Earlier this year we wanted to add some new posters in the office space at Small Media. This led to a lot of conversations around updating the Small Media brand. To kick off the designs I had a meeting with everyone working at the office and we listed the kind of projects that we work on. The endless list proved hard to whittle down and it also seemed a shame to discard some ideas while retaining others. This led me to create the Small Media alphabet using a mixed media digital collage style that embraces the diversity of the work we do.

LINK TO REUTERS STORY

Illustrations and animations for a Thomson Reuters Foundation report about Indian factories that have been endangering seamstresses' health with illegal pills.

Click on the link above to view final illustrations used by Reuters.

DETAILED CASE STUDY LINK

The UPROAR factsheet is a four page design that gives the reader a quick understanding of digital rights in a country meant for organisations and individuals attending a Universal Periodic Review, a UN mechanism to help countries give feedback to each other. The design works as a folder which is handed out and shared with decision-makers, diplomats and civil society organisation campaigning at the UN.

This design works such that it can be adapted and updated for countries with upcoming reviews.

Identity and styling of initial graphics for Small Media’s new quarterly report scrutinising the operations of Iran’s Cyber Police.

+ Motion graphics
+ Information design
+ Icon design
+ Social media assets

Follow the series on Medium

A special edition of Filterwatch that delves into the details of six proposed bills that may end up transforming Iran’s Filternet.

+ Motion graphics
+ Information design
+ Cover design
+ Social media assets

Read more about it on Medium

A report that assesses internet freedom in the region of East Africa, specifically Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. View the fully designed report here.

View the design sketches here.

A selection of original & scanned digital patterns that were printed and photocopied to achieve distortion and then used in the Internet Freedom project to create a bespoke identity that attempts to echo the ‘glitches’ of a restricted internet society.

Paradise Lost was a research publication developed in a collaboration between the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Small Media. It takes stock of the urgent environmental crisis looming over Iran. I worked on the creative direction of the report, creating the information design pages based on insights gleaned from the data I was given, worked on the layout and typeset of the 160+ page report, and saw the project through to print. Given the content of the book it was printed on recycled cyclus paper with a transparency dust jacket and then shared with the key stakeholders.

Full report available here.

Breaking the Silence: Digital Media and LGBTQ Rights in Iran was Developed in partnership with a number of Iranian LGBTQ organisations. It assesses the state of the LGBTQ community’s digital media ecology and describes how apps, social media platforms, and new community services are transforming the lives of LGBTQ people under intense pressure from the state and wider society.

I was responsible for the creative direction of the publication. It was designed in fluorescent pink and green, colours that can be Riso printed. I typeset [in English and then again in Farsi], designed, illustrated and produce the information designs for the two colour 100+ page report.

These illustrations were shortlisted in the 2018 World Illustration Awards and exhibited at Somerset House, AOI, London.

This report on social media in the 2017 presidential elections is the first comprehensive overview of the Iranian social media sphere under Rouhani, and the only one that focuses on Instagram and Telegram, the social spaces at the heart of everyday users’ experiences.

I created the chapter dividers using digital collage and used images of key players in Iranian politics. I worked on the creative direction of the publication, information design and produced the final report.

Nogaam Publishing is a non-profit organisation formed by a group of young immigrants living in London. It provides a platform for Persian language work to be published that would otherwise be censored in Iran.

Published by Katha, India.

These are the sketches that preceded Ordinary Joys, a body of work by Surasti that explores the way in which memory manifests through imagery.

Ordinary Joys is Informed by a deep connection with memory, and with the objects and spaces of one’s childhood. Surasti has created a body of work that explores the way in which memory manifests through imagery.