Hazar Bogary is one of the most influential graphics designers. Her professional journey has taken her through many aspects of creativity throughout her life reaching a time when she has become a renowned graphics designer due to her mastery of her skills working for Grey Group – a multinational corporation – creating advertisements that perfectly sync with the Saudi society.

What’s Up: How would you define graphic design?

Hazar Bogary: (Laughing) well this might sound mad, but I personally think it is a little bit of craziness within logic and a bit of logic within craziness!

WU: When I saw your work, the first question that came to mind was how do you get the concepts? Could you take us through the steps of creating an ad?

HB: Well I first receive the brief, I prefer meeting with the client and listen to him or her so I can really feel their need, unfortunately this is not always the case.

Then I start researching, researching, researching… and researching  until I find the hook that clicks both the idea and the client’s requirements. After that the whole team gathers together to brainstorm and filter all the ideas. Then we choose the best concepts. This makes it easy to divide the work and start developing the idea, toning it from here and there until it is beyond perfect. The final step is to put all our work and efforts together to present it to the client; then to execute the whole project.

WU: You have such a massive portfolio, how long have you been working as a graphics designer?

HB: I joined Grey Jeddah as a graphic designer one month after my graduation from the United States in June 2006 and I am now a junior art director.

WU: So how old were you when you first started getting interested in graphics?

HB: I got interested in this exciting field during my 12th grade. That’s when it all came together since I got interested in graphics design, photography, and painting. Since then I’ve never missed visiting art exhibits whenever I get a chance, even when I travel on vacations.

WU: What inspires you, what really gets you in the mood, or the zone?

HB: Anything could inspire me. I believe that graphics designers have the sense of seeing everything from another aspect if you will. But usually I love working in an extremely loud and busy environment, I can’t explain why that is, yet it gets me in the right mood.

WU: Do you think that you have an advantage being a Saudi female, when it comes to creating advertisement concepts that can fuse with the Saudi society?

HB: (Laughs) BIG TIME!

Sometimes it is hard to get or even understand things in any given culture if you’re not part of it; especially if it is as conservative as culture as the one we have here in Saudi Arabia.

WU: You have won Al- Jadeedah Weekly Magazine award for the short story competition for the youth; what was the story about, and how was it inspired?

HB: (Laughs) During my 12th grade I remember being a very good writer, I still write but not as much. The story was about how people overlook the trees and their importance. Back then I thought that writing was the thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I even was a journalist for such a short period of time then all of that passion went into graphic design, art and concerts.

WU: You have also won a silver OMNI award, what was it about?

HB: I joined the poster competition under the topic of drug consumption. In fact in this design I played around the double meaning of the word ‘cool’ since it can mean both ‘not hot’ and ‘WOW’ or ‘hip’.

WU: I love to ask this question, but do you consider yourself ‘an early morning bird, or a night owl’?

HB: Hmm… Guess I am a little bit of both, because I don’t like to miss any opportunity. In fact I am a person who never misses a chance without learning something new.

WU: If you had time to spare, what would you like to do next to graphic design?

HB: I would love to be involved in more youth organizations to enrich our youth power with more educational training and activities.

WU: If you never turned out to become a graphic designer, what would the next best thing be?

HB: I would want to be a doctor to keep a persistent smile on patients’ faces.