The Khatt Foundation, curated by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares, launched the Typographic Matchmaking sequel — Typographic Matchmaking in the City V2.0 project — which focuses on typography’s use in place making within an urban context.

Just like the first Typographic Matchmaking project, there are 5 teams of matched designers, only this time there architects are on board, along with major new ingredients. This time as well, my friend Khajag Apelian and I, are both part of 2 of the teams in the project.

What remains the same:
-5 teams of designers from Europe and the Middle east
-The aim is to create 5 pairs of matching Latin and Arabic typefaces
-Showcase the result in a book and an exhibition (typographic Matchmaking, El Hema)

What’s new:
-Each team now includes an architect
-Latin and Arabic typefaces are both created from scratch
-The outcome is not a text face but a display one inspired from the urban cities of Europe and the middle east, more specifically Amsterdam and Dubai/Beirut
-Showcase the process and the result in a book and a participatory public art space
-A group of designers and film makers accompany the project and the teams, documenting each step to produce the book and a documentary movie. Both the film feature and the book are to represent means of exploring the project as a creative process and and a showcase for the outcome.

TEAM 1 Story Line, Fluidity & Friction
Max Kisman (Netherlands),
Naji El Mir (Lebanon/France),
Hisham Youssef (Egypt/UAE)

TEAM 2 DNA, Latin & Arabic Double Helix
Rene Knip (Netherlands),
Jeroen van Erp (Netherlands),
Reza Abedini (Iran/Netherlands),
Khajag Apelian (Lebanon)

TEAM 3 Urban Rulers, City Metrics
Erik van Blokland (Netherlands),
Pascal Zoghbi (Lebanon),
Joumana Al Jabri (Saudi Arabia/Syria/UAE)

TEAM 4 Local Reference System
Artur Schmal (Netherlands),
Wael Morcos (Lebanon),
Richard Wagner (Germany/UAE)

TEAM 5 The Kashida Project
Melle Hammer (Netherlands),
Yara Khoury (Lebanon),
Stealth: Ana Dzokic (Serbia) & Marc Neelen (Netherlands)

AMSTERDAM/DUBAI/AMSTERDAM (Friesland)

Three meetings took place already, the last one ended few weeks ago.

Amsterdam February 09 was the first meeting during which the teams explored Amsterdam. The trip included launching the project, briefing the teams, discussing the general concept and requirements. Presentation by each participant took place at Mediamatic. The paired designers took the time to get to know each other and sit for brief brainstorming sessions as well as random discussions.

The second workshop took place in March. Bastakia Art Fair, Dubai, was the gathering place for several days. Along with the tours to the art galleries of the fair, the trip included a series of visits to souks, museums, and Sharjah’s Calligraphic  Museum and Sharjah ’s Islamic Museum. The participants inputs were inspiring and exciting and the process was just beginning.

Back to Holland. This time it was Friesland, a beautiful farm in the North of Holland, Rene Knipp’s studio. By this time, concepts have been discussed, and sketches started pointing to clearer and narrowed-down directions. Approaches are experimental and varied.

The outcome of the teams already looks like experimental typefaces and will offer interesting experiences immersing the viewer in the letter world. The end-result and the exhibition space should push boundaries of written letters to the dimensions of time, interactivity and customization. It is challenging and exciting to work with designers to whom Arabic script is a foreign experience. Matching both scripts as the design progresses requires a lot of give-and-take. Projected dates for the project completion are set for the coming year.

“The Typographic Matchmaking in the City V2.0 project will focus on typography’s use in placemaking within an urban context. It will investigate the way that typography can merge with urban design to create public spaces with a unique sense of place (spaces that attract people because they are pleasurable and/or engaging, involve social encounters and immersion in the sights, sounds, and atmosphere of the  locale). Typography will be inspired, on the visual and conceptual level, from specific sites and locations in the city where bilingual (Latin and Arabic) textual communication can be employed to emphasize the  experience of the city. The design teams consisting of Dutch and Arab designers and architects (5 teams  of each 2 graphic/type designers and one architect) will explore this idea of type in the built environment. Intercultural dialogue is scripted within the working process and the project’s source material: (Dutch and Arab/Middle Eastern visual street culture, Atabic-Latin/dual-script lettering systems, built urban environmental design).

The project aims to create expressive type designs and applications, translating culturally-relevant messages (or gestures) into concrete design products (lettering systems and 3D prototypes). The fonts developed will be made from scratch (both the Latin and Arabic) designed at the same time and inspired by each other’s script traditions, and will be applied as poetic narratives in the form of participatory public art into the public spaces of two parallel cities: Dubai and Amsterdam.” (khtt.net)

The ” Typographic Matchmaking in the City V2.0 ” project is generously supported by Fonds BKVB (The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture) and the Mondriaan Foundation.

“Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares will be presenting the Typographic Matchmaking in the City 2.0 project at the XIN ICOGRADA Bejing 09 World Design Congress. The presentation will use the project case studies to explore what it means to push the notion of typography and space beyond the confines of reading (from paper) to other aspects of experiencing communication and placemaking, using architectural space and materials as integral components” (khtt.net)

I’m proud to announce that I will be launching and signing my first comic book on August 12th, 2009, at Art Lounge at 6:30 PM! The book contains 39 selected stories from my blog, Maya’s Amalgam criticizing Lebanon on the social level, using a sarcastic/humorous tone.

Poster

Hope to see you all there! ^^

Someone plagiarized a poster Khajag and I had done three years ago posted on this page in 2007.
It’s an another one of those anti-smoking posters with arabic type (of course), done at a time when i didn’t smoke yet.

Well, times have changed and so did the poster! A certain student used the poster, changed a few things and submitted it as hers. Revising the diacritic dots color, remodeling the typographical sub headline and adding an ashtray is what it took for this poster to pass the end of year exhibition committee and make it to the printed catalog.

I felt flattered at first then it made me think…

I did get closely inspired by a lot of things i saw especially when i was still a design student.
Few years after, I learned to genuinely appreciate the genius in other people’s work.

The glorified state of creativity is a complex one where subconscious and self expression surface back. The word “create” itself entails something sort of divine. But Design is not Art even if the act of designing remains very personal. And so does the outcome.

Sometimes we just feel insecure and opt for settling down for something that looks like something else already there. It’s a recurrent warranty request, common around clients wishing to look like someone else already out there. We are afraid of the unknown, insecure about what’s ahead, doubtful of the result. Young designers hold back while great masters embrace doubt as a new venue for new ideas. DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY, Milton Glaser.

That said, students mustn’t plagiarize and fresh graduates must be told what’s wrong and what’s acceptable before the end of a 4-year design program. Universities shouldn’t allow work like that to pass the end of year exhibition committee and be printed in the graphic design end of year catalog.

Back in November, ArabAd magazine launched its cancer v/s creativity poster competition.

My contribution to the event was a typographical simple approach outlining the main message in two words, cancel and cancer. A word pun visually representing malignant organisms and the letter “L” representing light and hope of being cured. The tag line reads “The hope to beat cancer dies when you stop believing”.

My poster was not a winner.Below are pictures of the spread of the magazine. It is specialized in  the advertising filed in the Gulf region and the Middle-east but has been lately shedding more light on cultural and design projects…

Two days ago was the day I submitted my resignation at work. I thought it would be a simple procedure. In fact, I was bored of the monotony. I felt as if I was captive in a cage or in an aquarium. My vision of work was as illustrated below.

The monotony of captivity

But… I guess emotional attachment is normal when you look at things from a bigger perspective. 

Designers

Developers

The International Society of Typographic Design publishes its ISTD Condensed every now and then to connect its members with each other through their works and writings. I was happy to know that some of our works were selected to be in this issue.

Boujour, the experimental bilingual typeface, is shown in the back cover of the issue. A typeface that is still in progress due to my studies.

Two other works of ThePlace, ‘Duwaera’ by Wael and my ‘Moudwi’, were part of our previous instructor, friend, Yara Khoury Nammour’s article It’s the best of times… Arabic Type Design’, where she talks about her experience in teaching Arabic type design in universities around the Middle East. Yara explains how students approach the Arabic type design from a Latin-based point of view, “… As a student, you mark your baseline, set your x-height, ascenders, descenders, and voila you can start drawing Arabic-looking forms between those lines…”. After talking about the process the student goes through, dealing with the complexity of the Arabic script, she concludes by pointing out the importance of a hint of  traditional craftsmanship in designing a new yet true successful Arabic typeface.

Finally we are pleased to see the work of newly graduate Rebecca Mourani’s work part of the issue.

A couple of months ago The Khatt Foundation and the trend-setting company Mosaiques, in collaboration with Dubai-based design gallery Traffic organized a competition to design limited edition vinyl stickers under the theme ‘Reinvent our space, bring the middle east home’.

My submission, entitled If walls had ears… eyes & mouths, was selected by the jury to be among the 20 finalists of the competition.

Inspired by the famous, rather middle-eastern proverb if walls had ears I elaborated the concept with an analogy to the famous 3 wise monkeys’ saying: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The idea focuses on the fact that walls are better off not seeing, hearing or speaking about what happens in the room or anywhere else. Away from evil, away from gossips.

The maxim was presented in Arabic with a blocky, new and fresh type, creating an interresting pattern on your wall.

The icons were also designed accordingly.

These limitted edition vinyl stickers will be exhibited in Traffic Gallery, Dubai, from November 13th till December 5th of 2008. They will also be sold online, for this I will update soon with more detailed information.

Thanks to the jury members Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares, Rami Farook, Nadine Kanso, Nada Debs, Grace Yacoub, Pascale Balze & Nathalie Helmer, the Khatt foundation, Mosaiques communication and Traffic Design Gallery.

Alamillo, Barqueta, Triana

After my return from a trip to Sevilla, Spain, I tried to graphically capture my memories and impressions from this magical region of the world.

One of the things that characterize the city – and help you to locate – is its river, the ‘Guadalquivir’ and its bridges. I tried to remember them through hand drawings on kraft paper [above], through graphical abstraction in vector illustration [below].

Guadalquivir representation

The Alamillo bridge, is famous for its gravity-challenging approach, built by architect Santiago Calatrava for the ‘92 exposición universal.

The Barqueta bridge decorates the Macarena area with its white and red colors that shine on sunny days.

The Triana bridge is the same bridge present in Paris, built by architect Gustave Eiffel.

The mixture of history and background makes the river a unique blend of history and civilization.

Last but not least, photography experimentations to represent the bridges…

Photo_Bridges

Alamillo Grid

Bridges Pattern

Khtt foundation has recently launched a vinyl sticker competition with an Arabic twist theme into it. The following was my submission.

I always considered home as a place of self discovery and bringing back cherished thoughts to save them and preserve them infront of one’s presence…

For Maroun Abboud, and for me as well, the expression “خلا البيت إلّا منا” was an invitation to run free with his imagination and discover life from inside his home.
This Lebanese writer whose extracts fill the arabic reading books of young pupils, inspired me to combine the idea of framing memories, thoughts and inspirations on a wall with vinyl stickers.
The sentence “خلا البيت إلّا منا” is transformed into a typographical stripe that can be broke down into parts. These parts are then assimilable and customizable frames. The vynil strip thus acts as sticking frames and decorational forms.

This is my personal interpretation when it comes to the situation in Lebanon. Just as we hope it’s over, it always starts again.

“war is over”, “tarararam” (music of the Lebanese National Anthem)…

After the Qatar agreement that put an end to an agonizing 9 months period of political frustration and social crises, Lebanese rejoiced and expressed their enthusiasm by firing bullets in the air. A dozen of people got seriously injured as everything that goes up must come down. On other occasions people died this way. This sparked new frictions between supporters of different political groups related to the victims.

The cedar tree of the Lebanese flag is the national symbol of Lebanon, eternity and life. As our country gets shaped over the decades by never ending conflicts, maybe it’s time to replace our headstrong cedar with a curling winding twisting spiral. (tarararam) (music of the Lebanese National Anthem).