On the redesign of tarekchemaly.com

New website design

Old website design

Remember, some time back, I spoke of "digital repositioning" - and frankly many people freaked out as to what it meant. It was above all, killing the sub-brands (namely BeirutNTSC, 7UPstairs Publishing and Cambridge5) to concentrate on the main vehicle "Tarek Chemaly".
I was after all, the man behind these fictional brands, and for a very long time fidgety about the spotlight. The brands will never "die" completely - this I know. Only yesterday someone still referred to me as NTSC. But at least, my facebook, twitter, google plus, youtube, blog, publications, instagram and all else are now branded with a single logo (designed by Miled Issa) and appellation.
And lest we forget, the tarekchemaly.com website, which to be honest started as a website for one of the subbrands, has now been redesigned. I do not regret the decisions I took when I first entrusted Christian Al Murr to capably design the website, and it ended up as a showcase for my work (again, retweaked from a different original mission and brand so that tarekchemaly.com actually covered a different website underneath).
So a few days back, without much fanfare, Sharp Lemon (helmed by Patrick Chemali - same family, different spelling, no relation) redesigned the website, in the most minimal way ever based on icons I had done myself (I love how the website morphs on mobiles!). Just like the design of this blog itself is so minimalist people blame me for not even including a means of contact, the website itself is threadbare to a minimum.
At this stage my instagram and twitter have been cleaned from old photos or tweets which refer to defunct links, facebook works from my personal account (you are welcome to follow me but no one can add me as a friend), and you are faced with the same logo and name throughout my social media presence. The afore-mentioned repositioning is now complete and it all fits within the same vein. My website is present on all my profiles as a signature, and whereas I am aware it is the blog(s - plural as NTSC is still drawing frighteningly high numbers of readers!) is (are) my bread and butter, there's nothing wrong having a website that - at my age - is no nonsense but still very representative of me.
Minimalism has never been associated with my name, but as I grow older I am discovering the powers of expressing less yet with the same intensity.