i wish i could do that!

in life there are ups and downs, 

and sometimes more down than up, 

sometimes we lose our dearest, 

we try to recover, sometimes we succeed, other times we don’t, 

it all depends on nadim the cable guy!

i brought him my computer so many times i can’t remember…

when it was old

when it suddenly died on me, 

when it needed a format etc…

 

i am not gonna get all emotional on you now, but i figured out why we become so sad, so lost, desperate and slightly hysterical, when we are forced into sudden formatting.

you would think that i am talking about unrecoverable data, important photos, projects you nearly finished and don’t have back up somewhere else… 

but NO! it is (1st for me) the 9 GB of music you’ve been growing on your itunes all these years and suddenly pouff! 

it’s all the emoticons you’ve been collecting from here and there on msn… 

it’s all those bookmarks you saved on your safari… 

it’s all these little things, 

that, when accessible, had little meaning,

 

now i want to share something with you:

meet Nicholas Felton

he is 31 years old

lives in new york city

spends his spare time developing DAYTUM

he made a statistical report on every single detail in his life for a year (here 2007), artists he likes, music he listened to, how many times, every place he’s been, every way of transportation he used, every meal he had (including how many times he had sushi, chicken, red meat, fish…), photos he’s taken, with who, and how many times, movies he saw, his favorites, books he read, every drink he had… you name it, he hasn’t forgot a thing!

 AND he’s done it beautifully!

 and that my friend is trust worthy information design!

P.S. every new year, i make a resolution to do this, and just about the third day i manage to lose track

 

in the memory of

can we be friends?

it seems there’s a certain competition on facebook  FOR HE WHO HAS MORE FRIENDS, SHALL WIN! that’s why you end up having the weirdest people on your list: some you have absolutely no contact with, what so ever; some you see everyday but never talk to; some who are just trying to make a collection of single girls; some looking for a “serious” relationship on facebook (seriously! come on); and the list goes on…

now i don’t know if having 489 friend (at the least) satisfies your ego, or you’re just THAT popular? but i cannot imagine if one day every single one of these 489 wrote on your wall, how much time it will take you to reply?

i find having too many friends, very tiring and time consuming: keeping up with them, remembering them (in my case ), remembering their birthdays, feeling their pain (because from time to time, a friend of a friend of a friend will eventually die, you know what i mean, and you don’t need that!) it is emotionally exhausting! 

besides most of them aren’t really your friends, in the true meaning of the word. that’s why i came up with a small list to help you differ from your true friends and the ‘WANNABEs’. a true friend is a person who:

1. calls you or sees you at least once a week ( msn and facebook do not count!) 

2. is there when you’re sad, and by that we can exclude partying bodies (a guy/girl you meet in a bar in jemmayzeh,  for one evening, does not count as well )

2. shares his happiness/success with you, or let me put it in another way not to sound like a greeting card, one who remembers you when he’s shining, not only when he wants to nag!

so there you go start removing friends, and you can thank me later

 

P.S. if you follow the previous procedure, you will end up with 10 friends and 389 people you may know

community service office

miscellaneous (2)

bits and pieces from here and there:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. my printer runs out of the color blue so fast….

modern slavery

i am working on an another conference we are hosting next month, which required lots of work depending on the amount of items needed to be designed for it: brochures, pocket programs, invitation cards, welcome signs, files, notepads, promotional items, goody bags etc… i didn’t create the original artwork, but it was handed in to me for application, after someone had worked on it. FINE! when you’re an employee you don’t get to choose what you work on (fhemna!), but i just want to let you in on an another side of preparing for an international event in like 3-4 days!

i will not show you snapshots of the deliverables because i am not going to talk about the project itself. design wise, it’s not that impressive! but i am going to tell you an itsy bitsy tiny story, maybe, MAYBE, you can manage to avoid modern slavery

april 2008: a wise teacher once said that we, as students, are having it very easy concerning time and due dates, and i quote “in real life you will have tons of projects within 1 week, you will have unreasonable clients who want their designs yesterday, and you would have to work, pretty much at speed light, just to be able to survive in the jungle we like to call real life”

april 2009: a wise friend told me , when i was starting my professional career :P  here, “never EVER deliver anything on time , just take your time, don’t impress anyone, and always push for more time!” time, time, and more time….

october 2009: “you have to make a brochure in half an hour (please mind the time here: just half an hour before i leave office), and i don’t need to add that it has to be a very creative, innovative and well designed one, and we have to print it tomorrow, receive it, and distributed” fun, fun, FUN!!!

NOW besides the stress, physical pain or loss of feeling in right shoulder and arm, i would like to highlight here the margin of errors you can make with that generous amount of time you ‘re given. furthermore i want to pinpoint on the fact that nobody will proofread it after you, and finally, they will print 500 copies of it, the next day! see, i told you it’s FUN!

so you make a little mistake concerning a particular date,  so what? it’s not that important in a well scheduled conference, right? wait! it gets more exciting!!!!

of course they discover the mistake after 2 days! 2 things you notice here:

1. the brochure is still lying here somewhere, and NOT DISTRIBUTED, so you have been rushed for no reason what so ever.

2. nobody was curious enough to check it out for 2 whole days!

anyway, after they all discover the crime that you did, and of course not to mention that you will be the only one  blamed for everything, they now have to figure out whether they will have to reprint or just panic. so you come and suggest printing a small sticker instead, same pantone, same typeface and put it over your horrible mistake. EVERYBODY’S HAPPY!!!

the execution of your master plan feels just like  illegal child labor in a plant somewhere in china, because of course, it’s you, who has to fix it,  MANUALLY.

but the story goes beyond you removing the brochure from the envelope, opening it on the 2nd page, sticking the new data, and putting it back in the envelope without messing with the order, 5OO TIMES! it goes on to highlight that the printing house can make almost the same kind of damage to our poor brochure over here just as much as me, and between you and me i was happy that all the wrong in the world had happened to it after all, at least AM OFF THE HOOK

the following events of the day also included pain, tiresome, overwork, hunger etc… but these, i will not mention , because unrelated :D

so if you think you were having a bad day, well just think again after reading this!

city street*

 

 

size does matter!

there’s no such thing, mmm, NO, i refuse to have size defined by small, regular and big!

at least in my field! imagine the following conversation between designer and client:

rebz: …. by the way, miss S.F. (stands for Sexy Flexy), what would you like the size of the invitation card you requested for thatreally important conference you are hosting?

Miss S.F: oh i dunno! the regular size i guess… (قياس عادي)

NO, NO, and NOOOO! 

it just pisses me off, when people refer to informative details lightly. i am toasting my brain here to deliver your ass a good design, at least do your own research missy!! is that too much to ask for?

and it doesn’t help (really) when clarification of ‘regular’ size, is elaborated with hand gestures. (btw, people, usually, almost 99% of the time, make the shape of an A4 with their hands, without knowing!)

anyway,

so instead of making me a puppet show, in order to describe the size of your card (or what have you), here’s a thought! why don’t you talk to me in cm, mm, inch… oh i don’t know, be wild!

oh! oh! and ’standard’ size isn’t allowed either, ok? i mean what the hell is ’standard’ size anyway, and most importantly, how will you make gestures of standard size? haha

can you imagine if we referred to size, by these ‘banal’ descriptions: small, regular, medium, big, tall…. ALL THE TIME?

- what size do you wear? tall!

- what size of cardboard do you want to purchase? regular!

- how much should i feed my baby? medium bottle! (the messier and funnier version of this, would be, if the baby was still breast-feeding )

- ok it might work with coffee cups. i am not sure, but don’t get me started here!

sooooooo i draw the line at printed (and web, for that matter) publications!

thank you very much!

i give you the new and improved NDU

 

 

 

i wonder why?

i wonder why, every time we get into an elevator, we read the ‘do not pass the weight limit’ sign, even though we know it by heart?

i wonder why we know nothing about death, yet everyone seems to know where he’s ending up?

i wonder why walking in the streets isn’t about exercising anymore, but it’s ‘haram’ he doesn’t have a car?

i wonder why they make post its that don’t stick, instead i have to fix it with a scotch tape?

i wonder why, when addressing to people positively, we make them feel involved (you get to win a car! bla bla bla…), but cannot do it negatively, for they could be offended!? ( the cup was broken…No! YOU broke the damn mug you s@#$!@^&#!!!)

i wonder why we put our hands out of the window, when driving?

i wonder why i don’t go ‘kutchi kutchi kou” when i see a baby?

i wonder why i still don’t have a colored printer (or any printer for that matter), and i’ve been working here for 6 months?

i wonder why you are reading this post? Go back to work you lazy ones!