The Lantern

About this design

The first invitation on the seasonal shelf, and it is a Ramadan night drawn rather than photographed. It opens on a dark sky with a fanous hanging unlit; one tap catches the wick, the lantern fills with amber, and its light blooms outward until it has washed the whole screen and left you inside the invitation. The page is a night: stars on three parallax depths that drift as you scroll, lanterns swaying in from the corners, the occasion and the hosts under a crescent moon, and the Hijri date above the Gregorian one. Then the invitation writes itself in word by word, a countdown ticks under a moon that waxes from a sliver to full as you scroll through it, and the centrepiece — a pinned sunset in which the sky darkens from dusk to night, the sun sinks behind the horizon, the stars come up, and the maghrib time arrives with them. After that the evening's programme draws itself down a line from the adhan to the last cup of tea, the table is laid out course by course, a photo strip pans sideways as the page scrolls down, and the address, the RSVP and a closing 'Ramadan Kareem' finish it. Deep indigo with one warm amber that is always the lantern's light. Arabic-first, in Aref Ruqaa calligraphy, with English on a toggle — for family iftars, Eid gatherings and charity nights.

Catalogue example. Names, dates and images in the demo are illustrative.