A designer by day.

My biggest concern when it comes to this blog is personalizing it. I know nothing about CSS and I try my best to work within the available blogger templates while still trying to maintain a minimalistic and clear design. One of the last dilemmas I faced while changing it is whether to use a serif or a sans serif for the body text. I was always under the impression that serif is more readable due to the serifs that guide the horizontal flow of the eyes. After all, there must be a good reason why all books we read are set in serifs. However, turns out for the screen it’s different.

I’ve found a great article that explains the pros and cons. The main argument that kind of does it for me is a technical one.

“When typefaces are digitized for use on computers, the letter forms have to fit within a relatively small pixel grid, often leading to what are called the “jaggies”. Many web professionals such as graphic designers claim that this relatively low resolution cannot render effectively enough the fine finishing strokes of serif typefaces, and that sans serif typefaces lend themselves more naturally to being digitized, and come out cleaner and thus more legible.”

Make sure to read the whole thing for a more extensive explanation. It’s really well researched and written with great references.

Last week, there was something on the news about a statue of Said Akl being unveiled in Zahle in his homage. It reminded me of this article I had read a couple of years ago about Said Akl's "Lebanese Language" in Bidoun Magazine.

I'm someone who loves the Arabic language and who won't go into the "Are we Arabs or Phoenicians" argument because it doesn't matter to me, we're all passers-by. But you have to salute Said Akl's radical nationalism (and I'm not necessarily referring to his rather controversial political views here, only to his literary ones).

So Akl's "Lebanese" is a Latinate version of colloquial Arabic, rooted in ancient Phoenician script. It uses Latin letters in addition to a few newly designed letters and some accented Latin letters to suit the Lebanese phonology. Below is an image of his alphabet.

I remember when my online life started almost 10 years ago. Back then, the term “blog” wasn’t so much in use; at least I wasn’t that familiar with it. Back then, the hype was journals. The trend was to keep online diaries, to share everyday life with friends and strangers alike. It’s true, some stuck to the direct meaning of a diary, while others broadened it through photo galleries, links and more general entries. Yet still “blogging” as we know it today wasn’t really “in”. Now the blogosphere keeps growing exponentially. It isn’t just about personal opinions and interests; it’s about exposure, being present on the web. It’s a must for every marketing strategy, for every starting business. Whatever your favorite topic, you’ll find a blog about it. That is why I always find myself wondering about whether to blog or not to blog.