A designer by day.

What better way to fill a gloomy Sunday morning than with some nice type experiments? I was thinking about this exercise for quite a while now, trying to find a way to involve people with typography. I think people aren't aware of the impact typography has on their minds. So, I picked a few famous movies, and imitated the font the movie title was written in to draw different words that are also clues to what the movie is.

So come on, try to guess the following movies and tell me your results in the comments section!

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.

So while doing some research today I found this!

Various forms of dysfunction appear among populations exposed to typography for long periods of time. Listed here are a number of frequently observed afflictions :

Typophilia
An excessive attachment to and fascination with the shape of letters, often to the exclusion of other interests and object choices. Typophiliacs usually die penniless and alone.

Typophobia
The irrational dislike of letterforms, often marked by a preference for icons, dingbats, and—in fatal cases—bullets and daggers. The fears of the typophobe can often be quieted (but not cured) by steady doses of Helvetica and Times Roman.

Typochondria
A persistent anxiety that one has selected the wrong typeface. This condition is often paired with okd (optical kerning disorder), the need to constantly adjust and readjust the spaces between letters.

Typothermia
The promiscuous refusal to make a lifelong commitment to a single typeface—or even to five or six, as some doctors recommend. The typothermiac is constantly tempted to test drive "hot" new fonts, often without a proper license."

I'm sure we've all felt obsessive about type but now it's been pinned down to our faces! It's official. We are sick (or at least I am!).

This is according to Ellen Lupton.

It took me a while (a pretty long one actually) to figure out how to go about this one, then I thought I'd mess around with the awesome blend tool in Illustrator and this is where it got me!

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.

So I decided to try out the "Lebanese Oldies" series digitally and here's what it looks like! So what do you think? Should I rework the others too?























Sorry bout the name but a designer's gotta do what a designer's gotta do!

I had the chance yesterday to attend a typography workshop with Tarek Atrissi.
As a student, Tarek was always a sort of idol, himself being a lebanese student who travelled abroad for studies and then settled in the Netherlands to start a studio that will later on handle the most innovative arabic typography projects worldwide.

What was quite interesting about the conference/workshop is seeing the process of some projects and making out the difference between calligraphy, typography and lettering. I had always thought that I needed to be excellent at calligraphy in order to come up with good typographic design. Tarek made it clear that a designer can not be a calligrapher unless he puts lots of effort and most of his time into calligraphy. That is why a designer's job is mainly to know how to art direct calligraphers and typographers. I've always been someone who needs to be great at everything or nothing at all so this kind of gave me a wake up call to change my perspective!

I think I'm developing carpal tunnel syndrome from sketching and resketching the letters and moving from the sofa to the desk to the window! My room is anything but ergonomic.


Sami Clark was actually reviving the Golden Age at Orientis last weekend along with Abdou Mounzer and Petit Prince, but I found out about it a bit too late! I love it when there's a general wave of reviving Lebanese history. I think we forget too much as Lebanese.

This song should be in every lebanese wedding if you ask me. Enjoy it!

This is the most free-spirited arabic song I can think of! It's been a long time since I colored anything by hand but to honor the spirit of the song I thought I'd give it a go. The scanning kinda ruined it though! I'm thinking next up should be a Sami Clark song, who doesn't love that guy! :)

Enjoy the video!

There's nothing like a good old lebanese song to put a smile on my face. And this is my try at reviving these songs! This will be part of a series, experimenting with arabic typography. It's been ages since I've done any experimentation and I'm still not sure if this is the final version. So what do you people think?

For those of you who haven't heard about the event yet, Typographic Matchmaking in the City is coming to Beirut!

  




























The Typographic Matchmaking in the City project is a design research project investigating new approaches for bilingual lettering and poetic narrative for public space. The project have proven to be highly inspirational for the participating designers; it brought together designers from different cultural backgrounds to intensely collaborate, over a period of 2 years, on creating coherent products with groundbreaking results. This project shows the important role that design can play in initiating cultural change, assimilation and integration—by simply using our daily basic communication mode: the written word.

I am too lazy to have taste. I prefer to have my opinions already made for me. I hate all time-telling devices since i like to think of myself as timeless.
Favorite song: Hotel California
Favorite movie: The graduate

Google Plays With Helvetica, Comic Sans For April Fools' 2011 Gag

I had such a good laugh when I learned about this! Not many people will get it, some might actually enjoy a google page in all Comic Sans but for us designers, it's a very smart prank to pull!