The person
Builder, writer, Cairo.
Warm — opinionated.
Founder — Cairo, EG
Building tools that feel like love of code — quietly, with intention.
Amr Badr — the operator behind Amordex (software), Pagassa (athletic wear), and Gym Egypt (fitness). Three brands, three disciplines, one signature — held to the same standard whether the medium is code, cloth, or muscle.
$
whoami
// built from the lessons of yesterday
/contact
// $ echo "$message" | mail hi@iamr.net
Send me a quick message.
No forms-and-funnels. Just type, hit send, and it lands in my inbox — usually read within a day or two.
role: Founder → based: Cairo
since: 2014 → brands: 3 []
status: ● shipping · inbound only
// latest post
"The work that survives is the work that looked slow. Three brands, twelve years, zero cold pitches sent."_
// for amordex inquiries, the studio handles its own correspondence at amordex.com
/craft what gets built · how it ships
A studio that ships deliberately.
// 01 · capability
Custom software,
built to be read twice.
built to be read twice.
WordPress, React, TypeScript — chosen for longevity, not novelty.
// 02 · the numbers
12
years shipping
3
brands operating
1
cursor — same hand
// 03 · brand systems
Three voices.
One spine.
One spine.
// 04 · how it ships
Discover→
Design→
Ship✓
No sprints. No roadmaps for show. Decisions held until they’re right.
// 05 · principle
“Inbound only. Selective by design. Engagements measured in years, not quarters.”
// THE PORTFOLIO
Three brands.
Three intentions.
A portfolio built deliberately. Software, fashion, and athletics — each one a different category of craft, each one founded and operated personally.
// PROJECT · 01 · SOFTWARE STUDIO
{ amordex/_ }
A boutique software studio. Custom WordPress, React, and brand systems for businesses that prefer craft over scale.
A studio for
considered software.
considered software.
Custom WordPress, React, and brand systems for businesses that value craft over speed.
→ selected work→ inquiries
// 01 · Premise
Most software studios optimize for volume. Amordex doesn't.
Studios in the small-business space typically operate on a templates-and-throughput model: ship the same theme to a hundred clients, sell support, repeat. The work is fine. The standard is generic.
Amordex was founded on the opposite premise: each project is shipped at the same standard, regardless of scope. A landing page gets the same craft as a platform. A boutique gets the same care as a chain. The studio operates by reputation and referral — which only works if the work justifies the conversation.
// 02 · Brand identity
The visual system.
// palette
Midnight
#0a0612
Violet
#8b5cf6
Rose
#ec4899
Lavender
#c4a7e7
Ink
#f5f1ff
// typography
DISPLAY · Space Grotesk 300
Considered software.
MONO · JetBrains Mono 500
{ amordex/_ }
BODY · Space Grotesk 400
Built for businesses that prefer craft over speed.
// 02.5 · at a glance
Built deliberately. Selectively.
// capability
Custom WordPress
& React, no shortcuts.
& React, no shortcuts.
Hand-built theme work, ACF Pro, headless setups when warranted.
// the numbers
8
active clients
3+
years per engagement
0
cold pitches sent
// what we do
Brand systems
Custom CMS
Editorial sites
Long-haul retainers
// principle
“The standard is the moat. Multiple categories, identical attention — that’s the work that survives.”
// 03 · Approach
Brand systems first. Code second. Speed never.
Every Amordex engagement begins with a brand audit — not a wireframe. The studio builds the typography, color, voice, and rhythm before any line of code is written. The result: digital products that feel like a single coherent thing instead of a loose collection of features.
Stack stays deliberately conservative: WordPress + React + TypeScript + Tailwind. No reinvention for its own sake. Every choice is optimized for longevity — the client should still own a maintainable codebase in five years.
// 04 · Selected works
A handful of recent engagements.
01
Demma Films
Embeddable widget suite for Arabic streaming platform — countdown, hero, video player, audio album.
02
Editorial Boutique Site
Custom WordPress with full brand system — typography, color, motion. Five-year maintainable.
03
Founder Portfolio
Personal archive with SPA routing, terminal shell, and code-IDE aesthetic.
"The standard is the moat. Multiple categories, identical attention — that's the work that survives every cycle.
FROM THE STUDIO BRIEF · amordex
// 05 · How the studio operates
Selective by design.
The studio operates with intentional scarcity. Few clients per quarter. Long engagements. No ad spend. No outbound sales. Every client found through reputation, referral, or the studio's own work.
01
Inbound only
No cold pitches. No outbound sequences. The work attracts the right clients.
02
Long engagements
Built for multi-year relationships, not one-off deliverables.
03
Brand-first
Identity precedes implementation. Code answers to the brand, not the other way around.
04
Maintainable by handoff
The client should own a codebase that's still legible in five years.
// 06 · Stack
Tools chosen for longevity.
WordPressACF ProReactTypeScriptTailwindViteHostingerCloudflareFigmaVanilla JS
// PROJECT · 02 · FASHION HOUSE
pagassa
A fashion house built on quiet typography. Editorial restraint over seasonal noise. Forged in silence.
PAGASSA
Forged in Silence
CHAPTER ONE
MMXXVI
MMXXVI
PAGASSA
// 01 · Premise
Fashion got loud. Pagassa is the answer.
Most contemporary streetwear and athletic wear collapses into the same noise: graphics fighting for attention, releases timed to virality, identity as performance. The shelves of every premium store look interchangeable.
Pagassa was founded on a quieter premise. Editorial restraint. Considered typography. Pieces designed to outlast the trend cycle. The brand speaks in lowercase, even when its competitors are screaming.
// 02 · Brand identity
A locked system. No exceptions.
// palette · obsidian / bone / ember
Obsidian
#0A0A0A
Bone
#E8E4DA
Ember Gold
#C9A961
Soft Black
#1a1410
// typography · playfair + inter
WORDMARK · Playfair Display 500
PAGASSA
TAGLINE · Inter 500
Forged in Silence
META · Inter 400
Chapter One · MMXXVI
// 02.5 · the house
A locked system. No exceptions.
// signature
Quiet typography.
Editorial restraint.
Editorial restraint.
A wardrobe assembled like a magazine — chapter by chapter.
// in numbers
1
chapter shipped
12
pieces in chapter one
0
seasonal drops, ever
// the rules
Lowercase, always
One typeface, no exceptions
Chapters, not seasons
Forged in silence
// brief
“The brand speaks in lowercase, even when its competitors are screaming. Patience is the strategy.”
// 03 · Chapters
Collections are chapters, not seasons.
The brand does not release four times a year. It releases when a chapter is finished. Chapter One is a small, precise collection of considered pieces — technical cotton, soft-touch black, foil-emboss labels, made in Portugal.
The next chapter will arrive when the next chapter is ready. Patience is the strategy.
// 04 · Chapter One pieces
The first run.
01
The Singlet
Technical cotton tank, foil-emboss label.
02
The Hooded Layer
Soft-touch black, brushed brass eyelets, debossed wordmark on placket.
03
The Sweat
Heavy weight cotton, structured shoulder, made in Portugal.
"The brand speaks in lowercase, even when its competitors are screaming. Patience is the strategy.
FROM THE BRAND BRIEF · pagassa / chapter one
// 05 · How the house operates
Slow on purpose.
01
Chapters, not seasons
Releases when a chapter is finished. No quarterly calendar. No FOMO drops.
02
Editorial first
Lookbooks before listings. The image precedes the inventory.
03
Lock the system
Locked palette. Locked typography. Locked tone of voice. No exceptions per piece.
04
Quality of make
Made in Portugal. Technical cotton. Hardware that outlasts the trend.
// 06 · Visit
Coming, when it's ready.
pagassa.com · Chapter One · 2026
// PROJECT · 03 · ATHLETIC PLATFORM
Gym Egypt
An athletic platform for serious lifters. Programs, technique, and nutrition for the Egyptian bodybuilding community.
Week 04 / 12
Linear
Progression
Novice
Progression
Novice
Squat5×5 · 100kg
Bench5×5 · 75kg
Row5×5 · 80kg
Press3×5 · 45kg
Deadlift1×5 · 120kg
// 01 · Premise
Egypt has world-class lifters. The internet doesn't show it.
Most fitness content available in Arabic is translated, watered down, or written by influencers without programming background. Athletes serious about progression end up consuming content in English, often imported wholesale from a different physiology and training culture.
Gym Egypt was founded to close that gap. Programming, technique, and nutrition guidance — in Arabic, written for the local body and gym culture. Open access. No paywalls. No upsells.
// 02 · Brand identity
Editorial seriousness, not gym-bro energy.
// palette · black / white / red
Iron Black
#0a0a0a
Egypt Red
#E30613
Pure White
#ffffff
Charcoal
#1a1a1a
// typography · playfair + inter + mono
HEADLINE · Playfair Display 600
Linear Progression
TAG · JetBrains Mono 500
Week 04 / 12
DETAIL · Inter 400
5×5 · 100kg · technique-first
// 02.5 · the platform
Editorial seriousness, not gym-bro energy.
// audience
For serious lifters.
By people who lift.
By people who lift.
Programs, technique, nutrition — written like journalism, not blog spam.
// reach
14k
monthly readers
23
programs published
EG
arabic + english
// what's covered
Programming guides
Technique breakdowns
Nutrition for the region
Athlete profiles
// brief
“Reads like a sports magazine, not a content farm — because that’s the audience it was built for.”
// 03 · Approach
Programming as journalism.
Programming is structured around evidence-based progression: linear periodization for novices, daily undulating for intermediates, block periodization for advanced lifters. Each program ships with technique videos, nutrition targets, and a recovery framework.
The visual language is intentionally adult: black, white, deep red. Playfair Display headlines. Editorial grids. No flexing. No before-and-after spam. The platform reads more like a sports magazine than a content farm — because that's the audience it's built for.
// 04 · Selected programs
Some of what's shipped.
01
Novice Linear · 12 wk
Strength-first protocol for first-year lifters. Technique videos, RPE tables, nutrition targets.
02
Intermediate DUP
Daily undulating periodization for plateau-broken intermediates. 8-week cycles.
03
Block Periodization
Advanced 16-week structure with accumulation, intensification, and realization phases.
"The platform reads like a sports magazine, not a content farm — because that's the audience it was built for.
FROM THE PLATFORM BRIEF · gym egypt
// 05 · How the platform operates
Built for the community.
01
Open access
No paywalls. No upsells. Programming should be a public good for the local lifting community.
02
Bilingual by default
Arabic and English in parallel. Neither is the translation. Both are first-class.
03
Evidence over hype
Linear, DUP, block periodization. The methods that work, written without the influencer noise.
04
Local context
Egyptian gym culture, Egyptian access to equipment, Egyptian food. Not imported wholesale.
// 06 · Visit
Open. Free. For the community.
gymegypt.net · Live
// THE WRITING
Notes from
the founder's desk.
Essays on craft, business, and the discipline of building deliberately. Published when the thinking is ready.
// $ ls ~/uses
Tools.
Considered.
The hardware, software, and services I actually reach for. Updated when something genuinely earns its place — not for affiliate links.
01
Hardware
// the deskMacBook Pro 16" M3 Max
36GB unified memory, 1TB SSD. Drives every brand from one machine. Quiet, fast, indifferent.
ASUS PA279C 27"
4K calibrated display for typography work and brand reviews. Color-accurate enough that I trust what I send to print.
Apple Magic Keyboard
Numeric pad version. Used to use mechanical — the noise costs more than it earns.
Logitech MX Master 3S
Customized scroll for vertical timelines and horizontal canvases. The button layout I keep across machines.
AirPods Max
Used for deep-work blocks. Phaeleh, Tycho, Bonobo — anything ambient enough to disappear.
Standing desk · 140cm
Switch standing/sitting twice per day. The lower back compounds slower than I expected.
02
Software · Code
// the stackCursor
Switched from VS Code. The AI workflow earns its keep on every project. Default editor now.
Warp → Ghostty
Currently testing Ghostty. Warp's blocks are nice, but Ghostty's speed is harder to argue with.
GitHub
Source of truth across all three brands. Private repos for in-progress, public for shipped artifacts.
Vercel
For experimental side projects. Production sites stay on Hostinger for cost discipline.
Cloudflare
DNS, page caching, bot protection. The first move on any deploy.
03
Software · Design
// the brand workFigma
All Pagassa lookbook layouts and Amordex brand audits live here. Auto-layout discipline saves hours.
Adobe Illustrator
For final logo precision and print-ready vector. Figma can't quite replace it for fashion-grade artwork.
RawTherapee
Photo development for Pagassa lookbooks. Open-source, color-accurate, no Adobe lock-in.
Glyphs Mini
For the rare case where I customize a typeface. Most of the time, the answer is to choose better.
04
Software · Run the day
// the operating layerLinear
All three brands run their backlog here. Faster than Jira, leaner than Notion.
Notion
Long-form thinking, brand briefs, manuscript drafts. Not a task tracker — a writing environment.
Raycast
Spotlight replacement plus snippet manager plus clipboard history. Earns dozens of openings per day.
Arc Browser
Profile-per-brand. Amordex tabs don't bleed into Pagassa workspace.
Things 3
Personal tasks, separate from team backlogs. The boundary protects both.
05
Services
// the infrastructureHostinger
Production hosting for all three brand sites. Cost discipline is a brand value.
Resend
Transactional email for Amordex client communication. Clean API, no enterprise bloat.
Plausible
Privacy-respecting analytics. No Google Analytics anywhere. Visitors aren't a product.
iCloud + 1Password
Sync and credential layer. Yubikey-backed 2FA on everything that matters.
// $ ls ~/library
The shelf
behind the work.
Books that shaped how I think about craft, business, and building deliberately. Listed by impact, not chronology.
D
The Discipline of Market Leaders
Pick one of three: operational excellence, product leadership, or customer intimacy. Master one, hold the others to standard.
B
Designing Brand Identity
The textbook for considered brand systems. Read three times — different things land each pass.
P
The Pragmatic Programmer
Software craftsmanship as a discipline, not a vibe. The rare book that ages forward.
A
Anything You Want
Forty lessons on building a business that fits the founder. Reads in an hour, sticks for years.
R
Rework
The argument against scaling for its own sake. Permission to build smaller, longer.
M
The Mom Test
How to ask customer-discovery questions without poisoning the answers.
S
Show Your Work
On the discipline of working in public, even when the work isn't done.
A
Atomic Habits
Compounding as a daily practice. Most useful as a frame for shipping consistency.
D
Don't Make Me Think
The ergonomics bible for digital products. Re-read before every Amordex engagement.
R
Refactoring
The grammar of clean code. Reference, not novel — but the most-touched book on my shelf.
P
The Personal MBA
A self-administered business education without the tuition.
S
Sprint
The five-day product sprint as discipline. Adapted, not followed literally.
// $ cat ~/.now
What I'm doing
now.
A /now page in the Derek Sivers tradition. Updated periodically. Reflects current focus, not aspirations.
// about
Amr Badr
Craft over scale.
Founder of three brands across software, fashion, and athletics — built deliberately, one at a time.
I started writing software in 2012. Twelve years later, the discipline became a portfolio of three brands — Amordex, Pagassa, and Gym Egypt. Software, fashion, athletics. Different categories, same principle: craft over scale.
Each brand stands independently. Each one is founded, operated, and shaped personally. Together, they form a portfolio built deliberately — not by chance.
My career started from nothing.
I’ve gone through disappointments I never expected to meet. The kind that convince you it’s the end — that you’ve lost everything, simply because you lost the one thing you mistook for life itself.
Anyone who has built something has known that moment. It’s a club nobody asks to join.
Leave the past in the past. Try to move on. Focus on the present, without worrying about the future.
— note to self · 2018
What you end up adapting to is the rhythm of it. Some days sweet, some bitter. Losing people. Gaining people. Life continues, regardless of what you’d prefer.
The only thing that has to stay is yourself. Lose that, and you lose everything.
This site is the personal archive. Writing, thinking, and the long view behind the work. For inquiries about Amordex, the studio handles its own correspondence at amordex.com.
Six things believed — and held to, regardless of who’s watching.
-
i.
Craft over scale.
Depth beats width when the work itself is the point.
-
ii.
Shipping is a feature.
Unshipped work is not work. It’s a draft.
-
iii.
Detail is the difference.
Every pixel, every word, every spacing decision — deliberate.
-
iv.
Reputation over reach.
The right work attracts the right audience. The wrong work attracts noise.
-
v.
Multiple categories, one standard.
Software, fashion, athletics — different fields, identical attention.
-
vi.
Patience compounds.
Every business that lasts was built slower than people expected.
A timeline of decisions — not a CV.
-
012345678901234567890123456789012345678901 origin
First line of code, first paid project.
Self-taught. Built websites for friends, then strangers, then small businesses across Cairo.
-
012345678901234567890123456789012345678902 independence
Decided to operate independently — and stayed that way.
Turned down agency offers. Bet on the long game without a name for it yet.
-
012345678901234567890123456789012345678903 reset
A loss that reset the calendar.
The disappointment from the essay above. A different person picked the work back up.
-
012345678901234567890123456789012345678904 rebuild
Rebuilt — quietly, without an announcement.
Long-haul retainers. Editorial sites. The first principles started to hold their shape.
-
0123456789012345678901234567890123456789Pagassa · launch
Pagassa launched — the fashion house.
Forged in silence. First chapter dropped to a small, deliberate audience.
-
0123456789012345678901234567890123456789Gym Egypt · launch
Gym Egypt launched — the athletic platform.
Editorial fitness for serious lifters, against the grain of every fitness site that exists.
-
0123456789012345678901234567890123456789Amordex · incorporated
Amordex incorporated — the studio.
A boutique dev studio. Software that’s been read twice before it ships.
-
0123456789012345678901234567890123456789iamr.net · v3
iamr.net v3 — the personal archive.
The site you’re reading. Twelve years collected into one place, honest about all of it.
// $ cat ~/capabilities
What gets built.
Twelve years, three brands, one cursor — assembled into a single capability surface.
/01 services
Six things, done well.
// custom software
Custom software
& web platforms.
& web platforms.
WordPress, React, TypeScript — from headless CMS to long-tail editorial sites.
// in numbers
12
years operating
3
brands held
∞
long-haul retainers
// brand systems
Identity, type
& voice.
& voice.
// editorial
Long-form essays·
Magazine sites·
Newsletters·
Writing as the product, not as marketing.
// principle
“The work is deliberate, slow, and durable. Not because we’re slow — because the alternative doesn’t survive the decade.”
/02 process
How an engagement runs.
01
Discover
Understand the brand. Read every line that already exists. Decide whether we’re a fit.
02
System
Build the brand spine first — type, voice, palette, scaffolding. Lock the language.
03
Build
Ship in small, considered increments. Every commit signed. No throwaway sprints.
04
Hold
Engagements measured in years, not deliverables. The relationship is the product.
/03 stack
Tools chosen for longevity.
// frontend
React
TypeScript
Vite
Tailwind
Astro
// cms / backend
WordPress
ACF Pro
Node.js
PHP 8
// infra
Cloudflare
Vercel
Hetzner
GitHub Actions
// design
Figma
Glyphs
Capture One
/04 across the portfolio
The same hand, three voices.
404
// route not found
The path / doesn't exist on this site. Maybe it never did, or maybe it moved.