(01) Project Overview
Client
Zuma · MJS Holding
Sector
Hospitality · Casual Dining
Deliverables
Arabic Identity Adaptation · Brand Collateral
Credits
Brand Localization · Cultural Brand Adaptation
Engagement
Storm Grow™
Website
(02) Challenge
Translation is not localization
A luxury wordmark carries its value in proportion, weight and restraint. Set the same name in an Arabic typeface and almost none of that survives, because the two scripts do not behave the same way. The risk runs in both directions: too literal and the Arabic reads as a label rather than a brand, too free and the guest no longer recognises the international name they came for. Zuma also operates to global standards, so whatever was produced in Riyadh had to be defensible to a brand team in London judging it against every other market.
(03) Decision
Adapt the brand’s character
The position
What carries the brand’s value is proportion and restraint, not the letterforms themselves. So the Arabic mark was designed to the same brief as the original rather than derived from it.
The consequence
The Arabic logotype was drawn as an original mark, matched to the minimalist proportion and weight of the global identity. Riyadh reads as the same brand, not a licensed version of it.
What was built
- An Arabic logotype drawn as an original mark, not a typeset translation
- Proportion and weight matched to the global identity
- The wider visual system adapted so bilingual application never looks assembled
- Collaterals produced to the same standard as the international markets
- An Arabic identity set to stay consistent as the market grows
How it launched
The Riyadh opening carried the full bilingual system, built to hold at the standard the London brand team applies everywhere else.
(04) Impact
An Arabic mark that holds the global standard, in a market Zuma had never operated in.
(05) Client
MJS Investment
