For the first time in my school time—and luckily it happened before I graduated—I didn't care for what my end product was like at the end of my semester, all I'm interested in is the perspective change that happened to me over this semester. I've been designing for the past 9 years of my life and it never occurred to me that design isn't just what i do when I'm at work or school. Design is the lens in which the designer should be looking at the world through, interesting and yet needs lots and lots of practice to be able to do it. Ironically enough i find myself concluding what was said the first day of the past semester... connections are everywhere and the designer's job is to find those connections and make use of them.
I'm so glad to have had this semester the way it was, and i don't thing i would change that experience with anything else.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Tree of Wisdom
Towards the beginning of my project, I took my teacher's advice when she said "just make things... not everything you make has to be made for a specific reason."
The tree never made it to the book... and it wasn't really meant to be a component. It's become a physical representation of my incomplete journey... whatever accomplished looks promising, but it's still far from looking complete.
The tree never made it to the book... and it wasn't really meant to be a component. It's become a physical representation of my incomplete journey... whatever accomplished looks promising, but it's still far from looking complete.
Half & Half
I've finally finished my book "Half&Half" that talks about the connections between the Eastern and the Western artists within me. check it out for yourself
Monday, February 23, 2009
what have i become a graphic designer?
it's a question that i have asked myself many times, but never really took the time to investigate it. tracing back my inspirations, influences...etc would be a good way to better understand myself and consequently gives a better control over my strengths and weaknesses.
in an attempt to find out more about myself, i have written somethings about me.
Why have I become a designer?
Drawing: it was more engaging for me than watching a magic trick. The way my dad applied colors to the canvas. There I stood without a move, watching how the brush takes one color from the color pallet and goes to another to make a third color out of both of them. I was so fascinated when I examined the new color up close, there was still streaks of the two component colors in that new color, just enough to maintain their personalities: this is not just green… this is a mix of yellow and blue and my father’s touch, though it looks an awful a lot like green. Every time the brush struck the canvas, some new color resulted, even when using the same color. I was pretty sure there were not even two stokes that had the same exact color. I mean really think of it now… it was a lot more exciting than a magic show, don’t you think?
I loved how my dad stepped back and squinted his eyes, I did it too just to repeat him. I never knew why but it made me feel like an artist, and it wasn’t till later on when it did make me an artist. At the end of each painting I was sharing that overwhelming feeling with my dad “do you remember how blank and boring this canvas was a week ago before I put my touch on it” I could almost hear it coming out of my dad’s smirk as he’s looking at his new accomplishment. It made me an accomplishment addict before I even new what it means to accomplish something, and ever since I’ve been chasing that feeling. Money didn’t cut it for me, neither did travel nor relationships… I needed to make new accomplishments, new creations to feel like I’m still alive.
Reading: I have such a hate/love relationship with reading. The more I read the more I come to realize how far behind I am, and how much more knowledge I need. I started reading from an early age and it was my dad again who bought me the illustrated encyclopedia, a sequence of 7 books about different topics. I did not like reading those books at first, though the beautiful illustrations triggered my curiosity every time I flipped through one of them, and the beautiful layout did away with the burden of reading, they were truly designed in such a great way that made those dry and boring topics so much more fun. One book after the other, my love to learning grew bigger and bigger, I loved that little praise I got from people when I knew something about an “adult topic” that they were talking about: oh my god jihad you’re so smart, I didn’t even know that. That fell into my accomplishments box, and every time an accomplishment has been made, it’s the call for another to be sought after.
Argument: when I turned 12, I started attending meetings in an organization called the orthodox movement where kids of the same age met with a mentor and talked about Christianity and faith and what have you. It was so weird how I always had an opinion and never could shut up and keep it to myself. I always wanted to discuss new topics and compare notes and see which point of view was closer to be the truth. Later on this kind of behavior influenced my reading when I started picking different books that have opposing points of view about a topic and see the way each argued their way through the book. When I got more involved in discussions and arguments I found out that you could never see true personalities of people unless you push them to their edge, and arguing is the best tool to do so.
The power of being persuasive was overwhelming, and I’m pretty sure that this obsession was caused by my own confusion about a lot of things. Between the age of 16 and 22 I had the biggest battle storming in my head; does god exist? And if he/she does, how did science prove things that totally contradicted with our faith. I believed in both of them but it only made sense to believe in one, so I started arguing with religion men taking a scientific stand point for a while, and then going the science-pro people and argue with them taking the religion side. seeking the ultimate truth was being reflected in an extremely argumentative personality. Later on in life I realized that there is no such thing as right or wrong argument… it’s the way you put your argument that determines if you’re right or wrong.
Having grown up as a Christian in a Muslim country and who later on had some atheist/scientific views, I had more topics to argue about. I never dared comparing Islam to any other points of view because that might have caused complications that I did not want to undergo, though that made it even a lot more interesting, the harder the argument the bigger the reward afterward. It was a matter of relying on common sense and reason: do you really think if you don’t wear a veil you will go to hell?? How could you believe in a god that cares for what you wear and doesn’t care for how you behave?? Do you really believe that god won’t accept your prayer if you don’t wash yourself in a very specific way? Sounds to me a little like a dictator, don’t you think?
Having an obsession about painting and drawing on one hand, and having another obsession about reading and arguing in the other hand, it was very natural for me to combine both of them in what a later was told called visual communication. It made more sense to me to use my art to get a point across to an audience than making a pure self-expression whereas my work revolves around me and just me.
Basketball: when I started playing basketball I didn’t think that was going to enrich my artistic background, it was just a sport that I loved. After a few months of playing I was introduced to the NBA and oh man was I not amazed by the logo. I thought it was genius to use the white space in between the blue and the red to form a basketball player. Then you could imagine my shock when I got an NBA catalogue for Christmas with all of the teams’ logos, I literally couldn’t stop looking at those logos. The logos were applied to uniforms, floors, T-shirts, back bags…etc I loved those logos so much that one day I picked my favorite, Miami Heat, and I got it tattooed on my shoulder, keep in mind where I come from wasn’t the most technological place back then, so I had it done old style, by hand without a machine.
Calligraphy: arabic calligraphy is considered a sacred art in any islamic country. it was the tool to show god's words on paper, that's why it had to be perfected so it wouldn't demean the context. arabic calligraphy is very much like typography, it is the art of using the white space that contains the letters to make them look perfect. on the other hand it's much like expressive typography where words' appearance is modified to better represents the meanings of the words. having grown up in this environment, i learned to appreciate the blank space in design as if it was a sacred tool. the sense of repetition of the pen's strokes, holding just enough of white space in between, and extending just long enough to reenforce the meaning of the word made me later on a minimalist/modernist where i believe that things have to mean something, and using the black space should be even more planned that the designed space. by looking back at it now, i think arabic calligraphy was one of the aspects that made me lean toward being a designer over being a fine artist. my fascination with those beautiful forms might have influenced me to design graphics and simple visual values.
this note in a work in progress so i'll be adding more soon.
in an attempt to find out more about myself, i have written somethings about me.
Why have I become a designer?
Drawing: it was more engaging for me than watching a magic trick. The way my dad applied colors to the canvas. There I stood without a move, watching how the brush takes one color from the color pallet and goes to another to make a third color out of both of them. I was so fascinated when I examined the new color up close, there was still streaks of the two component colors in that new color, just enough to maintain their personalities: this is not just green… this is a mix of yellow and blue and my father’s touch, though it looks an awful a lot like green. Every time the brush struck the canvas, some new color resulted, even when using the same color. I was pretty sure there were not even two stokes that had the same exact color. I mean really think of it now… it was a lot more exciting than a magic show, don’t you think?
I loved how my dad stepped back and squinted his eyes, I did it too just to repeat him. I never knew why but it made me feel like an artist, and it wasn’t till later on when it did make me an artist. At the end of each painting I was sharing that overwhelming feeling with my dad “do you remember how blank and boring this canvas was a week ago before I put my touch on it” I could almost hear it coming out of my dad’s smirk as he’s looking at his new accomplishment. It made me an accomplishment addict before I even new what it means to accomplish something, and ever since I’ve been chasing that feeling. Money didn’t cut it for me, neither did travel nor relationships… I needed to make new accomplishments, new creations to feel like I’m still alive.
Reading: I have such a hate/love relationship with reading. The more I read the more I come to realize how far behind I am, and how much more knowledge I need. I started reading from an early age and it was my dad again who bought me the illustrated encyclopedia, a sequence of 7 books about different topics. I did not like reading those books at first, though the beautiful illustrations triggered my curiosity every time I flipped through one of them, and the beautiful layout did away with the burden of reading, they were truly designed in such a great way that made those dry and boring topics so much more fun. One book after the other, my love to learning grew bigger and bigger, I loved that little praise I got from people when I knew something about an “adult topic” that they were talking about: oh my god jihad you’re so smart, I didn’t even know that. That fell into my accomplishments box, and every time an accomplishment has been made, it’s the call for another to be sought after.
Argument: when I turned 12, I started attending meetings in an organization called the orthodox movement where kids of the same age met with a mentor and talked about Christianity and faith and what have you. It was so weird how I always had an opinion and never could shut up and keep it to myself. I always wanted to discuss new topics and compare notes and see which point of view was closer to be the truth. Later on this kind of behavior influenced my reading when I started picking different books that have opposing points of view about a topic and see the way each argued their way through the book. When I got more involved in discussions and arguments I found out that you could never see true personalities of people unless you push them to their edge, and arguing is the best tool to do so.
The power of being persuasive was overwhelming, and I’m pretty sure that this obsession was caused by my own confusion about a lot of things. Between the age of 16 and 22 I had the biggest battle storming in my head; does god exist? And if he/she does, how did science prove things that totally contradicted with our faith. I believed in both of them but it only made sense to believe in one, so I started arguing with religion men taking a scientific stand point for a while, and then going the science-pro people and argue with them taking the religion side. seeking the ultimate truth was being reflected in an extremely argumentative personality. Later on in life I realized that there is no such thing as right or wrong argument… it’s the way you put your argument that determines if you’re right or wrong.
Having grown up as a Christian in a Muslim country and who later on had some atheist/scientific views, I had more topics to argue about. I never dared comparing Islam to any other points of view because that might have caused complications that I did not want to undergo, though that made it even a lot more interesting, the harder the argument the bigger the reward afterward. It was a matter of relying on common sense and reason: do you really think if you don’t wear a veil you will go to hell?? How could you believe in a god that cares for what you wear and doesn’t care for how you behave?? Do you really believe that god won’t accept your prayer if you don’t wash yourself in a very specific way? Sounds to me a little like a dictator, don’t you think?
Having an obsession about painting and drawing on one hand, and having another obsession about reading and arguing in the other hand, it was very natural for me to combine both of them in what a later was told called visual communication. It made more sense to me to use my art to get a point across to an audience than making a pure self-expression whereas my work revolves around me and just me.
Basketball: when I started playing basketball I didn’t think that was going to enrich my artistic background, it was just a sport that I loved. After a few months of playing I was introduced to the NBA and oh man was I not amazed by the logo. I thought it was genius to use the white space in between the blue and the red to form a basketball player. Then you could imagine my shock when I got an NBA catalogue for Christmas with all of the teams’ logos, I literally couldn’t stop looking at those logos. The logos were applied to uniforms, floors, T-shirts, back bags…etc I loved those logos so much that one day I picked my favorite, Miami Heat, and I got it tattooed on my shoulder, keep in mind where I come from wasn’t the most technological place back then, so I had it done old style, by hand without a machine.
Calligraphy: arabic calligraphy is considered a sacred art in any islamic country. it was the tool to show god's words on paper, that's why it had to be perfected so it wouldn't demean the context. arabic calligraphy is very much like typography, it is the art of using the white space that contains the letters to make them look perfect. on the other hand it's much like expressive typography where words' appearance is modified to better represents the meanings of the words. having grown up in this environment, i learned to appreciate the blank space in design as if it was a sacred tool. the sense of repetition of the pen's strokes, holding just enough of white space in between, and extending just long enough to reenforce the meaning of the word made me later on a minimalist/modernist where i believe that things have to mean something, and using the black space should be even more planned that the designed space. by looking back at it now, i think arabic calligraphy was one of the aspects that made me lean toward being a designer over being a fine artist. my fascination with those beautiful forms might have influenced me to design graphics and simple visual values.
this note in a work in progress so i'll be adding more soon.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Find Faces
this is an amazing experiment that i saw online many times and i didn't feel like repeating what other people did, then i found it in the book so i thought to myself what the hell... let's see what comes out of it. at first i was finding the obvious faces that anybody could find almost without even trying... then i got real bored so i started looking into little things that i haven't thought of before, and started finding face. now after i found a tremendous amount of faces all over i was thinking what if those faces were actually alive... like what if they are watching us? maybe some organization designed everything around us in a way that we are being watched in every minute of our lives, and that's when i remembered "The Truman Show", is this idea possible?? i sure hope not
then i began to panic so i thought of lightning up and as i was going through the pictures i took again, i saw an incredible resemblance with cartoons characters that i have seen in my life... and there comes another question, are we influenced by our surroundings to the point of seeing the hidden faces and not even realizing that they registering in our minds, and later on showing up in our work? i don't know but i kinda liked this idea better than being watched by some bunch of weirdos... however check out what i found.
Monday, February 9, 2009
surroundings of typography
it is quite amazing how much type there is around us that we don't even pay the slightest attention to. my exploration started by taking normal pictures of different type related visuals around me, and then evolved to looking in places that aren't right on the surface, such as the wall behind a dumpster or the back side of the dumpster itself and such , and then evolved again to looking for type placed on very high places (having a big lens allowed me to find things that i really wasn't expecting). in a part of my trip i started collecting photos of house number signs and somehow i felt like they reflected an image about the people living in those houses, it almost felt like there wasn't two identical signs. however, eventually i just used my regular pictures to make my connections for the richness of ideas that could be generated with them.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
another experiment
those experiments are making me rethink the way i looking at things, think of things, read things...etcat the beginning of every experiment, i just feel like what the hell am i looking for? and there is really no direction... it's like I'm doing anything and hoping that I'm onto something. i mean really think of it this way, i was sketching things that i never noticed at my girlfriend's place, and then trying to connect them to things that i have read from design books such as maeda's new book or beirut's book... sounds almost impossible. though it's making me realize that everything really is connected and it's all about the designer's way of looking at it.
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