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update some copy on Salgirah
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shakeelmohamed committed Mar 9, 2025
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7 changes: 4 additions & 3 deletions docs/projects/salgirah-festival-identity/index.html
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Expand Up @@ -86,12 +86,13 @@ <h1>Salgirah International Festival Identity</h1>
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<p>Salgirah is a religious festival observed by Ismaili Muslims every December. It marks the birthday of the late His Highness the Aga Khan, a descendant of Prophet Muhammad, the spiritual leader of 15 million Ismailis worldwide. December 13, 2021, marked his 85th birthday, or&nbsp;Salgirah.</p><br/>
<p>Salgirah is a religious festival observed by Ismaili Muslims every December. It marks the birthday of the late His Highness the Aga Khan IV, a descendant of Prophet Muhammad, the spiritual leader of 15 million Ismailis worldwide. December 13, 2021, marked his 85th birthday, or&nbsp;Salgirah.</p><br/>
<p>With the Aga Khan IV’s passing in February 2025 his son, Aga Khan V has assumed the role as leader of the Ismaili Muslims. With it, a new identity system must be redeisnged.</p><br/>
<p>The brief given to me by the Ismaili global communications team was to embrace the theme of shukr (gratitude in Arabic) while conveying 85 through (Islamic) geometry. This brand identity would be used worldwide by the Ismaili community to promote a sense of unity. The identity system was my first serious venture into Islamic design and the forms of Arabic typography. This area has become a great interest of mine since&nbsp;then.</p>
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<p>This was by far the largest project I’ve worked on in terms of scale and one I will remember forever. The team only had two brief Zoom meetings over the six weeks of the project. I was impressed with our ability to collaborate across timezones through a Whatsapp group. Since this is a faith-based organization, all team members involved shared a common belief system about the&nbsp;festival.</p><br/>
<p>One year later I was invited to refresh the identity for the Aga Khan’s 86th Salgirah festival. This became a flexible system to be used for the next three&nbsp;years.</p>
<p>One year later I was invited to refresh the identity for the Aga Khan IV’s 86th Salgirah festival. This became a flexible system to be used for the next two&nbsp;years.</p>
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Expand Down Expand Up @@ -153,7 +154,7 @@ <h1>Salgirah International Festival Identity</h1>
<p class="caption">Ultimately we realized the geometry of 86+ would be problematic, and chose to pivot and build the identity around 49 (as the Aga Khan is the 49th hereditary spiritual leader in this role). We settled on a new 7 ring motif (4 visible, 3 in negative space).</p>
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<div class="project-content"><img src="./img/Salgirah Festival - 29.png" alt=""/>
<p class="caption">Secondary lockups for years 86-89. I wanted these elements to live separately from the primary 7 ring motif as these next 4 years were “non-milestone” years.</p>
<p class="caption">Secondary lockups for years 86-88. I wanted these elements to live separately from the primary 7 ring motif as these next 4 years were “non-milestone” years.</p>
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<div class="project-content"><img src="./img/Salgirah---13.png" alt=""/>
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8 changes: 5 additions & 3 deletions src/projects/salgirah-festival-identity/index.pug
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Expand Up @@ -20,13 +20,15 @@ include ../../_includes/project_utils.pug
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p Salgirah is a religious festival observed by Ismaili Muslims every December. It marks the birthday of the late His Highness the Aga Khan, a descendant of Prophet Muhammad, the spiritual leader of 15 million Ismailis worldwide. December 13, 2021, marked his 85th birthday, or&nbsp;Salgirah.
p Salgirah is a religious festival observed by Ismaili Muslims every December. It marks the birthday of the late His Highness the Aga Khan IV, a descendant of Prophet Muhammad, the spiritual leader of 15 million Ismailis worldwide. December 13, 2021, marked his 85th birthday, or&nbsp;Salgirah.
br
p With the Aga Khan IV’s passing in February 2025 his son, Aga Khan V has assumed the role as leader of the Ismaili Muslims. With it, a new identity system must be redeisnged.
br
p The brief given to me by the Ismaili global communications team was to embrace the theme of shukr (gratitude in Arabic) while conveying 85 through (Islamic) geometry. This brand identity would be used worldwide by the Ismaili community to promote a sense of unity. The identity system was my first serious venture into Islamic design and the forms of Arabic typography. This area has become a great interest of mine since&nbsp;then.
div
p This was by far the largest project I’ve worked on in terms of scale and one I will remember forever. The team only had two brief Zoom meetings over the six weeks of the project. I was impressed with our ability to collaborate across timezones through a Whatsapp group. Since this is a faith-based organization, all team members involved shared a common belief system about the&nbsp;festival.
br
p One year later I was invited to refresh the identity for the Aga Khan’s 86th Salgirah festival. This became a flexible system to be used for the next three&nbsp;years.
p One year later I was invited to refresh the identity for the Aga Khan IV’s 86th Salgirah festival. This became a flexible system to be used for the next two&nbsp;years.

.grid-1
+portfolioImg("./img/85th-Salgirah---1.png", "", "Full-color logo. The colors come from the Ismaili community’s flag, seen in the photograph of the late His Highness the Aga Khan (below).")
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+slider()
+imgForSlider("./img/Salgirah---10.png", "", "The geometry of 86 didn’t resolve so nicely as 85. The following year I got a call after the global team realized they couldn’t simply “add another diamond” for that year’s identity.")
+imgForSlider("./img/Salgirah---11.png", "", "Ultimately we realized the geometry of 86+ would be problematic, and chose to pivot and build the identity around 49 (as the Aga Khan is the 49th hereditary spiritual leader in this role). We settled on a new 7 ring motif (4 visible, 3 in negative space).")
+imgForSlider("./img/Salgirah Festival - 29.png", "", "Secondary lockups for years 86-89. I wanted these elements to live separately from the primary 7 ring motif as these next 4 years were “non-milestone” years.")
+imgForSlider("./img/Salgirah Festival - 29.png", "", "Secondary lockups for years 86-88. I wanted these elements to live separately from the primary 7 ring motif as these next 4 years were “non-milestone” years.")
+imgForSlider("./img/Salgirah---13.png", "", "")
+imgForSlider("./img/85th-Salgirah---7.png", "", "After delivering all brand assets, social media teams in the Ismaili community launched global, national, and regional digital marketing campaigns. These assets (social media content, videos, website) were created by many talented people around the world in multiple languages. I have included them here to show the context and impact of the brand identity.")
+imgForSlider("./img/85th-Salgirah---8.png", "", "Photo backdrop in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Designed by the local team.")
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