Category: Branding
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Nouveauté
I once dreamt that I was transported back in time and drove through the streets of Amman, maybe in the 1960s. Who were those people who built these handsome houses? Who opened the shops with neatly calligraphed signs.
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iOS7′s design: European minimalism triumphing over American quirkiness and fun?
Yesterday I had my first chance to use iOS7. I played with it for an hour on an iPad (actually my mother’s iPad which my younger brother has used to check out the iOS 7 beta releases). Before showing it to me, he showed it to my 10 year old son, who certainly can be…
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Google’s design mess: Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich adds to the problem
That lock screen looks promising, doesn’t it. That’s how Google’s newest version of Android looks. It is a major release of Android, and one of its major features was to supposedly make its design “lovable”. As Android’s design chief Matias Duarte himself said: people sort of respected Android, but no one loved it. Its latest…
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Taj Mall opens: the (still dusty) crown of Jordan’s shopping?
The opening of a major mall in Jordan in this post-financial-crisis era is certainly an event to watch. We live in very different times compared to, say, 2005, when we were awash in Gulf money and grand real estate dreams. Can developers and retailers pull off another mall in a market were people are…
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A universal logo for human rights: vote for your favorite now
A few months ago I was appointed as a jury member of an amazing global design competition. The aim: to create a universally accepted logo for human rights. Peace has its symbol. Religions have their symbols. Global non profits and corporations also have their all-present symbols. But universal human rights, which have become part of…
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iOS vs Android: does “open” really always win?
Google’s Android seems unstoppable. The Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas over the past few days, has seen the launch and announcement of an huge number of gadgets running Android, including so-called iPad killers like the Motorola XOOM, which be running Android’s next big version, Honeycomb. Google is switching on 300,000 new Android devices…
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Amman the FFilm: a font, a city, and a piece of my life..
From a message I sent Yanone, the designer of the FF Amman typeface after watching a preview of this film he created. “Ok.. I just watched the entire film. On my iPad.. The film had a strange effect on me. Somehow it encapsulated my career and life for the last 10 years. It’s not just…
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Wamda: it started with a spark, now in beta!
For the past seven months, our company duo, SYNTAX and Spring has been working on their most revolutionary web project to date. What was just a sketchy idea by early 2010, has become a groundbreaking, living, breathing web venture: Wamda.com, a hub that, for the first time, creates a focal point for the Middle East’s…
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Rescue downtown Amman from the “Bab Al-7ara” attack!
King Faisal Square in 1958. From Getty Images: http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/3378711/Hulton-Archive Does the Amman Municipality and do Ammanis want that Amman’s downtown is turned into a a cheap-looking touristic area? Because that’s EXACTLY what is happening at an alarming speed. I had breakfast at Hashem, the famous Hummous and Fuul restaurant yesterday and then went for a…
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Wamda, a hub for the region’s entrepreneurs and change-makers will go into private-beta soon
Nothing like being able to start showing people what I’ve been immersed in the past few months! It’s been a crazy journey for the team at SYNTAX and Spring and it will only get crazier. What was a sketchy idea a few months ago has turned into a full fledged project with a powerful vision:…
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Brands in translation: Are Arab consumers oversensitive wimps?
Can someone please explain this to me: brands and slogans that totally loose their edge when introduced into Arab markets. Here are three examples: I bought this shaving cream the other day. The tagline/product identifier say “Cool Kick” in English. The Arabic translates into “Cool Touch”. Oh how soft and nice! Arab men can’t take…
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The NYTimess writes about Amman (and my fellow bloggers and tweeps complain)
I really love my fellow Ammani bloggers and tweeps. I really think that they are one of the best things that happened to us in the last ten years. I love that many of them have give a voice to Amman’s urban issues and urban activism. But sometimes they have me shaking my head with…