Branding out of context

By Admin I: we’ve previously featured successful Lebanese branding jobs on this blog (link), so as stated earlier, we do think that some design work, actually works; but let me tell you, we have an epidemic design disease. A shawarma place is opening at each and every corner in Beirut, and most of them are becoming franchisable businesses spreading their ‘shawarma culture’ across the region (and harming many small traditional street food businesses as well).

Wether you support this Mc-shawarma phenomenon or not, and whether you think that shawarma is Lebanese, Turkish or Mongolian, you can really notice that most of these branding jobs are highly highly westernised.

Let’s start with ‘Shawarma Republic’ – united we sandwich: those guys clearly sell shawarma with some extra dripping attitude. An Americanised approach playing it ‘cool’ and making shawarma hip, fine, whatever, but what really bothers here is mostly their communication strategy. 2 years ago, the Shawarma Republic launched a campaign playing on the Obama campaign posters designed by American contemporary artist and graphic designer, Shepard Fairey in 2008.

So practically, we’re not only taking branding out of context, more specifically a traditional street food brand out of context, but we’re sticking it to a blunt affiliation with another context, another culture, something similar to affiliating hamburgers with Arak or Koussa mehshi.

Another brand showering us with presence, communication and visuals, ‘Shawarmanji’, claiming modernity, and also westernising traditional food, but moreover taking random decisions in the whole cultural aspect of it. The shawarma Kiosk is now a small tidy shop that uses no man hand, but instead, electrical machines that carve into your memory, i mean food.

The point of this post is not attacking modernised design. Well okay, I’m lying. The post is about shedding light on a phenonmenon that’s taking us by a storm. Why are we suddenly westernising everything to make it hip. Why are we designing for the sake of design?! Why is design in this case prohibited from using one very important tool in any communication process: CONTEXT!

Why are we branding out of context, using a combo of Swiss type and American art direction for a place that sells oriental food. Don’t tell me to calm down, this is a cultural blasphemy.

ArabAd goes Brofessional (and vice versa)

May 17, 2013

Advertising, Design, Media

7 Comments

ArabAd goes Brofessional (and vice versa)

By Admin I: So the last issue of ArabAd is out, and yes we are featuring it because they chose to publish one of our posts in the last page of the issue and also because this time the main theme is ‘Design’ (they probably thought that working with design is less problematic, I guess our last week proved them wrong!).

The issue includes ups and downs, a 26 pages special report (maybe too special) about the AUB Revolution/Evolution 20 years celebration, highlighting many design profiles that contributed in changing the design field in Lebanon (We all know that change is not always positive right?).

The report is filled with names that should be researched, works that really make you want to know more, and other pretentious long lines on design as well.

Type design is also featured in Arabad through an article about an Arabic typeface that’s rooted in the English shires, designed by Boutos International. (Problematic and borderline unethical in terms of cultural design, sorry we’d like to one day respect our mother language a bit more).

On another note, ArabAd featured Beirut ntsc’s Tarek Chemaly’s exhibition that we will feature soon. The work is rich and highly engaging (wasta, yes we know him, and still think he rocks).

Thank you ArabAd, and hope you feature more amateurs like us, that need to get an idea, an opinion across to the public, for people to think more, without necessarily agreeing.

As the fabulous N wraps up her featured post: I’m a Brofessional, and you guys take me way too seriously.

BLA BLA BLA

Chaos and frozen veggies combo

May 14, 2013

Advertising

9 Comments

943504_568833726489938_1923215653_n Chaos and frozen veggies combo

By Admin I: so here’s a light advertising post after the series of opinionated design posts that caused a severe indigestion to many.

Al-Wadi Al-Akhdar launched an outdoor promoting their Halloum and stuff, okay we don’t really care, but the combination of failing humour and a 90s design treatment is worth a small commentary.

It’s a really courageous step when brands rely on alternative routes to deliver an idea, illustration for example, bringing up the fun in the brand and engaging the audience. What was done here is a mix of two competing entities: a reach for illustration, and (we’re just assuming), the client insisting on the ‘traditional’ pack shot. The mix clearly doesn’t work as the two elements look detached, stuck and forced (hit us with any extra synonym!).

The copywriting issue is one of many discussed earlier. It’s a potentially good idea, clinging to insights, but the language structure and even the type treatment looks too amateurish to even discuss! The slant, the coloured band at the bottom, and the overall chaos reminds of the 90s ad extravaganza.

Earlier this year, Al-Wadi Al-Akhdar redesigned its packages going to a minimal ‘white’ feel, that probably helped enhancing the fresh feel of the product without detaching it from its old identity.

What we’re saying in the end is simply that whether you sell frozen veggies or jewellery, communicating ideas shouldn’t be taken for granted, just dig in your type library or do your own lettering with some visual research, even though a field search for local insights would do better.

Cheers to that Halloum!

The ‘real’ illustrators of Lebanon 01

May 9, 2013

Design

31 Comments

Jorj Abou Mhaya

Disclaimer: This post is by no means a reply to the previous one. Okay it is.

The ‘real’ illustrators of Lebanon 01

By Admin I: Yes he’s the guy that will make you think a thousand times before even daring to label your drawing skills, or even before holding a pencil. Jorj Abou Mhaya is mainly an illustration jaw-dropper, a comic artist in particular. You can’t but appreciate the level of skills, the enchanting journey that this classical rendering can take you through. Guys, by now you already know, I’m a firm believer in ‘more is more’ that it became my design bible; Jorj never fails to add complexity, detail and a sense of mystery to his work. All I can say is that ‘Madina moujawira lil ard’ is a must have, to always remind your very egocentric selves: “there’s always someone, somewhere, that can nail what he does!”

David Habchy

By Admin HY: With a great balance of technical experience and conceptual creative approaches, David Habchy is one of the pioneer illustrators and animators in the field. Using meticulous and rich elements, his outcomes show an experimental attitude towards what he brilliantly does, always working his way around different styles and materials.
David’s aesthetic includes a lot of textures, attention to detail and a humorous vibe, his blog has been a source of inspiration and reference for many of us. See, what I love about Klekeesh is that it shows David’s process, experiences, workshops, photographs, whatever it took him to reach his final result that usually starts with traditional media, way before the invasion of Wacom, and you know, the ‘I’m an illustrator’ epidemy.
As a side note, David’s heavily insightful work can be less impressive when done for advertising projects, while his personal pieces are never disappointing.

Rodrigue Harb

By Admin NK: Let’s talk about the awesome Rodrigue Harb; you may have heard of him and his collaboration with Samandal , or his published work in Toom Extra. His work expresses wit and fun, comic characters with a touch of randomness that we love. Harb, with his use of colors and different brushes, makes sure he gives the viewer this pleasant-bubble gum-happy feeling, that can vary between a work and another always mixing styles, always unpredictable! The beauty in every illustrator’s work is leaving a touch of personality in his illustrations, and that’s what we see in every Rodrigue piece of art.

Maya Zankoul: the doodle-fever

May 7, 2013

Design

91 Comments

Maya Zankoul: the doodle-fever

By Admin NK: If you’re part of the Lebanese design community, you have probably been exposed to Maya Zankoul’s work, and even if you’re not, you probably know by now who Maya Zankoul is, because people like to over share famous work, despite its bad quality or content. (Oops, was that a too soon spoiler of what this post is going to be about?)

Let’s start by being “nice” before we get you all angry (if you’re a Zankoul lover) and state a few good things: we’ve seen her at conferences, she’s fun, she shares her life experiences and we kind of like how she started the blogging scene back in high school which got her here because of her audience.

But we can’t base it all on audience, right? So here’s what we think:

You cannot call yourself an illustrator if what you actually do is doodling. Those are not illustrations, those are DOODLES; whether it’s out of laziness or “oh that’s my style!” or I guess how it’s mentioned in her website they’re “fast illustrations”, there is no excuse for why those works got published (you could’ve kept them to show the neighbors, or developed them into actual visuals).

Sometimes we wonder how such work can get so much exposure (because hey I have an idea! Let’s talk about Lebanese issues in a funny way like millions of other people did and throw them in books to sell!) while other talented REAL illustrators are rarely being featured (which brings another shout out for F/I/M²/P magazine for exposing awesome illustrators). Not to mention the overpriced posters and t-shirts also offered for people to buy.

This whole trend went a bit over the top, someone got really, really stuck in the high school phase.

By Admin HY: So I stumbled upon Wezank, a new concept/idea by Maya Zankoul, Toni Yammin, and Paola Kiwan. What these guys do is basically animation based explainer videos. So if you have a new app, product or any idea, the Wezank team can translate it into an infographic or a video, that would help you express your idea in a better visual way, and advertise it.

Yes, I do agree with Wezank that we are visual creatures, and yes, if you have a good idea/app/product, and you don’t have the means to express it in the right way, you might not get anywhere. Wezank seems like a good initiavtive to offer “better” design for business and communication use, since our design scene lacks that.

Wezank published some recent videos on their website, and they’re all animation based, and share a very deja-vu style. A Steve Jobs quote video (it’s been 2 freakin’ years can we PLEASE get over Stevie?) in an Kinetic typography animation, a style we’ve all seen hundreds and hundreds of times before…

Another video about how to cook Moghrabieh (don’t ask!) and an ad for Toni Yammin’s new “iPhone photography” workshop (COME ON!!!) in a scribble animation style, something we’ve seen a lot too (it’s actually all over youtube).

Pricing is a huge issue as well, STARTING $5,000 for homemade stop motion or line drawings is just too much…No?

By Admin I: I agree with the guys above, Maya’s style stopped evolving, and yes she did enjoy a bit too much her ‘self-promotion’ phase, and made it to become a tv host, a known design figure and an award show judge, out of doodles like you said. That’s true.

But let me be friendly and stuff:

Girl, we’re very happy you managed to establish a name. Now it’s the right time to grow, to prove your potential, your ‘design/illustration’ potential, since what we’ve seen so far, was mere blunt marketing.

Wezank is great, disregard the two admins above. Wezank is the right way to channel your abilities into a worthy job that you can enjoy and help other people/businesses as well. So Good luck with it.

Maya, Work on your content and quality, instead of releasing an application after the other, especially with the huge similarity between your last application “Wally” and a Desmeem project, launched last year during Beirut Design Week, and is currently under development (basically someone got inspired*).

There is no personal hate here, consider the post an advice to take or leave!

Chateau Ka Goes pad-ad

May 5, 2013

Advertising

5 Comments

Chateau Ka “Source Blanche” Goes pad-ad

By Admin I: Whether you liked the Buzz ads or not, or whether you think they were stolen or not, I’m very sure you were eager to see another work by “Nathalie Masri’, the freelance creative behind last year’s advertising extravaganza.

Chateau Ka recently released a TVC for its “Source Blanche” white wine, that fits the summer season quite well, except the fact that I’m not allowed to drink it, being a man, or at least this is what the ad showed (let’s assume there’s an unreleased sequel, featuring a man’s needs *dirty mind starts functioning*).

This TVC’s only good feature is Caroline Labaki’s lens, having an over-the-top cliche copywriting, a boring act and an over all approach that seemed tailored for Kotex. The main fail here is the total absence of a relevant USP. What are we dealing with? Wine, or chocolate or tampons? The script fits every single product-line and lacks the basic substance of a well targeted approach, not to mention the humor, that’s not very, umm, humorous.

*Beeep* no.

Chateau Ka “Source Blanche” understands those little self-indulgent moments, and is proud to be part of (some of) them.

Credits:
Creative: Nathalie Masri
Production House: kapitän kühn
Director: Caroline Labaki
DOP: Tony El Khazen

Almaza goes back to Almaza: Fta7oulé Reji3

May 1, 2013

Advertising

13 Comments

Almaza goes back to Almaza: Fta7oulé Reji3

By Admin I: So it’s seems like Almaza finally got back to its senses! Those guys are sober again after a drunk phase sponsored by Lebanese Brew, their only local competitor. The two beers cater to immensely different audiences, a point that Almaza failed to acknowledge at first, and tried to adapt to LB’s young, daring and westernized marketing tools.

‘Fta7oulé Reji3′ is the new summer campaign by Almaza, evolving around Lebanese insights and short stories, authentic, true and funny (in the most part). The campaign is definitely smart, even if featuring insights the way they are feels a bit flat, but that’s in the end a personal opinion. A well shot video, well scripted and art directed starting from an interesting play on word between (fta7 Almaza, and fta7 el beb). The best feature of this campaign is definitely the series of lines saying “Naji reji3″ and so on, simply because it depicts a very Lebanese idea brought back from the post-war memories, you know, the walls sprayed with the same slogan.

This year, drink for your friends and bring them back to Lebanon.
Because wherever they are in the world, nothing feels better than coming back home.

On another note, a debate was going on the brand’s facebook page, claiming that the idea was proposed to Almaza by another agency, stolen and revamped, a cat-fight indeed that was deleted later on (you’re lucky we couldn’t find evidence!).

Good job for Almaza, initiating a positive summer season, using the right timing, the right umbrella and the right approach to talk to a very loyal audience. ‘Hayda Jawkun”, stick to it, it’s the only way you can remain original and truthful.

—Brofessional Review

lebanese / design / advertising / fashion / media

Branding out of context

ArabAd goes Brofessional (and vice versa)

Chaos and frozen veggies combo

The ‘real’ illustrators of Lebanon 01

Maya Zankoul: the doodle-fever

Chateau Ka Goes pad-ad

Almaza goes back to Almaza: Fta7oulé Reji3

Follow “Brofessional Review”