Palestine National Day
Reclaiming IndigeneityClient / Palestine National Day
Industry / Grassroot Organising
Type / Community-led Cultural Event
Location / Melbourne (Naarm), Australia
Year / 2025
The Palestinian and broader community in Victoria come together annually at Federation Square to commemorate Palestine National Day, marking the anniversary of the 1988 Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine, authored by the poet Mahmoud Darwish and read by Yasser Arafat.
Melbourne's Palestine National Day has become the largest annual Palestinian cultural celebration in Australia and one of the most significant Palestinian National Day events outside Palestine. What began as a community gathering has evolved into a powerful expression of identity, culture, and resilience; uniting thousands of people from diverse backgrounds in a celebration of Palestine's heritage, music, art, food, and enduring struggle for freedom and justice.
The 2025’s 9th commemoration carries deeper meaning and renewed momentum, following Australia's official recognition of the State of Palestine on 21 September 2025. Yet, this recognition takes place amid ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and worsening occupation of the West Bank. In this context, an identity design that makes Palestinian culture visible challenges widespread propaganda and has the potential to shift public opinion.
What began as solving practical digital problems for this event became a research journey into Palestinian tatreez traditions, specifically examining how the 8-pointed star pattern has been systematically appropriated in Western contexts. This work reclaims the appropriated motif as a contemporary identity suitable for today’s digital-first world, informed by traditional Palestinian embroidery patterns and historical context.
Event photos: personal documentation, 8 November 2025
The design strategy centres on three principles: recognition, sovereignty, and contemporary expression.
Recognition leverages the 8-pointed star's existing visibility—even in its appropriated form—as an entry point for re-education. People who encounter the pattern may sense familiarity without knowing its Palestinian origins.
Sovereignty means extracting the pattern from commodified circulation and restoring it within authentic Palestinian visual language. For this identity, the 8-pointed star was chosen precisely because of its widespread decontextualisation, making it a strategic site of reclamation, allowing the identity to restore its Palestinian authorship in a contemporary form.
Contemporary expression applies this methodology to digital-first requirements, guided by the Palestinian organiser’s vision of having a clean and striking visual language. Tatreez stitch-by-stitch detail becomes illegible at small scales, so the design distils the 8-pointed star into solid geometric forms that maintain pattern legibility across contexts, from social media icons to large-scale banners, while preserving the disciplined grid logic of tatreez construction.
The mark's foundation begins with basic geometric scaffolding, informed by tatreez methodological practice where every stitch is counted and patterns emerge through angular, mathematical precision.
The construction progresses through deliberate stages, starting with a square as the foundation. The grid expands to create the cross-shaped scaffolding. Diagonal divisions generate the eight-pointed geometry. Each step builds systematically, mirrorring tatreez methodology: calculated, building from simple elements to create a more intricate pattern.
Palestinian flag colours: red, black, white, and green, carry the legacy of the First Intifada, when Palestinian women embroidered them into their tatreez as acts of resistance. The simplified solid geometry allows the mark to adapt across sizes and mediums, maintaining clarity and legibility while carrying the weight of cultural reclamation.
The typography integrates with the mark through the same geometric grid system. Clean, geometric sans-serif forms help the identity travel clearly across digital platforms with contemporary clarity.
Both English and Arabic typefaces share geometric foundations that align with the mark's angular construction. Aktiv Grotesk Expanded provides the English typography with its wide proportions and clean structure. For Arabic, DIN Arabic receives custom adjustments to letterform details and proportions to ensure optimal readability while maintaining systematic grid relationships.
The bilingual identity gives equal weight to both languages, ensuring accessibility for diverse audiences while acknowledging Arabic as the cultural context from which the identity originates.
The following images show identity applications during the 9th Palestine National Day at Federation Square, Melbourne (Naarm), Australia. Photographs taken on 8 November 2025.