Maya's Amalgam

Exotica… The Comeback! Moukarzel… The Fall Down!

maya zankoul — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:10:29 +0000

And if I might ad, the execution of the C&F ad is terrible, as it is clearly a cushion inserted into the woman’s clothes, and not a baby.

Again, I’d like to thank Exotica and their creative team for responding positively to the criticism of their campaign [I knew from trusted sources that the reason they updated the campaign is because of the reaction they saw through social media]. If that’s the case, then they are pioneers What do you guys think about the other campaigns I just shared?

Exotica is now all over the Lebanese blogosphere: here isPlus961’s, Liliane’s & Joe’s take on this.

On another note, I got back from Zahleh [as you might have noticed ] and will update you tomorrow! Have a beautiful day with this smooth song from Spirited Away soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi!

21 Always With Me

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See you later!

maya zankoul — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:44:23 +0000

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Consumption, creation and Arabs

maya zankoul — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:46:28 +0000

I was very lucky to illustrate 2 cartoons for the presentation of Donatella Della Ratta at the Young Leaders Social Media Cafe. Dona is the manager of Creative Commons Middle East, and we are now helping her organize the 1st CC Salon in Beirut, so stay tuned! Here are the 2 illustrations:

1- “From Bedouins in a desert to media savvy terrorists: those are the Arabs in the eyes of the West. How do we get rid of this??”

2- “Switching from the culture of consumption to the culture of creation. Can Arabs do it?”

And here’s a photo of Dona’s presentation [credits: Darine Sabbagh]

The cartoons are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

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Blogging Arabnet.ME!

maya zankoul — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:06:54 +0000

[ Thank you to Omar Christidis, Samer Karam, Ibrahim Nehmé, Sana Tawileh, & Amber Lauretta for the great work they're doing!]

DON’T MISS THE AMMAN WORKSHOP TODAY!

For more info, visit Arabnet.ME website, blog &/or Facebook fan page!

And if you’ve got some ideas cooking, it’s not too late to submit! [they said the deadline passed, but just tell them I told you you can still submit ]

Download: Application Form, Registration Form & Sample Business Case!

And as always, we end it with music Here’s Queen’s You Don’t Fool Me! Have a great businessy day

You Don’t Fool Me

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Oriental Moms

maya zankoul — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:44:13 +0000

In this month’s issue of ELLE Oriental, Nour, Ashley & Vanessa talk about their mothers.

in French [click to enlarge]

in Arabic [click to enlarge]

Thank you to all who gave me feedback about the languages! I’m definitely sticking to English, but will be considering the option of having the comics translated separately to Arabic!

And now, I wish you a beautiful fruitful day with The Doors’ Soul Kitchen

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The language dilemma

maya zankoul — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:01:33 +0000

The latest post on BeirutSpring blog reminded me of a [very sweet] message I received by email from a reader.

It read:

“Dear Maya,

I drew something about *your blog*, I hope you like it even though it’s a criticism I spent a lot of time on it… It’s not good enough, but I tossed the coin Maya, please read this: http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/02/28/101744.html“

And had the below illustration attached:

To answer you, Rocky [and to all of you asking the same question]

Thanks again to all who participated yesterday to the celebrations! Tomorrow I’ll be “officially” announcing the winners!

Until then, here’s Kevin Shield’s Ikebana from the soundtrack of Lost in Translation . Have a beautiful day

10 Ikebana – Kevin Shields

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March Goodies

maya zankoul — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:52:31 +0000

Continuing the birthday celebration, I’d like to share with you the March wallpapers! May all your days be as flowery & peaceful!

Download at your convenience [Hope I didn't miss any resolutions - including iPhones!]

320 x 480, 1024 x 640, 1024 x 768, 1200 x 800, 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900, 1620 x 1280, 1680 x 1050

Don’t forget to join us at 7:30PM at Obros, Clemenceau, to celebrate more! I’ll get books, stickers & birthday hats!

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Birthday wish!

maya zankoul — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:45:27 +0000

I have a small surprise/wish that I’d like to share with you! {Maybe next year will take the comics one step further? }

[For relatively better viewing, click here > photo-passport for the Flash version, but resize your browser to the size of a youtube video ]

Presenting: “Passport Photo… The [very sketchy] animated version!” [the vimeo below is low-quality]

Photo Passport [Maya's Amalgam] from Maya Zankoul on Vimeo.

So in case you’re wondering, I just put this up together rather quickly, it’s been tempting me to see what an animated version of the comic would look like… What do you guys think?

[Credits: the soundtrack is Chick Corea's Armando's Rhumba]

I would also like to share this AMAZING visual sent by the lovely Naeema Zarif! (Click to enlarge) Check out her fantastic work in her Flickr stream. Well, if you’re wondering what Audrey is doing here, Naeema knows she’s my role model

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My baby turns 1 year old!

maya zankoul — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:00:02 +0000

So, let’s go, comment away! The comment has to be “Happy Birhday!” So if you don’t want the book, just comment something else :p

[If you already have the book and don't need another copy, please give a chance to others & sorry about limiting it to Leb, but it's a bit complicated to send the book across the planet at this time]

I would also like to take this chance to give some…

BLOG FACTS & STATS!

• Let’s go back to the VERY FIRST POST I did on this blog! I called it “my tranquilizer” back then, and today I can say that this is exactly what this blog has been to me. I hope you all find your own “tranquilizers” and that next year will only be as good as the 1st one!

• 236: Is the number of posts on this blog since day 1!

• 2247: Is the number of comments you guys made on all the posts!

• 200,000+: Is the number of visits during the blog’s 1st year!

Let’s end it with Frank Sinatra singing “Happy Birthday” just for us!

Happy Birthday To You

N.B: Two other posts will follow today, so stay tuned if you want to get those books!

P.S: This birthday was due on February 10th, but I have been over-super-busy to prepare all this, so let’s settle for March 1st as official blog birthday!

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Apocalypse Now! (or Waiting for Godot)

maya zankoul — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:46:31 +0000

I can’t say I was disappointed the tsunami didn’t happen (or happened in the shape of a small splash on the shore). At least I got to sleep [ ], and many people got their homes & business saved. In the hope this is the last natural catastrophe to hit this planet And the last time the media make a HUGE FAKE buzz. If only they were able to prevent the bigger disasters like Haiti’s…

Anyway, see you tomorrow with a BIG surprise

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Sunday updates (+Fanart #10)

maya zankoul — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:19:32 +0000

Yesterday, Saturday 27th February, I got the chance to give a presentation to the children of the Armenian Thorossian school in Bourj Hammoud. We talked about drawing, blogging, going after what you truly like doing in life. And we had a lot of fun! I only have this terrible photo that I took with my phone from where I was presenting.

In other news, yesterday was also the book signing of the illustrated Arabic poetry book Haltabees (حلتبيس، اشعار من سمسم وخيار), result of the collaboration between the incredibly talented David Habchy & Rania Zaghir. Mashrou3 Leila also sang the poems, and cucumbers & semsom were given away with the book. Beautiful combo & beautiful people! AND I got my copy signed!

I wish you a beautiful Sunday, and I can only tell you one thing: you’re in for a special surprise tomorrow!!! So stay tuned! And while you wait, I leave you with Lhasa de Sela’s Desdeñosa.

Un, deux, trois. Deux, deux trois…

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For better & for worse

maya zankoul — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:02:56 +0000

You might say I am overreacting. However, the reason I am, is because I believe huge billboards have great influence on the large amount of people who cross them daily. Big corporations should thus think twice before shouting such messages at us. And I do know that “it got people talking about it”, but wouldn’t it be better if it also, on the way, got through a more responsible message?

Anyway, I just had to say what I think about this campaign, it’s been bothering me everyday when I pass by it. Now, back to music, here’s Sarah Vaughn’s Broken Hearted Melody. Have a wonderful day

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Defining Entrepreneurship #2

maya zankoul — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:26:19 +0000

[NB: This post (& the previous one) are criticizing the way the concept of "entrepreneurship" has been overused & abused on the web lately, in the Arab world specifically. Yet it does not deny in any way the existence of "true entrepreneurs" who work/have worked very hard and of whom we are extremely proud ]

The content of this post was “crowdsourced over a friendly chat in Cafe Younes. And that was today’s lesson in Entrepreneurship 101! On a lighter note, the whole “entrepreneurship” parodies happening on Twitter are extremely hilarious, thank you #Maniachi team for adding laughter to our feeds everyday

I’ll now leave you with the music of an artist I only discovered yesterday thanks to Raafat Hamze (who also happens to have great writings on his blog).

Have a lovely day!

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Making-of Meedan video

maya zankoul — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:53:57 +0000

I was approached by Meedan to design/animate a short video explaining the concept behind the website “in plain English” and “in plain Arabic”. A BIG thank you goes to the lovely Mohammad Kayali (from Hyperlink Podcast) who recorded the sound & translated the text to Arabic on a very short notice, and to SMEX Beirut for providing me with the flip cam to do the video recording. Here’s the outcome in English!

Meedan in Plain English from Meedan on Vimeo.

Go to Meedan News & scroll down for the 2 versions!

And on another note, what’s a Monday morning without some music! Here’s the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun.

In other news, this blog was happily selected to be Blog of the Week on Lebanon Aggregator because next week we’re turning 1 year old! So happy about it! Thank you so much!

Have a great week

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iPhone Apps for Lebanese needs

maya zankoul — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:50:35 +0000

Post featured on itoot.net

I was very excited to collaborate again with the amazing Qifa Nabki on designing icons for iPhone Apps tailored to fit the Lebanese lifestyle needs!

To know the story behind every app, click on the image below!

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