TAKEAWAY: It took, count them 137 attempts; hours of discussions over sheens, dots, flames, and explanations travelling across thousands of years of Arabic calligraphy. My world has been encapsulated inside a sheen for four full days, but, alas, at 3:45 pm, Muscat time, the CEO announced his decision: we go with the modern Al Shabiba logo concept
Our art director Jan Kny had this grand idea to apply a “sheen” to the Moschino logo. We are all speaking in “sheens” here
I hold on to a giant version of the much appreciated logo: a happy moment in the newsroom
From left: Srinivaras Rao (Chief Designer), Adonis Durado (design director), Osama Aljawish (Senior Designer) and me
We will never know which was the decisive argument (in the midst of dozens) that convinced CEO Mr. Ahmed to go ahead and approve the youngish version of the logo.
It is not important, really. What is good to know is that come Sunday, readers of Al Shabiba will see a fully redesigned newspaper, but also a new brand, that takes them into the future.
All our discussions of the sheens, dots and flames are now history, so is the logo that still graces the pages of the newspaper till Sunday.
The team learned valuable lessons:
1. Stick up for what you believe, but do it in a respectful and diplomatic way.
2. Don’t give up after the first try, or after #78, or #134 either.
3. As long as there is a bit of hope, you keep showing how something you believe in can be better than the established, old idea.
4. Then, learn when to back off, and let the people in charge make choices.
5. Don’t grow so attached to your ideas that you fail to see the other side’s view.
I personally learned much from this process:
The power of the blog as a platform: I now realize the power of this blog platform to get us to engage in communal teaching: your reactions, encouragement and feedback was remarkable. Not any different than if we were in a lecture hall in one specific location, except that here, we had a universal student body. I cherish your involvement and the ideas your contributed.
Discover by stepping out of the routine: I found myself learning so much about Arabic type that I wanted immediately to have two or three other Arab newspaper/magazine projects to utilize this knowledge. I was challenged beyond looking at two Latin fonts and deciding on one because the letter “q” was more interesting in Caslon than Baskerville. Here, every decision had to involve a historic discussion. I had to learn beyond what my eyes saw. I had to inquire. I learned that we should do much more of that even when the material is in our language and the alphabet is one we are very familiar with. Inquiring leads to delightful discoveries. Sometimes, the routine of our lives—or the familiarity and expertise we develop—- fogs up the notion of discovery. A good lesson for editors, designers, and especially managers. Also for couples in love.
Dare to think the unthinkable: At one point today, I found myself telling the CEO that it would be OK to start with the modern logo that we were all cheering for, and then, if it did not work with traditional readers, to revert to the other choice. I would have never said this before, and I caught myself repeating it, and believing in it.
Shows you that even 40 years later, you can still sit here, play in the sandbox, discover new toys and feel like you are six years old again.
This concludes this blogathon for now.
For those who just landed here, go for the entire Al Shabiba blogathon here:
https://www.garciamedia.com/blog/articles/tuesday_report_from_oman_opinions_vary_on_al_shabiba_logo_and_we_continue
TheMarioBlog post #522