PRE-MADE BOOK COVER STAND
[BOOKINGS OPENING SOON]
















NAHAL کأ STUDIO







Hi, I’m Nahal Sheikh. Welcome to my creative practice, NAHAL کأ STUDIO (nahal’s studio). A small space for mindful collaborations that value visual design to narrate stories. On this page, you’ll see my portfolio full of editorial illustrations, book covers, posters, music album cover art and more. Soon, I’m launching my Pre-Made Book Cover Stand – a carefully crafted curation of book covers I’ve made with love, ready for fiction and non-fiction books.

A bit about my background – I’m a graphic designer and researcher with Pakistani roots, based in Amsterdam. Curious about connecting historical and contemporary aesthetics, my work constantly merges cross-cultural design languages. I’m currently obsessed with Bauhaus minimalism and Urdu typography. 

I’m  also a Lecturer in Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. I teach themes of racialised and gendered identity in media representation from a post- and de-colonial perspective. My current research focuses on South Asian, particularly Pakistani, graphic design and visual culture, looking at design 
as inherently intertwined with history and politics.

nahalrsheikh@gmail.com
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Contact


Academic Publications

“Pakistan’s Ambiguous Islamic Identity,” JSTOR Daily, 2024.

“The Sociogeny of Religious Discrimination in India’s Surveillance State,”  
Soapbox Journal of Cultural Analysis, 2022.

“Reminiscences of Morals: A socio-psychological analysis of bystander unconsciousness in Waltz with Bashir,” Maastricht Journal of Liberal Arts, 2017.




Magazine Articles [selected]“Productively ‘perverse’: Punjabi films of the 1970s-80s as a tool for resistance during Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship,” Himal Southasian Magazine, 2022.

“Recognize your history: Re-narrating the ‘glorified’ Indian Partition 1947,”  jfa human rights journal, 2021.

“Midnight Doorways: Usman T. Malik on Pakistani folklore, fables and horror tales,” 
Youlin Magazine, 2021.

“Archiving Fashion: In conversation with the author and photographer of ‘Pakistan: A Fashionable History’,”  
Youlin Magazine, 2020.

“Pakistani popular music: towards an apolitical and original culture,”
The Nation, 2019.





Awards“Harmonia,” Winning entry, Let’s Brief brand design competition, 2025.




Exhibitions“The Compass of Racial Anti-Hate,” The Push Exhibition, 2021.

“Let’s go digital, let’s get active!” Express Impress Virtual Exhibition, 2021.







Last Updated 24.10.31
WORK







Penguin Book Cover Reimaginations: In 1961, Romek Marber designed the Penguin Grid – a structured layout that brought consistency to Penguin book covers while still allowing for creativity. Over 60 years later, it still holds up. Why? It’s structured but not rigid, text and image actually work together, it avoids trends and rather focuses on simplicity. Using this iconic 1960s Penguin Marber Grid, I reimagined some of my favourite books.



‘Every Breath is a Translation’ series,  Writing Women: Between Sept-Oct 2025, every week Writing Women releases personal essays on the meaning of translation written by a diverse set of writers across South Asia and its diaspora. I’m part of this live process, drawing  illustrations for six selected pieces.



Academic publishing reimagined with creativity and curiosity: Working in academia, I usually find academic books published with covers that can definitely push the boundaries more. As a small exercise I love doing, sometimes I find some academic titles that resonate with me from all kinds of genre – history, scientific, culture, religion – and design a new book cover for it.



More selected artwork from editoiral illustrations, posters to podcast cover art and personal sketches


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© All rights reserved 2025 Nahal Sheikh