Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès is the Founding Director of the Khatt Foundation (www.khtt.net). She is widely published and contributes regularly to international conferences, academic journals, professional magazines and publications. She curates design exhibitions and design research projects on typographic design’s social and cultural relevance in multicultural contexts.
Holding degrees in graphic design from Yale University School of Art (CT, USA) and Rhode Island School of Design (RI, USA), she specializes in typographic design. She has worked as a design consultant since 1990 in the US, Europe and the Middle East. She taught design and typography courses at the American University of Beirut (1994-2000), and the American University in Dubai (2000-2008), where she was Chairperson of the Visual Communication Department.
She was a jury member of the Third Jameel Prize for Islamic Art and Design 2013 (Victoria & Albert Museum, London), and member of the grants selection committee for Mondrian Foundation & The Netherlands Architecture and Design Fund (2011-2013). She is member of AGI (Alliance Typographique Internationale), the international association of influential graphic designer, since 2016.
She is the author of Arabic Typography: A Comprehensive Sourcebook (London: Saqi Books. 2001), Experimental Arabic Type (Dubai: Saatchi & Saatchi. 2002), Typographic Matchmaking (Amsterdam: BIS Publishers. 2007), Typographic Matchmaking in the City (Amsterdam: Khatt Books. 2011), Arabic Type Design for Beginners (Amsterdam: Khatt Books. 2013). She is currently pursuing a PhD at Leiden University on book design and modernity in the Arab world, under the supervision of Prof. Dr Jan Just Witkam.