Design Agency. Branding, Content Creation, Illustration, Website Design

Company


WAFA AL OBAIDAT

Founder / Creative Director

Wafa Alobaidat’s aim has always been to bridge the gap between young and innovative artists and their potential clients.

She began her career working with renowned fashion designer Liza Bruce and her husband, interior designer and artist, Nicholas Bruce. She learnt all the aspects of the fashion business while she was still a student at Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London.

She was mentored by the design duo and was working on sales, PR, buying,

window displays and pricing, Wafa assisted on all aspects of running of the business. After graduating Wafa went on to create her own blog, Fashion Ambitions, where she documented her work experiences assisting Marko Matysik Editor of Big/Show Magazine, one of the editors at Vogue Nippon, working with On/Off, publishing her work with Prim and Borderline magazine and generally working in fashion journalism.

In 2009 Wafa created Sketchbook Magazine, the fastest growing digital illustration magazine in Europe. With more than 10,000 print-on-demand print

copies sold, 6,900 PDFs, and 75,000 online views of Sketchbook the Fashion Blogger Issue was the critically acclaimed first issue, dedicated to fashion blogging. The Sketchbook pop-up shop was a major success with Wafa’s mission of creating a space for young and emerging artists to meet with. In 2005 Kashka, the award winning online conceptual magazine won appraise from ECCA and London College of Communication which went on to create a series of briefs by Creative Director Wafa Al Obaidat.


TIM HOLMES

Design Director

Tim is a graphic designer who studied Typo/Graphic design at the University of the Arts. Since graduating he has been working freelance on a range of projects.

Tim was responsible for the design and creation of the Sketchbook magazine website and its corresponding blog. Together with Selina, he worked on developing the design of Sketchbook Live and Sketchbook Arabia. Since joining Obai & Hill, Tim has been working closely with the team to create the visual identity for the agency and it's website.

He is an advocate of conceptually led design executed using appropriate production techniques. Furthermore he believes there is a need to creatively push boundaries because design is fundamentally a translation of ideas, and they are what make a difference in the future. Therefore in his work he attempts to represent ideas that communicate in the most meaningful way possible.

Having been trained in traditional graphic design principles and methods, Tim is passionate about all things typographic

and the interplay of text and image. He is keen to enhance communicative possibilities in both printed matter and digital environments.


RACHEL MENASHY

Account Director

Rachel has had her foot in the industry since she began work experience as a showroom advisor at 16. She has dipped her toes in many different fields of fashion including PR, journalism, retail and events production.

Best known to us as Project Manager of Sketchbook’s first pop-up shop in Carnaby, Rachel has been working closely with Wafa since 2009. Rachel took control of all aspects of the pop-up shop, including venue hunting, negotiating sponsorship and funding, recruiting and managing a team of PR and gallery assistants, as well as

commissioning a group of illustrators and graphic designers to produce promotional material and to adorn the space.

The Sketchbook pop-up shop was a concept Rachel coordinated for her final major project for her course BA (Hons) Fashion Promotion and Imaging, at University of the Creative Arts, Epsom, for which she recently gained a first and graduated under the watchful eye of Zandra Rhodes and Alexandra Shulman.

Due to the success of the pop-up shop, Sketchbook also went on to collaborate

with ‘The Live Issue’, a creative project at The Future Gallery in Leicester Square, by hosting live interviews, blogging and illustration.


LUMA BASHMI

Consultant

After graduating from the American University of Beirut with a BA in Psychology and minor in Communications, Luma Bashmi pursued a two-year stint as a PR officer at one of the leading investment banks in Bahrain, handling the PR and strategy of several innovative initiatives. Moving on to pursue her masters in Marketing & Communications from the London College of Communication (University of the Arts London), her interests took her on to pursue a career in the creative industries, specifically art, fashion and culture.

Invited by the founder and editor-in-chief, Wafa Alobaidat, Bashmi worked alongside her in launching the first fashion illustration magazine curated in London to provide a platform for young emerging and established talents to showcase their works in fashion, arts and culture.

Apart from being a co-founder and Features Editor of Sketchbook magazine, her work in London included two major art galleries, Xerxes Art, the only gallery to exclusively deal with Middle Eastern and Iranian art, and CHELSEA space.

She is also a freelance writer and photographer, having been published in Vanity Fair Spain, Dia boutique, Khaleejesque and Sketchbook.


SELINA LALLI

Art Director

Selina joined Obai & Hill in 2010, she has contributed to the successful launch of the sister branch of Obai & Hill in Bahrain and the middle eastern office. Selina is also in charge of all creative and illustration accounts for European clients. She spends her time running the head office in London and our corresponding brand in India.

Prior to joining Obai & Hill, Selina began illustrating for Sketchbook Magazine and co-designed Sketchbook Live and Sketchbook Arabia accounts along with the Design Director, Tim Holmes.


CLEIDE CARINA

Operations Director

Cleide Carina Cardoso is a writer and trainee journalist, she has studied Psychology alongside Journalism and has a well-rounded view of the media world and the business world.

Cleide is the sub-editor at Sketchbook Magazine, the fastest-growing digital illustration magazine in Europe.

Cleide worked on the schedule for the Sketchbook pop-up shop in Carnaby in March as Programme Co-ordinator, ensuring that the hundreds of people who attended over two months experienced insightful discussions from some of the industry’s top employees.