I designed my website logo myself, as part of my ongoing website refresh.

So, what does it represent?

🧕🏻 At the heart of the design is “elibelinde”, a motif often woven into Turkish kilims denoting womanhood and resilience—it’s a nod to my identity, artwork style, and obsession with kilim designs!

🖐🏻 Integrated into that is the hand motif, “el”, symbolising skill and writing—and highlighting the power of both words and action

🌍 On the right is the Arabic letter م—most of my work and research (and, of course, my blog) revolves around Arabic, so the language had to be represented

🦖 Finally, we have the Akkadian sign 𒈨—I’m a linguist and absolutely love exploring both modern and ancient languages; I’ve most recently been studying the Old Babylonian variant of Akkadian including its cuneiform script

✍️ Oh, and the Arabic letter م [m] and the Akkadian sign 𒈨 [mɛ] weren’t random choices—they’re the first symbols of my name when written in Arabic and Akkadian, منّان and 𒈨𒂗𒈾𒀭, respectively!