Noon Brand Guidelines: Mohamed Alabbar’s 2016 Gulf Marketplace, Live Since 2017

A marketplace set up for two countries at once.

Noon is an online marketplace that sells across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Its story begins on 13 November 2016, when The National reported that Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of the Dubai developer Emaar Properties, had revealed plans for a site called noon.com. The report said Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would take a half share of the venture, with the rest committed by Alabbar and a group of private investors. MENAbytes, writing in April 2025, gave 2016 as the founding year.

From the start Noon was set up for two countries. The National reported in November 2016 that the company’s head office would be in Riyadh, with fulfilment centres under construction there and in Jeddah, and that its main fulfilment centre would be a warehouse in Dubai that Alabbar compared to the size of sixty football pitches. Later reports describe Noon as Dubai-based, so both cities appear in its record.

The launch took longer than originally announced. The National wrote in October 2017 that the platform had originally planned to go live in January 2017. In July 2017 Noon appointed Faraz Khalid, co-founder and former managing director of the Dubai fashion site Namshi, as chief executive to steer it through the launch, according to The National. In September 2017 the Kuwaiti franchise operator MH Alshaya bought a stake and agreed to list its international fashion, beauty and home brands on the site, the paper reported.

The name is usually written in lower case, noon, in the company’s own statements, while newspapers tend to capitalise it as Noon or Noon.com. Its service names pair the brand with a second word, as in Noon Minutes, the quick-delivery service reported in 2025.

UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt.

Noon went live in the UAE on Saturday 30 September 2017. The National reported that customers could browse its catalogue on noon.com or through an Android app, with an iPhone app to follow within days. Alabbar told the paper that the aim was a regional e-commerce platform built with Arabic as its lead language. At launch, The National wrote, the range included fashion brands, baby products, homeware and electronics, with plans across beauty, home and kitchen, and grocery.

Saudi Arabia followed on 12 December 2017, when The National reported that Noon had begun operations there, describing it as a Riyadh-based platform working with large retailers and small businesses. In a statement to MENAbytes in January 2019, the company itself gave December 2017 as the start of its Saudi operations.

Egypt became its third market in February 2019. Gulf News and MENAbytes both reported on 19 February 2019 that Noon had gone live there in a testing phase, with customers able to order through the website and app. MENAbytes reported that the Egyptian team was based in Smart Village, the Cairo business district, and that a customer fulfilment centre was already working in Abu Rawash, Greater Cairo.

The business then widened beyond a single marketplace. In February 2023, The National reported that Noon had completed its purchase of Namshi from Emaar Malls Management, after an agreement signed in August 2022; Namshi stays a separate entity and uses Noon’s logistics and fulfilment when needed. In April 2025, MENAbytes reported a partnership with ADNOC Distribution under which Noon would set up Noon Minutes fulfilment hubs inside service stations to extend its 15-minute delivery service across the UAE. The same report described Noon as working across e-commerce, food delivery and quick commerce in its three countries, and named Faraz Khalid as chief executive.

How Gulf fashion, home and online retailers present themselves.

Gulf fashion, home and online retailers present themselves first through the places where people shop. In the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and their neighbours, many chains trade from large mall units, and the store fascia, a name in lit letters above a wide entrance, is often the first piece of branding a shopper sees. Groups that run several chains often place them side by side in the same mall, or gather them under one umbrella name, so that a single visit can cover clothing, shoes, children’s goods and homeware.

Value-fashion and home chains speak through campaigns timed to the retail calendar: seasonal collections, catalogues and named sale events. Their identity work tends to show up in store refits as much as in advertising. A new logo usually arrives with a redesigned flagship, new signage and new in-store graphics, and then spreads to the rest of the estate store by store, sometimes over months or years.

Online retailers carry the same task onto app screens, product pages and delivery packaging. There the brand becomes a set of repeated elements: a wordmark, a colour, a tone of voice in notifications, and the boxes and bags that arrive at the door. Store groups in the region also run their own apps and click-and-collect services, so the line between the shop and the screen is less sharp than it once was.

Store names are usually plain and descriptive, and the companies publish them in English as they appear above the door. Corporate pages and dated press coverage give the facts behind those names: who founded each business and when, which family or group owns it, and whether its shares are listed on an exchange such as Tadawul, ADX or DFM. These guides draw on those dated sources and describe colour and type only as our own interpretation, with no logo or fascia reproduced.

One short word for many services.

Noon’s design problem is breadth. The same name has to sit on a general marketplace that sells electronics, fashion, baby goods and groceries; on food delivery; on a quick-delivery service built around fifteen-minute drops; and on a corporate group that owns a separate fashion retailer. The company handles that by keeping the master name short and lower case and adding a second word for each service, as in Noon Minutes. The word is also an ordinary English time of day, and our palette takes its cue from midday light; that choice is ours, not the company’s.

Language is the other constant. From its UAE launch, Alabbar described Noon as a platform built with Arabic as its lead language, as reported by The National in October 2017, and its storefront runs in Arabic and English across three countries. That means a type system that pairs Latin and Arabic letterforms, handles right-to-left layouts, and works on phone screens as well as desktop, since The National reported in 2017 that Noon opened with both a website and an app.

Logistics is part of the brand’s public face as well. From the Dubai warehouse described in 2016 to the fulfilment centre at Abu Rawash in 2019 and the hubs in service stations announced in 2025, press coverage of Noon keeps returning to how goods reach customers. The 2025 ADNOC Distribution report, for example, described Noon riders handling deliveries of ADNOC Oasis products ordered through the ADNOC Distribution app.

For a design guide, Noon shows how one short, lower-case word can stretch across a marketplace, a food service and a quick-delivery arm in two scripts. Compare the Namshi brand guidelines for the fashion retailer it bought in 2023, and the Ounass brand guidelines for another Dubai online store. For this guide we use midday gold, olive ink and cream with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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