Ghada Wali, First Egyptian Lady in Forbes List

By: Mai Shaheen, Maydaa Abo El-Nadar

CAIRO, MAR.8 (SEE) – March 8 is the day which turned from a painful memory to an international celebration. Creativity and pain are correlated partners for the woman. In spite of challenges, women prove their success everywhere. Therefore, SEE celebrates International Women’s Day.

On this day, it is worth narrating the achievements of Ghada Wali who at the age of 27 became the first Egyptian female to be included in the international magazine Forbes, amongst the best 30 designers under-30 in Europe.

As she focused on projects related to the printing’s history in Egypt, Wali developed the Arabic letter’s design. With her sister Yasmin Wali, they founded the project of Egypt’s Visual Identity, especially for the legendary city of Luxor.

Wali was born in 1990 and joined the German University in Cairo in 2006. After graduating from the graphic’s department in 2011, she continued her studies at the University of Florence. From 100 international designs, the Association of Graphic Arts in Chicago selected her design depicting the Arabic letter.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s during the session about the Egyptian Human Development Strategy, at the sixth Youth National Conference held at the Cairo University in 2018, hailed Ghada and Yasmin’s projects about the visual identity that aims to create a trademark and an identity for Egypt’s governorates.

Commenting on her dream, Wali expressed, “You firstly deal with the world through the sight; however the attention given to support the designing field is not enough. I wish for every tourist who arrives in Egypt to be handed a map at the airport. Each Egyptian governorate should include a book about the beauty of its nature. One-third of the world’s monuments are on our land; unfortunately, antiquities are not given deserved attention.”

Worth noting is that Wali presided over the advertising campaign of the film Al Aslyien. She also implemented her project about the Egyptian letters at the old movies for documentation. Wali dreams about establishing a studio in every continent to design graphics.