As we wrap up an issue at the end of this year and look back at yet another twelve months and an additional batch of issues behind us, we cannot help but feel proud of all the talent that we have been able to showcase this far. Not proud of ourselves per se (although believe us, we are not big on unnecessary modesty), but proud of the sheer amount of ingenuous Lebanese “pencil holders,” “button clickers” and “MS Word typers” that reside in these parts of the world. We set out on this project believing that we’d inevitably need to look elsewhere when it came down to the collaborators we would choose to work with: “How many talented illustrators will we REALLY find here? Do you REALLY think a lot of people share our taste in music? Do you HONESTLY think we can pull off beautiful Fashion editorials if we limit ourselves to working with Lebanese Photographers and Fashion Designer?”