Onwards by James Jarvis

All time favorite illustrator James Jarvis' latest moving image Onwards in collaboration with Syhnola.



And part of the video is actually inspired by David Shrigley's work, who i admired a lot too:

'I had been an admirer of Shynola's collaboration with David Shrigley in their promo for the track Good Song. I liked the way it maintained Shrigley's drawn aesthetic in its transformation into moving image, so I contacted them to see if they would be interested in working with me on the idea. Richard 'Kenny' Kenworthy agreed, and worked heroically on the film.'

Always love James' works for being so whimsical and humorous. I still remember and inspired by his talk during IdN My favorite conference in 2004, about his theory on 'logically illogical' or 'illogically logical', which i think is still reflects on his works nowadays.

By the way the music by Caribau is lovely too.

a good week

This is a pack and interesting week for me.
Quite inspiring and meaningful:

---
Wednesday:
Caught the performance by the multi-instrumentalist - Otomo Yoshihide
大友良英. Been expecting something more noise or experimental Jazz, but the show turned out quieter than i expected, feeling more like Minimal Tech. It was also the first time in my life seeing a gig that the organizer shouted at the crowd: "Be quiet!". I was once wonder that am I in a cinema or what...

In fact, should called this an art performance instead of a gig.



---
Saturday:
Attended exhibition of the photographer - Yasumasa Yonehara 米原康正, the one who famous for taking sexy hot babes' photos. Yes, I hate Japs! This is a crossover exhibition with the graffiti artist Reach. I was slightly late for the opening, and missed the live painting on model's body. Damn~





Found some more event pics here.

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Sunday:
I've been living in 番禺路 for almost half a year, but just found out few days ago there is such a huge sculpture gallery nearby. The Red Town, which is located in the opposite direction on my daily route to my office, and only takes 10 minutes walk from my place. It is kinda like the sculpture version of M50. And there got bookstore that sell design books too! Woohoo!




Sometimes good things might just beside you and me, we just need to wander to the other direction...

Ten Graphic Design Paradoxes

Another article by Adrian Shaughnessy which i think is worth reading.
Kinda like his thought because he is always being honest and constructive. He mentioned something in his recent article which i feel relevant to me:

"For designers, verbal skills are as important as visual skills."
"Ideas usually fail not because they're bad ideas, but because they're badly presented."

Years ago i keep insists 'good design can always speak for themselves'.
But after awhile i realize that is not utterly true. Knowing how to present really helps a lot in selling an idea, and that is why some suck businessman-designers can win the business whilst some good otaku-designers cannot.

I'm completely suck in verbal skill and presentation. Damn it, although i'm not really enjoy talk cock about my design... but better be modest and keep learning.

Read Adrian's full article here.

Grid is great

I was always fascinated with typography. During my college time, the lecturer only teaching us "look at this, look at that." for whole semester, in the end i still have no clue what is typography all about.

Thanks to the internet, now we can grab any information online. The thing that I've learned recently and really excited about (after years working in this field), is how to set a baseline grid! Shame on me...
So basic yet so important. Check it out!



The grid is the foundation of any solid design, I wish i've learned all this years ago... Anyway, here are more stuff about grid system too.



The grid is just so great~

Sexiness

Just finish reading this seductive book - 固态阅读, a book about Irma Boom's design. She is definitely one of the best book designer in the world. Totally amazed by the thinking and efforts behind every single book designed by Irma, from the big idea, layout, typeface, binding, paper, ink, and so on, every single details had been taken care of. By reading her actual books will get stimulation of various senses...

See more, or buy the book here.

finally think simple act simple

Started from middle of 2008, It's already more than a half year i've been planning to work on my portfolio site. Doing personal stuff always can't see an end, everything seems not good enough and the changes are like forever...

Finally make up my mind and put everything all up. Let's check it out :D
www.thinksimpleactsimple.com




In fact at the very beginning i was thinking of make up a fancy flashy site, well actually i'd already did... with a lot of helps from lovely 'Abang Jay' from Kinetic, really sorry Abang i throw away all your efforts >.< ( for girls please consider this lovely guy, add him in facebook ).

To not waste Abang's effort completely, i decided to put this incomplete version online too ~ www.thinksimpleactsimple.com/beta



The end is just another beginning. It's time to work on next project... XO

Fame

"If you want to be famous, the first thing you have to do is stop wanting to be famous." - Adrian Shaughnessy

This is one of the most important quote that influenced me a lot few years ago, by Adrian Shaughnessy in his very first book - How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul.

Read Adrian's interview here.

Don't cry

what's a graphic designer do...

during his two weeks holiday back home.

Creative Brief - touch up a picture of his grandmother, to clean up the background and remove the 'dirt' on her face, then print it out big.


original image.


version 1 and version 2.


unreleased version. Banned by the account servicing (my mom)
before showing it to the client (my grandma).

I'm not gay

After years working as a graphic designer, I feel bored by flipping at those purely graphic art, advertising or illustration magazines. In contrary, I am slowly into other fields like industrial, interior, architecture, fine art and so on. Looking at design from other fields actually keep my mind fresh when I'm working on my own.

I don't really want to admit this... But i do attracted by fashion design recently. What i means is really fashion kind of fashion, not only about printing graphic on a T-shirt. Probably started from my Tokyo's trip 2 years ago, i was really fascinated by all the fashion brands like Undercover, Head Porter, Neighborhood, Visvim, A Bathing Ape, Beams, etc. By visiting their stores are totally different experience from what we read from magazine, although i'll never be able to afford one of those...

And then slowly I learn more about those Hi-fashion labels like Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, agnès b, Maison Martin Margiela, Junya Watanabe, Vivienne Westwood, Bernhard Willhelm and so on. All the names that I used to see on magazine every time but have no idea what the heck are they really about. (I still have no clue though)

Looking into how a fashion perfectionist taking care of every single details in their cloths, branding, and also their fashion show, I realized why my printed tees can only sell for $10 while Comme des Garçons's can sell for $1000. It's the same theory where some 'designers' charge a logo design for $10 while some can charge for $10k.

I'm not a Hi-fashion person, we doesn't need to buy all those cloths to appreciate a fashion designer's work. Just thinking that if we can appreciate other's design, others might try to appreciate ours too. I used to be a raw and ragged person and proud of wearing a fake Ape Sta. But nowadays i started caring about what to put on my body. Sure is not those big name, but will try to examine the details, cutting, and craftsmanship a little bit more before I'm wearing it.

I'm not a gay, maybe just one tiny step closer to a metrosexual...

and then, a new year again.

回顾今年其实过的还蛮精彩，虽然没有做到什么惊天动地的作品，
每天都好像普普通通的过，但想起来其实又好像经历了很多。

年头还在新加坡工作，company trip去了意大利。
威尼斯真的很美，自己离队去了邻近的Treviso想一睹我梦想的Fabrica，
结果被拒在门外差点冷死。

三月的时候接到通知有幸被选中为其中一个W+K Seeking的人，
去了美国Portland三天算是见见世面，遇到很多猛人和看见自己的渺小。

后来告别了新加坡，去了W+K上海工作。
原本对上海公司很大期望后来察觉不过如此。
以为透过Seeking过来身份会特殊一点，但只是被当成外劳freelancer一名。
反正身份与金钱一直都不是我追求的，start from zero对我来说一点都不难，
只要天天做设计就好，其他东西其实都无所谓。

十月一个人去了北京，我不热爱旅行，只是为了音乐节去的。
我是一个空心的人，没有感情的人，跟本不懂得体会什么风土人情。
不知不觉去过了很多不同的国家不同的城市，开始觉得那里都一样，
人还是人，车还是车；吃饭的还是吃饭，喝油的还是喝油，
整天被骂没有去explore不同的地方，不同的美食。
我就是这样狭窄，不感兴趣的东西我真的一点劲都提不起⋯

当中还有很多琐碎的，也有改变人生的大事。
开心过，辛苦过，烦恼过，感触过，笑过，叫过，爱过，痛过⋯
其中的爱跟痛其实是甚少在我人生中出现，很庆幸今年有用力的感受过。

对不起一直被我忽略的朋友，我在MSN很冷漠但其实我是珍惜我们的友谊的。
对不起阿达靓君我真的不是故意推搪，只是真的提不起劲做你们的东西。
还有很多新的朋友，我想我永远都属于那种在你们身边擦身而过的人，
无论我们有多深交都好，除了高佬例外⋯

接下来要继续用力工作，用力学习，还有用力的去感受，
想找回失去多年的触觉，或者根本没有在我体内存在过的感觉。
after all we're only ordinary men.

我顶，又一年。

the dark is falling.

the sun is rising.