Arabic Calligraphy (in the Digital Age) with Ruh Al-Alam

Laura Edralin (00:06) Welcome to the Life of Letters, a podcast where we explore the artistry, history and future of calligraphy, penmanship, handwriting and lettering. I'm your host, Laura Edrelin, a calligrapher based in London with a forgotten degree in archaeology and a curiosity for the stories behind the letters and beneath the ink. Through conversations with historians, artists, societies and stationary experts, I want to discover which of the forgotten letters Who are those pioneers of the pen and journey the world to join the dots between tradition and modern creativity? Whether you're a seasoned calligrapher, a lover of beautiful handwriting, or simply someone fascinated by the evolution of letters, type and the written word, it's great to have you with me. So grab a cuppa, perhaps your favourite pen, settle in And let's dive into the life of letters. Laura Edralin (01:00) I am delighted to be speaking with Ruh Al-Alam in today's episode. So Ruh is an award-winning artist, calligrapher, and art director from the UK, currently based in Dubai. As a dedicated practitioner of Arabic calligraphy and an innovative typographer, he pushes the boundaries of traditional Arabic design. Ruh also leads a creative agency that collaborates with global brands, including Netflix, Google, and Spotify, although I've been on your website, there's about a gazillion others as well, so very exciting. And when I discovered Ruh on Instagram, I was astounded genuinely by not only the kind of list of high profile brands and clients, but also the list of features and books and exhibitions that you've been involved in. And as Rue's concept work and passion is all about the future of these art forms, I'm kind of expecting a huge amount more to grow on this list. So Ruh, welcome to the Life of Letters podcast and thank you so much for being here. Ruh Al-Alam (02:02) Thank you, thank you for having me on here. Laura Edralin (02:04) Very welcome. Thank you for being the very first person to say a big yes to talking to me as well. You gave this podcast a huge boost and the momentum it needed just before Christmas as we kind of start to ramp down, I was going, let's see who wants to join a podcast. Ruh Al-Alam (02:20) No, I'm glad you reached out. just I love doing these. And when I saw your work, I was like, yes, absolutely. Why not? Laura Edralin (02:27) Amazing, thank you. Well, I've covered just a little bit about who you are and what you do in a sort of nutshell. I know there's so much more to you, but I'd love to ask you first off just to give us a little bit of a window into who you are, perhaps beneath the shiny, slick website that we can see and the incredible list of work that we've mentioned. But can you just share a little bit about your interests and life outside of work as well? Ruh Al-Alam (02:51) Yeah, sure. So I'm currently in Dubai, but I was born and brought up in London, sort of East end of London. So very much sort of a working class family. And we had a lot of difficulties in our upbringing, but some challenges because we weren't sort of we weren't a family that had a lot of money and we could go on holidays every year and so on. So we had to sort of make do. And that's where it all began. But London is such a buzzing, diverse, multicultural space that it's almost things seem like very much possible there, right? Whatever you put your mind to it. But yeah, outside of work, I spend a lot of my time with my family, really. And I got a bunch of kids running around my feet most of the time. But yeah, I'm blessed with them. And that's been most of my life for the last, know, God knows how long now. Laura Edralin (03:48) Are they interested in sort of the creative activities as well? Are they following in your footsteps already? Ruh Al-Alam (03:55) Some of them actually are showing really good signs of being creative or, one or two of them are actually, I think are pretty good. They all seem to love to do artwork and drawing and illustration and whatnot. I'm not necessarily forcing them or pushing them in a particular direction, letting them choose what they want to do. But I do think a couple of them do have an eye for creativity. Laura Edralin (04:19) that's always nice isn't it when you know that's something that you're passionate about and they can share that interest in it as well I've got two young boys so one's eight and one's 11 and the creativity it's really interesting how it sort of ebbs and flows a bit but that's a whole nother subject right in terms of how creativity comes and goes in us. Born in London, studied at Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design, right? But you were studying illustration and film. So how did you get into sort of the calligraphy or that sort of area to begin with? Ruh Al-Alam (04:54) Right. So I think it's a weird move, but when we did graphic design as the course it was called, you could specialize in pretty much any of these three areas. One of them, one of which was illustration, but it was never really quite illustration. could just do almost whatever you like. Right. And so I ended up doing a lot more film, a lot more animation flash. I don't know if you remember what that is, but flash is, was a sort of a web platform back in the day and we used to do funky animations and whatnot. And so there was not much illustration, to be honest. And at that time I was quite fascinated with lettering and type and so on. And calligraphy was in the back of my mind, but it's only towards the latter part of my degree that I felt that there was more of a connection, but I hadn't practiced. I didn't know Arabic as a language. And you know, I didn't speak, I could read it, but I couldn't really, I didn't understand it. And that's an odd thing, but I'll explain later. what, you know, ultimately it wasn't something that I, I was familiar while I was familiar with it. wasn't something that I practice in any way in terms of calligraphy. But that last, that final year I dove more into figuring it out and actually started doing some of my own practice at home trying to mimic or replicate some of the calligraphy that I saw. And it's only when I then committed sort of that final year and once I graduated that I thought, okay, you know what, I need to take this a bit more seriously. I think there's something I could try out for myself, but I do need to be grounded or taught by actual calligraphers or experts. in the UK at the time, whilst there were some options, there weren't many people teaching it. And the next best place was probably Turkey, where in Turkey, there's a huge tradition in Arabic calligraphy. And they're probably some of the best finance calligraphers, but I also wanted to learn Arabic. And so I thought, let me choose Egypt, right? So a year after graduating, I decided to move to Egypt, live there as a student, study both Arabic language, but also calligraphy and find a calligraphy master to teach me and give me time and patience to try and learn the craft as much as I can. And that was a life-changing experience for me. Laura Edralin (07:25) Yeah, how incredible. So, so kind of firsthand learning from the real kind of traditional masters of this art form, but also learning Arabic kind of from from scratch, right? You would have had some knowledge of it from growing up, but not not all of it. So, yeah, lots of tandem, tandem studies going on all the time. And did the illustration of film kind of still feature in all of that as you were? Journeying through kind of other things. Ruh Al-Alam (07:55) Well, yeah, I mean, so I never, so while I was studying calligraphy, I was still freelancing as a designer, as a graphic designer. And a lot of that also involved some illustration or video work or web work. So I had to obviously make a living or still make a living. And so I got a lot more into web design and web development and UI design at that time. And so I was serving a bunch of my clients through my own freelancing work. And I maintained that and I still maintain that and I sort of built an agency further down the line. But once I started to learn calligraphy, I started to mix some of my influences from graphic design into my calligraphy. And that's why my work looks a little bit different in some cases. Yeah. And so it's a huge influence for sure. Laura Edralin (08:50) Yeah. I love that. I love that. And you've got at the moment, as you said, you sort of mentioned about the agency, but you have multiple projects, businesses, collaborations going on all the time, I presume, with children running around your feet as well. And I know you also teach design workshops as well. Is that still something that you do? And where in all of this does your kind of passion really lie? Does it come back to something every single time? Ruh Al-Alam (09:22) I mean, look, it looks like it's all happening at the same time and it's not, it's all sort of spread out. But, yes. so I try and, I try and do as much as I can within, within reason. you know, work comes first and agency work sort of dictates how much free time I have. But when I can, I do a couple of things. One mentoring one-on-one with people who are either in the area of calligraphy or design or entrepreneurship of some kind, but then there's workshops or sort of lectures or speaking gigs that I might do every so often. And they're great, especially when it's for young people in schools or in institutions where there are young people learning calligraphy or art. Because then they're able to talk to someone face to face when they don't often get that. They're often looking at websites or catalogs or, you know, in museums and whatnot. And so when they're able to speak to somebody and ask questions, frank questions about careers and so on in the arts, it's really good. And I try and be as realistic as possible. don't say, it's all going to be great. You're going to be making absolutely huge amounts of money in your artistic career. No, just tell them, look, you've got to work hard. There's opportunities that will come, but you've got to also make your own opportunities. And at no point, I always say this, at no point do you stop doing your own work and giving yourself your own briefs. And I still maintain that myself. So there's a lot of work I put out on Instagram that is just self-initiated. It's just because I want to do it. I don't care whether a client has asked me to do it or it's a commission. I wanted to do it because I had an idea at 3 a.m. in the morning and I couldn't sleep, you know, and so the next day I'm trying to get out, trying to get out. that's how that's what I tell them. And I hope they take it on board. Laura Edralin (11:16) Yeah, I bet they do. I think it's so inspiring, isn't it, hearing somebody talk about something that has, you know, it's really steeped in historical roots, but you're taking it, you're innovating it, you're doing something new with it. What does that look like? How does that look like practically? As a calligrapher and the way that I do it, obviously I've got a brush pen, I don't even use nib and inks or you know, particularly fancy paper. I'm very much kind of pen and paper, but with your work, it's much more digital. How sort of can you talk us through how you actually create your pieces? Say it's something for Instagram, just self-initiated. Ruh Al-Alam (12:00) Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So look, when, you were learning calligraphy from a traditional point of view, it is very much, you know, making your own pens. You wouldn't even have really made pens a lot of the time. So you'd get these kind of read and boo and so on. And then you'd be taught how to actually make the pen. In fact, there are stages where some calligraphers know how to make their own inks and so on. And there's a beautiful tradition that goes back with that. And so while a good amount of work is produced by hand, with ink on paper, because of the digital transformation and the sort of process now, it quite quickly moves to digital once you've got a good enough version. And so there are some clients obviously that want the original and that takes time and you do several variations until you get quality version of it. And they just take a lot more time because you've got to be very careful and then tidy it up and so on of methods employed in when you're using ink and pen. But then there are projects where it needs to become a digital piece at the end, right? And it's often handed over as a digital piece rather than a physical paper piece. And so what I would do, I start with initial sketches, rough sketches, rough writing to see if I can get the composition right. For me, the composition is probably the kind of the key thing because it's all about space and orientation. Then I would do is then I would draw out the letters. Now there are two ways, one to do it on paper with ink. And now I use a method where I might use a stylus or a pen tablet just to get that process. And sometimes I'll break it up into parts. So I won't do it as one big composition or I'll do it in layers even. And that means that I can, I can freely redraw it constantly over and over again until I get it right. Or do it well enough that I can then put it over to the computer. Trace it out again, and then tweak to exactly how I want it. And there are also another process where I have my own digital brushes that I've created at different angles and shapes and sizes. And then once you're them digitally, as opposed to writing them on pen and paper, using pen and paper, then you're able to then speed up the process a little bit more. But there's a good amount of, let's say, tweaking exactly every curve, every twist and every little detail of a script or a letter. And that's probably a lot more work in the long run than the actual writing. And people don't realize that. But you know, it's always good to ensure that you're able to write it out. But some of the forms that I end up finalizing with, I'm not saying they can't be done with the hand, but they go beyond what you can easily do with that, if you will, right? Because some of the twists and turns and overlapping and so on is all done in digitally. And so it makes it far easier than doing it by hand. So it's about process that is sped up as opposed to being replaced. So you're still doing a lot of work by hand, but the digital tools that we now use have helped speed things up significantly. Laura Edralin (15:22) Yeah, and break those boundaries, I guess, or limitations that you might have when it is just pen to paper. You know, suddenly you can change the color at the click of a button or, you know, stretch it, move it, as you say. So yeah, it's fascinating, I think, blending those two worlds. Ruh Al-Alam (15:32) Right. Laura Edralin (15:40) And you touched on learning the traditional art of Arabic calligraphy and fascinating that, you know, all of these lovely things start with really learning even the tools, how to create the tools that you're beginning to use. You know, even that has that sort of connection between artist and kind of pen or whatever it is that you're going to be using. But studying that sort of penmanship, particularly around Arabic script and is there something that you particularly like about that? Is it to do with kind of your own roots or was there something that drew you to it in terms of the style itself? Ruh Al-Alam (16:21) I suppose, you know, as a Muslim, you know, lot of Muslims grow up with seeing Arabic calligraphy around them, whether it's in their home or in the mosque or on the Quran itself. So the beautification of the word or the holy words is something hold very dear to most Muslims. And because it's in Arabic, you know, a language of the Quran, it has that, you know, significance for people. And so for me, I had that growing up. Because I couldn't easily read it or understand it easily, you know, there was that sort of barrier. But as I grew up, I understand, understood more of it and understood the history of it. And I was fascinated by how it developed. And the tradition goes back where in Islam, there is this prohibition on creating life forms or drawing life forms because of prohibition of creating idols, basically, worshipping idols. So it's a monotheistic religion. So off the back of that, the Muslims deliberately stayed away from making figurative drawings and artifacts and statues and so on. And so the focus turned to the word and beautification of the word. And as Islam spread in each different region, that it moved to, there's almost a new script that developed. And over time, some of these scripts became some of the most famous scripts that we know today. And every area almost had its own little style and flavor and cultural influence. And I was fascinated by that. And as I grew more into that, I decided, you know what, I think I should really learn this for myself, because I wanted to see some of it in my home, but I wanted to see it in a more contemporary fashion was sort of like I love the traditional scripts, you know, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it and I think they're unbeatable almost. But as a British Muslim growing up in the West, my influences are so much more different and I wanted work that I could put up on my walls that represented this modern faith. Not that it's a modernized faith, but as I always saw Islam as a very modern religion as opposed to an ancient one. And so therefore I wanted the art to reflect that. And so if I wanted that in my home, then how do I go about doing my own? mean, obviously a non-artist might not necessarily think that way, for artists, like, you know, I could try and do this, right? And so I felt like what if I could learn it and I do my own thing, I could then make it what I want it to be. And then I'd be able to put it my own home and so on. And I do, it's around me, I've got work of my own around, but that's where it began. And so that drove me to try and make sure that I created new scripts or new things that weren't just traditional but borrowed from heavily on the shoulders of the giants of Arabic calligraphy. Laura Edralin (19:35) Incredible. And it's a celebration as well, I guess. You know, it's sharing that with your family, for yourself. It goes back to sort of probably the reasons that lots of us get into these different art forms is that it's using language. And I know that you're really passionate about sort of visual communication in all the work that you do. I guess calligraphy is just another way, isn't it, of preserving words and being able to share those things with each other. Ruh Al-Alam (20:10) Precisely, absolutely. I mean, calligraphy is visual communication in its the classical sense. If you think about it, mean, graphic design, what I had studied is communication through words and design and form and calligraphy combines all of those things. But it there's a there's a beauty in the way calligraphy exemplifies words and meanings into into an art piece that almost anyone could love and, you know, celebrate. And so absolutely. think all of the different calligraphy positions around the world hold the same sort of essence because words have power and especially meaning. specifically, that's always one of the reasons why I always say that, you know, you can have abstract calligraphy, but if you don't actually read what it says, you've only just got half the meaning of the artwork or the piece. Right. And I think that might seem a little strange because doing it in English and everyone speaks English and reads English, then they sort of will read English. But in Arabic, there's a lot of people who might not necessarily understand what it says, but they can appreciate the beauty of it. But I say, look, try and see if you can understand what it says or read the description of what it actually says, then you appreciate it even more. Right. And so it's not just beautiful, but it has a meaning and that resonates more with the viewer or the ones looking at it. Laura Edralin (21:37) Yeah, yeah I love that. Just going back to Egypt, what were you using when you were learning? you mentioned pens and inks and things, was that also where you learned some of the more traditional techniques? Ruh Al-Alam (21:54) Yeah, absolutely. yeah, one of the first things that you get taught is just the tools of your trade as it were. Right. So you get, you get taught this is the nature of these kinds of different types of pens or the materials that the pens are made out of. Then you get shown how to use a particular type of knife to cut the pen into shape and exact precisely which angle that the nib has to be at. And then you get, you know, taught how to do just right lines and straight and angled and various different forms. so, and then also the inks and the different types of inks and how they work on different types of paper. And some of it you've got to figure out because the teachers aren't always going to teach you every little detail. And especially some traditional teaching does, it doesn't over explain things. It's just get, start using the tools and start practicing. They won't tell you the science of a particular type of ink and how that works. And, if you dilute it or do you not, know, all sorts of little details. And they're not interested in that. They just want you to get going on your, on your work and get your hand to get, you know, get the muscle memory into your hand as it were of, of writing. And one of the things I did was I wanted to learn everything. So I told my teacher, I wanted to, know, can I learn this script and that script and that script? And said, hold on a second. Right. And then he pulled out a cup and he said, I pour this cup with water and I continue to pour it then it will just spill over and overflow and spill over. And he goes, that's what you're trying to do. Right. And just first pour the cup enough for you to take your first gulp, your first sips, finish that cup first. Then you can move on to a second cup and a third cup. Don't get greedy. And so that, that really taught me, okay, you know what? Just don't go ahead of yourself. Start with one basic script and, and, and, and, know, focus on that. And that's, and that's what I did. Right. Laura Edralin (23:41) Hmm Ruh Al-Alam (23:53) But sometimes the tools of the trade are quite simple. Sometimes they're very, very basic things. it just simply comes down to, as you well know, just a lot of practice and swallowing your ego and just keep going over and over again. Laura Edralin (24:12) Yeah. And mistakes are good. You know, I try and say this in my workshops and it's only from me making the mistakes that I can say to others, actually, you're going to learn so much about what to do better next time by getting something wrong and seeing, yeah, that angle's just, just off. That's just, you know, and you can get really, really critical, or you can get really curious. And if you can go in with a curious mindset, then you're gonna absorb so much more kind of learning and improve so much quicker. And that's the beauty of, and the pain and the suffering of creativity, is there a particular style that you really sort of aim to deliver or would you say that you are, I know you're kind of developing and innovating your own ones, so do you have a particular style that you work with initially when you're starting out or do you tend to kind of free flow and see where it takes you? Ruh Al-Alam (25:15) Yeah, when I was starting out, I was trying to do all sorts of stuff. And there was a focus on more angular, what we call Kufic script. very much, it looks very contemporary, it's very squared off and it's very non-cursive. That's because there was a lot of influence in my early days from graphic design, Japanese influence graphic design, and so on. And then I was trying to do a lot of custom scripts that were influenced by some of the traditional scripts. I think some of them just looking back, some of them, they were quite bad. Eventually I found a style that was heavily influenced also by, you know, Latin typography. And you could say, you know, copper plate calligraphy, you know, where there were these thicks and thins that I absolutely loved. So it's very much D-Done in style which is a typographic style, which very thick, you know, strokes were very thin, you know, counterparts. And I just love that. Maybe this is a kind of a British Western European influence, but I felt that when I applied that to the Arabic scripts, for me, it sort of had its own language that I could call my own. And over the years, I've been refining that more and more and doing variations of that. And it is some of my most popular scripts. And so in some ways, and I think someone recently said it to me, I said, that's what you becoming known more for this particular style that you're pulling off more and more, especially because everyone's copying you, not everyone's copying you, but some people are copying you and you're seeing it on various sites and brands. so therefore it must be resonating well with some people. And, but I keep coming back to that same sort of thing. Right. And I never learned Latin calligraphy myself but I appreciated it and I clearly see where the influence is. It's undeniable. That's why I actually call my scripts actually British Arabic scripts unusually. I don't call them sort of I specifically denote them as very much a British thing because that's where it all began and the influences are very much where I'm from in the UK. Laura Edralin (27:18) Yeah. Amazing. Again this sort of blend of different I guess, sort of origins of things, right? Your knowledge, your background, your roots, but also blurring with, you know, the historical influences. And then you've also got the format that you deliver it in, where you're kind of pushing more into the digital elements as well. think it's brilliant. And this idea of sort of blending traditional scripts with digital formats, constantly innovating the kind of Arabic typography, developing your own styles. I guess this is all again sort of fuel to move that visual communication through your work. I know, so you've got an agency. What elements, so you've got that side of it and then you've got sort of commissions and projects that come through you directly. Is that right? How does it work with the two streams? Ruh Al-Alam (28:35) Right. Yeah, good background work. Yes. I have the agency. The agency is focused on general graphic design with sort of mostly brand work or branding work and some digital work. But within all of that, the agency was set up also to begin specializing in providing Arabic work for a lot of brands who are looking to enter Arab markets or brands in the Middle East who want a different approach, a different take on Arabic design, whether it's calligraphy, typography, or general design. And that's what we're able to offer. And so a lot of that work is very different from day to day project to project, brand to brand. It's very interesting, very fascinating. We've done all sorts of stuff. But then there are commissions that come directly to myself where I focus on mostly just purely calligraphic work. so most recently there was an exhibition right now happening in Vienna and there was a commission for an calligraphic animated piece that's currently showcased in the Weltmuseum in Vienna, which is actually probably going to go to another country as well. I can't say anything yet, but it's likely to be moved or another version of the same art piece we'll go to another museum. So things like that come along that are great and sometimes collaborations with whether it's artists or brands or companies. And it's really, really just quite fun because everything is always a bit different. But they're all sort of different scales and different outcomes. because it can be digital and it can be animation, the scope of work can open up quite a bit more especially we live in a very digital age, know, people want to see it, yeah, calligraphy outside of its normal space. Laura Edralin (30:40) Yeah, yeah and this is probably the worst question I could possibly ask you but how long does it take for you to kind of deliver a project? Let me pick an example like I guess if somebody came to you for a calligraphic piece to be commissioned is that kind of weeks and months? it years? Days? Ruh Al-Alam (31:06) How long is a piece of string? Every project is a little bit different. There are projects that do take up to six months to deliver because there's so many different types of steps along the way or the depth of the project is much larger. But there are projects that take a matter of weeks or sometimes just a matter of days. It depends on the project. if it's a, I don't know, just a one-off calligraphic piece, it might take just a matter of days to work on it. Laura Edralin (31:07) Yeah. Ruh Al-Alam (31:35) Whereas some projects do take a week or two, maybe three, but most projects tend to be within a couple of weeks because the process is quite refined. I've got a very particular way of working on it. there's a particular script that they already have a decision on they like, then it makes it a lot more straightforward. But there are sometimes larger projects that are a lot more protected sort of expanded because they want a lot more options. They don't actually know what they want. What they want to do is actually explore ideas. And those are great because you can then do loads of different ideas and then sort of develop and find the best sort of outcome. But every project, every project is really, different from the other. Yeah. Laura Edralin (32:18) Yeah, yeah. And that, guess, is sort of the lovely part of being so creative and having that flexibility with playing with different ideas or even just the variety day to day, I guess, you know, every day is something slightly different that you're working on or several things that you're working on. So in terms of the kind of future of calligraphy, and I know we don't know really where it's going to go and what's going to happen, but do you have a sort of idea about where you would want to take, I guess, firstly, your work, your business, is there something, sort of boundaries that you'd want to push? And then secondly, kind of just this sort of industry, this area of the art form, is there something that you would want to see happen? Ruh Al-Alam (33:15) Yeah. I mean, look, calligraphy has always been seen more as a craft than almost art, if you will. It's a form of art, yes, but it's seen as a craft and that's almost discriminatory or something, you know? So it feels wrong. And so I've wanted to always try and push it out of its normal housing and pigeonholes and so on. And see, can I place it where people don't expect to see it? And I'd like to see where it comes into more physical forms, whether it's sculptural or installations or interactive forms where you walk into a museum and the calligraphy is being generated based on how you walk through it. But it's also still reads words or if you speak it out, the animation forms in a calligraphic form. And so your words are in calligraphy, you know, instantly as you speak it. I mean, I'm sure you can combine that with AI and whatnot, it was still a further, a little bit further away from AI actually doing anything half decent. But my point being is if, if there's ways we can use calligraphy, not purely as decorative, and but playing a role in, you know, as, as art, but also interactive or being fun and engaging. That's where I like to see it. And you see more people engaging with it because of social media. In fact, Instagrams and the TikToks and so on have actually helped massively bolster many parts of the art industry. And calligraphy has been one of those areas, particularly Arabic calligraphy, because I can speak from that point of view. When I was studying it, it almost felt like that it was a dying art. But then with the advent of smartphones, all of these young people in some of these countries in the Middle East and beyond, suddenly had access to the internet and they could see calligraphy outside of the normative spaces and places. And suddenly there's a rise in people learning about it and wanting to study it. And I sort of put that down to the way social media has helped expose calligraphy to the wider world. And not just obviously Arabs or Muslims or whatever, but to everybody. And so you see that particularly on Instagram where there are amazing artists who are doing all sorts of work that you feel awful about yourself and feel like an absolute failure because everyone is just so damn good, right? All the time. It's really depressing sometimes, but I mean, at the same time, you're able to appreciate the sheer amazing abilities of people. And I like to see calligraphy in those spaces more and more, you know, I want people to experiment with it, but you know, being grounded as well, you know, so they should sort of learn ground up, but definitely see an interesting future for calligraphy. I don't think AI, I think AI will get there with pushing to learn, you know, to do calligraphy, but I think humans will have an edge on it. Cause I think yeah, yeah, it doesn't have the nuance personally. Laura Edralin (36:26) Yeah. Yeah. And I think definitely what I've seen and just watching people pick up a pen and they're unlearning something that they naturally do. So, you know, they pick up a pen and they think about handwriting. And I always find it fascinating. You know, you're actually having to forget that you know how to use a pen and you are now holding something that is very kind of, technique based. And so you're sort of stripping back what you know, making marks on the paper, which become a really sort of simplified version of everything that your brain is trying desperately to just, let me just draw a line, let me just draw an oval, let me just do this. Ruh Al-Alam (37:01) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Laura Edralin (37:19) And that interesting concept of really slowing the mind down, certainly with pen to paper, I think is always a really fascinating moment. And you can see that, like you talk about the Instagram videos, I think that's the beauty of watching calligraphy. And not everybody is going to be, you know, swept away and desperate to join a calligraphy workshop, but sometimes people are just fascinated in watching other people create. It's like, you know, time-lapse videos of watercolours or whatever it might be, whatever the craft, whatever the art form. Ruh Al-Alam (37:24) Yeah. Laura Edralin (37:49) I think it's opened up that access, as you say, to lots more people being inspired to do something creative. Perhaps it's not this, perhaps it's not with a pen. But yeah, I love that idea. And I guess that's where the animation and the digital side that you bring in as well helps people go, hang on, there's a whole nother element to calligraphy and bring it into this sort of digital age. Ruh Al-Alam (37:58) That's right. Laura Edralin (38:13) It doesn't have to be always about the traditional master penmanship. It doesn't have to be that historical script. It could be something that has evolved from that to something new, right? Ruh Al-Alam (38:27) That's right. Absolutely. And look, a lot of calligraphy, at least particularly with Latin and I'm sure it's for others, Latin Arabic calligraphy is that it is more drawn than it is written from one perspective. You could look at it as that you've got to focus on drawing as opposed to writing because your hand has its own muscle memory when writing. So I write like a doctor when it comes to writing, right? But when I'm doing calligraphy, it's different. think of it like drawing. And so it's very different. And Arabic calligraphy in particular is very much, people think it's very free flowing and open, because it looks like, almost looks like that, but it's not. It's like typography in the sense that it's got very specific forms and very specific proportions, and you've got to stick to them. Right. And often people mistake that. So they think they can just do almost anything they like, but it's very much like typography. Every A should look like an A in the same proportions and the same, same angles and strokes. And once you point that out, they realize, okay. So it's not like I could just do whatever I want. I said, well, that's where you get proportionality and balance and form and all that's an appreciation of why it works. And so I always point that out to to students as much as I can. Laura Edralin (39:59) Yeah. And it shows that there's a real kind of mathematical thought behind it, right? Some of the styles that I've come across might have a bit flexibility, they might have different flourishing. Ruh Al-Alam (40:04) That's right. Laura Edralin (40:26) I guess when you've got that intricate, intricate, I've forgotten the word, intricate, no, it's gone. Once you've got that kind of different elements of art forms and things that you have where you've got the illustration that I did that things could move as well on paper. It becomes something that can be much more than a static piece, I guess. Ruh Al-Alam (40:37) Thats right. Yeah, no, absolutely. Laura Edralin (40:41) Well, Ruh, thank you so much for talking to me today. My eyes are genuinely, genuinely open to this sort beautiful future of calligraphy, typography, all of these lovely elements, and also nurturing those kind of historical roots, whether it's English, Arabic, all of these amazing art forms have started somewhere. Somebody kicked these off. Somebody has led us to where we are today and having this conversation. It's lovely to know that that is still being nurtured. But also you're propelling them into this immersive digital age. And I think you use the words engaging with them and using them in a space that can be really tangible for lots more people. So very exciting to see what's gonna happen and more from you. And if anybody does want to find out more about Ruh then visit ruhal-alam.com. You've also got the agency, is archetype.xyz. Does that sound right? Two beautiful websites, by the way. If you do nothing else today, just go on their websites and just enjoy them being in your space, or you can connect with him on Instagram at rualalam. So the links will be in today's episode's show notes. And thank you so much for being here and joining us on our journey of the life of letters. Ruh Al-Alam (42:00) Thank you for having me. It's been absolutely fun and lovely. And yeah, let's do this again. Laura Edralin (42:05) Yes, thank you. Ruh Al-Alam (42:07) Thank you Laura Edralin (42:08) That's it for this episode of the Life of Letters. Thank you so much for listening and joining me on this exploration of the written word. Please subscribe, leave a review or share it with a fellow lettering enthusiast. And for all the details to connect with us on Instagram or drop us an email, check out the show notes. A huge thank you to my producer, Heidi Cullip, for ensuring this podcast reached your ears. And finally, to all the guests featured in this series. Go check them out.