Naji al-Ali drew political cartoons for Arabic-language newspapers from the early 1960s until 1987. His work is known above all through Handala, a small refugee boy who stands with his back to the reader and his hands clasped behind him. Even people who have never read one of his cartoons often recognise that silhouette. For designers, his drawings show how much a single panel, a restricted palette and a consistent character can carry. This guide looks at his visual language, a short sourced outline of his career, his technique, and what designers can learn from him today.
A note on images: Naji al-Ali’s cartoons and the Handala character remain his copyright work, and none of the museum collections checked for this guide (The Met, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art) holds a public-domain or CC0 work by him. His drawings are described in text only, and nothing here suggests they are free to reuse.
Why Naji al-Ali matters to designers
Editorial cartoons are one of the most compressed forms of visual communication. A reader gives them a few seconds, often on a crowded newspaper page, and the image has to land in that time. Naji al-Ali worked within that constraint for more than two decades, for daily papers with fast deadlines and cheap newsprint. His cartoons are a case study in clarity under pressure.
He also built a recurring character that has travelled far beyond the newspaper page. NPR, in a 2024 explainer, described Handala as an image seen on walls in refugee camps and city centres in the West Bank and on protest signs abroad. Whatever the reader’s politics, the design question is interesting: how does a small figure seen from behind, with no visible face, become so widely recognised?
What to look at: Handala and the figure from behind
Handala first appeared in 1969 in the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyasa, according to NPR and other published accounts. Naji al-Ali drew him as a ten-year-old boy, the age the artist himself was when his family left Palestine in 1948. NPR reports that the name comes from handal, a bitter, deep-rooted plant that grows back after it is cut.
The figure is deliberately simple: spiky, hedgehog-like hair, patched clothes, bare feet and a small rounded body. From 1973, according to NPR, al-Ali drew Handala with his back turned and his hands clasped behind him, which the artist explained as a refusal of solutions imposed from outside. The pose makes the character readable at very small sizes and from a distance, because it relies on outline rather than facial detail.
In many cartoons Handala stands at the edge of the scene, watching the main action rather than taking part in it. He works as both a witness and a signature: a reader scanning the page can identify a Naji al-Ali cartoon from that figure before reading anything else. For designers, that is the principle of a mascot or brand character pared down to its minimum, with a consistent silhouette, a fixed pose and a fixed position in the frame.
Line, space and the single panel
The cartoons most widely reproduced in collections and in press coverage are black-and-white line drawings, built for reproduction on newsprint. Figures are drawn with confident outlines and few interior details. Large areas of the panel are left empty, so a single object, gesture or figure carries the idea. Captions and speech, when used, tend to be short, and some cartoons rely on the image alone.
Besides Handala, his cartoons return again and again to ordinary people, refugees and families, drawn as types rather than portraits. Meaning comes through body shape, posture and the relationship between figures rather than through labels, which helps the images read across languages.
Notice the economy of composition. Most panels have one focal point, a clear horizon or ground line, and a strong contrast between solid black shapes and open white space. That approach is close to the principles in our guide to poster design principles: one message, a strong silhouette, and nothing that does not help the reading.
A short Naji al-Ali career outline
Naji al-Ali was born in the village of al-Shajara in the Galilee, around 1937 (some accounts give 1938). In 1948 his family was displaced to Lebanon, where he grew up in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp. In the early 1960s the writer Ghassan Kanafani saw his drawings on a visit to the camp and published them in the magazine al-Hurriya, the first publication of his work according to most biographical accounts.
He moved to Kuwait in the 1960s and drew for several newspapers there, including al-Siyasa, where Handala first appeared in 1969, and later al-Qabas. By 1987 he was based in London, drawing for al-Qabas from the paper’s office there.
On 22 July 1987 he was shot in the back of the neck as he walked to the al-Qabas office in Ives Street, Knightsbridge, in west London. He did not regain consciousness and died in hospital on 29 August 1987, according to the Metropolitan Police appeal reported by the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and the Kuwait Times. No one has been convicted of the killing. In 2017, on the thirtieth anniversary, the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command reopened the investigation and appealed for information about the gunman and a second man seen leaving the area; police said they were keeping an open mind about the motive, as the Associated Press reported. The case remains unsolved.
In 1988 he was awarded the Golden Pen of Freedom posthumously; the prize is now run by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
Technique in brief
Al-Ali’s cartoons were drawn for daily publication, which shaped both their scale and their method. The reproduced work shows firm, fairly even outlines, solid black fills used sparingly for emphasis, and little or no tonal shading. That is a practical choice for newsprint, where fine hatching and grey tones can clog or disappear. Figures are reduced to recognisable types, and settings are suggested with a ground line, a wall, a fence or a single object.
His output was large, running to thousands of cartoons over his career, and the consistency of his line and characters across that body of work is part of what makes it recognisable. For comparison with other artists who used drawing or montage for political commentary in the popular press, see our guides to Bill Mauldin and John Heartfield.
How designers can learn from Naji al-Ali today
Design for the smallest size first. Handala is readable as a tiny silhouette. Test any character, icon or mark at thumbnail size before refining it.
Let the outline do the work. A figure seen from behind has no face to read, so pose and shape carry everything. Strong silhouettes survive low resolution, poor printing and quick glances.
Fix the position of your signature element. A recurring figure in the same place in every frame becomes an identifier. The same applies to a logo lock-up or a series badge on social posts.
Use empty space as part of the message. Al-Ali often leaves most of the panel blank so a single gesture stands out. Resist filling every area of a layout.
Work in black and white before adding colour. If an idea reads in pure line and solid black, colour becomes a choice rather than a crutch. When you do add colour, keep it limited; the colour palette generator helps build tight sets.
Respect the source. Handala is an original, copyrighted character. Study the principles, but create your own figures rather than copying his. For more visual references from public collections, browse the museum collection.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Naji al-Ali?
Naji al-Ali (c. 1937–1987) was a Palestinian cartoonist who drew for newspapers in Kuwait, Lebanon and London. He created the character Handala and was shot in London in July 1987, dying the following month.
Who is Handala?
Handala is Naji al-Ali’s signature character: a barefoot ten-year-old refugee boy with spiky hair and patched clothes, first drawn in 1969 and shown with his back turned from 1973.
Was Naji al-Ali’s killing solved?
No. The Metropolitan Police reopened the investigation in 2017 and appealed for information about two men, but no one has been convicted and the case remains unsolved.
Can I use Naji al-Ali’s cartoons or Handala in my designs?
His cartoons and the Handala character remain in copyright, and no public-domain museum images of his work were found for this guide. Study the design principles, but do not assume his images are free to reuse.
