Interviews

Hey Porter!

Tawfiq Dawi, better known as Hey Porter!, is "just another empty head in a meaningless timeline," but he still manages to make beautiful posters for clients like Apple and the Criterion Collection. We're obsessed with both his Arabic typefaces and his very deep insights.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and what you do now?

I’m a multi-functional-visual-individual, based in Amman, Jordan. [I have a] technological background as a multi-disciplinary designer [and] a degree in visual arts…I’m just another empty head in a meaningless timeline.

[Fun fact, the name Hey Porter comes from a Johnny Cash song.]

How did you end up with such a typographic focus?

After developing identities, designing many typographic logos and marks, and playing around with type in one thousand posters, contemporary treatment of typography with a total artistic freedom became my comfort zone. And that led me to realizing that all I want is to make “experimental / out of context” fonts to encourage designers and students to stop the “it takes years to design a typeface” propaganda.

I don’t collaborate with clients who suffer from lack of professional trust.

Being a self-taught graphic designer, can you tell us about your journey and the challenges?

I believe in experimenting and practicing. Life is a gym and everything needs time and commitment. I started as a 13-year-old kid working in a printing press every day after school for years to provide for my family after my father got cancer…sad background music… By the age of 18, I had the basic knowledge of many programs and had smelled all kinds of inks. [I started to work] at an NGO, designing infographics and reports that no one really looked at or read. I kept thinking that this work was limiting me; I wanted to be more and to learn more. So I started a daily poster design routine to explore possibilities and experimental aspects of graphic design and typography.

We’re fans of the Nass El Ghiwane documentary (and your work on the Criterion Collection cover). Can you talk us through your design here—any research, your process, how you mimicked some Arabic letterforms with the English wordmark…?

Working on design for a legendary Moroccan audiovisual band is a very sensitive matter, because this is a documentation. The process was interesting…at first I made some typography sketches based on Moroccan calligraphy, but at the same time I really love their Arabic wordmark from their old vinyl covers. I was shocked that they don’t use it anymore. I think it’s a forever emblem that can work well in any era, so that’s why I redesigned [that] and then made a Latin reflection of it to write “Trances” (the name of the documentary). I chose colors based on their retro original palettes.

Life is a gym and everything needs time and commitment.

We love the energy and personality your typefaces bring to the written characters. In our experience, Arabic typefaces seem to be a bit scarce. Do you have a sense of why that is?

I think there are many reasons. It’s still difficult for Arabic type foundries and studios to sustain financial stability based on everything that’s going on in the region, and there are design challenges in drawing continuous letterforms because every Arabic letter has 4-10 glyphs that should [correspond with] Latin glyphs. There are a lot of great Arabic typefaces and fonts out there on Google fonts…I’ve seen a lot of new Arabic fonts in the last couple of years.

You created 1,000 posters… tell us about it! Are you tired?

I challenged myself to commit to 1,000 days/projects, and [went to bed] at 4:00 a.m. for around three years until I completed all of them. [I ended up making] around 200 [posters with a] bilingual font basis, learned a lot of digital graphic techniques, became a better artist, and got to the level of working for global brands like Apple Music, TEDx and Criterion Collection.

…Stop the ‘it takes years to design a typeface’ propaganda.

Any favorite sources of inspiration?

I get inspiration from old Arabic books and magazines, children’s comics, Egyptian vintage film posters, Arabic calligraphy, Islamic patterns, anime, and manga.

Favorite tool or software you work with?

In the beginning God created Adobe Illustrator.

What’s a dream project for you? And on the other end of it, what are common red flags when someone approaches you with a potential commission? How do you handle revisions?

I’d love to work on a custom typeface for a huge brand that you can see everywhere. I don’t collaborate with clients who suffer from lack of professional trust. There will be trouble if the cobbler starts making pies! I usually work only on two rounds of revisions and I always ask my clients for solid feedback—to never say, “Can we try it in blue?” etc. 

What was behind your NFT listing?

Mine was inspired by Mike Winkelmann, “Beeple,” who sold an NFT for $69 million. I always wanted to print a three volume book full of all my posters and fonts and that takes a lot of cash.

View Hey Porter’s portfolio.