So I lost my ATM card, and I don’t even have the card number to login and transfer the money to another account or something. What would any sane person do on a weekend, given that all banks are closed on weekends.

You go to the airport where you will find the branch of “The best bank in the Middle-East” open all the time and they will help you in each and every way possible.

So I head to the NBK booth at Kuwait International Airport, Say the following “I just lost my ATM card and I need either cash or the number of my card to login online and transfer the money to another account”.

Immediately, they asked for my Civil ID and they proceeded to do some phone calls. I sat down slightly relieved that they are working on it. Few minutes passed by and then they hit me with it, “we can’t give you any cash here”. So I asked “OK, that’s fine … just fetch the card’s number from your database or something so I can login and sort out my shit. You guys need to sit down for this. Do you know what the über-smart clerk did?

“You can’t use the card’s number anymore, sir. We just CANCELED it” so I was like “WHAT? Did I ask you to cancel it?”. “No sir, but if somebody finds it and travel outside they can use it like a credit card”.

Well, remind me if I’m mistaken Mr. Camel but isn’t it my own fucking money? Don’t you need an authorization from my ass to fucking cancel my card? Now I’m even more fucked thanks to the stupidity of your clerks.

So much for “The best bank in the Middle-East”.

Oh yeah and Mubarak 3alaikum El Shahar and all that.

I didn’t spam your post.

I just pointed out that the monthly kuwaiti bloggers meeting will be this thursday at 5:30PM at Second Cup (near the kuwait stock market). I also said, the meeting has always been open for everybody (boys and girls) and the 2:48AM fans as well as yourself and whoever is interested are welcome to join the meeting. I assure you there were no links to any penis enlargement kits of any kind in my comment.

Just thought I might help some people save some time by not re-inventing the wheel. So I posted some absolutely relative information and I don’t think I strayed from the main subject of your post.

Also, grow the fuck up.

We just got this from MTC’s (or I don’t know whose) obligatory service, Kuwaitna.

الوزير المعتوق: الأوقاف أول وزارة في الحكومة تطبق التراسل الإلكتروني.

Oh really? You guys just found out about email? and now you’re bragging about how ignorant you are?

I wonder what will they send to each other? Anybody up for a new Nancy Ajram video?

Here we go again, It’s been a long long time since the last time I commented on any MTC Ads. I just have to do it to this one, I’m itching to do it. Let’s go …

First of all, The guy with the dictionary. Why in hell he has to be kuwaiti? What do you think you’re saying with such image? Kuwaitis are ignorant bastards who can’t speak a word of english?

Now I’m not saying each and every kuwaiti knows english better than Shakespeare himself but I know that kuwaitis in general are educated enough to be on a level where portraying them in an ad like this is a crime.

I wouldn’t mind seeing that person wearing a jeans and a t-shirt, that would make him more generic and you can’t really tell his nationality. MTC had done it before why not now?

Somebody might defend MTC and say “Well, he could be in a foreign country”. If so then that’s even worse, because I can’t see a single clue to tell me he’s in a foreign country. No architectural clues in the background, nothing significant on the table and if anybody say a thing about that lousy hat I’m gonna shove it up his ass. NOOOO? He’s wearing a fake-ass cowboy’s hat, Ooooooh HE’S AMERICAAAAAN. Yeah, not only that … but he’s texan. Plus, How many kuwaitis do you know who wear dishdasha when they’re traveling? Get real.

Not a single one of those three sitting on the table looks really “foreign”. As a matter of fact even the supposedly kuwaiti guy doesn’t look kuwaiti at all, even with the half-assed beard. AND PLEASE OH PLEASE, Look at the way he’s wearing his ghutra and more importantly his E’Gaal (the black round ring-like thing). Kuwaitis don’t shove it AROUND their head, unless they’re Abdulaziz Al-Musalam. However, I have to admit, that e’gal shoving thing really works if they want to make the guy look like a total ass. Which reminds me of my first point, Why he has to be kuwaiti?

On a final note, did you notice how I wrote this whole post without mentioning the “Leb…” word? Quite an achievement, huh? Well, fuck that … I have to get it out of my chest. All the of models are lebanese, The ad was shot in lebanon and was produced by a lebanese agency in a lebanised kuwait. Thank you very much and god bless.

Note to the Copy Writer of that Ad: Check your spelling Yo!

I can’t believe a consultancy company that specialize in help existing businesses to improve their inner working structures has a logo this bad. Now I’m sure this is not a money-issue, They can afford a decent agency to do that job, It’s OBVIOUSLY the taste of the decision maker who have absolutely nothing to do with design.

Why do they think because they own the company they can do whatever they want? I would really respect a man who confessed his weaknesses in certain areas and handed the job to people who know how to handle it.

This logo on a scale of ten doesn’t even deserve 1. Unreadable, badly-designed, lines are too thin to be seen from a distance (best example, their billboard on gulf road) … and really what the hell they were thinking when they used the triangle ( the A if you must insist) instead of the alef.

First of all and just to make things clear, I’m not trying to make fun of any race of people here and I respect flipino people just as much as the next guy. I have flipino friends and I hope this won’t piss them off. It’s not about them, it’s about the ad.

On the back cover of the amazing bazaar dining guide (comes free with the free bazar magazine) you will find an ad for Ikea store restaurant. The ad is so blah you won’t even notice anything wrong about it if you were living in kuwait for some time.

We are so used to see flipino staff in most restaurants that it’s almost normal to ignore how hilarious this ad is. Here’s the ad …

Did you notice what I’m talking about?

Swedish hospitality? You portray that by showing your flipino staff dressed in cheap, silly swedish customes? I really feel bad for the staff who got dressed in these silly customes, I also feel sorry for the pathetic guys at the agency that made such ad. Maybe the client is stupid but it doesn’t mean you have to be as stupid as them. They’re paying you money so they can use your so called experience to do their ads professionally.

Shame on you Al-Homaizi, Shame on you Ikea and fucking shame on you Impact & Echo (If you still have that account) :p

Peace & Love to my flipinos and flipinas

… and sorry if I pissed any swedish people off in the process.

• Misspelled the name of a continent
• Chose crappy stock images, and didn’t even ‘cut’ them nicely.
• Hot colors for a cold season
• nothing is almost aligned with the other, and the box below shows an obvious misplacement. The designer apparently never heard of grids systems.

So which grocery store is designing Kuwait Airways Holidays division these days? and why oh why it has to be handled by another agency than the one that handles the main account.

Layaleena’s ripoff, Sho Fee Ma Fee, in their december issue had a really interesting, absolutely unintentional yet fabulously hilarious mistake. Bad design could cause disasters but bad design here just embarassed the guy featured on the cover and gave me a little something to laugh at in this lazy morning.

Did you get it?
Damn chicken nuggets …

Explanation: The designer used different background colors and lines to separate the pictures AND a sentence long enough to go under two pictures. However, by seperating that sentence, which says “هل أنتهت كوارث العام؟”, … and …eh should I go on?

Oh yeah … and WHY OH WHY they called they magazine Sho Fee Ma Fee, I would rather see “Shako Mako” Sounds funkier and “Kuwaitier” … somebody call the editor and ask him why they called it that.

I realize there’s another version of this ad where the hands belong to men but I’m sure you noticed as much as I did how gulf bank been using this version more than the other. They realize they have a reputation of having the hottest chicks around and the want to emphasize on it? They apply segregation rules where males can’t touch the hands of females?

… and while we’re at it, Why I can’t see one hand of ‘those’ that says “KUWAITI” … I want to see a darker skin, I want to see the tip of an A’bayah … I don’t see “nationalization” in that ad … I see “Lebanization”

P.S: Fuck you gulf bank, your ads are so big they don’t fit in my scanner and, no, you’re not worth wasting my time scanning two parts and attaching them together in photoshop.

OK, Everyday when I go to the office I have to pass by this building (Rakaan Tower) that was built in front of Al Muthana Complex. Those guys who run the building never cease to put a smile on my face everyday.

You see how tall and huge this tower is, big no? I wonder how much money was spent to build such a thing. I also wonder how much they paid for this cloth banner to advertise their vacant spaces.

I didn’t fucking believe it when I saw that banner there. I mean oh my god, dude you paid all that money to build the tower then you got all stingy when it came to advertising the building?

OK, So they eventually removed it after, like, 5 days or so of putting it. Well, No advertising is better than bad advertising … I mean c’mon the tall ass building is there in all its glory and those who are looking will ask you eventually, it’s not like you won’t have any people renting the place.

After some time without proper advertising, some smart guy (I suppose he’s smart) decides to give the break to the baker and let the qualified people handle this. Comes this real estate management company with a nicely designed, nicely branded banner of their own. They placed in far end of the building, it was far, yes, but it was visible but mr.smart won’t let it go … so they change the position to … have a look

This is just plain stupid and THEY FUCKIN KNOW IT, I bet somebody high up there was like “Let’s put it there so it will be closer to the intersection and people can read it.” … nobody thought about the palm trees I guess, or they did but they don’t want to remove them because they paid money to the landscape designer and the architect who proposed placing the trees there and now they are stuck with them. I’m just assuming stuff really, but I’m quite sure it’s not very far from the truth of this situation. Isn’t this exactly what happenned with that huge ass screen of Kuwait Stock Market? There was a paml tree in front of it, they didn’t think much about it, they removed it. Simple, no?

The whole thing reminds me of this story my father used to tell me about those farmers who had a bull who stuck his head in this bucket to drink some water from it and they can’t get his head out of the bucket. They need both the bull and the bucket to be okay but after multiple desperate attempts they decided to behead the bull, so they did. They again to get the head out, it won’t come out so they break the bucket to get the head out. The moral of the story is, don’t leave bulls hanging around in Al Muthana Intersection, because that will cause some accidents and traffic jams.

Isn’t this the same so-called artist who didn’t want to do an exhibition just because Kuwait National Council for Culture censored some of his artworks? Isn’t this the same so-called artist who been giving lectures I don’t know where? (kuwait university?) I can’t believe they’re actually doing this.

Did Fuad Al Hashim and company get bored of Abu Ghutadah and Abu Nabeel and left the brainless hand puppet (thallaab) alone?I wonder if he will actually sign any cartoons based on a submitted idea of a read with his name.

[Link]: Misc news on Mohammad Thallab from Al-Watan newspaper.

Note: For the non-arabic speaking crowd, this ad is a call for submissions of any idea for the daily cartoon strip “Yomiaat Abu Ghutadah wo Abu Nabeel”.

I was browsing the newspaper yesterday and I noticed something about NBK’s Ad. No it’s not about the stupid red swoosh, and no, it’s not about the headline. The model in this ad looked familiar, very familiar.

OH YEAAAH, He’s the Art Director of JWT TMI Kuwait (or at least one of them) and now he’s the model? hmmm. He got the looks for it, no doubt. Actually a designer/ photographer friend of mine used him a year ago as a model too and I was the stylist, really. :p

Hey Zeyaad (or is it Eyaad, not sure) didn’t you say a year ago when we were talking about the MTC campaigns you worked on and the models involved and how my friend suggested you pose for them, didn’t you say something like “Me? be the model of the same ad I’m designing? no way” and as far as I remember you were joking about how this could reflect bad on the agency and how you were sarcastically saying something like “Hi MTC, My name is Flaan and I will be your Art Director and I will be the model in your ads too. Do you want anything else? tea? coffee?” Yeah that was funny but you should have sticked to your views.

Well, I guess Zeyaad (or Eyaad goddamit) isn’t the one to blame here, I think it’s the agency that allowed such thing and the stupid client who approved it … but hey, It’s NBK … what do you expect?

Note: Using the agency staff as models is quite common in agencies world wide but it would be limited to body parts (hands, legs, head) or any pose that doesn’t show the face. Well, it’s relative really but not every advertising agency employees Angelina Jolie as secretary.

Photo by Mark from Miskan.

Well, time flies indeed and the end of november feels just like … errr … yesterday!

I find it really interesting that you posted that post A WHOLE MONTH IN ADVANCE and you didn’t leave it to that but you also wanted to savour the moment to the last hours. What are the odds of posting at 21:59? no “oops” will justify that, don’t even try it.

Do you want to get your blog deleted from safat? BTW I was looking for the blog itself, I couldn’t find it in the sea of ad banners and amazon links.

Update: OK people, Iamonplane is not on safat anymore.

Happy flying.

I went yesterday to an art exhibition for upcoming artist, Dana Al Helal. Dana who’s leaving soon to florence to pursue her studies in fine art, focused mostly on portraits. Behind each face portrayed by her paintings a story waiting for you to make it up. You will notice a common theme in her paintings too, smoking, africanism or even arabic pop-culture all mixed together. ALthough the whole thing took her 6 months of work, the collection seems little or maybe It’s the way they were organized in the rather small rooms.

Now the hard part, Although she asked me personally to “be nice” I’m afraid you won’t like what I’m about to write. I was told that some of the paintings were drawn using your fingers directly on the canvas, good job. I really, really couldn’t tell, except for some of them … the shading in one of the paintings which as far as I remember was a close up of a face (and you had a few of them) was … erm … almost like a first-grader’s hand drawing. I’m talking about only ONE of them, just ONE. The rest were nicely executed. I especially liked the portrait of the bold african woman with the tile squares on her eyes, I loved it actually.

Today is the second and the last day for this exhibition, so you should go and check it out. It’s held at Marina Waves, the weird some-how-far building. Go to the marina’s somebody somebody al-subah hall where the ad thing was held last week. Walk or drive to that thing, and while we’re at it. Watch the blank concrete of the entrance of marina waves before it gets legally vandalized by yours truly.

Remember when I posted about the guy with the funny russian accent in the Ford Mustang commercial? I was kind of frustrated I didn’t get enough comments on that topic. So to rememdy that, here’s an audio clip to prove my points.

Listen: “I had a drrream, It was rrreal … rrealize yourrr drrream.”

I finally got the chance to read that article on blogging in bazar. While I really share my fellow bloggers the disapproval of such article, I would like to point out few things about the editor, Mr. Ahmed El-Adly.

I met Ahmed three years ago while freelancing for Bates Pan Gulf, He was there to get something from the agency or something, I don’t remember. He’s a nice guy and he’s really doing something nice for young people here giving them the chance to voice their opinions and thoughts on a medium known for its hardships to get into, print.

The only thing I read in bazar is his “intro” column. The way he writes it is the closest to a blog entry. He ACTUALLY was thinking about starting a blog himself if you have read his article this month, ‘Start my own blog’.

A while ago, he approached a fellow blogger, DnG (where are you girl?), and encouraged her to pass the message to fellow bloggers.

adly@bazaar bazaar@hotmail.com

Hiya,
Was reading ur blog and think you have a lot of talent. We were hoping you might consider writing for bazaar magazine! If you dont want to use ur real name, thats not a problem, and if you have any fellow bloggers who might be interested, please spread the word! I was amaaazed at how many talented people there are on the blog sites…wow!! Looking forward to hearing from you.

The thing is, bazaar have adopted an easy policy that enables anybody to write anything and get paid for it too, and that’s not neccessarly a good thing. A policy like that made it possible for people like “Mr. Impressive” - who I must admit got a talent in writing but god didn’t bless him with enough brain cells on the other side of his brain - to get their stuff published easily.

Ahmed, First of all I think this “Mr. Impressive” owes us [bloggers] all an apology and I think he’s up for a review. Second, I think you should set up some guidelines for the submissions you get and have a word in what gets published and what doesn’t, you’re supposed to be the editor after all, right? Last but not least I think you should pay more for your writers if you want to get quality materials, or stick to paying 2.5% of of the usual cost for ads per page in bazar to the writers and you will end up with “Mr. Impressive” and the likes.

Update: Here’s K’s post with snippests of what the writer said.

What’s with the guy with the russian accent in the Ford Mustang commercials? You know, the one who does the voice over.

“I had a drrrream … It became rrrrreality” or something like that

I mean, do they really think we (arabs, gulfies basically) talk english like that? I think it’s plain stupid move of them or whoever made those commercials.

However, big ups for the soundtrack of all the current Ford commercials (mustang, focus) They incorporate a well-crafted elements of electronica (drum ‘n’ bass mostly) with the sounds of our music and rhythmic arrangements. A slap on the hand for including those weird, sadness-implying vocals in both commercials.

Bloboz pointed out how enterprise’s rent-a-car’s logo looks very close to eureka’s logo and he was wondering if they stole eureka’s logo.

Dear Bloboz,

Yes, THEY stole it not the other way around, NOOOO. Since when americans got any creativity? They stole the logo from our creative local company with the not-so-local name.

Thanks

Tata

P.S: Yes people I was sarcastic in case you didn’t notice.

A lot of things are bothering me about this ad.

First of all, nobody really can write something with lines that thick with a pen/ marker/ chalk this thin. (Unless you use the whole width of the chalk to do that and judging by the way he’s holding this thing he didn’t do that.)

Nobody ever will write on a board with this position, he’s using his left hand and he wrote all of that stuff on his right side. Just try it, you might hurt yourself. It’s just like Juha’s ear story.

Last but not least, the area around the model’s eyes is kinda dark. He looks more like a drug addict. PLEASE SHAVE, and would somebody please invest, like, five minutes in retouching the model’s face, pimples are so out of fashion

Stop using the ad agency employees as models.

KDD has been using this image in their milk campaign since, like, 4 years and I still see they didn’t fix the problem I was laughing at 4 years ago. Well, the headline in the ad roughly translated says “I don’t compromise when it comes to my family’s health, KDD … the family’s milk” .

From the first sight I couldn’t ignore the yellow line near the father/ grandfather’s mouth which is apparently some out-of-focus dead yellow grass. It looked to me as if the old geezer is smoking while he’s playing with the kid.

Yes, Smoking is healthy. No compromises about your family’s health.

Makes me think twice about the power of blogging, especially in our small beloved country. Too bad I didn’t call sarah yet to deliver me her juicy goodies.

O Sarah, Where art thou?

RED ON BLUE?

I don’t blame your color-blind eyes, I blame the client who approved that ad.

Thanks

Tata Botata

I went yesterday to check your exhibition at The Modern Art Museum, and frankly I was impressed by many things there. First of all I was impressed by the number of people who came in and I was impressed by how big the frames were (9 times bigger than the artwork, however, it was balanced. Gotta admit.) Also I was impressed by your ability to talk about your ‘artworks’ with such passion and enthusiasm I considered going back to see them again in case I missed anything, and how you made it sound really interesting while it wasn’t.

I was standing there, waiting for you to finish ‘explaining’ your ‘art’. I really wanted to tell you that your stuff belongs to your sketch book not the walls of the museum of modern arts. (not that it got any prestigious state or anything) Oh wait, … did you think it was ‘modern’ to show your doodles to the public and offer them for sale for no less than 175 KDs.

I’m not saying this because you used black pen on paper, I had the same idea for an exhibition too. There’s nothing wrong with making a whole exhibition in black but there’s a big one with making a whole exhibition of doodles. Don’t get me wrong I liked some of them, I loved how some of them had some cool textures and compositions although you only used black and white. I have nothing against you as a person (actually you’re kinda cute) I just have a problem with your ‘art’. I know you are new in the art scene but you should’ve thought twice before making an exhibition like that.

I’m not saying you won’t sell, actually, you might have already sold some by now but that’s not the standard to judge if you had a ’successful’ exhibition or not, and I’m not sure actually what the standard is, if there’s any to start with. I mean I’m all for the ‘art is subjective’ and ‘there’s no good/bad art’ but there’s common sense and people can differentiate a good craftsmanship from a bad one.

There’s an old quote I have no idea where I heard it but it’s so true and I thought maybe I can share it with you, ‘If you can’t make it good, make it red, and If you can’t make it red, make it big” I’m sorry but you failed to achieve any of these things therefore you are not ‘good’.

UPDATE: Just added the pics at 26/5, 02:54 AM

This one is my favorite, I love the detailed texture of the leaves. I used to have this style of drawing (still do actually) which involved alot of leaves too. I guess that’s why I can relate to this one. ACTUALLY, I was holding my moleskine and opening it to this page where I had some doodles, I wanted to show her how I got some of my ‘doodles’ in my sketch book, where they belong, and how they might inspire me to develop them into a ‘finsished’ artworks.

This one is so ‘out there’ according to a friend of mine whom I totaly agree with. It reminds me of Picasso’s series of bull abstractions, however, I’m not sure what these lines are ‘abstracting’ exactly.

Now this is the kind of stuff you would find in the notebook of a frustrated teenager girl. No mastery on her lines, just plain doodle-y.

That’s something I/you/she would do if I/you/she was having a boring phone call with a pen in her hand and a blank paper starring at me/you/her.

I MIGHT/ MIGHT NOT ADD TO THIS LATER ON

Rock on

Yours Truly,
Tata Botata

Note: This post was delayed for Unknown Reasons.

I just want to address how stupid is the distributor of Mecca cola here in Kuwait (alwafi trading). How could a company market two brands of cola at the same time? I would understand it if they were somehow different or have some advantage over the other but other than the obvious difference (the brand name) there’s nothing. They only excuse I can find is both of Mecca Cola (Red) and ZamZam Cola (Blue) are Coca-Cola’s (Red) and Pepsi’s (Blue) Cheap Islamic Imitations.

What’s with the headline أشرب ملتزماً (Drink with Commitment) Does that mean if I’m drinking Coca-Cola or Pepsi, I’m not committed (to the Islamic instructions)? Does that mean if I drank Mecca cola I will be a better Muslim and I will surly go to heaven?

Now read this press release by the general manager of Al-Wafi Trading. He says that they are planning to open a “halal” fried chicken chain of restaurants. So suddenly fried chicken becomes an Islamic thing. He also claims that they are giving 10% of their profits to Kuwaiti Charities which Is pure bullshit. It’s the original Company who gives that 10% to the Palestinian children NOT the Kuwaiti children.

Read this

I found It In an old issue of “the face” magazine … Just next to a picture of Jordan (Check out the weird Coincidence, Palestine? Jordan? got It? LOL, Don’t you just miss THE FACE?

So I went off-topic a lil bit but the “butter” of this whole post Is, I find those who use Islam to promote their commercial activities as evil as those who terrorize and kill Innocent people In the name of Islam.

أهدافك واضحه جدامك؟ … بس السالفة مو واضحه جدامنا؟

Hey Fuckers, If you want to go Kuwaiti go all the way or don’t go at all and don’t say you don’t know what I’m talking about cuz you fucking know it.

No Kuwaiti would say this, ever, no matter how many “badlyat” he throws. The way they wrote that line makes the boy talking to a male. I know some companies don’t want to use the “cha” letter but hey at least write a totally different line and avoid making such a horrible mistake.

This is what you get when you let non-kuwaitis in advertising agencies write the copy in a Kuwaiti accent, “ablah 3a6yaat” kind of thing.

I swear I have nothing personal with these guys but they are just violating the rules of common sense one after another. So you are warning people from some one who’s faking your brand while you are doing it in the first place, huh? Interesting.

فوق شينه قوات عينه