Pentagram Partner Samar Maakaroun is a designer and creative director renowned for her creatively multilingual approach to design. Her work sits at the forefront of design legacy and innovation, with boundary-pushing, narrative-driven work that reaches across sectors as diverse as arts, culture, technology, education, finance and entertainment, and spans disciplines including brand identity systems, naming, brand strategy, bilingual type design, website and digital product design, editorial, exhibitions and scenography.
In a globalised world with burgeoning diasporic communities in every city, Samar believes in embracing the fluidity and nuances of identity. Her work uses typography and language as tools for navigating and understanding the world, and exploring the spaces in-between—where cultures and languages intersect, integrate, align or diverge. It is in these grey areas that she sees the greatest opportunity for creative inspiration, discovery and play.
She brings this multifaceted approach to Pentagram, where some of her recent projects include a regional campaign for Porsche, a major destination brand for the Emirate of Sharjah, an identity and website for quantum computer manufacturer Quandela, animated digital artworks for international music festival Balad Beast, as well as the illustrated Arabic phrasebook Haraka Baraka, in collaboration with non-profit skateboarding organisation SkatePal.
Prior to joining Pentagram, in 2021 Samar founded Right to Left, a design agency that spanned cultures and typographic traditions. Specialising in designing for hybrid brands, the multidisciplinary team spoke seven languages and crossed three generations, working to seamlessly integrate worlds, cultures and languages across naming, brand strategy, brand systems and identities. An example of their language-hopping, culture-crossing approach manifested in the typographic project, 29 Words for 29 Letters, which explores language, translation and the subversion of meaning through design.
Throughout her career, Samar has led ambitious design projects worldwide, including the first ever integrated destination brand for Dubai with M&C Saatchi (2015); launching Apple’s brand in Arabic across digital, retail and print (2017); rebranding the Abu Dhabi Media portfolio, including AlIthihad newspaper, Majid TV and Majid Magazine (2019); creating the brand identity for Diriyah City (2019); naming and a brand extension for finance company SumUp (2021); and producing a gamified wellbeing product for Totem (2023).
Samar is a multidisciplinary creative with a varied background. Early on in her career, she worked as a set designer with director Rabih Mroué for more than 15 years, designing visuals for shows which toured from Beirut to Berlin, Seoul, Tokyo, France and New York.
Samar actively works to support the next generation of creative talent as a board member of inclusion campaign Design Can and through judging awards with organisations such as D&AD, Young Guns and Creative Review. She is also regularly invited to deliver talks and participate in conferences, including at What Design Can Do, Nicer Tuesdays, Elisava, TypoCircle, Design Can x V&A, Google Creative Labs, D&AD, SuperCondensed, Pentagram London, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts, Apple London, London Design Festival’s Global Design Forum, and at universities throughout the UK.
