Collectives

Concept art

2012-02-02T17:35:00.000-08:00

What i love to do for a living! Concept art for an amazing game.

The reason i hate January

2012-01-03T18:53:00.000-08:00

December aw December, the lovely ending of the year. The excitement, the decorated tree, the light in the street, the special themed concerts, the special themed parties,special music released for the occasion, wrap up videos of the year, wrap up top 10 music of the year, wrap up best pictures of the year, special red and green color palette advertisements, a high consumption of Alcohol, a huge amount of food cooked,cookie recipes, chocolate on the tables at everyone's house, turkey industry shares goes up for the massive consumption, gifts tossed around for everyone,sale signs overrules the street, further reductions for the boxing day (smart name), new years resolution lists, wishes and the determination to lose weight starting next year, well earned office parties and probably a bonus if you were lucky, a well deserved holiday, lots and lots and lots of red hats and costumes, Love shared, well justified kisses under the missile-toes, sexual frustrations tension released under the name of the NYE, massive fireworks in the sky, drinks and suddenly everything goes quite, everyone goes to work 2 days later following the old routines, new years resolutions are tossed in the drain until December goes back again!

Working week

2011-12-22T16:41:00.000-08:00

This is how i look like at the moment! Freelancing is not as easy as you might think.

practicing character design

2011-12-07T19:53:00.001-08:00

You killed my Horse!

2011-11-30T02:08:00.001-08:00

Not in real life at least. I hope!

I hear this sentences almost 3 -4 times a day since 11/11/2011the official date of the release of Skyrim. Usually it is followed bygoing back to the saved checked point and repeating the level in ordernot to pay the price of another horse while there is a house to be bought . 11/11/11, everyonecelebrated the uniqueness of this date by putting happy statuses andshowing off their annoyed gestures from the amount of pictures they were taggedin on FB but I marked this day asthe day I lost my husband! Not in a dramatic way to be written ingamerwidow.com, god forbid I can go to that ground, but now I can see a side ofhim I have not seen much in the last three years. The back of his bald headwhile he sits on the floor holding his joystick tightly, occasionally rubs his head with his hand as a gesture of focus and deepthinking while looking and concentrating on the T.V like hislife is depending on it, Well, it does but this is not the point here.

On the day he bought the game I could see excitement in hiseyes, a kind thrill you see on a 5 yearold kid when given a candy only multiplied by 10 or a 100. Part of this excitementwas because this was his first time buying the game on the date of its release;none the less that doesn’t justify sitting in a restaurant, looking at thebooklet of the game, flipping the case in his hands looking for any kind ofsecret message that the developers of the game might have written just for him,flipping the attached map carefully in his hands and literally running to thehouse after dinner to put the CD in the PS3,dowload the update and hit PLAY.

12 hours of nonstop play on the first day, 5 hours of nonstopplay on the second day, then I understood the schedule ; 12 hours onthe weekends and 5 on the weekdays. I can proudly say now that up to the minuteof writing this post he is in level 30 and the highest score is 50. Somehow Ithink that they will start releasing levels just for him. They might as wellname the new worlds as FAWRYM! If I was to calculate the total numbers of hourshe has played till now the number will be 180!

Sitting in the house means that the game should be on, exceptwhen we are eating of course but minutes after the cigarette he jumps to thejoystick and goes through his acclaimed missions. He pulls himself from being ina live mode, except for the occasional cigarette between the saving positions.I usually take those minutes to steal a hug for an agreed upon 5 minutes thatgoes so quickly, almost as quick as 10 seconds which he spends glancing at thewatch, itching himself, trying to reach the joystick and showing me all thesigns that he is waiting for me to leave so he can continue his quest ofbecoming a dark elf. I get mad and he follows it with a declaration that I justhad my 5 minutes and he loves me, sure hey no one is counting. If thehouse was on fire he will finish the quest first and then run for his life.Technically he will save his virtual character and then the real one.

The thing is I cannot complain, first I have been a part of thegame industry and I understand (somehow) game psychology and effect. He is agame designer and such games provide a constant challenge for himto understand the mechanics behind them and deconstruct the reasonsof them being very addictive, sort of my addiction to check other people'sblogs. Such games are both a dream and passion, and for someone like himequally an obsession. Practically this puts food on the table at themoment. Of course for that reason we call playing time (RESEARCHTIME).We even decided to buy the book as a research reference. I cannot arguewith that!

Secondly, come on, he chose a cute dark elf female that he namedit after me. He fights dragons and demons and calls me to watch how he stripsthem and steals their clothes. Disturbing but hey it is a censoredgame. He found a smart way to play on my emotions to keep me engaged in thegame at first by telling me the dark secret of magic or dragon voice, like thecase of Mass Effect2, but the lack of a well written story and the unoriginal script had a bad effect on that despite his continuous effort to showme new outfits and armors which are super cool by the way. Sitting on thebed watching him play all I can hear is lousy lines spoken by one part(your character does not have a voice due to amount of possible linesand characters to be chosen) and some repeated sentences thatsome character keep repeating in the game, like who the hell isNazim? Indian maybe or an Arab? If he is well, what is he doing ina medieval land! And please stop saying that you look someone who cando things! That is LAME!

The game mechanics and story are not as fun to watch suchas other games like shadow of the damned which also constituted a badstory writing yet interesting and unique character designwith a whimsical scary touch, not to forget the funny levels such as the stripclub level. *(imitating an English Japanese accent) OOOHHHH FERY SMART ... USEAA WOMAAN! While the design in Skyrim game screamed.. *hey lets release a gamein a rush, filled with bugs and then we release 1000000 patch to fix it oh andlets market it as a dragon game yet it has one dragon in it! the one that you killat level 1! none the less, the game is highly addictive to play! and I have aliving proof of that. If there is any marketing agency there, he isyour catch!

I cannot argue or compete with that game as I don’t have the requiredqualifications to do so –I am not In the virtual world. I have to respect the boundariesof our relations and our individual spaces as this is what we have agreed upon andwhat makes our relationship work but still I cannot wait for this game to endand we go back to the less addictive games that require less time andattention. In the mean time I I have to feed on the funny comments he says fromtime to time such as him playing the game as a Jordanian Jordanian as hedeclares it, look for a car, secure a house, make a career, find a husband, getmarried and settle down. I have to say car and house are checked and stilllooking for a husband. Anyone?

Concept-Surviving Architectural School

2011-11-27T20:43:00.001-08:00

All through my 5 years in Architectural School i have been agonized by one word. CONCEPT! what is your concept? Where did you get your concept from? where is your sketch concept? Bottom line is tell me your concept so not only I can judge your design but I can judge your thought as well. Lets be honest most of this was actual crap! and I don't only mean the process. You have 5 days to submit your Pre-concept phase, another 5 days to finalize the final concept stage and come up with a concept sketch. Which at least in my class were made of nasty poor done drawing that were accompanied with a bunch of incoherent doodles on an A0 paper sheet. The A0 was a requirement-nothing less and nothing more, not only limits creativity but often a total waste of paper and money.

There were many problems in the collage I went but most of them were a consequence of the whole educational system in my country. Of-course the architectural department had the same problems as other departments but it had one thing that distinguished the process of creating an architect- speaking of my country here, is that everyone hid behind this word-A concept!

Through the 5 years of studying architecture we were agonized with coming up with concepts. Some students took this as a time to relax and not do any work while other put too much effort on it and came up with some kind of formula to come up with concepts. Pull a quote from a book, get inspired by a picture,put a black back ground and no one can see anything!, Add an image and add alot of stolen text so the professor would think you worked more, copy and paste unrelated images, use words such as change or link,make a connection between old and new, put glass for transparency and the ultimate factor is copy Zaha Hadid's work and try to accompany it with a lot of hard and big words and viola! the ultimate concept and you guarantee the highest mark. Of-course other students actually went to the trouble to come up with some creative ideas like using mathematical equations to come up with forms and ideas but those who did this for some reason always ended up in the bottom list that showed students marks and their numbers. I call this paper the death penalty! For a reason after second year the names and the marks were the same!those who were at the top stayed at the top no matter what and same goes for the ones who took lower marks! I wonder if they actually bothered to print another paper or they kept the same one!

The consequence of stacking student's minds with the important of the concept and emphasizes the above mentioned behavior. The result is a bunch of graduates who think they are above everyone else! You can spot such people easily following those description:

1. excessive usage of hard and big words even if only visiting the grocery store!

2. Constantly dressed in black, in the winter a black high neck ugly shirt and in the summer long sleeved

3. The constant over analysis of a place. Oh, the colors, the space, the circulation and the context! Chill it is just a vegetable shop.

4.Tion is a huge part of their conversation, Inspiration, Experimentation, Elaboration, ....tion.. tion.. tion...

5. Dreams and inspirations of finishing the 7 years and opening their own office to fulfill thier own visionary architecture! Thank god that they have to wait for 7 years other wise we would be swamped with ugly building which we have enough of.

6. Every one think they are good enough to work with big architects the reason they are not is that they don't pay enough! well i guess they will pay more than that 300jds you are getting?!

7. They like to addressed as Engineer..... and sign their master pieces with their initials proceeded with the magical E. E=Engineer!

8.Finally they have nothing to talk about except 3D max! showing off poorly rendered unrealistic, renders for their work. Nightshot, fogshot and morning shots for a weird angle of the building!

The ending product is an SFA individual who is does not have an artistic vision, was not trained to become an artist, does not know how to draw, does not read, does not know anything except Zaha hadid, Peter Eisenman and deconstruction and too afraid to leave architecture because he/She do not want to lose the Engineer title. The result is a lousy architect working to accomplish the drawings for some client's home. Most of the time CONCEPT-LESS and tasteless.

The problem here and what triggered this post is that those people are out of collage not and they advertise their newly established companies as Architecture with Concept, Architecture that has thoughts, Architecture with identity!If you are an architectural student you will know the type of people I am referring to her.if you are still a student don't be fooled with this shade. READ AND READ AND READ. Don't hide behind the concept cliches, there are people out there who are doing amazing things and again READ AND READ AND READ don't become and SFA= Snobbish, Fool, Ass

Ps: Apologies to some of the greatest architects i know who are my best friends and i truly respect them and respect their work. But again they don't fall in the descriped category.

PPS: above mentioned only applies on Jordan. I have been to the AA-London and thing were SLIGHTLY different.

Work in Progress

2011-11-14T18:29:00.001-08:00

Having a lot of time on daily basis allows me to venture into things i have not done before and allows to practice some skills I had long forgotten, but most of is that i finally have the chance to sit down and work on my Portfolio! Finally putting all things together instead of them being scattered in multiple websites and social platforms.

Mrs.Soad Hosni is finally seeing the light.

Illustrated

2011-11-11T23:59:00.001-08:00

Currently working extensively on the long term project Lorie. A children story written by my beloved Husband.16 drawing combines with rhymed verse . 3 black and white plates are finished so far and the rest is yet to come. In the mean the character finally saw life. I. Stay tuned for the rest. think this will be the cover though.

Fathers and grandfathers of modern technology!

2011-11-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

This post is purely about William Stieg's 1907-2003 CBD book (1968), but I find the mind of this illustrator and cartoonist very interesting and intriguing. His under acclaimed ascociation to many of our modern time is very strong. The mind of a great illustrator who predicted the world of instant messaging, iChatting and tweeting was ahead of the curve in his time.

CBD! the summery says (letter and words are used to create the sounds of words and simple sentences 4 u 2 figure out with the help of the illustration)! This sounds the definition of the use of abbreviation in instant messaging!No? I think i should ask my 16 year old sister what she think about that!
A form of NewSpeak if you allow me to borrow from the 1984 Orwell's book.I wonder if the two are related! Anyway, The Book is called CDB! SEE THE BEE! words that actually can be read as sentences depending on the sound of the letter. Instant messaging uses this exact form of communication for it's ease and to suite the 140 letters allowance.

Deciphering the letters in the book is not very easy if English is not your first language but the simple illustrations help with the coding. Another good one us the boy looking at an older girl with the (I M 2 O-L 4 U (happens all the time! poor boys!)

Being apart of the generation who first experienced the 90s technological change and the intrusion of the mobile phones and SMSing to my teenage i have been using D-s language since E-V-A!

The CDB book serves as the bible of the instant Messaging communication. Siege has been drawing for many years the rational and irrational whimsical way of futuristic communication and entertainment methods.

Another book by Stiege called Speaking Of Pictures, with the technological advancement of mobile camera's do you think this will pick up?

Thought, Imagine is Peter Jackson have read the CDB book before writing the Star Wars! he would've Wrote
L-K I M U-R F-D-R

Designing for the next American president

2011-11-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

Design as an entity does not havethe strength to stand alone; it has to rely on other disciplines to materialize. One of the most interesting design -Lifeassociations is Political Pop. Yes, Political Pop. The term is equivalent tothe 20s Political Propaganda that relied on the Russian Constructivism and the60s Chinese socialist realism and counter cultural posters.

While Obama promised change, change indeed hebrought. He became one the most iconic Political icons that transcended the 15minute of fame and become a natural (or manufactured) member of social andcultural –Ordinary relevance thus becoming one of the first political Popexamples. Pictures of Obama’s naked body on the beach reached the news andprobably converted into posters on teenager’s bedroom doors. He hasrehabilitated the image of the a president to a pop star! But that was not theonly change he demonstrated.

The massive amount of art and design thataccompanied Obama’s campaign, many of which were driven by the honest and themuse independent expression of independent designers, has rather been ladenwith patriotic clichés that were derived from the original uncle SAM poster-Red, Blue, White, Stars and stripes, the safe conventional stream that hasproven not to offend any minority or party. Clever, rely on patriotism and stayaway from controversy!

The beauty of the poster designed by fairey based on Mannie Garcia's image-though it being designed on the same patriotic template, is that it exudes ayouthful message that echoed the exceptional momentum of the whole campaign andthe promised change. Though it was not commissioned by the campaign manager, afterbeing downloaded and circled through the internet its popularity wasunprecedented that campaign held some of the ownership of the poster and evenasked Fairey to make Obama smile! Of course! Give him a smile! He will surelyneeds something to keep people by his side after 4 years!

In essence it served its purpose well. On thewalls it looked like a youthful urban self expression that demonstrated changeeven for the older generation who barely has any contact with previousgraphical or artistic political representation. As the design of this iconicposter did not go through that lengthy process of art directing and approvingit gave way to other uncensored political Obama art to surface with theblessing and encouragement of Obama’s candidacy. Encouraging free expressionwas more important than design and marketing perfection. Smart and tactfulapproach that proved it’s to represent the promise.

Other examples of political art that betterreflected change and swayed from the normal safe template, yet was not assupported by the political campaigns is the 1968 poster for Eugene McCarthythat rendered his signature in a popish-Beatles like artisticstyle that was famous in that time. Similarly Mr. Warhol’s representation ofRichrd Nixon and lately my favorite president Clinton for his re-electioncampaign that was designed by Peter max in 1996 which directed a true moreyouth friendly alternative that defined a more graphical inertia. Sadly, noneof those posters were as famous as Obama’s Hope poster. After 4 years, Therecession, the wars and the re-election campaign for Obama in 2012 I wonderwhat scenarios will come up next.

Euguen Macarthy by Ben Shahn

By Peter Marx

By Andy Warhol

Happy Eid

2011-11-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

The exact distance between Jordan ~~(my home town)~~ and New zeland ( ~~my current location)~~ is 16246.21 km (10094.93 miles) exactly.

For the past three months the smallest things that gets to me and make me miss home the most, like my old small falling apart car, running to the office because I am late, sitting on the balcony for a tan on a hot summer day, sitting on the orange couch ordering pizza from Queen Burger, Ordering a big dinner after sweating for 2 hours playing squash and most of all knowing that a paid Eid Adha vacation is on the way, for some people it is a spiritual for us it was a paid free vacation.The time when New zeland was a just the far land where the sheep is being exported from to be slaughtered in this Eid is now the land where I am spending my Eid holiday in and all other Future holidays for the next year.

It is this time of the year that I miss the most,when people weave hypocritical social scenes and younger individuals relish their social stratification. The disappointing idea of relinquished reminiscent. (remembrance)

Have a good Eid everyone.

Living in NZ

2011-11-04T03:22:00.000-07:00

Today marks the day I stopped feeling like a tourist. Today I helped someone decipher the complicated-insufficient transport system of the crazy Auckland!

Punctuation!

2011-11-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

I have never been a fan of English punctuation and always had to give my writings to my husband to fix the it. The following post actually changed my mind and proved that punctuation can be fun. I cannot believe i did not know most of them!Where the hell have they been hiding!?
one more thing left to do is to actually find them on the keyboard!
I think the Asterism makes a pretty tattoo.

The actual article is here and written by Jack Sheperd
http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/13-punctuation-marks-that-you-never-knew-existed

Dagger

Also called an Obelisk. This bad boy (on the left), and its two-headed friend (on the right) the Double Dagger or Diesis, represents a javelin, which is cutting out extraneous stuff from your text. Its primary use through the ages has been to mark out superfluous repetitions in translation, though nowadays it mostly just stands in as a kind of footnote.

Caret

Also called a Wedge, an Up-Arrow, and a Hat, which is cute. The word caret is Latin for "it lacks," which is convenient, because the caret is primarily used to indicate something that's missing from the original text.

Solidus

Not to be confused with a slash! The Solidus is also called a Shilling Mark (presumably by old British dudes in top hats) and it is at a much steeper angle than a boring old backslash. Back before decimilization took the world by storm, the Solidus was used to set apart different values of currency from each other.

Asterism

The Asterism has an awesome name, a cool look, and a really lame usage. It's for indicating minor breaks in text. It can also mean "untitled," apparently.

Guillemets

Guillemets means "Little Williams," which is interesting but unhelpful. They're named after a 16th Century French printer. Their primary role is in non-English languages that use them as quotation marks.

Sheffer Stroke

Mainly used for Boolean functions and propositional calculus. Truth tables. Stuff like that.

Because Sign

This one's so cool. It's like the "Therefore" sign, but upside-down, and it means because.

Section Sign

To indicate sections in a text, mostly by lawyers, who are too good for regular punctuation marks. You probably knew this one, but it's cool-looking, so.

Exclamation Comma

Just because you're excited about something doesn't mean you have to end the sentence.

Question Comma

The interrogative version of its best friend the Exclamation Comma.

Interrobang

It's a combo-Exclamation/Question mark, and it's awesome. It is the glorious punctuational equivalent of saying OMGWTF?!

Hedera

Hedera is Latin for ivy. Why that is relevant here is not very clear at all, but this little glyph was used back in the day to mark paragraph breaks. Seems like it was probably really hard and annoying to draw, but it looks nice.

Pilcrow

This one's also for paragraph breaks. Most people will be familiar with it, though not with the fact that it's called a Pilcrow. It's also referred to as "The Blind P," which sounds like a good name for some hopelessly twee indie band. "Pilcrow" is the Middle English word for "Paragraph." You will never be able to use that fun fact in real life.

Snark

Also called the Percontation Point and the Irony Mark, this one's used to indicate that there's another layer of meaning in a sentence. Usually a sarcastic or ironic one. So it is essentially a tool for smart people to use to make stupid people feel even stupider. Which makes it the best punctuation mark of all.

Easter eggs

2011-10-31T22:33:00.000-07:00

Developers at Adobe are so witty and funny. They love to play tricks and hide funny little surprises within the program. They call them Easter Eggs. They can be found on all the versions of Photoshop. Here is my favorite one.Called the Magician Marlin,

Open the layers from windows, then click on the little arrow to open the options. Hold the Alt key and click on the panel options. Tadaaa :) Hello Mr. Marlin

Basking in my Unemployment

2011-10-25T22:17:00.000-07:00

Being unemployed is proving to be an advantage. The 8 hours spent in the office divided between the meeting, running between rooms and procrastinating little time was left to work on exciting projects that paid little money but big self satisfaction. Projects that were put on hold for years because of the lack of time are surfacing at the moment and many things now have the time to be completed.

Pens, Pencils, colors, brushes and a newly bought A3 sketch book are set to work. Here is the first of few sketches that will follow.

2011-10-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

Having to relocate is much harder than i thought. It gets you thinking about all the possibilities that one can achieve and all the possible scenarios that one hope to act. Sadly things do not go as expected. Being new and knowing no one is proven to make the mission a little bit harder, everything here proves to be- under-expected, or maybe my expectations were high. Still i need to figure this out.

But thank god for internet. I have created this space where experiments are being done, not real experiment rather than style improvement experiment. A place to show where, how and why. A place where things can make sense. A space that can sequentially be acquired. Till then this space has taken a lot of time to be formed and i think i should follow the pointy fingure of the batman drawing on my desktop.

STOP PROCRASTINATING AND FOCUS ON YOUR ART.

I am not sure who the illustrator is.. so if you know please let me know so i can credit him.

2011-09-12T02:25:00.000-07:00

Soon to be constructed