Friends of Palestinian Universities
For the future of education in Palestine.
Building academic solidarity, partnership, and exchange
Naming
Positioning
Visual identity
Graphic design
Art direction
Website design
Website development
Project
For 50 years, universities across Palestine – from Gaza to the West Bank – have been subjected to repressive measures by Israeli occupation authorities. Students and staff face challenges unimaginable elsewhere. And since October 2023, Israeli military attacks have systematically targeted Gaza’s universities, reducing entire campuses to rubble in an assault described as scholasticide.
Friends of Palestinian Universities is an organisation that builds UK and international academic solidarity, partnership, and exchange with Palestinian higher education institutions. Against the backdrop of the conflict, we have been working with them to relaunch under a new name, new identity and wider mission.
“Limber took the time to understand our context and challenges, which was essential for our new identity and website to feel completely authentic.”
Omar Shweiki, Director, Friends of Palestinian Universities
Naming
The organisation has for decades been known as Friends of Birzeit University (Fobzu), linked to just one institution in the West Bank. Through a series of workshops, we facilitated a name change. As Friends of Palestinian Universities (FPU), it publicly widens its mission: to stand alongside all Palestinian universities.
In a collaborative process, we distilled FPU’s work into three activities: raising awareness, strengthening universities, and empowering students. This made for a clearer, more memorable structure to understand the breadth of what they do.
Working on the project as the Gaza conflict progressed, it was vital to balance two viewpoints. Firstly to reflect the up-to-date reality on the ground, as the devestation grew, but also to place it in context of the organisation’s decades-long history of supporting Palestinian students through all they have faced.
Positioning
Just as we relaunch, the ceasefire has seen students enrolling in Gazan universities again, with admissions desks set up in partially destroyed buildings, and students who completed their final exams under conditions of siege, bombardment, and starvation receiving exam results.
Identity
Friendship across borders
The new name required a new logo. As well as designing with a lot of letters, the challenge was to get the tone right – serious enough for an academic audience, but urgent enough to feel alive and impassioned.
The solution represents the partnerships at the heart of their work – literally connecting the ‘Friends’ to the ‘Universities’ through the dot on the ‘i’. The circular shape is enclosing and protective, but also delicate and imperfect.
Another challenge was to create an Arabic version of the logo, for an eventual translated website. We replicated the concept with replacement characters, mirroring proportion and lettering style across the two scripts.
Design
The logo inspired a style of circling, underlining and highlighting, with an urgent pen-like stroke reflecting how student study is often still pen-to-paper. The green palette retains some continuity from the previous name and identity.
As of November 2025, photojournalists are still not allowed to freely enter Gaza. Imagery was sourced from Palestinian picture agencies and on-the-ground contacts. We felt it was vital to show student achievement and resiliance, alongside the challenges they face. There is widespread devestation, but students are enrolling, learning and revising, however they can.
Website
Gradually, we became deeply involved in writing, structuring and designing a whole new website for FPU. Bringing in our regular development partners CHOPS., we re-thought everything from the ground up. The resulting site presents their activities far more clearly, uses powerful imagery and direct language throughout, and is built on a more robust framework for easy updating.
The name and site have launched in November 2025 with in-person events and fundraising merchandise planned for the new year.
Visit site
“Limber brought a much-appreciated mix of flexibility, patience, and thoughtful listening to every stage of the process.”
Omar Shweiki, Director, Friends of Palestinian Universities
