First in 2007: Creative Exposure

Giving a talk each year has been a must for me. But this year, it started slowly. Due to heavy commitment of work, I make more time to increase my understanding and observation towards what we call the Creative Multimedia Industry, by coordinating and supporting a lot of launches and events throughout the year.

This year, I admit, I put my pencil down and do more typing. There wouldn’t be more of those 170 layers of Adobe Photoshop that I normally do over weekly basis. But recently, it’s about time. I don’t want to waste half of the year not doing anything in the digital art scene.



British Council invited me to present our group, Digital Malaya Project (DMP) collective for the Love & Money Design Dayz event, called 'Pecha Kucha Night'. The whole session from 8.30 pm - 10 pm was a blast aligned with great speakers from Juan, Chun Woei, even Sharon Chin, Jerome, Michael (Gilamon), Morag Myerscough, Matt Armitage, Aiko (FuriFuri) and others.



The rest of the pictures can be found in my flickr page.

For the first time this year, Abby, my sister had showcased her photography works together with Riz Ainuddin, and the key people of DMP, Perez & Shieko that night. It was a good crowd. I'm also glad to meet my friends from Bigbrosworkshop (Juan), Chun (UrbanCr3atures), Jay Lim & Vivian Toh, Simon (VectorBross), Tintoy, Gilamon (Lefty, Michael), Radio & Driva, Weng Keong (Arachnid), Salmi & her friends, Shafina and her cousin and the rest. Everyone had been very supportive and looking at them, they do care about education and creative awareness.

For more info about Design Dayz: Pecha Kucha, click here.

I have two upcoming art exhibition, and one upcoming talk in Johor Bahru called 'Menjana Kreatifiti Melalui Interaktif: Proses Animasi' will be held next month. I will keep you posted.
Web Design by Content that features my work are now available at Amazon.com



I had a good hangout session with DMP Collective (Abby, Shieko & Perez), Elyna Shukri, along with Ibah, Eka, Tini, Zatyl and 84Cube (Najib, Acit, and that guy) at Pelita, near KLCC.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank British Council Malaysia, especially to Patriana & Sunita for having us on the show, and thanks to all of my friends who came to the event yesterday to support our group. It was pleasure to see all of you guys. We have a lot of fun!


The Mind of Kamil Yunus, Art Director of Freeform

I would like to justify to those who are not familiar in the local graphic design industry. There’s has been an interesting talk by Kamil Yunus on Design Dayz talk, organized by British Council, yesterday. He started of good with narrowing how design and communication can relate to one another. There is also some important message he had carried to inspire some of us, however, Kamil Yunus had surprised me with his 'ill' remark on the graphic design scene. It was frustrating to hear words coming out of him, who is equipped with decades of experienced who had graduated from Yale. When he touch on the weaknesses of Graphic Design industry, how does he defines Graphic Design Industry itself?

It’s also a shame to let the foreign guests in that very day, to think that the local graphic design industry is WEAK & BAD, because it’s not as what he describes. Maybe he did not meant it that way, but some of us, even Salmi wouldn't agree about some of what he talk about especially in the Q&A session. The Design Industry had been grown very well, it's everywhere! You can see creative ads in LRT stations, TVC (Take Yasmin Ahmad, DiGi's Ad, Astro Sports done by SilverAnt) and others around us. If he was to talk about plagiarism, it does not only happen here but everywhere in the world. He missed out something to impress the guests. First, he should uncluttered the guest with complexity of design communication in Malaysia and educate us with the positive achievement of our industry. Second, he should inspire us with alternative ideas that can benefit our own culture and the oriental elements that can be adapted into design form. When you want to narrow down a problem, you should always give suggestion and alternative solution. This is one of the bad attitude among Malaysians. Always like to point out mistakes but never like to suggest a solution.

If I was at his place, I would suggest and advice people out there about how to deal with clients professionally in terms of financial management. Let people know how to solve design communication by not only solve provide excellent understanding of visual communication, but also to teach us how deal with clients professionally when it comes to brainstorming ideas, strategy, information architecture of a client’s development (either creative, product, brand or marketing) and what not. Next, to let the audience understand the versatility of design communication in Malaysia, such as culture (repeated). For example, sometimes, people out there don’t know why black color should not be encourage by creative agency because to some culture, it’s a bad luck. Same goes to showing sharp edges (feng shui). The outsides doesn't know all of these. Let them understand why we are unique.

Despite he’s a friend of my friend (too) Elyna Shukri, nevertheless, he should have reconsidered about his ‘feeling’ that to some of us, young designers, where I found his remark very 'arrogant' and 'prejudice'. The way he said was too cocky and as if he never bothers about what is really going on as a whole creative industry. We can't talk about one aspect and to look upon other sector (areas) as unimportant as graphic design scene. As a professional, he should foresee this issue to make it into a solution, at least a suggestion to us viewers, to look into other areas that can bring the great potential in the industry itself. I would bet he wouldn’t even know how much of graphic designers out there who had successfully produce a great commercial work from not only designing ads and prints, but also won few international awards, without having to prove to Malaysians and the world it shouldn’t be only Yale graduate can go for success while others don’t. Why we have Kancil Awards, MC2, DMAM, ADOi Advertising Awards, Cameronian Awards and other local awards created for this industry? It is to acknowledge the agency and to prove that Malaysia do have standards and quality of creativity that can be look upon, highly by other countries. Awards is an extra token of appreciation.

To prove to readers here, even fresh creative institution such as The One Academy & Dasein Art College had been progressively produced major creative improvement and talented student, who pre-ready for industry. These young kids had been headhunted from agencies not only local but Australia, New Zealand and Singapore because they see the great potential in us Malaysian, but what does really Kamil Yunus knows and aware of? Instead, he put down on the industry literary, to accuse of being weak.

I’m here not to argue about how good he is because he is good, but I want to argue, how deep he knows about the industry, if he fail to believe in us and keep on pointing finger on the education of design.

Let’s refresh and realign ourselves, give us something that we can proud off and inspired, not to de-motivate people with the weakness of the ‘graphic design industry’. It’s just not fair to hear such remarks from someone notable as him.

I may not be eligible to criticize this ‘feelings’ or ‘thoughts’ due to my qualification and experience, but he did insult some of us, especially me, the one who have nothing but work hard to help and support the industry as much as possible. The way he express himself as if he never appreciate some out there who are really trying hard to do the best their can to heal and to support this small design industry of ours. I did not contribute a million dollar account, but I let designers next door felt that they can find opportunity and chances to grow by looking at great and experience leadership.

Like Paul Arden said; “Accentuate The Positive, Eliminate the negative.”


New Work: 'Cacausia'

New artwork that I created last three days back in the office.



We can't own them, but treasure them for the beauty of God's creation. Inspired by Cockatoo, our local call 'em Kakak Tua, I present to you my latest artwork, ‘Cacausia’ . This is a part of the continuous series from 'Obourius', in conjunction of ‘Extinction of the Wild Life’ series.

Facts:
'Caca' taken from the word 'Cacatuidae'. Cockatoo belongs to 21 bird species in the family Cacatuidae. 'Usia', means Age in Malay language. In Malay language, we called Parrot, ‘Kakak Tua’, meaning ‘Old Sister’ (or whichever you prefer :P).

Colors:
I would like to bring the warm colours to make it more emerging. Previously, my artwork ‘Obourius’ had been very ‘de-saturated’ where I set the color palette slightly pale. With ‘Cacausia’, this version will create more vitality and oriental.


Sony PSP Fever

This is not an ordinary gadget. I was way behind getting myself updated with handy tools lately (orang kata ketinggalan zaman) after givin' away my iPAQ to Abby for her birthday. I remember when I was somewhere in The Curve a couple of months ago, I saw few kids playing PSP. I thought it was cool for such a small age to have such privilege to own a PSP. I said to myself, once in awhile, I do need these kind of escapism, after all, you need to focus on some other things, before you turn old.

Last two weeks, I was thinking of buying iPod video but it turns out PSP was the right and perfect choice. For RM690 (Basic kit) + 4GB of Memory Stick Pro - RM170, (together cost RM860). Adding a UMD game, 'Open Season' - RM140. Now, TOTAL cost = RM1000, this amazing gadget gives you 5 power function;

i) Playing amazing 3D games (UMD), Well, original UMD games costs RM80-170.
ii) Downloading and viewing photos, (good for portfolio review for interviews & clients)
iii) Videos (Elyana told me most of the directors uses PSP to showcase their film on PSP)
iv) Music playback and download (depends on your card. In my case, i have 2 GB of MP3s!, 1GB of videos)
v) Internet (Yes, check email here, Adobe Flash enabled, Portable TV, RSS, wi-fi surfing baby!)



Now, my iPod Nano merajuk. I think I lost it somewhere in my room, or in the office, or forever gone! Anyway, with PSP, I have saved a lot of money comparing to iPod Video. You get five (5) major function (giving you the resolution of 480x272) of PSP for RM1,000 while for iPod Video, they offer few functions and small resolution (320x280), without cool games and Internet surfing for RM1,099! The price different is RM99, but think of the big features that PSP offers. Plus, with MemoryStick, you can even store your documents and files (like a thumbdrive) whenever you are connected to your USB cable and a computer / laptop. Of course PSP doesn't offer playlist for MP3 playback and bigger size compared to iPod, but they also have art album cover and great quality of sound. The battery last longer than iPod, plus I don't need to find weird USB cable to connect to my psp, as I can borrow anyone's USB cable (camera, external hardrive, etc).

I also purchase Tekken Dark Resurrection (probably the best!) and the worst game ever, which is the new Transformers: The Game. Oke la, maybe the game trailer looks fantastic, but the game NOT! Well, since I'm a big fan of Transformers (Collector of G1, Masterforce and Cybertron), I would say it's a good collectible items, but not meant to be played. The game sucks! Not worth any of my penny.

To add more suprise, in my office, there are 7 people who owned PSP including two of my great bosses! Hasnul helped me to get the best deal of PSP in Gamers Hideout, Cineleisure, Damansara. Although they have limited PSP games on their rack, but their customer service support was good. At first, I bought UMD game called 'WTF' (Work Time Fun, yeah right!). I played this game (WTF) for one day and later I was not even satisfied (for RM80, giler rugi oke). I trade it with 'Open Season' UMD a week later at Games Hideout. Those guys are great!

With this PSP, I get to spend more time especially Ramadan is coming soon. I have my al-Quran PSP installed in my memory stick, thanks to Ikhwan Nazri from Flavert and his friends for developing a holy application for this. Good job!

Next year, there's iPhone arriving in Malaysia right? Let's just see.

Btw, Angel, a visitor from my blog informed me that she got to know my blog from a local TV station. Thanks for informing me. Now, I have to find out how my blog got on the show :) If you guys have any news about it, do let me know.

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