Interrogated on De51gn

De51gn.com did a fun little Q&A with me. Check it out!

"If you could take a holiday anywhere in the world, where would it be? Japan. Some natural getaway in Japan, like Okinawa or something, just to relax and enjoy a type of nature that could be very alien to the kind we have down here in Egypt, yet not too too far from Tokyo, so I can head out there for my occasional dose of insane urban Japanese culture."

"What is the most precious thing in your studio right now? Why? My little troll, cuz the look on his face is telling me to stay absurdly positive and..." >>

Can You Read This?

Although I am much fascinated by the romance and elegance of traditional Arabic calligraphy, I also feel the need for there to be an ultimately modern take on Arabic, absolutely unadorned and unconnected, much like the groundbreaking typographical initiatives undertaken by the German Bauhaus in the 1920's and Soviet graphic artists during the second World War.


Not to mention that all this reading over at Pascal's site about the theories regarding simplifying the Arabic alphabet and making it more media-friendly have gotten me thinking about there being a successfully readable disconnected alphabet, much to the effect of the Latin alphabet... and judging by my first initial step in that direction, I obviously have a very long way to go:

The 60's Was The Future

1960s Braun products hold the secrets to Apple's future.

"The year 2008 marks the 10th Anniversary of the iMac, the computer that changed everything at Apple, hailing a new design era spearheaded by design genius Jonathan Ive. What most people don't know is that there's another man whose products are at the heart of Ive's design philosophy, an influence that permeates every single product at Apple, from hardware to user-interface design. That man is Dieter Rams..." >>

History of Arabic Type: 1300 B.C - 2005 A.C

Pascal Zoghbi, a Lebanese type developer and graphic designer, has written an incredibly informative essay on the evolution of Arabic type, since the inception of its ancestor letter-forms in ancient Phoenicia, all the way to the various solutions proposed to solve the technical difficulties it faces in modern media appliance back in the 40's and 50's, all the way to its fate in our current digital age.

Sheer brilliance.

My Funny Story With Canon

So last night after work, I'm hanging with my friend Robino at a cafe' near my studio, where we bump into a friend of his who works at ETCO, Canon's agent in Egypt, who a little while later greets a graphic designer he had commissioned to put together a print ad for him. Graphic designer pulls out laptop and shows the man the ad who calls me over to their table to get my opinion on it. Neither me nor the man are all too impressed and I give the designer a couple of pointers on how I think it could be made better, which he clearly brushes off saying the audience won't "get it," and that he doesn't want the ad to end up looking too... "baladi."

Fair enough, except when he minimizes the window to reveal the Ganzeer.com wallpaper decorating his desktop:


Too funny.


So after designer guy leaves, at which point I'm supposed to head out to an appointment across town, Canon man kinda begs me to fix up the ad for him. I bring him to the studio and tell him that maybe having the Canon printer on the beach isn't an exactly elegant way to tell his audience that he is "now in Hurghada," maybe just a more suggestive choice of background color could do the trick. He says they've actually been in Hurghada for the past 8 years already. "So why the hell does it say 'now in Hurghada' on the ad?" I ask.

"I dunno, it was the designer's idea."


So I ask him what his main selling point is, maybe the specific printer in the ad is state of the art, uber hi-tech, anything. He says as a matter of fact it is, gets into some details about it, and also tells me a bit about ETCO's own new corporate identity, which is very pixel-inspired, since pixels are the basis of any digital printing.

I replace "now in Hurghada" with "it's all in the details," rework the ad a bit and less than an hour later present him with this:

Ahh.

Nature or Acid

3-piece artwork for a client's bathroom.

Live! Magazine #17: December 2007

The original cover art I did for Live! Magazine's December issue, which was a comedy special that edited out the word "homosexual" and the man-bras right before it went out to the printers.

Love Brownbook #7

Love the cover to Brownbook #7, though it is a bit too summery for this time of year. Then again, I'm not really sure what the whether over in Dubai is like.

3al Raseef / Tales Around the Pavement

After the success of 3al Raseef the first time around, Edit Molnar and Aleya Hamza bring you Chapter 2 of this art initiative, a multi-staged contemporary arts project that explores the complex relationships and shifting dynamics between people and public space in the context of a mega city like Cairo, through the works of Hany Rashed , Jean-luc Marchina, Katarina Šević, Mahmoud Khaled, Mohamed Allam, Osman Bozkurt, Randa Shaath, and Tarek Hefny.

Posters and flyers designed by me.

Launch date: 20 January, 2008

For more info:

CiC

20 Safeya Zaghloul Street, 2^nd Floor

Monira 11461, Cairo, Egypt

Tel.: +2 02 794 1686 Mobile: +2 012 115 8700

aleya@ciccairo.com

Art Pieces: Everyday Heroes / Gababeret El-Mahrousa

And heeeere are the unavailable pieces from my exhibition:



Only 6 other pieces still available for sale. All are limited edition top quality digital vinyl prints stuck on quality MDF wood. Washable and durable.

Oh and be sure to read the write up the exhibition got in the Daily News.

Poster: Everyday Heroes / Gababeret El-Mahrousa

Now that the exhibition is officially over, I've decided to post some work from it. This here is the promotional poster that was hung across the city.

The Status on SHAKLOH #9: SABAHEYA MUBARKA

Sorry for the delay (again). I know the upload is waaaaay behind, but I've been facing a couple of obstacles updating the site which should hopefully be solved in the next coupla weeks. Sorry again, guys, very uncool of me, I know.

Thank you to those who participated (Omar, you know yours is my absolute favorite!). Not a lot of you but the pieces are brilliantly pleasing and a definite breath of fresh air.

Here's a little sneak peak for y'all until I manage to upload the sucker:

SABAHEYA MUBARKA by Haitham Abu Samra