Khajag Apelian is a lettering artist, type and graphic designer. Having grown up between Dubai and Beirut, and being raised in an Armenian family, Khajag has an affinity for different languages and writing systems, which he has applied to the development of typefaces in many scripts, including Arabic, Armenian, and Latin.
Khajag graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague with a Master of Design in Type and Media, and holds a BA in Typography and Motion Graphics from Notre Dame University in Lebanon. He has previously worked with Opera in Amsterdam, Landor Associates in Dubai, and Maajoun in Beirut, a visual communication and type design studio he co-founded.
In maajoun, Khajag and his partner, Lara Balaa, worked on giving typography a more important role in design and helped develop the local design scene by focusing on high-quality production, encouraging exchanges with students, and participating in design-related events.
Independently, Khajag created Arek, a font that was awarded the Grand Prize at Granshan 2010 Eastern Type Design Competition, and was among the winners of Letter.2, the second international type design competition organized by the Association Typographique Internationale.
He currently operates under the name "debakir" Armenian for "printed type", and teaches design courses at the American University of Beirut.