Laziz, more and more....

The love story between Beirut/NTSC and Laziz in Hamra keeps growing, today I had a meal there and the setting was so fantabulously amazing!.... Everything has a design edge to it, from the works on the wall, to the check jacket, to the colors of the rustic chairs (Which would be found in any village house kitchen).... Above are some of the treasures I managed to snap!

The devil wears... Swift?

A blatant theft has been spotted in terms of advertising - the poster of Swift - a shoes and bags store is directly knicked from the poster of The Devil Wears Prada... isn't that pathetic? In terms of thefts this one is not a swift one at all... On the contrary, it is insulting and in your face!

Chou "laziz" indeed!

Beirut/NTSC is in love with the newest eatery in town.... Laziz! Which means in Arabic "cute" for also cool or someone who is funny and also "delicious" this newest find from the Boubess group is so arabic-pop funky with its yellow and red traditional chairs, and its oh-so-cute decoration.... For once Beirut/NTSC is not showing any self-made photos but the original designs as provided by the Boubess marketing arm (Thanks Hady for the cooperation!). Truly an interesting concept that is both an eye candy and a good place to eat... We are in love with the check folder in the shape of the Lebanese passport, the 70s inspired corporate traymat and the badges in their different shapes.... A note to all readers, is that as opposed to other publications who get paid to put press releases and biased reviews on product, all Beirut/NTSC posts are neither sollicited nor endorsed by"clients" or brands and reflect purely personal and aesthetic judgement from my part.

Soon... a new street culture experience from 7UPstairs publishing!

Aterlier des medias - Beirut/NTSC interview

For those of you with fast connections listen to the interview of some of the Lebanese bloggers here: http://atelier.rfi.fr/profiles/blogs/emission-944-le-liban

Atelier des médias, une émission réalisée par Simon Decreuze . De passage à Beyrouth, l'Atelier des médias en a profité pour rencontrer une partie des blogueurs libanais. Quelques messages diffusés sur Twitter ou Facebook ont suffi à rassembler une vingtaine de blogueurs dans un café de la capitale libanaise pour les entendre parler de leur vie, de leur blog, de leur pays, du regard que les étrangers portent sur le Liban, de l'image qu'ils ont (eux, les blogueurs) de ce pays. Discussion passionnante entre des journalistes français (Pierre Haski de Rue89, Eric Scherer de l'AFP, Simon Decreuze et moi-même) et des blogueurs qui, pour beaucoup, ne s'étaient jamais rencontrés dans la vraie vie (IRL ou In Real Life comme le veut la formule prisée sur le Net). La disussion a roulé moitié en français, moitié en anglais. Et dès le lendemain, nous nous sommes retrouvés avec une poignée de ces blogueurs dans les locaux de Radio Liban (radio partenaire de RFI à Beyrouth) pour enregistrer cette édition spéciale de MondoBlog:

Samer Karam, est une des vedettes de la blogosphère libanaise avec son blog Bloggingbeirut lancé au moment de la guerre de 2006 et alimenté en continu depuis lors

Maya Zankoul, est graphiste et elle elle dessine son quotidien, ses envies, ses frustrations, ses enthousiames et ses colères de jeune femme sur son blog: Maya's amalgam

Tarek Chemaly est prof et journaliste et il blogue sur BeirutNTSC

David Hury est journaliste et, avec sa femme Nathalie Bontems (également journaliste), il tient le blog Chroniques beyrouthines depuis 2006

Jihad Bitar (membre de l'Atelier des médias) est consultant spéciliste des médias et blogueur.

PS: For those of you looking for me in the photo, as usual, I have missed my moments of fame by having my back to the camera!

A dyslexic ad?

The new McDonald's ad for McArabia Chicken features a very intriguing headline! One that is reversed!.... Maybe it is because Arabic is written from right to left as opposed to Latin from left to right so "flipping" the title will make it more Arabic.... in flavor :) However, since our brains are trained to read full words rather than letters, hence a lot of people did not even notice the trick.... Tom Cruise, a know dyslexic who got "treated", must feel like he had a relapse reading this one!

Altruism starts by... autrui!

The new Ramadan Campaign for Le Mall is quite intriguing... It pictures beggars in different parts of the city, dressed as models and tells the potential consumers of Le Mall that "everyone deserves new clothes" (Even Cheaib, who usually begs on the Corniche)... But what is interesting is that small fine print on the billboard only announces the opening hours of shops and restaurants in Le Mall. I had expected it to say that Le Mall shops are donating part of their profits for some association, but instead, the guilt trip is fully laid on the consumer....

Maya Zankoul talks about yesterday's meeting for bloggers in Beirut.... Here's the original invite as I got it from my friend Diane: "BEIRUT BLOGGERS MEETING - If you are a Lebanese blogger and you fancy a friendly chat with some prominent French bloggers and journalists, please come and meet Philippe Couve (from Radio France International), Pierre Haski (founder of the news website rue89....com) and Eric Scherer (AFP). When ? This Tuesday, 8 pm. Where ? Ta Marbuta Café,..." - and so the meeting went fantabulous with us discussing the state of the new media, etc... I am even invited tonight to tape an interview with Philippe Couve for RFI about the topic. It was so nice to finally put faces for people I had only met through posting of comments.....

BBAC's Campaign.. a copy and a paste?

Just when I got too excited about the BBAC campaign, I just got this email to indicate it might be an outright theft..... Is nothing sacred anymore?

A storm in a cup of tea

Entitled respectively StripTea, RoyalTea, and DemocraTea these new tea bags will make a storm in a cup of... tea!

Transpose, do not translate

Finally, yes, finally someones gets the idea that in order for a concept to work in several languages, there should be a transposition not a translation!... BBAC is offering the new loan every other bank is getting into (Which is about 0% tuition fees supported by the central bank), their Arabic slogan translates into "don't concentrate on the money, concentrate on the studies" but whereas it works perfectly well in Arabic translating it makes it weak, which is why the transposition into "do not pay money now, just pay attention" is a hit in itself!

Saved by the bell....

Somewhere in Ramadan is also the back to school, so in the mediocrity of the school bags and colourful but dull interpretations, comes these rather interesting ads... Bassile Freres, a local stationary and notebooks producer is supporting the sutdents' writes.... Ads are a little amateurish but so much the better. As for the official schools their play on words in their headline "officially superior" (Official schools are the governamental-run ones which are almost free) especially in these harsh economic times, these schools need to prove all the advantage all they can muster - and with such an ad, they actually succeed....

Turning the page without overturning the bus

A great ad on the wrong medium... The ad, for The Mohammad Khaled Institutes for the orphans says "please turn the page".... To see the smile on the orphaned girl's face... It would have been excellent as a teaser/revealer in print though where litterely the viewer "turns the page" to make a difference.... Still, a good Ramadan ad is hard to come by so we take it as they come!

The new face of Islam

It is so difficult to produce an ad that actually works for Ramadan... All those charities either go too pathetic, or too blunt, or too corny... Then once in a while, a beautiful ad, full of dignity and nobility all while delivering the message as it ought to be. This is the case with the Zakat ads (Zakat or the sharing or one's earnings with those less fortunate and is one of the five pillars of Islam. For a full definition please go to www.zakat.org.lb) where - Bin Laden zealots eat your hearts out - a young man and woman ask the viewer "I have done my zakat. Have you?" He looks like a junior executive in a company, or someone making his way through the hierarchy or a bank; she might be a kindergarten teacher or a nutruition specialist - both are young talented individuals, who happen to be devout Moslems. By using these new faces - fresh, innocent, believing but not trying to convert anyone in the process - Dar El Fatwa (Mother insitution of the Zakat) strikes gold in an ad that could have just another Ramadan bore.

A Calder impression

Dar Al Aytam Al Islamiyya (The home of Moslim Orphans), as with every year does some sort of installation in different places of the city to coincide with Ramadan the month where donors are generous more than any... This year, while depicting the phases of the moon in different colors, I could not but remember Alexander Calder's Les Ballons... Both works are deceptively simplistic, stunningly cheerful, and childish in their own adult false-innocence way.

The New BMW

Another unintentional act of brandalizing!