Ghobad Shiva (born 1940) is an Iranian graphic designer and art director. He has made long and perseverant efforts from his youth to offer native Iranian graphic designs, which are originated from Iranian rich culture. He is now regarded as an internationally recognized stylist in the field of graphic designing.

He graduated in 1966 from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran. He then spent several years acquiring practical experience in graphic art. Afterwards he earned a master’s degree in communication design from Pratt University, New York, in 1980.
He has been teaching in major art faculties and schools in Tehran since 1976. He has been also one of the co-founders of Iranian Graphic Designers Society and artistic adviser and jury member of the Iranian Graphic Art Biennials. Shiva was the founder and planner of the First Tehran International Poster Biennial.
Over several decades of hard work, he has created plenty of matchless, novel, and soulful graphic masterpieces illustrating noble Iranian civilization.
“We should be present in the universal graphical discourse relying on our own culture,” he stated.
He is the first one who has utilized a unique and cursive Iranian style of calligraphy as a constituent graphic element.
Shiva maintains that it is not enough to use only mechanical Iranian elements in an artwork, however, a work should reflects Iranian soul.
He believes that cultivated Iranians are fond of any oriental artwork, which contains symbolic and cryptic elements. Moreover, if an art piece such as an illustrated poster lacks such elements, even if it bears Iranian themes and styles, Iranians do not favor it.
Shiva holds that a designer who cannot draw well is not a good graphic designer. He recommends that his students try to learn drawing and not to rely solely on computer designing but use computer designing soft wares as supplementary tools.
Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) ranked him as 12 top grand masters of the world and allocated one of its books to introduction of this distinguished artist. This selection was due to special, unique, and prominent Iranian features in his masterworks.
In 2007, the Britannica Encyclopedia included him in the list of the three prominent graphic designers of the developing countries and wrote that these artists’ works are messengers of their countries’ traditions and cultures.
He has won many national and international awards in different categories and has participated in several graphic design exhibitions in Iran and other countries such as England, France, and the United States.