Jenan Ismail brings brands, exhibitions, workshops, and community events to life through research-backed design and creative direction. She has previously worked leading design projects at Fikra Graphic Design Studio (Sharjah) and Gulf Photo Plus (Dubai). Identity/Design

Photo/Video/Motion 

Swallow This!
2023

Publication Design
Gulf Photo Plus

This book follows Gulf Photo Plus’s exhibition Swallow This! Arab Women and Body Politics with Lara Chahine and Reem Falaknaz, curated by Rama Ghanem. The project opens to plain view confounding narratives about womanhood in the Arab world.

Swallow This! reckons with how bodies are both constructed and destroyed by industry, and invites viewers to look at varied research on women’s experiences, internet spaces where women’s pain is exploited, and domestic and private domains where we seek and create refuge for one another. 

The book’s design reflects this complexity with intentionally hard-to-read pages and visual references to kitschy deep-web aesthetics. The cover design draws from a genre rooted in misogyny, inverting and reclaiming visual tropes typically associated with the ‘temptress’ archetype. A palette of sickly-sweet pinks and reds pushes femininity to an almost nauseating extreme, mirroring the themes of discomfort and contradiction found throughout the work.


Brownbook 68, The Sharjah Issue
Mar/Apr 2018

Cover, type, and print design 
Collaborator: Ray Yafi 
Fikra Design Studio



The design uses Sharjah’s city map as a graphic element and features custom letterforms inspired by the city’s art, design, and architecture. It incorporates Sharjah’s iconic slogan, “Smile, you’re in Sharjah,” and was printed using a risograph, a nod to the city’s rich history in print and publishing. 



Majd Arandas: A Memorial in Fragments
2025

Visual Identity
Gulf Photo Plus Majd Arandas was a photographer from Gaza who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2023. Through contributions from his friends and family, a collective narrative is formed through the lens of his community. 

Using a layered visual language, the exhibition commemorates Majd’s life and gestures toward a broader context of loss, perseverance, and the ongoing fight for voice and visibility in Palestine.



The Life of an Itinerant Through a Pinhole
2025

Visual Identity
Gulf Photo Plus Behzad K. Noori’s The Life of an Itinerant (Gulf Photo Plus) explores personal and familial archives through photographs taken by his grandfather, Gholamreza Amirbeigi, between 1956 and 1968. The design draws from mid-century newspaper aesthetics and medieval Islamic scientific manuscripts that diagram early understandings of the camera obscura.



ECHO Agency
2024

Logomark, Visual Identity, and Naming
Custom logomark and visual strategy for ECHO, a talent and production agency based in Dubai, UAE. 

Inspired by bold 1970s visual language, the identity embraces simplicity and rhythm. Designed to be clean yet characterful, the system maintains clarity and impact across digital and physical applications.

The Youth Takeover at Jameel Arts Centre
2019

Art Direction + Campaign
Collaborator: Ray Yafi Visual direction, campaign, and print for Jameel Arts Centre’s first Youth Takeover, an  experimental programme brings together young, highly-motivated artists and creatives from across the United Arab Emirates to contribute to the Centre’s curatorial programming.The direction for the campaign was inspired by the Youth Assembly’s process; content for the publication was built by extracting notes, messages, visual media, and written content from various conversation channels and in-person meetings.


71 Steak & Grill
2021

Custom Logomark + Brand Design Refresh
Fikra Design Studio




Seventy One Steak & Grill is a brand home-grown out of Sharjah, UAE. For their new branch opening, the client asked for an elevated rebrand that reflected their specialization in butchery and premium quality cuts of meat. 


The visual identity centers around bold, thick-cut typography, drawing inspiration from the physicality of butchery. 



Accommodations 
National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia
Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2021
Brand Identity and Exhibition Graphics

Collaborators:
Hana Neuman
Maryam Al Qassimi

Fikra Design Studio
Accommodations explores how architectural enclosures in Saudi Arabia have responded to shifting social and emergency conditions.

The identity system centered on three key typologies identified by curators Uzma Z. Rizvi and Murtaza Vali (company housing, the hotel, and the quarantine facility) and each represented by a basic geometric form: square, triangle, and circle. These symbols served as both wayfinding tools and visual anchors across printed and spatial materials.

Rooted in a modular grid, the system echoed the logic of urban planning and architectural drawing, creating a cohesive visual language that supported the curatorial narrative.