Very cool anti littering awareness campaign designed by graphic design students Mohamed Olaymi,Nadine Razzouk and Lama Shehadeh. It’s a very simple idea, they printed out messages on the back of what looks like a folded LL10,000 note and dropped them in strategic places. When passerby’s notice the money on the floor they bend down to pick it up only to discover it’s not really money and instead find the anti littering message on the back. Here is a link to their [Facebook Page]

Thanks Razan

Does anyone else think that having an airplane crashing into a damn tree isn’t really the best idea for an airport to put up as Christmas decoration? I have a flight from Jeddah to Beirut tonight, and I really hope we don’t end up recreating this scene (Although it would be a bit hard to find a Christmas tree in the desert)

Weird weird weird looking display!

Does anyone understand the title of this post?

So a new burger place opened in Lebanon and I’m not sure if the owner is aware or not but his logo is a blatant rip-off of Johnny Rockets. Johnny Rockets is a popular US franchise that’s available all over the Middle East and they were even open in Lebanon back in the late 90s before they closed down. I remember before they closed down they were having incredible offers on their burgers. If you were a student you could have a burger for LL1,500 which was ridiculously cheap considering Coke cost LL4,500.

Thanks Patrick

You gotta adapt… Horses can’t play polo in the sand! You gotta use camels for that!

Spotted at Jeddah airport in Saudi Arabia

I’m a big fan of zaatar w zeit but I absolutely dislike their new identity as well as the new look and feel of their branches. With their new identity I feel like they’re leaving the Lebanese culture behind and heading towards a generic fast food chain look. Why drop the beautiful Arabic typography? Why go from warm, cozy and homy to cold and clinical?

Step 1: Add bullhorns to the top of the hood. Make sure it has a zebra pattern somewhere, you can never go wrong with zebra patterns

Step 2: Add skulls on the left and ride sides of the hood

Step 3: Don’t wash the car for a year

and voila… you get yourself a kickass ride!

Was this really the best way to preserve that old house in Sursoq street in Achrafieh ? by constructing on top of it and blocking its front view?

I would have preferred that they demolish it rather than screwing it up like that.

Naharnet is at last revamping their website. You can check out the new design by clicking [Here]. It’s still in beta but so far it’s a major improvement when compared to the old one. However, I didn’t like the Breaking News & Live News boxes since they occupy a lot of space and contain multiple information in them that keeps rotating. I prefer the new DailyStar better although both are actually very similar.

via BeirutSpring

Around 10 days back I posted about the new updated website for The Daily Star. My biggest issue with it was the fact it lacked any personality. So I decided to spend 15 minutes quickly putting together what I think would be a better version of their website. So the picture above is what’s currently there now and below is my remix.

Not a major change but enough to give it some sort of character. If I spent more time on this I would fix up the grid and spacing all over the page as well as get the font sizes in order since they currently use around 10 different sizes. So what do you guys think?

Update: I just realized how they could still keep a different color for every section, check the images below

The Daily Star website has finally been redesigned! It’s the third time since it’s gone under a major redesigned since it was launched back in the late 90s but even after the second redesign though it still looked and felt like an outdated news site from the 90s. It seems the third time is the charm since the new site is a lot cleaner than before, easier to use and also easier to read.

But, the only reason the site is great is because the old site was horrible. I personally think the new site lacks any personality when say compared to gulfnews.com or arabianbusiness.com. The header says it’s still in “BETA” stage so there might be more changes coming. In any case, check out the redesigned site [Here]

Thanks Haissam

The poster on the left is the We Run Beirut poster for their upcoming event while the poster on the right is the original version, a poster for the TV series Battle Star Galactica (one of the best shows ever). It’s a poster to a party, who the hell would be lazy enough to copy another poster instead of coming up with something creative for such a cool event?!

So I’m sitting at home watching TV when I get a phone call from my sister who was at the Virgin store at the Beirut Airport. She asked me if I had a book called Beirut Street Art. I told her no so she said one of my graffiti work was in the book so she bought it and passed it to me. Turns out someone took one of my pictures from my old flickr account and published it in the book along with a ton of other graffiti work.

Anyway the book is actually pretty crap especially for $30. The design and layout is unexciting, the paper used is cheap generic semi-gloss stuff and the whole thing is binded so poorly that it’s already falling apart after just flipping through the book twice. On the other hand the actual graffiti that’s featured is really good. Ignore mine since it’s probably the most basic one in the book but the rest are a lot more visually interesting. Most of you have probably seen them near Forum De Beyrouth and around Hamra. If you haven’t, skip on buying the book and just check out some of the most popular works on the blog Leb Graffiti [Here]

I saw the weirdest eyeglasses ever today, they were the SOS 101 by Nannini. I was having a business lunch when one of the businessmen suddenly pulled out these glasses to read the menu. I thought they looked pretty strange so I asked him about it and he told me he always carries a pair of these glasses wherever he goes and he has around 6 pairs.

These glasses are very flat and indestructible which makes them extremely portable and since they’re only around 10 Euros you can have multiple pairs, one for the car, one for the office, one at home etc. Check out their website [Here]

I just noticed Naharnet got a facelift. Nothing major but they’ve annoyingly inserted their Facebook activity on the left sidebar and added “In the spotlight” animated pictures below their live coverage among other things. Personally I think they need a complete revamp. The site looks extremely outdated and unorganized. [Link]