Maktabi’s tryst with doodle art began back in the fall of 1983, when he was in fourth grade. Back then, of course, it wasn’t doodle art – just scribbles standing in the way of his studies, as his then teacher pointed out. Fast forward to 30 years later, when his wife saw his scribbles and told him, “I will fill the house with your drawings, if it turns out that you can transform these meaningless scribbles into art pieces.”

And so, Maktabi has been furiously doodling away in his diary while waiting in lines or sitting through meetings. It’s almost therapeutic for him, as he says it helps him focus. So much so that, in one meeting, he was challenged to repeat what was said, because “the CEO thought I was scribbling my way out of the meeting. He was astonished when I repeated the whole discussion on the dot. Now, this same CEO waits to see the fruits of the meeting in the form of a scribble,” says Maktabi.

What started off as a personal hobby has now made its way to friends’ homes and Leo Burnett’s walls. Each piece takes him roughly two to four weeks to complete, due to his busy schedule.

Two things capture his imagination: cities in general – Beirut in particular – and, secondly, people’s faces. “I feel that every face tells the story of the person and I try to capture these stories in set pieces,” he says.

Maktabi finds that his style is still developing as he continues to explore what he enjoys, but his art typically tends to be black-and-white illustrations with a hint of color.

For him, every doodle is a story: “What started as simple scribbles is today a composition of many ideas, conveying a single story with a definitive message within the borders of that piece.”