SAMI SAAB

Founder /Creative Director Phenomena Advertising

First of all, I was happy by the number of entries and the number of participations in this contest. But frankly I was really shocked by the poor level of creativity towards such a noble theme and challenging brief.

“This is my Lebanon” is so exciting as a theme and it has a lot of potential in pushing the participants to express their creativity and design specially that we are going through crucial times. I’m really frustrated to see such an average, flat and lazy generation. Even though this generation has all the potential to shine, they have the world in one second, they have everything, Google, technology, social media, data, Whatsapp…

The overall standard is not at all acceptable. I’m really worried about tomorrow. In my opinion, this contest reflects the current local scenery; it perfectly describes our problem. It reflects the emptiness of our generation. I’m not pessimist but this is the truth. During the jury deliberation, I felt the ignorance in the nuances, in the copywriting twists and languages skills.

Arabad Poster Design Contest is a perfect alert for all of us to move immediately and to see what should be done in terms of creativity content and culture. We are all responsible! Schools, university, agencies, society…

In my opinion, the few winning posters have the minimum of creative and design criteria. They have all attractive and captive visuals. They are simple yet they hold strong expressions, treatment and messages.

The participants of the winning posters treated exactly the same theme and answered the same brief like all others but in a different way.