A whiff of home: Naveed Hussain weaves moments of nostalgia in his look for culture kitchen Khwabgah — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

Khwagah was a culture kitchen based in Amsterdam, with a South Asian heart. Although it has shut since it first opened, in the time that it existed, the kitchen doled out a delicious South Asian fare, and hosted meet-ups, tabla classes and film screenings. Before it could come to life though, it needed an identity, and it reached out to Designer Naveed Hussain. In the hands of Hussain, Khwabgah’s identity received a charming nostalgic touch, brimming with moments that would be at once familiar to anyone from the subcontinent.

“Our visual direction drew inspiration from the nostalgia of a South Asian home kitchen. To bring this to life, we combined Latin and Urdu typography, reflecting the fusion of two cultures – East and West – coming together in a kitchen based in Amsterdam. This concept was thoughtfully crafted to align with the vision and needs of the amazing founders,” Hussain tells us. The wordmark stands out as the hero of the identity, with its overlapping and intertwining characters. Completely hand-drawn, the characters flow beautifully in and around each other, coming together to create an arresting lockup that spells out the name of the kitchen in both English and Urdu.

“I collaborated with my dear friend and designer, Yash Prajapati, to seamlessly blend our unique styles into something fresh and meaningful, aligning with the concept. Our references included vintage Urdu typographic posters and a variety of film festival posters, drawing inspiration from their timeless aesthetic and cultural significance,” says Hussain. He then paired the hand-drawn characters with Jockey One, VG 5000 Regular (open-source fonts from Google Fonts and Velvetyne Type), along with Adobe Arabic Font to flesh out the typographic palette.

The other star of the identity is the illustrations, which lend the brand much of its character. For these, Naveed chose to highlight objects that one would commonly find in any South Asian kitchen – there’s a bottle of Rooh Afza, a cherished drink in India, there’s an olden pressure cooker, the kind that would send off whistles heard by the entire neighbourhood, and even a chair and ‘charpai’ (cot) that would always be kept handy next to the kitchen, to pull up anytime and sit around to enjoy a big meal. It’s these moments of familiarity woven through the illustrations that make the brand feel at home with its audience even in Amsterdam. To top it off, the objects seen in the posters were brought to life with the chops of Motion Designer Vishank Kumar.

The identity feels thought out even in the smaller moments, such as the individual graphic cards created for some of the dishes – such as the masala omelette, samosa and biryani. In these cards too, Hussain takes notes from the wordmark, overlapping Latin and Urdu typography to create unique graphic signatures. When seen together with the burst of primary colours, the typography and illustrations together create an identity that effectively and poetically conjures a whiff of home.