Reese Hollister Research, Teaching, Building

Project

Huruf La'b

A tactile Arabic learning system designed to turn early Arabic literacy into a classroom routine instead of a wall.

Huruf La'b Arabic letter tiles — close view of the hand-crafted wooden tiles that form the core of the tactile learning system.
The Huruf La'b tile system — every tile is a character form a learner can touch, move, and combine.
  • Role

    Co-founder, instructional design lead, user-research lead, and product framer

  • Areas

    Teaching & Learning / Product / Design

  • Skills

    Pedagogy, Product development, User research, Entrepreneurship, Language learning

In motion

The Huruf La'b tiles in motion — the tactile system the whole project is built around.
Stop-motion teaching clip: the letter ba' assembling itself — the short-form video format the Huruf La'b channel is built on.

Watch

Huruf La'b in motion

Short-form demo: the tiles assembled and in use.
Arabic script — hands-on

Building Arabic letter forms from the tactile pieces.
Letter by letter

How the puzzle system turns script literacy into a physical routine.

Overview

Beginning Arabic learners are often asked to internalize a great deal at once: a new script, positional letter forms, sound distinctions, and the logic of roots and patterns. Much of that instruction remains abstract.

Huruf La'b starts from a different premise. If the structure is hard to see, it should become something a learner can handle, rearrange, and test physically.

What to notice

The design move was diagnostic: identify where early Arabic instruction stays opaque, then make that structure physical.

Teacher outreach produced an early email list of more than 100 interested people, including at least two dozen Arabic teachers across the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Arab world. In April 2026, Huruf Lab won a $4,000 prize in NC State's VenturePack Challenge.

Reese Hollister and his co-founder holding an oversized $4,000 check made out to Huruf Lab, winners of the NC State VenturePack Challenge.
Award Huruf Lab won $4,000 in NC State's VenturePack Challenge (April 2026) — the university's campus-wide venture competition.
Hands reaching across a table covered in scattered Huruf La'b wooden letter tiles during a game.
Product in use Huruf La'b in play at a launch event — learners building Arabic letters and words from the tactile tiles.
Close detail of a Huruf La'b laser-cut wooden puzzle spelling an Arabic word on its stand against a dark background.
Visual / artifact A finished puzzle — the interlocking laser-cut tiles that make early Arabic literacy something a learner can handle and test.

Why it matters

The project shows a product-development habit that carries across Reese's work: when understanding stalls, redesign the conditions of understanding.