Thursday, April 21, 2016

Mouwatinoun wa Mouwatinat fi Dawla - retro futuristic political communication

Now that's interesting, many many clients practically begged me to put their works on my blog to get my official endorsement - but I always refused out of ethical grounds. Disclosures: yes, I did that campaign, yes, I am personally connected to the daughter of Charbel Nahas (the man who helms Mouwatinoun wa Mouwatinat fi Dawla). And whereas - without my readers' knowledge I was running smashing campaigns and client reputations from behind the scenes, I think this campaign merits me bending my rules.
I was enticed to be on board of it after I published the call for intership earlier. And after two days of gruelling work, which included a huge amount of handmade visuals based on a digital platform, the result above speaks for itself - and whereas I am not one to play the figures and numbers game - the number of clicks rivals that of the Lebanese political party with the most vivid presence on the digital scene (no names, but I know the numbers and I know how they compare). Interactivity and clicking shot more than a dozen time fold (actually more!). A proof that when you give people interesting political communication, they stop by and think.
I am not deluding myself, I do not think the public at large wishes things to change, but since someone is indeed trying to shake up the status quo, I decided to pitch in with my skills. I already heard comments being lukewarm towards the typography used, but I also saw people who are normally distant burst out laughing when they saw the campaign.
Above are just samples of a bigger picture, The amount of visuals in store is too big, but the retro futuristic feel is very compatible with the client - an underdog trying to make a difference. In a world where every candidate, no matter how small, can go to a bookshop with a graphic design department and have everything designed and packaged, it is a refreshing change to go back to the old methods of advertising - homemade, painstaingly done - to give a client a labor of love, one which looks like him and would be visually identifiable easily by the electorate.