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NAHAL کأ STUDIO






Hi, I’m Nahal Sheikh. Welcome to my creative practice, NAHAL کأ 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.

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. 

Alongside, I’m 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 graphic design history and visual culture, looking 
at design as inherently political.

nahalrsheikh@gmail.com
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Conferences
& Talks

“Red, Black and Banned: Soviet Aesthetics in Urdu Political Print in Colonial India,” in Everyday Resistance: Thinking, Making and Living in the Material World at Centre of Design History & Centre of Philosophy, Brighton University, 2025.

“Soft Scripts: Urdu Typography and the “new ideal” of Postcolonial Femininity in 20th century Pakistani Advertising,” in Typography Theory Pracitce at School of Arts, Leeds Beckett University, 2025.


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