Shaker's puppets are one reason most older Arab intellectuals can still sing whole scenes from the biggest success of the Egyptian Puppet Theater, El Leila al Kabira "The Big Night." The Feast (1960), another puppet production, had lyrics composed by Salah Jahine and a score by Sayed Mekkawi, two of the most respected artists of the sixties in Egypt. Shaker was awarded second prize for creating the puppets for this performance jointly with Mustafa Kamel, who had been set designer at the International Bucharest Festival for Puppets.

Nagui has been in love with puppets since he was taken by his father to see Walt Disney's Pinocchio at the age of 9; this was his first movie and he was completely taken by the magic of puppets. He believes that this is why he was selected to present a graduation project involving puppets for the Academy of Fine Arts of Cairo University in 1957, which in turn led to his involvement in the creation of the Egyptian Puppet Theater in 1959, and its first production Al Shater Hassan "Hassan the Brave." Shaker designed both the set and the puppets.

Shaker later studied on scholarship in Germany. There he focused on theater, mainly puppets, as well as set and costume design. He also wrote and directed a puppet show with which he toured for 6 months in Eastern Europe. In 1968, he was awarded another scholarship to study in Rome, this time emerging with a diploma (PhD equivalent) in theater scenography from the Fine Arts Academy. This was the period when the Italian Cinema was recreating itself and in this bubbling atmosphere he started auditing cinema classes. Finally in 1972, he decided with a fellow auditor Paolo Isaja to make the movie Summer of 70, which was honored by the International Experimental Film Festival of San Marino 1960, in its 1973 edition. Back In Cairo, he continued working in theater productions and in 1972 he did the set and costume design of Shafiqa wa Metwalli (1977), starring Soad Hosni and Ahmed Zaki. This film was begun by one director, then encountered production problems. The film was then bought by another director who worked on the project for just one day, then eventually allowed director Ahmad Badrakhan take it.

In 1980, for Alexandria, why?--arguably Youssef Chahine's best film--Shaker was asked to be art director for the location scenes. Eventually he also designed the poster, which was very unusual by Egyptian standards. Since then he has designed few posters, but they have always been remarkable.

Egyptian poster for Alexandria Why? (1978) designed by Nagui Shaker.

Egyptian poster for al-'assefa "The Storm" (2000) designed by Nagui Shaker.