Laimah Osman

Graphic & Web Design

I combine my expertise in graphic arts, web development, and teaching to design engaging digital and print solutions. My commitment to equity and inclusion is central to my work, and I love to collaborate with people who share this commitment.

South Asian Council for Social Services
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Living Cities
Spells for Black Wizards
Salaam Alaikum Series
Ishqnama / The Book Of Love
WITNESS
Activists’ Guide To Archiving

South Asian Council for Social Services

Web Design and Development
sacssny.org

South Asian Council for Social Services Executive Director, Sudha Acharya, cutting a long blue ribbon with other elected officials and community leaders to open their new community center.

Collaborated with TakeTwo Services and South Asian Council for Social Services (SACSS) to develop an accessible, secure, and mobile-friendly WordPress website to help diverse immigrant populations access lifesaving services.

Created a web strategy, documentation, and internal trainings so clients can maintain and grow their site without external help (training topics include image optimization, site security best practices, and content management).

Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives

Design for Print and Web

Report Cover, Villagers pick through discarded imported plastic that was dumped there by a nearby paper recycling company whose imported paper was contaminated with plastic, in Sumengko Village, near Gresik, Surabaya, Indonesia on 21st February, 2019.
Report table of contents, Discarded: Communities on the Frontlines of the Global Plastic Crisis, map of South East Asian countries, and American flag on a pile of plastic waste.

I worked with Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) to design a series of digital and print assets for their campaign to expose a crisis in the global trade of recyclable plastics. I designed a 46-page report incorporating essays, interviews, original photographs and information graphics to educate readers about how the global trade of recyclable plastics is impacting communities in South East Asia. I designed and developed a WordPress website to summarize and share the report globally. I also designed one-page summaries (translated into three languages), postcards, and social media graphics for this campaign. Through a collaborative process, I developed a concept that met the goals of the project and continues to gain attention in major media outlets.

Update on this campaign: This report was brought to the Basel Convention last year. 187 countries took a major step forward in curbing the plastic waste crisis by adding plastic to the Basel Convention, a treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste from one country to another. The amendments require exporters to obtain the consent of receiving countries before shipping most contaminated, mixed, or unrecyclable plastic waste, providing an important tool for countries in the Global South to stop the dumping of unwanted plastic waste into their country.

Living Cities

User Experience (UX) Design and Illustration

Pencil drawing illustrating a framework for racial equity; racial solidarity, feedback as a gift, and conflict engagement circle power, all on top of a sun.

I worked with Living Cities to design and illustrate a graphic depicting their racial equity framework. Through a collaborative process, I developed a concept that was closely aligned to their brand standards. This process yielded a graphic that met the goals of the project and serves as the foundation for their racial equity reporting.

Medium Bitly: bit.ly/LCCares
Prezi Bitly: bit.ly/CARE4Results

Spells for Black Wizards

Consulted in Bookmaking and Design

Candace Williams’ chapbook cover, Spells for Black Wizards
Candace Williams’ chapbook, Spells for Black Wizards, map of poems

Candace Williams’ chapbook Spells for Black Wizards is designed to be experienced as a fold-out map. The poems, along with a broadside index of spells, are all nestled in a shimmering portfolio. This book is designed by Emily Raw and edited by Natalie Eilbert. I advised in the bookmaking and design process. I suggested making this a non-linear book as well as advised on some design elements.

Spells for Black Wizards

Salaam Alaikum Series

Printmaking Collaboration with Sahar Muradi

Salaam Alaikum Series, salaam alaikum written in English and Farsi, monotype tracing of men and soldiers in the background, blue and new leaf green colors
Salaam Alaikum Series, salaam alaikum written in Farsi, monotype handwriting of "Once, when I was a girl I believed in morning like a hot yellow apple", blue and yellow apple color
Salaam Alaikum Series, manda nabasheyn written in English and Farsi, monotype handwriting of "We never tired, Father said, God is good", orange, pink, mustard on an aqua green background

These are collaborative monotype prints that I made with Sahar Muradi. As Afghan American women we share histories of war and displacement. We chose these poems from her chapbook Gates. Her poem “Salaam Alaikum” is concerned with how daily greetings take on new tenor in times of war.

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Ishqnama / The Book of Love

Bookmaking, Printmaking and Self-Publishing Collaboration

Ishqnama / The Book of Love, cover The Book of Love written on the left cover in English, Ishqnama written in Farsi on right cover, gold and lapis blue colors on a creme colored paper
Ishqnama / The Book of Love, folio, a poem, “The Secret” is translated in English on the left side and in Farsi on the right side, black type on gold enlarged Farsi script on creme colored paper
Ishqnama / The Book of Love, folio, a poem, “Heart Sighs” is translated in English on the left side and in Farsi on the right side, black type on gold enlarged Farsi script on creme colored paper

Ishqnama/The Book of Love is produced and published by the Persian Poetry Project (PPP) and 10 Grand Press. We aimed to introduce women’s voices through the translation and representation of pre and early-Islamic poetry written by women of the Central Asian region historically known as Persia. We printed poems by Bedeli, Rabia Balkhi, and Zebun Nisa. Each book is unique, numbered, and signed. The type and imagery are inspired by the classic manuscript of Ferdowsi’s Shahnama/The Book of Kings.

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Witness

Web Design and Development
witness.org

Homepage in English; See it, Film it, Change it, on black and white photographs from Witness' work around the world
Homepage in Arabic; See it, Film it, Change it, on black and white photographs from Witness' work around the world

I worked with Witness for over three years. The WordPress Multisite Network I designed and developed translates their content into Spanish, French, Portuguese and Arabic. Their website can be accessed and read globally so people can find important information on how to safely and effectively document human rights abuses.

Activists’ Guide to Archiving

Web Design and Development, Illustration

Homepage English
Homepage Arabic
Infographic of an efficient workflow for getting videos online, but not for long-term usability.
Illustration of how video can be uploaded from a camera or from a computer to a remote system in order to allow someone in another location to view or download the video.
Illustration of 3 copies in 3 different storage locations: primary storage, an onsite backup, and an offsite backup.

I collaborated with Witness’ Archivists to create their Activists’ Guide to Archiving website. The website had to be accessible, easy to navigate and read, and easy to maintain. I developed the website in Drupal using it’s translation modules to translate the content and its features to Spanish and Arabic. I produced graphics to illustrate highly-technical concepts for non-technical readers.

This website is now folded into Witness’s institutional WordPress website. It can be viewed using The Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20130821162429/http://archiveguide.witness.org