Elie El Beaino

About

From idea to
finished work.

Graphic designer, web designer, game developer. Twelve years at Maliks Bookshop, nine of them in design, heading the section since 2022.

How I got here

I've been a gamer since I was small, and the machine was always as interesting as the games running on it. Building PCs, taking them apart, working out why something broke. Design and code both came out of that, and so did the habit of wanting to know how a thing is actually made.

I started at Maliks in 2014 on the services side: printing, scanning, binding, finishing. Learning production before design turned out to be the useful order. A logo that only works on screen is half a logo, and a campaign that can't be produced on time isn't a campaign.

That production background is still a big part of how I work. I moved into design in 2017 and took over the section in 2022. I still design every day; running the section sits on top of that, not instead of it.

Independently I work across web design and development, illustration and Unity games. Art, systems, and code. It started as curiosity about how the things I designed actually got made, and it didn't stop. So I can hand over something that works, not just a file.

Toolset

Design

  • Illustrator
  • Photoshop
  • InDesign
  • CorelDRAW

Web

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • WordPress

3D & games

  • Blender
  • Unity
  • C#

Workflow

  • GitHub
  • Notion
  • Excel
  • Claude

Where I've been

Maliks Bookshop

2014 to now

  1. 2022 to now

    Head of Section

    Run the graphic design and print section. Manage the design and service teams, oversee printing, finishing and quality, set daily priorities, and report to management. Still work on design projects myself.

  2. 2017 to now

    Graphic Designer

    Branding, campaigns, print material and everyday design requests. Projects from first brief through design to final production, preparing artwork for print and working directly with the production side.

  3. 2014 to 2017

    Services

    Printing, scanning, binding, finishing and customer service. Learned the production side first-hand before moving fully into design.

Internal QA & UX Support

Over the past year, I’ve also supported HR and IT with testing internal tools and LMS projects, including usability checks, bug reporting, quality review and UX feedback. I’ve become one of the main people they rely on when something needs thorough testing before release.

Independent

2019 to now

  1. 2019 to now

    Design, web and games

    Design, web and digital projects, including a run of work with Bmind. Responsive websites, illustration and character artwork, and my own Unity games. I take the design and the technical side when a project needs both.

Things I'm into

  • 3D printing
  • Building PCs
  • Books & courses
  • Stargazing
  • Snowboarding
  • Gaming

Also worth knowing

Languages
Arabic (native), English (proficient), French (intermediate)
How I learned it
Self-taught, all of it. Design, web and game development picked up through the work itself, personal projects and a lot of online courses. None of it came from a classroom.
Open to
Full-time roles, freelance projects and collaborations. Get in touch, or play something on itch.io.