Monday, March 20, 2006

You got flashed!

Think!

You can decide to be an opportunist, indolent designer/artist who thought to be an art director to presently come up with ideas and sell, or you choose to be among the designer who struggle to learn more, create and increase skill sets yet also have the same amount of ideas and they execute more, in this case being more versatile in what you do. Both one is radical and one who prefer simplicity because they can’t afford to do more. Nevertheless, what you need to know is that how you survive the world of design as a part of your career. Thinking of time, as time is money; we always need to think which is best for us, to cope with datelines.

In my early days working as a designer, I always wanted to give more and put the best out of my work. However, creativity does not come in a blink of an eye. Mood, environment and getting comfortable always had trouble me. In fact, you think to far to worry about the effect of our work, for instant, knowing how to fit your design with the backend, how easy it is to updates, worry this and worry that. But now, time consuming, we do that WYSIWYG. ‘Goggle’ing images, modify copyright images in order to catch the dateline, and voila, finish a piece that we claim to be ours? Live and learn to deal with it. But what will happen? What are the consequences? People will start analyzing your work. They will do comparison, and they found out exactly what is wrong, you’re in deep trouble. And your reputation will somehow disturb. I believe the local web design industry should understand what argument I’m talking about.

Question, do we always say yes to whatever client require us to do without putting some appreciation and dignity to our creative? What about the designers? Are they multi-tasking?

Negetive. Because we believe that we are selfish and greedy in ownership in a lot of project. We don’t consider and we pay no attention to appreciation to get work done. We want credits of what we do and more money in our pockets. And a lot of those who notify the company are practicing bad attics leave, leave and leave. Yasmin Ahmad once told me; “If the company does not appreciate you, don’t stay. Leave the company”.

What’s Flash Got to Do with It?

I was looking for many, many multimedia designers. One of the reasons is because I want them to work, learn and get experience. Three companies are hiring, from (if) interactive, to Huevisualab and Slipknot. And where are the designers? They go to sleep. They don’t look for job. The job looks for them. I met few designers who are currently looking for a job. I ask them, ‘are you good in flash?’ And they just simply answer with such an ease expression, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I know little’. Joe, how the fark are you to get a job if you waiting for good things to come if you don’t work yourself to increase your skills? You got the time in the whole world, why wait? You can’t expect work come looking for you. You can’t expect to become an art director when you just finish your studies. Unless you’ father is rich and can send you to study overseas until the age of 30 and still taking different courses each year or got an uncle who works in Leo Burnett, you can definitely take that career shortcut without experience.

Last look: For those who may concern (based on few feedbacks)
I have a reason to talk about this issue. It’s because I’m not showing off that I know things, but the fact is I learn from my mistakes, and I want people to know what I’ve been going through and they will take precaution when they work in future. I believe in helping them as much as helping myself. If I don’t help myself from the beginning, I may not become of who I am today. Here’s a piece of advice, don’t be prejudice. I heard you guys are talking bad things about me, but I got other things to bother. I do my work, you’ll do yours. Get it right.


Where thou shall go in future? We’re all struggling, neither one of use have the most secure future in our careers. Anything can happen.

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MIDI Party

I have to force myself to attend MIDI party that night, of course with the help of Gary's extra golden tickets :P I had major fun that night. It's truly honored to meet Kustaa Saksi, Devilrobots (againand again) and Karim Rashid, along other great humble and low-profile speakers. We even had this T-dance square where everyone start dancing in the middle of the dancefloor. It was fun. I'd dance twice. It was crazy. Even Karim went to do his Robot dance, which I thought it was funky.

Thanks to Juan and Peter for introducing the guys. For those who like to see some of my snapshot, feel free to drop by my fotopages gallery.

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Friday, March 03, 2006

Creativity in common

Stock images, royalty free materials can easily be found from the World Wide Web. Few of us really care to make use of it wisely, and some does not. One of the favorite stock image online libraries I regularly visit is StockXchange, a.k.a SXC (besides google-ing images). SXC provide great quality of hi-resolution of photos, taken from amateurs to professional. The good news is that you can use it for personal and commercial use for free. Of course some stocks have their restrictions, depending on user. Interesting huh?

Two weeks ago, I got an email from Phil Ragen from Australia and he sent me a PDF version of their newsletter which features one of my stock images for their article. That is something cool for me because people do appreciate your work :)

Early last year, when I start to have my own blog, I was exposed to Creative Commons (CC). To my knowledge, I’m only aware that (CC) only helps us designers or bloggers to protect our materials and copyright. Surprisingly, they also offer great resources from images, photos, graphics, music, videos and even articles. It’s enough for you to create or compile a great project for your collage or an experimental work.

Here are some facts about Creative Commons (CC):
The Creative Commons License refers to the name of several copyright licenses released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S. non-profit corporation founded in 2001. The Creative Commons website enables copyright holders to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining others through a variety of licensing and contract schemes including dedication to the public domain or open content licensing terms. The intention is to avoid the problems current copyright laws create for the sharing of information.

Why do I want to talk about (CC)? Many of you not know that Creative Commons spread their wings in Malaysia. Recently, they had a competition with amazing prizes to give away. It was a prestigious event organized by MDC (Multimedia Development Corporation). I was given the privilege to be one of the judges, along with me is Mr. Ho Chun Kiat, who needs no introduction, especially those who are familiar with Malaysian Video Awards (MVA).

Aerosolism



Saturday, the 4th of March will be my first kickstart for doing graffiti (after such a long time) at Taman Tasik Titiwangsa, Kuala Lumpur. You guys are free to come and see us, whole bunch of graffiti gurus (SWS, Orkibal, etc).


Adios.