A personal portfolio in black and white

A personal portfolio has one job: to show who you are in the first few seconds. For khaledmamdouh.se we wanted the site to feel less like a template and more like the opening spread of a magazine — one strong portrait, one big name, and nothing that competes with them.

The site also had to speak to three audiences at once: clients in Sweden, partners in the Gulf, and an international design scene. So it works in English, Arabic and Swedish.

The whole site is built on a strictly monochrome palette. A black-and-white editorial portrait sits on the right, and the name KHALED MAMDOUH runs across the page in heavy, condensed capitals — big enough to read from across the room.

Because there's no colour, everything else has to work harder:

• Bold condensed type for headings, a calm sans for reading
• Numbered sections, like chapters in a book
• Thin lines and wide margins that give every section room to breathe
• One clear button in every section: Book a call or View work

Arabic isn't a translation added at the end. The layout mirrors completely for right-to-left reading — the portrait, the menu, the numbers and the timeline all switch sides — and the Arabic headings get their own type pairing, so they feel as strong as the English ones.

A dark and light theme sits next to the language switch. Both are designed, not inverted: the dark theme uses a warm charcoal instead of pure black, and the light theme a soft off-white.

The homepage tells the story one step at a time:

• The numbers — 15+ years, 40+ brands, 500+ campaigns — set large, like a cover line
• Services as an accordion, so the page stays short but every service can be opened
• An experience timeline from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Sweden
• A projects grid with large images and short titles
• Skills and a booking section to get in touch

Near the end, a slow marquee of brand logos — Amazon, Subway, Othaim, Speedi and more — in the same light grey, so no logo is louder than the others. It leads into My Journey: a long-form story set in large, comfortable type, from a curious student in Cairo to a design lead in Uppsala.