I Did Not Make This: Terminator Invitation

So I got an invite to the Terminator Salvation premier at Nile City the other night, which is such a shitty Hollywood film that does nothing but make Christian Bale's on-screen machismo demand loss of any respect as an actor.

What was kinda cool though was the invitation design itself. Nothing insanely brilliant, but just kinda cool.


The red dot on the outside of the invite's envelope, which is supposed to be reference to the Terminator's glowing eye is kinda neat.

What could've upped it way up there and actually made it tons cooler though is if they'd actually printed the red dot in actual glow-in-the-dark ink, or heck, even if red glow in the dark isn't really available, I would opt for a miniature red bulb that turn on upon opening the envelope, like they do with musical greeting cards except its a miniature bulb instead of a micro-speaker thing.

When it comes to print design, the materials used are as much a part of the design as the design itself.

Still, very cool effort and a little something for me to decorate my laptop with.

A.K.A. Education

ACAF is organizing a program from May to August on workshops and lectures that focus on education in contemporary art under the title of A.K.A. Education, for which I developed a pretty crisp, clean, and objective identity for, including logo and a poster/newsletter system. The first poster is actually done, printed, and plastered across walls in Cairo and Alexandria.


Must post photos soon.

Big State is Not Watching Me

Cristina Viehmann, a friend of Mahmoud Hamdy's from Switzerland was visiting a couple weeks ago and managed to show up at my talk at Medrar, which prompted her to include a little mention of me in her post on freedom of speech for the online news service she works for: ISN Blog.

In it she writes: "In his work he does not refrain from criticizing both the government and the societal or religious constraints ruling his country. Referring to a cover from a December 2004 Cairo youth magazine, illustrating the many 'fine' inventions of Arab civilization, one of which is the 'presidential monarchy,' I asked Mohammed: 'How critical can you afford to be?'"

Graphic Tiles

Although still in a very early phase, figured I'd post a little sneak peak of this project I'm working on together with Mahmoud Hamdy, Ibrahim Islam, Ahmed Hefnawy, Kalbi Nur Orhan, and Manoj Kurian, which I'm having a lot of fun with.


I'm really digging the direction this project is forcing me to take in regards to form and style. The rules and limitations agreed on for this project (which I won't get into details of now) are leading me to fresh and exciting new experiments.

Details forthcoming.

Hope in Petty Symbolism

I put up the Egyptian flag in my balcony for no reason a couple days ago.

Every morning I look at it and see it alive. I see this pathetic flag, clumsily sewn together with a horribly printed emblem on it, I see it alive with awesome pride in the soft breeze of the day and I say... yeah. There is hope, motherfuckers.

Baroque - invitation

This is a little something from my archives which I realized I never posted about. I remember making it almost a year ago, and I was happy with being able to design something which was very much based on the materials used to design it.


It's an invitation announcing the opening of a furniture store (Baroque), and it got so many nice reactions from people it was sent to, and even helped prompt the CEO of German furniture brand: Kare to approach Ahmed Fahim, owner of Baroque, to open a Kare franchise in Egypt, for which I later created this.

Pattern Play

Experimenting with some Arabic-inspired patterns. Still works-in-progress in need of some development, but I'm quite happy with some of the directions.

Me & My Awesome Friends

So I made something, just for funsies really, not entirely intentional and based more on a little accident; I wanted to print out the photo Adham Bakry shot of me a few weeks back.


But my printer was out of ink, and a lot of the photo details were lost.


I particularly kinda liked how the hand with the mic sort of looked like it was the design on my shirt, and not on a piece of paper. I wondered what the picture would look like if I started drawing some missing details, combining markers with badly printed photography.

And then I wondered some more what it'd look like if I scanned it back in and added some digital colors and graphics to... this combination of markers and badly printed photography... and this was the result:

AUC Student Show 09

So this is a good example of how a poster can go wrong:

This was my original design for, well, a student juried art exhibition at the American University in Cairo, but after modifications insisted upon by the people responsible at the University, which included:
1- background color
2- using the one-line version of the AUC logo instead of the stacked version (2 lines)
3- enlarging the logo
4- moving the "department of performing and visual arts" below the logo instead of next to it
5- extending black highlights to poster edges

The result:
Although not entirely shitty, but I think the biggest problem in this version is extending the black text highlights to the edges of the poster, thereby dividing the poster into different parts, with each fraction of text occupying a separate part, with the image seemingly occupying an entirely seperate part as well. The blocks of black become blocks of dividers.

The original version on the other hand enjoys a sense of harmony between text and image and overall design which I gotta say I'm quite sad to have lost.


--
On a brighter note: Ahh, pretty relieved my talk on Wednesday went well. Thing is, if attendance is too low, you feel let down, and if attendance is high, you feel a bit of pressure not wanting to let people down. Attendance sure was high, with some people not having a place to sit. I gotta say it was felt pretty weird seeing people peep between heads at the door to try and catch glimpses of the screen.

I always get nervous before these public things. Although I was on the verge of peeing myself before the talk, and only really finished putting the presentation together as people were taking their seats - I was told I pulled it off coolishly while keeping peeps engaged and stuff. And all the copies I brought of the comic and From The End were sold. Sweet, I say. Sweet.

Talking @ Medrar on Wednesday

original photo by Adham Bakry

On Wednesday I'll be giving a little public talk and presentation at Medrar at 7:00. I'll take it way back to my lame ass beginnings, how I got started, all the way up to whatever the hell it is I'm doing nowadays.

I'll also be bringing some copies of my independently-produced 28-page publication "Min El-Akher/From The End" and the 80-page graphic novel co-created with the brilliant George Azmy "Atlal El Mosta2bal/Ruins Of The Future," both of which will be made available for sale (2 EGP and 4 EGP respectively).



The official press release from Medrar goes as follows:

On Wednesday 13/5/2009 the artist Ganzeer will presents his art works and his experience in open discussion with the audience, at Medrar for Contemporary Art, at 7:00 pm.

Ganzeer does illustrations, graphic design, writing, and video. From time to time Ganzeer will play around within a medium or venue he knows nothing about. His work has been shown in Egypt, Dubai, Holland, Germany, Belgium, and Poland, and has also been published in a variety of books and magazines as well as a few good sites on the internet. And just for the record, he’s a business graduate.

There will also be two publications available for sale "min el akher" an independently produced 28 page publication, as well as "atlal el mosta2bal," the 80-page graphic novel co-created with George Azmy and published by CiC.

Date:	Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Time:	7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location:	Medrar for Contemporary Art
Street:	22 khayrat street - El Sayeda Zainab - 3rd floor flat 7
City/Town:	Cairo, Egypt

Phone:	00227925914
Email:	info@medrar.org

And this is the Facebook link.