to curtains in official buildings, found objects and neighbourhood furniture.
Hani Charaf is a part of Kemistry Design, a creative studio based in Dubai. Hani's arts and culture portfolio includes work for Saadiyat Cultural District, the Saudi Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennial, and Sharjah Art Foundation, in addition to many art galleries.
Tanzania-born photographer Mohamed Somji has lived in Dubai nearly all his life. Co-founder of ‘seeing things’ photography/video agency, he is also director of the community initiative Gulf Photo Plus, which recently opened a gallery space in Alserkal Avenue, Al Quoz. Mohamed’s most recent solo exhibition was at the Pavilion in 2011.
