RIYADH: American designer Brandie Janow, who works for Saudi design consultant company Adhlal, thinks that the Kingdom is not short of creative talent.
“There’s so much talent in Saudi Arabia. It’s just abundant across every industry, here and I think it’s just really about getting that talent and helping them on the path so that they can get to where they need to be,” she told “The Mayman Show.”
“I really think it’s just about guiding the designers. Everybody has their talent. You know, I always say that people always ask me, ‘how can I be a designer? How can I be an artist? How can I be creative?’ I’m always like, it’s something I think you’re born with. You have a talent, naturally, and sometimes it’s about honing your craft, being taught how to guide it, being taught the proper path to walk.”
Adhlal, which means “shade” in Arabic, was named so due to people historically gaining knowledge under the shade of the tree in the glaring Saudi weather. “We really liked how this kind of connected with what we do,” said Janow, “and law focuses on connecting the dots as we like to say, which is academia, government, community and the design industry itself.
“We do this with design, research and education and design thinking, and we’re trying to get these things installed to really grow his industry in the country.”
Janow is originally from Tennessee, and started her career in the design industry after attending university in Chicago, Illinois. “I went towards the business of design, and I get asked a lot, ‘are you a fashion designer? A graphic designer?’ I’m not any of those things, although I like to think that I can do all of them. It’s more towards the business of design,” she explained.
She started an entrepreneurial project in Saudi Arabia called Smuug, which was “something that I had in my head for several years. I started it in 2016, basically. I always wanted to create, like, a product and accessory brand.
“Smuug makes an array of stickers and fun little products that you find in concept stores. So at the time, I had been in Saudi Arabia for about eight years, and as somebody that was new in the country, I kind of was just soaking in everything … as a creative, started drawing things everywhere, even like the little oud bottles. I was drawing all of these little things that were new to me, and at the time, whenever I was living here, you would go places like Virgin, for example, and you couldn’t even find anything in Arabic.
“Like there would be no notebook in Arabic, and I was really confused about this because I found that everything I was seeing was really nice, and I was like, ‘I want to make stuff, and I want to to create things based off of this beautiful culture,’ and so, yeah, that’s where Smuug came alive back then.”
Janow serves as the program director for the American Chamber of Commerce’s arts, culture, and entertainment committee. She is also the founder of the Riyadh Coffee Club, an initiative that showcases local cafes in the Kingdom’s capital.
