Lebanese Army - is it a faux pas?

Before I start getting the backlash, I wish to emphasize that not only was I previously in the Lebanese Army (as a lieutenant during my military service) but that later I was responsible for some of their ads and know how difficult it is to come up with new themes year after year for them.

Today, August 1st is army day, and more than ever we need their presence and actions and rally around them. But their ad this year, felt pompous with the "we are the right and people's hope" - the "we" bit ruined it all. The ad felt very self-praising, aggrandizing, and haughty.

It's a pity considering they produced some incredible gems in the past  and here I am thinking of "min al el dam ma bye2leb may" (who said blood does not turn into water?) which is a take on the local proverb "blood does not turn into water" (which emphasizes family ties) but in their case it was about the many casualties they suffered in southern Lebanon while still being able to get water after Israel's withdrawal (the visual was that of former Lebanese president Emile Lahoud drinking from the said water from what was now a liberated land).

Perhaps next year's ad will go back to a better tone. Till then, all best wishes to the army.

Ksara: the sun stood still while setting

Ksara came up with a super summerish campaign, makes me regret I used the title "of all these things is made my summer wine" not so long ago as it is very fitting for this post. Still, there are three visuals, the one above, one with a man and a woman with their lips about to be interlocked with the line "linger", and one of a group of friends eating at dusk with the headline "long lunch". I believe the third is something the client wanted so bad to add some diversity to the "couple" themes (and it's the weakest of the campaign). The other two fill the spot correctly. The major flaw of the campaign however is the copy... it's simply superfluous! You already have "sip summer" so why add "pause", "linger", or "long lunch"?

You want to stress anticipation? You want to induce the sense of farniente and Dolce Vita? Good... Then why dumb it down as if the consumer would never get what you are saying with the visual. And if you really - and I mean really - want to add a line, at least let it be something that would add value to the already good visual and layout (plus the "sip summer").

What would really have made a difference would have been some classy Arabic all while keeping the English signature, I really felt this campaign would have went stratospheric if the line "wel chams bi lahzet l'ghyab..." (والشمس بلحظة الغياب) which is taken from Wael Kfoury's breakthrough hit and a reference to the line "and the sun at the time of setting, would standstill for a week" (والشمس بلحظة الغياب تبقى جمعة بمحلها).

Taxi night is back

Reseach credit GH (soon to be GM)

Taxi nightis back, and apart from the laudable effort of actually getting drunk people home and thus avoiding fatalities, their ads this year are quite on the spot. "So you feel suffocated in a taxi? And you don't in an ambulance?" and the second is a play on words for "trou7 w terja3 bil saleme" (may you go and come back safely) with "terja3" turned into "teskar" (get drunk). At a time where the market seems more than dead, this is a refreshing injection.

36 Photos by Tarek Chemaly on 7UPstairs Publishing

Today, I am pleased to bring you "36 photos" a film that lingered in the camera far too long before being exposed. Actually, the works are originally part of my Superm-Art-ket exhibition (plus a few previously unreleased works) which took place in early 2002 (but the works themselves were done between 1996 and 2001). The current versions have been reworked so as to respect the people who own the artworks (either as sale or gift or other means of acquisition). I hope you enjoy.

Below are a couple of internal pages:

323699 - Tarek Chemaly

Monsters from the bullet hole - Tarek Chemaly

The Loewe Meccano and the Lebanese collective memory

The current Loewe collection includes so many references to Meccano with the new creative director Jonathan Anderson taking the helm (shoes, charms, and a silk scarf seen above). I post this not as a fashion item but more like a social observation. My quest to find that point where personal remembrances become collective memories and hence induce a sense of community and in extenso a national identity will never cease. Note that Meccano made it to my "Lebanon's History Book" project.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

And lest we forget, in another artwork entitled "Meccano" from the Bouée series.

Detail from Meccano by Tarek Chemaly

When I grow up I want to be Telmo Pieper

All images (c) Telmo Pieper



When artist Telmo Pieper found a set of childhood sketches, he went back and made real life drawings out of them... All skewed proportions, odd shapes, and realistically unrealistic execution, the project reeks of genius. By the same token, it's me who invented the Smart car with my lego set (I would always do that odd shape of a two seater and no one figured out why I would do that - until the future proved me right).

El azra2 ghab/Dominant rouge series by Tarek Chemaly

...And for everything else there's Mastercard (Tarek Chemaly)

Bathhouses by the river (Tarek Chemaly)

Food for thought (Tarek Chemaly)

Happy meals (Tarek Chemaly)

At a time when photos were still developed, and when one
still needed to wait for the film roll to finish before doing so, one time it
took the family forever to do so and when the photos were
developed, they were dominant red in color. So a friend explained “with time
the Kodak loses its blue”. Based on that concept, I went back to small digital
works done between 2000-2001 and another batch done in 2003 and eliminated the
blue (and green) to have them fully red in colors. The title of the series comes
from a song by Romeo Lahoud originally sang by Salwa Katrib “Khidni ma3ak”
(take me with you) specifically the time “matra7 ma lawn en azra2 ghab” (when
the color blue has vanished).

Solet Tapis - I see dead logos

Remember Haley Joel Osment from the Sixth Sense fame and the line "I see dead people"? Well, I guess I am someone who keeps seeing dead logos. I think (I am seriously not sure) that Solet Tapis did a logo change... The reason I am hesistant is simple - their old logo is e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. and the new one is on some banners (I think some delivery trucks too)... It seems the new one is morer in lowe case (the older one was in capital letters) except for the letter S that is. And the word is now written in attached letters in a sleeker more agile font. What is kept is how the s eventually underlines the logo like a carpet itself.

The still not opened solet.me website displays the following:

Which seems to validate the theory that indeed, the logo has changed (and a selling line has been added, which is to be fair adequate to the brand - meaning it doesn't overpromise nor is it cheap)... If only they would let the old one die in peace.

Camera not working in Micromax A250

In Micromax Canvas turbo i.e. A250 camera often failed to start and camera app only display a black screen the root cause for the issue is that mediaserver process is having open handles to camera device (see screenshot below). To make the camera work again either restart phone or kill mediaserver process if device is rooted using below script.

su -c "kill `pidof mediaserver`"

Petition against importing water

Concerning the recent rumble by the Lebanese government to import water from Turkey, when we actually have a water management problem and not a water shortage, please join me in signing this petition on change.org against such a money-wasting decision an in favor of a better management scheme!

Gender Bender - taking it like a... Man?

Remember those blatantly sexist ads? Holly Eagleson and Lauren Wade have come up with a beautiful project, on how to make men pose in the same way as women do in advertising - objectified, made into a commodity and stripped from the minimum bare of humanity. So there, now we know how it feels like.

The project is also on par with a different one done by Alicia Elfving whereby bikers get to have the treatment women get for showcasing motorcycles. The result is nothing less than mind blowing.

Perhaps the most intriguing case of gender bending goes to Eram with their classic "no women's bodies have been exploited for this advertising!

Bouchar - a new series by Tarek Chemaly

Bouchar, or pop corn, a comfort food for the times when
things don’t go right. Whereas normally synonymous with movie outings and
family gatherings in front of TV, my own associations were bleaker and darker.
More like burned and spurned ones rather than the full white popped grains.

Kneider sweeps the floor with Caillebotte's... floor scarpers

Phot credit - Maya Metni

For those who do not know the visual above - before it got screwed that is (oh sorry, before it was "improved upon") by Kneider or whomever does their atrocious visual - used to be by Caillebotte. It was spotted by fellow ad enthusiast Maya Metni as a supreme example how a beautiful work is added to with incredibly misplaced sense of art direction to produce such a disappointing result. Oh and if you want to toy around with previous art, why not follow Maya's footseps with her use of Hockney for Rectangle Jaune?

How Scott King sank American Vogue.

July Vogue issue by Scott King

August Vogue issue by Scott King

September Vogue issue by Scott King

November Vogue issue by Scott King

Now that's a refreshing read on a Monday! Former i-D art director and Sleazenation creative director (if you don't know either then stick to Vogue and get uneducated) takes over Vogue in an artistic project which sees him redoing the covers. Whereas the work dates back to 2006, it has been having a moment in the sun for being featured in Fashion Cultures happening at various venues in Glasgow.

The project takes a leaf from all anti-consumerist manifestos, and has not exactly displaced Anna Wintour, but some of those covers still feel refreshingly maverick (even if the cultural references on some of them - Paris Hilton, Cherrie Blair appear dated with age).

The "advertisting free issue" which proclaims "14 pages!" is epic. What can I say?

"Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking!"

Citroen 2 CV: a tale of two horses.

 

 Arabiyyet jiddi lawnayn kanou yjerrouha hsanayn - my grandther has a carriage in two colors drawn by two horses... Here are so fine examples of 2 CV (2 Chevaux!) parading in the streets of Beirut. Whereas technically, the photos below are not 2 CV, they can still belong to this post - another example of Cacheology.