This Graphic Designer Turns Ramadan Rituals Into Retro Arcade Art
Egyptian designer Ahmed Mansour sees Ramadan through game pixels, and the quest is 'taraweeh'.
The idea of Ramadan as a video game–style challenge had been lingering in Ahmed Mansour’s creative mind for some time. Then one day, the Egyptian visual artist came across a song that helped him piece it all together and land on a new graphic concept. It was the ever-popular ‘Ramadan Gana’ tune we all know and love, but this version was an 8-bit Morse code cover.
“I had the illustration of a Game Boy concept in my mind,” he tells CairoScene. Within two days, he brought it to life, building a retro-style video game set of graphics themed around the Holy Month.
“For me, I look at Ramadan this way, you carry on to get points, which is hasanat,” Mansour explains. “There’s a lot about Ramadan that isn’t that serious; tradition doesn't have to be serious, we can have fun with it.”
Mansour’s nostalgic visuals depict the traditions we both love and loathe, the iftar we swear we’ll attend but never do, the anxiety-laden suhour rush, and, of course, running into people we haven’t seen all year at taraweeh. Each scenario becomes a challenge, rendered in 8-bit and reframing the holy month as both a test and a game, where nostalgia, ritual, and reward collide in pixelated form.
