Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui: The First Lebanese Woman Graphic Designer to Brand Her Nation

By Yasmine Nachabe Taan Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui is a Lebanese artist, born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1945. In the early 1960s, she moved with her family to Lebanon and joined the American University of Beirut for two years, then transferred to the University of Arizona, Tucson where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design. Bassili Sehnaoui is the first academically trained female graphic designer to set up a practice in the Arab region. The discussion of her visual production demonstrates how a woman’s self is revealed in the context of the cultural challenges of the time she lived in, and how being a woman in this particular culture shaped her personal experience and the experience of Lebanese society in different ways. Her graphic design work at the National Council of Tourism shaped the Lebanese visual identity and continued to influence her personal artistic work during the years after her career as a graphic designer at the ministry. Published by Khatt Books, 2023 Bilingual, in English and Arabic Hardcover, 174 pages, color and b&w images, 6.75 × 9.5 inches ISBN: 978-9-49-093930-4