Arabic Cover Design Archive
Mahmoud Elhosseiny
| Research on the Arts Program | 2020 | Egypt
The ACDA is a regional research project which aims to create a digital archive of Arabic cover designs from the late 1930s to the mid-1990s.
This digital archive will constitute a free and accessible resource available for everyone. However, the main targets are researchers, students, and design as well as art practitioners. The project currently includes researchers working in Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, and
Palestine. A collaboration contract was also signed with libraries in France and Canada, thereby contributing to the archive with books from Tunisia, Algeria, and the United Arab Emirates.
The archive currently holds 3,500 covers; the aim is to reach 5,000 covers before the launch of the digital website in 2021.
This archival project aims at becoming a hub for the discourse around the topic at hand. Engagement with the design community in underway, to further establish and spark this discourse, thereby simultaneously preserving, investigating, and creating new content.