artwork Archives

December 28, 2011

Part 2: Art on wheels

Part 2: Art on wheels – shooting Dubai’s colourful ‘Jingle trucks’

Following Part 1 of our post on the research & prep for our signature 2012 calendar, here’s Part 2 of Zaman team mate Nadia Abdeen’s journal entries – Nadia was tasked with the responsibility of driving around Dubai, camera in tow, to find the colourfully painted sewage trucks or ‘Jingle Trucks’ as they popularly called.

October 5^th: Again I noticed a few colorful trucks on my way home, I think it was around International City. I decided to head that way and drive around for a bit on the off-chance that I might spot a few trucks. Success. One of trucks had a different rendition of the popular golden eagle. It was beautifully painted with colorful ornaments all around the truck. There was also another truck that I saw which was pretty colorful but a lot of the paint had worn off marring the original artwork. All that was left were scenes of blue mountains and some trees; probably depicting the trucker’s hometown. Today I also found more smaller-scale crops with rich color and form.

October 25^th: Today is my last trip out to find a few more shots of truck art for Zaman’s calendar. Although I’ve managed to get some interesting shots, I’m still a bit curious to see what else is out there. I found two trucks that were less elaborate than the rest of my collection. However this trip was my favorite and was perhaps the most insightful; I found the only artist in Dubai who paints on these sewage trucks. He is the painter behind 65 truck paintings. An old, shy truck driver that is well-known amongst fellow truckers as “الأستاذ” or ‘The Teacher’. He shared with me some of the stories behind his paintings, and how each one of them holds a story relevant to the driver of that truck. He also told me that he is not allowed to paint anymore as the RTA (Dubai Road & Transport Authority) put a rule against decorated trucks, and most of his paintings were washed out because of this.

My research and numerous drives around Dubai in search for these painted trucks made me realize just how much I’d underestimated the significance of these paintings to the truck drivers. Not only do these paintings resemble the driver’s personality, they are also used as a kind of recognition ‘badge’ whereby drivers can instantly recognize each others trucks on the roads.

Thanks Nadia for sharing! Here & here are two links to interesting write-ups on this culture of “Jingle Trucks”

You can find more of photos of Dubai’s colourful tracks on Flickr.

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December 27, 2011

Part 1: Art on wheels

Part 1: Art on wheels – shooting Dubai’s colourful ‘Jingle’ trucks

Last week I wrote a short post on the design process behind our signature annual calendar which is designed & used in-house and shared with clients/partners. Here’s a link to the post. A few days ago I sat down with colleague Nadia Abdeen who was responsible for collating all the artworks for the calendar. Nadia was kind enough to share some excerpts from the journal she kept to chronicle the entire research process. So here is Part 1 of a two-part series on photo-shooting Dubai’s ‘Jingle Trucks’.

July 19^th: On my quest to find these trucks that are adorned with beautiful artworks transforming them into mobile art galleries, I started pretty much looking in the wrong place. [Well meaning] tips from friends & colleagues suggested the Dubai Creek area as a starting point, so off I went with my Canon SLR D500 camera in tow. What I found though was pretty intriguing and definitely worth sharing; art on boats! I also found a truck for shipping at the port parking, not one of those I was looking for but quite interesting as well.

July 21^st: Today, I noticed one of the sewage trucks that I was looking for on my way to work. I decided to follow it until it eventually stopped. Thankfully I didn’t have to drive too far as it stopped at a Fruit & Vegetable market. It had a golden eagle painted on the back of it, which apparently resembles the truck driver as I was told later. Many other trucks on the side of the road, for different purposes and with different shapes and forms. However, there must be a place with many of those sewage trucks, now the challenge is to find this place…

July 24^th: I thought to myself, why not take a drive where I found that first sewage truck; next to the fruit and vegetable market? So passing by, I found a new one! But that was it for today. The truck had a painting of a bridge with a boy and a girl on it, and towards the bottom were two eyes of a female painted in a very large scale, with flowers and candles around them. A very romantic art piece that reflects the longing of that truck driver for his loved one back home. I later learned this story towards the end of my truck-seeking journey, along with a couple of others. I also managed to find some crops into other illustrations created on other trucks, in smaller scale.

October 3^rd: We had a busy time at the office, so it has been a while since I last went truck searching. However someone in the office today said there’s a sewage plant located close to our office! I went there, and many of sewage trucks were there! Unfortunately, mostly those plain ones without paintings.

October 4^th: How about I pass by that sewage plant today? I might have a better luck finding one of those painted trucks… mmm not really. Again I came across two of the ones that I already found before. I headed home. At one of the busy roundabouts of Al Khail Rd, I came across a new and remarkably painted truck! I ran out of my car with the camera and managed to get a good short before it drove off.

Look out for Part 2 of Nadia’s journal entries in the next post!

December 22, 2011

Zaman’s signature

Zaman’s signature calendar

It’s that time of the year again – we’ve starting couriering our signature Zaman calendar for 2012 to our clients & business partners.

Originally we came up with the idea of a Zaman calendar as something that would reflect Zaman’s creativity but also serve as a self-marketing tool that actually provides some kind of functional value to our clients and partners ensuring we stay top of mind, or “on the desk – next to your computer” if we’re going to be literal.

Zaman’s signature calendar stand is designed 100% in house. It is a simple and elegant design made out of clear plexiglass material to enable one to see both the calendar side and as well as the artwork.

Every year we look for a specific theme based on a subject that has inspired us. Three years ago the artwork for the calendar was a fusion of Arabic and Latin typography, East meets West. The following year we looked at Arabic pattern work. For our 2011 calendar we wanted to celebrate the refinement of crafts in the Middle East and their potential evolution.

Staying true to all things authentically Arab, a common theme in all our designs is the use of beautiful contemporary imagery of Arabic artisanship and craftsmanship in a way that celebrates and honours the finest crafts of the Middle East.

Delivered to all of our clients our calendar has become a popular fixture often resulting in a few queries from client’s wanting to know why they haven’t received theirs yet!

We’d like to think that Zaman’s signature calendar has become a vehicle to spread Arabic culture and heritage. Each page month has a unique artwork which means that the calendar in essence then becomes a piece of collectible art that can even be framed and used as a wall hanging or simply to adorn one’s desk.

Our 2012 calendar is inspired by the colourful exterior decorations of cargo trucks from Pakistan (and India) commonly referred to as ‘Jingle trucks’. These customized trucks are often a reflection of the personal taste of the driver as well as representations of a specific origin & sometimes even incorporate elements from the routes they regularly drive. It’s quite common to see poetry and well formed scenes as part of the artwork. Look out for a post from team member Nadia Abdeen, who was responsible for the fieldwork research.

Our calendar provides us with another canvas to display our team’s talent & to give you another peek into the world of things that inspire us in the Arab world.

Enjoy the pictures!

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