Saeed Abu-Jaber

This month's banner image has been kindly supplied by Saeed Abu-Jaber. I caught up with him to chat about typography, Swiss graphic design and what the best coffee shop in London is.

Who are you? What do you do? And where?

I'm Saeed Abu-Jaber, a freelance designer, photographer and a bit of musician. I like to create mostly in the forms of skectching and photography. At the moment I'm a barista at London's best coffee shop,where i got hooked on caffiene and became a sort of coffee geek.

Best coffee shop in London? And which one might that be?

The coffee shop happens to be Monmouth Coffee Co, though in a sense, after you have had some of the coffee there, the likliness of you liking any other coffee you taste is very much oblitirated, come down to borough market and let me coffee geek you up.

Who or what are your inspirations?

I'm not really sure what inpires me exactly, l will report back to you as soon as I find out :P, but I know that I love shapes, shapes and their relationship to each other, which I see and admire usually in signage, logos, typoraphy, humans and music.

What have you been working on recently?

Recently (and that's the last 2 years, haha), I have been doing a lot of "doodling" if you may, but on a serious level, it has been more branding and logo forms, which I enjoy a lot. My last logo comission was for a friend's music act, who use the london underground sounds to make music, pretty cool. Other than that, I have been doing a lot of t-shirt-art type of graphics, which I'm hoping to get printed some time soon.

Any recent examples of typography or logo design that's really caught your attention recently?

Nothing lately has caught my attention to be honest, so I have been travelling back in time and appreciating what there was rather what there is, such as Swiss graphic design, Emil Ruder, clean cut, beautifully assembled shapes, 'tis good ja ja ja.

Have you ever been in a fight? If so, what happened?

I have never been in a fight, I always wonder though, I think you need to be in a fight at least once, so I'll let you know when it goes down sir ha :)

Many thanks to Saeed for taking the time to produce our banner for us this month. Saeed's portfolio can be found at saeedabujaber.carbonmade.com.