Friday, January 26, 2007

_workupdate: obourious

Among the upcoming series for my (ml) portfolio revamp (which I'm expecting to be launch on my birthday), this will be my first official public work exhibited via online. Colors are studied carefully to give very yummilicious paddlepop-alike warm to cool tones. More to come! Check out the study case.


Basically the final work I did uses single jellyfish image (the one
I had illustrated and trace in Illustrator). Then I create multiple
layers and repeat all the jellyfish into different positions and colors.


Obourius, by Muid Latif. (cc) licensced under creativecommons.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank to my dearest friend, a well-known Malaysian blogger who had been so nice to interview me on this blog. Thanks Budiey! Check out the interview in (Malay language) here.


More of Massive Territory Jakarta pictures!







Thanks to my dearest buddies from Godote.com. Special thanks to Juan, Godote, Yoel, Godot, Ira, Bellamy, Boy Avianto, Rangerbastards, Yay! Mardedi, Budi, Harry (Congrats man!), Satya Gumilang, Evelyn/Irene, (Guys, you're my family now..), Tei & Aiko of FuriFuri (you're crazycool!), Scien & Klorr (123Klan), guys, you had once again inspired me and thanks for being such friendly crazy friends. I hope Klorr is getting better now. Love & Respect! Joshua Davis, it was an honor having you around and taking you to places with Shieko. I enjoy going with you guys at the Dark Caves in Batu Caves. That was awesome! You guide me to be myself, always and forever my sifu, tatoo man! haha. Ari & Thalia, most greatest creative couple, finally! I get to meet you guys in person. Holla to the digital orientialist! The rest, Sanyen (of if interactive), thanks for the long chat, and the rest of the guys, u rockk!

Music Review: Something for soul

This is my first post on music review. I cannot separate myself from music. I'm a person who love any music as long it is nice to hear. As long it has something I can hear and think about, or simply move my feed. From Grandaddy to Nujabes, to Jazzanova, to Butterfingers, Jamiroquai, Coldplay (a bit gay don't u think?!?), O.A.G, Mary J. Blige and to DangerDoom, Sound Providers, all of them inspired me in so many ways.

SORE



This band is brilliantly awesome. They have such noteable album that drive your soul to another dimension (no, no cracks included). I got introduced by Sore way back when I bought Janji Joni soundtrack back in August 2006. I never regret buying anything from them, and looking forward to hear more of them among other Indonesian bands...

To Support or NOT support local music Industry

I would never see how awful Malaysian music industry for being such naive in putting expensive price in a cd that only can sell for like what, 25,000 - 45,000 units? And more over, the quality of the music doesn't sound promising except if we got hands like Roslan Aziz, Audrew, Azlan Abu Hassan, Ahmad Izham Omar, Johan Nawawi, Jari, Liza Aziz, M.Nasir, Adibah Noor, Ajai, Pacai, Pete Teo, and few good ones (Well, I like what KRU did one the early 90's with the music they made. These days, their work is so last decade, well, coming from me who has been a fan of their work back in 90's) but, having said that, they did great on Cicakman lah.. no doubt. Back to the story, One song will take 5-10,000 ringgit, but the sales of a local album? If EMI doesn't 'cruelly' charge a CD more than RM44+, I would have buy most of their album. But funny they don't appreciate the value of = Low Price, High Demands, and High Sales. Why did I even talk about this? Because I spent RM150 last week, and I bought 10 CD's from various artists from Indonesia. In Indonesia, the artists have own their fanbase and sales, giving them the privilege to earn more than our local artist. Why? Because they produced more outstanding music composition compared to ours. They put a CD price from RM15-35 Ringgit and I'm telling you, if it wasn't for Melly Goeslow and Glenn, I wouldn't even think of buying Siti Nurhaliza's Transkripsi. You don't even find the local CD patterned with database when you load it in iTunes to convert it into your iPod. You have to punch in the title of the tracks individually for artists and songs, not like the Indonesians artist (CD). It's a shame that RIA / RIM is doing nothing about this. Let the indie labels councour the marketing, promotions and sales. I mean I see a lot of artist really work hard, no doubt, like Amy Mastura, Dayang Nurfaizah, Adibah Noor. Well, at least I'm seeing presence of local artists in MySpace to put the effort of promoting their music, themselves! (These includes OAG, Jaclyn Victor, Ning Baizura, Nicky and others). And I'm glad to purchase album from Music Canteen. Or else I wont be able to have the chance to listen to Dave Andrew's band. Still, I give support because 60% of them are my friends, although there are some local artists being very fcuktup snobbish people when I met them in-person (to name few, Ruff Edge. I remember Cat pushed me off the dance floor in the club called Orange, back in those days, cause I was dancing 'very good' on the dance floor. Ladies and gentlemen, it's call enjoying the music, not show-off okay!!). So, to support or not support? We have the power, so we can figure it out.


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Roll out!

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

A Massive, Scientific Excellence of Creativitiy

Imagine a world without time... Imagine, if we weren't able to fly? Imagine all the impossible thing that then become possible... with the gift of knowledge, given by our Al-Mighty, we are given the chance to use His exquisite creativity to invent world's most important evolution of inventions that now lies in front of our eyes. We are able to know the time with our hand watch or in our iPod, we can identify the direction of kiblah, look at maps based on Google Earth, and other fascinating discovery of science, astronomy, geography, arts, maths, architecture and medical and inventions. It's an amazing journey of what I was able to discover and I am so grateful to be apart of this exhibition, and it's still running till February, this year in Hall 1, KLCC Convention Centre. Click here for more info (Bahasa Melayu).

It's Massive!

Another great gift that happen to me is to finally meet my greatest guru of all time, Joshua Davis, during Massive Territory Conference here in Kuala Lumpur dated from 12-15th of January 2007. I'm writing an article for Territory Magazine volume 7, so you guys can check out our photo journey on the future publication, but meantime, get yourself a copy of Territory Design Magazine Vol 6! It's out now, and features DMP MekarMara in CD-ROM and also few of my artworks. Yeay!




Let's not forget, the photos!! [Click here!]

I Believe It's Magic!


Shot by Hasnul Hadi, MDeC. More photos here!

(Blog will be updated..too much things to write, and trying to simplify as many topics as possible). To A____, welcome back to my heart. I believe it's magic. Don't forget, things are not going to be the same, you and I.



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I'm a different person, Turn my life around. (Lola's Theme)

Friday, December 29, 2006

A Happy New Year!

2006 is indeed one of the best year I had in my life. I gain so much and I am glad I had overcome the obstacles. This is one of the best wrap-up of 2006, and a great kick-start of 2007.

Creative Revealed!

This is it. One of the highest peek of my career, as a project manager and creative director for the interactive showcase, for the upcoming Scientific Excellence in Islamic Civilization exhibition, in Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, 8th of January 2007.


An interface sample of Fuat Sezgin showcase that I work on together with SpencerAzizul

Make yourself to this fantastic and inspiring exhibition, where you will learn how the Islamic scholars built Sundial, by the first Muslim to invent time, and Astrolabe, that explain how we get to know our kiblah according to the knowledge of science in astronomy.

The sorrow heart of mine


HDR: A recent shot of Jalan Hang Tuah Mosque, taken by Muid. (Click to see more)

Menjunjung kasih dan takziah buat sahabat blogger, Rizal @ Magnus yang telah kembali menemui yang Maha Esa. Al-fatiha. Moga Allah memberikan ketenangan dan moga dicucuri Rahmat.

Warkah Pertama di Tahun Tujuh

"Kita"

Aku sayu dikala awan tebal menyandar bahu dunia,
hatiku dihimpit kerinduan menikmati epilog kisah silam,
rasa disini, yang kutepuk selalu semakin indah,
kerana kaulah antara insan yang buat hidupku gah dimata dunia,

Ogos memberikan keperitan buat kau dan aku,
dibawa ombak kau berlalu pergi dan aku disandung bayu,
Kita terpisah kerna takdir dan hakikat kehidupan,
Dulunya kau memberikan aku cinta nan berbelah bagi,
Dan kini, kau masih mengubah corak hidupku,

Kita, cuba melupakan ’kita’, membuka babak baru membentuk cinta,
Walaupun pelbagai kerenah kekasih dihadapi, kita masih dirasuk memori yang getar,
Esok mungkin kita dihati, lusa mungkin kita memusuhi,

Cinta kau dan aku sudah lama hilang,
Apakah yang kita lakukan kini sesuatu yang dusta?
Apakah perasaan ini setiap kali kau berbicara sini?
adakah takdir menemukan aku dan kau setelah kita kerap berpisah?

Bahagia itu satu impian yang istimewa,
Tulus sekiranya kita ingin teruskan disini, dimata, dan disanubari.
Aku bagaikan jatuh didalam rinjisan embun samudera,
Aku kembali jatuh cinta dikala pagi yang tegar dan indah
Ia bukan lagi mimpi, ia sebuah hikayat yang perlu aku habiskan,
Agar kelak disampai waktu, ia menjadi sebuah inspirasi,
Bukan untuk mereka, untuk kita berdua.


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I can't never delete you, because I love you, and you love me dearly.
I'm a different person, I'd turn my world around.
I see such a beautiful ribbons, in the skies, for both of us to share the view,
together again...

Friday, December 08, 2006

Not An Ordinary Designer

A Super Designer defines:

As a creative person that is able to generate ideas and produce few creative visual; such as interactive prototype for 2 hours or a 40 second corporate video in a working 16 hours (with client's changes and requests). Besides that, a super designer is not only to do art or creative direction, but also write project and creative briefs, proposals, site map, architect information (AI), wire frames, paperworks. A super designer surf more than 40 websites per day and communicates with his officemates, supervisor, technicians to potential future clients by read and reply almost 20-30 emails per day with 3 long paragraph of email replies. A super designer also attends creative presentation to clients to sell ideas and to convince clients that he and his team are able to provide solution to their products (clients) and have almost daily meetings, do photography, sketch few illustrations while waiting at the corridor for presentations or in LRT, and at the same time, work out at the gym in late evening, dinner with friends and 3-5 hours of sleep but being hyperactive and happy :) A super designer is able to fight the obstacles and create an extensive of self-help and motivation go become a better, stronger person, day by day.

A Journey of discovering an old friend, Red Kebaya


For more than one hour, I had kept my moderate-mode and become an extreme conservative audience, sitting in front of the silver screen in Cinema 7, TGV cinema on the 1st of December, watching Red Kebaya. There were only just two people inside the cinema, me and an old Malay man. He was busy answering phone call, as it seems like he’s running a big business or so. So, after the pre-screening I had earlier with the cast and crew like notable Ramli Ibrahim and Samantha Schubert. I was able to see them perform in this film. I’m quite glad to meet them. The movie is a good movie to watch. I don’t want to compare with others but I would wish there would be more scenes at the end of the movie. Well, it’s notable and great already. Although having said that, I want to share with all of you an incident I had after watching Red Kebaya. Remember the pakcik few seats from me? We accidentally got in the same lift. He start giving his comments about Red Kebaya, as a great movie. On our way out, he said

Pakcik suka film-film macam ni. Pakcik suka tengok. (Bisik) Pakcik tokei VCD haram. Benda-benda macam ni kena tengok, baru bila kita jual, kita boleh cerita kat orang cerita cam ni best

That time, I was amazed and pissed off at the same time. This is because I was extensively explaining the cinematography and the characters of the actors and actress in the film. Sadly, movies like this are going to be ‘copied’ to the black market for piracy release. But what I learn of the accident is that although these people are pirating our local movies, they themselves go to the cinema to enjoy the real thing. They want to see what they want to sell. So when they reach their consumer, they can convince that the movie is good.

Waulahhualam. I just realized that I was sitting next to the tauke of pirate VCD’s and DVD’s. Something rather look so sad to experience, however the moral are indeed in store in my mind but something that we all need to look upon ourselves.

CINTA, the movie
For those who still like to read my review on our local film, CINTA, kindly click here or scroll to my last post. Thanks to Sultan Muzaffar, and Grand Brilliance for inviting me to write the review and featured in their official, CintaTheMovie website.

Another interesting story of Muid Latif

Two days ago, I met my very dear old friend Nadiah. We had a great dinner at Starbucks, KLCC after I met my friend Teong Hin (Director of PGL) in the evening. Nadiah and I go way back, in UiTM days. We use to hang out, cracking out jokes and enjoy clubbing and do presentations together. Last time, she drove a cool classic red metallic Volkswagen Beetle while playing Portishead and Prodigy after class on our way back. It’s been so long since I hang out with the. The last time, we had a ‘small date’ at Chinoz KLCC. We suppose to go there but it was closed for renovation now. Anyway, meeting her was indeed a great opportunity even though I was dreadfully exhausted due to my multi-tasking work. I haven’t had enough sleep. Me and Perez also stay up until 5 am to finish a great teamwork of a creative video presentation for Pak Lah and the minister for the ICM Meeting that was held yesterday in Kuala Lumpur.

So, back to Nadiah, we chat about our work and relationships, what we both gone through. It’s great to let things out. It eases the pressure on our head. We both came to a solution of our future relationship plans. I rather keep it to myself for time being. Nadiah send me back home to Bandar Tasik Selatan, because I park my car there. On our way back, she was asking me about my life and stuff, and there is this one moment, I got so sleepy and fell a sleep few sec.

She asks me about “What is the direction I will be heading towards my life?” and guess what I replied: 70% of vector illustration”.

After a few second, Nadiah went silence and I just realized that I actually given the inappropriate erroneous reply. Was I really that bad that I think of work all the time?!? Then I start laughing and told Nadiah and apologize to her. God, I just need to get some time off. Even to do so, I don’t find any chance to do that because all I kept on thinking is producing, hardworking; generate creativity, until I lost my essence of life. Surprisingly, work makes me happy. It’s the only thing I can hold on to, besides family. Not to say that I only live for my work, but getting myself busy makes me more productive and become more experience in terms of my skillets and experience. I never regretted for choosing to be a creative person because it’s fulfilling and contenting my life.

Work Updates: iworkforthemdotkom

LMAF Website
Visit LMAF website which I had recently created!

I had recently design and develop a website for Labuan Mini Arts Festival. This website is presented in Flash with decorative illustration based on the studies of Malay wood carving. Last week on the 1st of December, me and my workmate, Kamal Baharin (MDeC) gave our creative talk on Animation & Interactivity for Creative Multimedia Initiative for the Malaysia 9th Plan (Organized by the Minister of Youth and Sports Malaysia). The talk was presented to the students of Kolej Kementrian Belia dan Sukan Malaysia at Bandar Baru Salak Tinggi in Sepang. The topics includes Work In Progress of Saladin Animated Series and Generating Creativity in Interactivity. Thanks to all the students who had been keen enough to wait for us and listen to our talk.


Here is some of my photography from last month’s Dubai trip.

Discovery of Muid’s Design Process:

View the WIP of Dhu-bi-niti, upcoming illustration series by Muid Latif

Dhu-bi-niti is two set of illustrations inspired from my Trip to Dubai (in the plane on my way back to Kuala Lumpur) . I had created this illustration based on my findings and research when I was in Dubai, United Arab Emirates last month. I was able to learn and gather great exposure and knowledge on Islamic Heritage, plus to get to know the culture and people in Dubai. This work will be a vector base illustration that I will be doing for an interactive installation for early 2007. I’m setting up more focus on gaining more illustration skill sets and want to see more of my work in illustration. Now that I’m a part of Saladin team, I want to learn more experience with my teammates and also want them to be participate in future MekarMara magazine release. I will be revamping my portfolio, the moedlatif to volume five point five (5.5). I will engage an ActionScript consultant to help me with the portfolio presentation, plus to create more edgy and perspective feel into my site.

I am currently working on a new blog at Word Press, dedicated for any post of my design process, so I can help myself, and others to get them to understand about the process of my work, and to inspire them to keep on moving forward as a creative person. Anyway, I'm teaming up with RadioActive to create a series of oriental fascination in street wear. I'm pretty excited!


Don't forget about my great Flash guru appearance in Massive Territory happening this 13th of January.


I never met any baby as cute, creative and adorable as Aida's son, Aiman.

15-17 December is indeed one of my most historical date of my life and my old buddies. That weekend, we had our first ever reunion! Organized by Ismail and Haryany Mohammad, As. Director of the Museum of Arts, Penang, we had our fun weekend-out and get to know the life after the 'U'. I get to discovered almost all of my old friends are in the humble industry of education, and few more in creative industry. Suprisingly, my friend Ijan is now the head of youth of UMNO for Banting. How bizzare is that! from a fine arts graduate. Nahyycee!

More photos can be found here: http://www.moedlatif.com/misc/reunion1/

p/s: Seems the will be no Angkor Watt for me... since I so many things to finish on my plate. More and more work. But then again, I'm glad. It's healthy, in my point of view.
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new emotions overflow…it’s called carefree.