‘We’re half people, half sandwiches. Also, we make design.” So says the home page of Möbius Design Studio, the Dubai-based visual communications collective founded by Hadeyeh Badri, Hala Al-Ani, and Riem Hassan in 2010.
The trio met while studying at the American University of Sharjah. “When we graduated, the shift from academia to reality didn’t suit us very well, so we founded Möbius,” explains Badri, 25. “Starting our own practice meant there was less of a compromise when it came to producing thoughtful work.”
Badri’s remains elliptical about Möbius’s sandwich statement. “It means we’re hybrids. Half of me is a sandwich and half of me is a person. It also means we are really friendly.”
The answer belies a refusal to compromise, to be labelled, or to submit to easy shortcuts that defines Badri as an individual, and which also goes to the heart of Möbius’s beliefs about the meaning and the value of design.
“We believe design has value, period, but when you eliminate the processes behind it, you devalue it. When people produce 10 [logos] for a client in a week, we don’t get that. We don’t work that way.”
The studio has built an impressive client list that includes Abu Dhabi Art and the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC). In 2011, Möbius designed the identity for the UAE’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and earlier this year, the studio curated Design House, a group exhibition and series of public workshops that were staged in Dubai as part of the Sikka Art Fair 2013. Badri is currently working on next year’s Design House, as well as educational material to accompany forthcoming exhibitions at Manarat Al Saadiyat on Saadiyat Island.
While Möbius’s work may result in brand identities, fonts, posters and logotypes, Badri insists that design is about rather more than that.
“It’s about discipline, dedication, and process, and lots of it. When you are disciplined, you want to invest more time in executing something because you understand that what you’re doing is valuable. It’s about trying to understand your surroundings and trying to make them better.”
What do you always carry with you?
Other than my purse? Whenever I look in my bag I seem to always have an X-acto knife but I never remember picking them up.
Favourite music?
Grizzly Bear. They really sing to me. My favourite album is Veckatimest and my favourite track is Ready, Able.
What’s your favourite destination?
London; I love walking along the Southbank to Tate Modern. I went for the first time in 2008 and then again last year. We visited the Whitechapel Gallery and took a design walk around that part of East London. There’s a special charm to the place and to the shops, studios, restaurants and mix of people there.
What’s your favourite book?
I always read more than one book at a time and I have lots that I return to as I always underline passages and make notes whenever something resonates with me. I’m reading The Picture of Dorian Gray and “A Lover’s Discourse” at the moment, but my favourite would have to be Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. It is a refuge when you are feeling down in the doldrums.
What’s your favourite food?
I’m four weeks into a three month-long clean eating drive at the moment. I used to feel incompetent in the kitchen, but I’ve been learning to cook some new dishes which are mainly vegan. My favourite dish so far is chickpea bread with basil and sun-dried tomatoes.
Do you collect anything?
We have an inspiration corner in the studio where we put postcards and letters that our friends send us from their travels. You find a little bit of everyone in our space. I also like to collect packages I find in grocery stores.
What’s your favourite shop?
That would be Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore in Paris. I discovered it by chance with a friend when we were walking to Notre Dame. If you stand outside and look up, you can see Virginia Woolf looking down at you, she’s a vinyl sticker stuck to one of the windows. There’s also a room upstairs where they have talks about philosophy and poetry readings. I love the idea of dialogue.
What’s your favourite piece of design?
I don’t have a favourite designer or a designed object as such.
Do you have a favourite neighbourhood?
I like any place where you get to meet people from different walks of life. That happens in Bastakiya. It’s very dense, everything is within walking distance, and people pass right next to you. It’s very human. Everything coincides there.
