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From Palestine with love: Designer explores postcard power

A young Palestinian graphic designer combines old photos with modern designs to show a different side of her country.
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Colorful mosaic patterns and Arabic calligraphy make a stark backdrop to the gray scale cutouts of Palestinians in traditional garb in postcards that aim to combine modernity and tradition. These postcards are part of a series called "You Are the Homeland," the brainchild of Ramallah-based graphic designer Rand Dabboor. 

Over the last three years, Dabboor, 20, has been working on bold, colorful designs — postcards, stickers and small cutout objects — that bring a modern flair to Palestine’s cultural heritage. Drawing since she was little, Dabboor received technical training in graphic design at the Ramallah Women's Training Center (RWTC) in 2014. Established by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in the 1960s, RWTC prides itself on being the first institution in the Middle East that offered refugee women vocational training, though its financial resources have become scarcer in recent years.

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