New addition to my already huge collection of lights

A trip to the cash converter got me this! :)


Yes I know it's one of those arcane insect repellent, but it makes for a really cool night light.

Patriotism is in the Air

In a form of bad design

In a form of over enthusiastic army stories from the brother who just experienced his first book out ever.

And in a form of the brother ruining the decor of my room, simply because getting his clothes dried on time is of the most importance and since (the weather is bad, so he is using the air-conditioning of the room to dry them uniforms)

Daddy fetish

I find it particularly touching when I see fathers take their children to school on trains everyday. While it is common to see fathers sending their kids by car right to the school gate, its rather rare to see one sending off their kids on public transportation. It's a hassle really to send your kids to school. Not only are schools generally situated deep within the heartlands, the ungodly hours that school starts – 7.30 am for most public schools – means it requires almost immortal efforts to do such. So its rare. In cosmopolitan Singapore, the act of taking care of the children still largely falls on the shoulders on the mothers. Fathers bring home the bacon. Mothers do that and take care of the family too. So yes, Fathers in public transportation, showing unrestrained love and concern to their children do affect me somehow. Same goes to fathers with little toddlers in supermarkets. 

Triumphant

It was one of those morning train ride to work. Uneventful, head filled with design ideas, eyes closed and plugged into the iPod. It was seemingly impossible to get a seat in the trains these days. Even though my ride aren't usually sardine packed, getting seats is impossible. As the train moves through station to station, more and more tertiary students fills in. I like to look at them. Besides the obvious reasons that they still possess the juvenile hotness, they have the glimpse of total freedom in their unfaded eyes.

As I was looking, one of them looked back. This caught me unguarded and I immediately turned back towards the glass doors that I was leaning against. I can still feel that she was looking towards my direction, but it was getting a little too uncomfortable standing in such an awkward position. I turned back and to my surprise there she was, standing a mere ten centimeters away from me. The train has moved and filled the train with more youthful students, tired workers and jaded executives. There was no escaping her.

She reminded me of Letitia. A girl I used to fancy when I was still in Temasek Polytechnic. As I tried my best to avoid her gaze, I noticed that she was wearing red converse sneakers, skinny jeans, a long puffy blouse and a rainbow colored hair lace. Retro. She too, like me, was plugged into the iPod. While I was a total wreck by now – I practically was looking at my scruffy old shoes like a scolded little boy – she seems confident and ready to play.

I notice the little things she did. The flirtatious pulling of her jeans just so she can scratch that little part of her hip bone, revealing her flat stomach. She would occasionally come closer, stretching her body like a feline, so that I could smell her delicious scent. Then she would search in her bag, pulling both her shoulders forward and revealing that dangerous cleavage.

This is however a mere game that she was playing alone. She was not expecting me to participate nor was she going to entertain me if I even did. She noticed my lingering stare, and was there to remind me that she was hot, young and unachievable. She is the object of desire, to be always desired. Soon the train reached the station where most of the students will get off. She was one of them. She left, feeling triumphant I'm sure. I smiled. Little did she know, all I cared about was that young man in the gray hoodie carrying, in his toned arms, engineering text books.

Baby's Romance

3 months and I'm still standing.

Caught

It was 11pm and I was rushing into the train to get home. The train as usual was crowded but this time it was a little too crowded for taste and class. As I squeezed into the train, trying to find a comfortable and dignified place for me to stand, there was this old lady, standing rather steadily without the need of support of handle poles or back rests. Non of the young punks that was comfortably sitting down offered their places for this old lady to sit. But this blog post shall not be dedicated to these uncivilized young brutes, but rather to this inspiring old lady.

As was mentioned, she was standing rather steadily, her legs shoulders apart. While most of us commuting on a train would rather spend our time listening to our iPods or catching up on some sleep, this lady was furiously scribbling down her thoughts on her yellowing notepad. As she was writing, the people around her watched intently as though they were trying to make out what she was writing. I took a sly peek, adjusted my specs and tried to read what she was writing.

She wrote fast. She wrote furious. I couldn't make out what this aging writer was penning down, but I do hope on some idealistic level, that I was part of her writing. That she was inspired by what is happening around her and took the time to record it down. As I squinted and tried to read the notes, she slammed her notepad closed. Was I caught? Is a writing in progress something not to be observed by the casual observer? I was terrified for that second. Then, she gently slide her pencil into her rather worn out handbag, adjusted her glasses and left the train promptly.

I looked back as this aging lady gracefully walked towards the escalator. Her gaudy skirt flirted in the breeze. Her silver hair messily tied in a bun. I stared her as she got on the escalator, and as the train were moving. And then she looked up gently at me. She smiled.

I was indeed caught.

And I'm glad.

Asian Boys Volume Three : Poetic Brilliance

I am writing this right now in an almost drunkard state. I experienced the play just hours ago, just changed into my sleeping clothes and now is typing furiously just so I could write this commentary on what I believe to be one of the more profound contemporary gay plays ever written. If you have yet to watch the play, there might be spoilers, so if you wish to venture further, ample warning has been meted out.

Asian Boys Volume Three (ABVT) is an adaptation of the Singaporean Novel by Johann S. Lee, Peculiar Chris. The first act explores how the writers deals with being gay through the principal character, Chris. Here in act one, everything is ethereal. You have muses and masked angelic beings acting as background players and providing heavenly chorus throughout its entirety. Though the issues and problems troubling Chris are not light or frivolous in anyway, the execution of the first act do reflect the juvenile freedom and idealistic perception of how young Chris – and in some extend, how young gay men – view the world. Act One on its own, was enough for me.

Then enter Act Two. While Act One seems almost imaginary and dream like, Act Two brought me to a completely different place. In fact it brought me to a strangely and disturbingly familiar place. It brought the audience to a modern day, year 2007, Singapore, a society still struggling with the concept of basic human rights and dignity. Here is where all the political didactic begins. If we simplify Act One and say it deals with personal gay issues, Act Two then brings those personal issues and reflects them as political. Alfian Saat has brilliantly merge the two together - the Political is indeed Personal.

Watching Act Two, I kept thinking to myself, I should have brought my mum here. I should brought my straight friends here. I should have brought my ex-girlfriends here. This is because, Act Two, in all its brilliance, the issues it brought up are not new to most of the audience. There are of course certain issues that hits too close to home – like being apathetic to social issues and the obsession with looks and the physicality – but most of the message are already passé. Alfian Saat is preaching to the already converted.

But this is I suppose the weakness of stage theater in general. Trying to use theater as a platform for change is ineffective because theater do not have the broad appeal that cinema or television do. Just try to drag your homophobic straight friends to a gay play they have pay $50 for. It could indeed prove challenging.

I however do not believe Alfian Saat's agenda for the play was to incite change on a societal level. I believe he was merely reminding us, the already converted audience, to not get too comfortable with society. And that more work is still needed. There can be no better time than now for such a reminder. With all the talk about the government opening up to the gays, we must not for one second believe that Singapore is in a dawn of a new liberalization.

It's so easy to be disillusioned in Singapore – they don't enforce the 377a penal code, so why should we care? And sometimes even though we heard the message before, it needs to be repeated again. And Asian Boys Volume 3, does just that and more.

The brother

Ever since the brother was enlisted into the army, my room has been in almost pristine condition – proving my theory that the room is in a haphazard mess simply because of my brother's existence, right. Of course I do not hate my brother. I think its impossible to hate one's sibling simply because of a single unfavorable trait. Other than the messiness, my brother is a lovable being. He is easy to talk too, nonjudgmental to a fault, and soft spoken. I am also secretly jealous of my brother. Not only is he blessed with a towering height (1.83m) and a slender frame, he stole all the good looks genes from me.

What can I say? Terrifyingly enough, I'm actually an aging 20 something- and a fresh young scamp of the teens seems so terribly young, effortlessly juvenile and barely out of school somehow. Was I ever that young and innocent? So when he was enlisted into the army – the infantry no less – I was somehow deeply affected. Not one to show emotions, I played the jester brother, joking to him about the inefficiencies of the army, and if I could survive the army, anyone could.

Truth be told, I wish I could have told him more. Told him that yes it's hard to adjust. And yes to survive, sometimes you have to betray your principals. I wish I could somehow help him be more prepared. I looked into his eyes on the morning of the enlistment date, and felt the same fear, nervousness and uncertainties I felt on my enlistment date. I held back my tears on that fateful day.

And I know, my brother was doing the very same thing.

On Integrity

My boss got me this book, the second month I worked with her. 'I think you should read this book before its too late Wan,' she says. Ever since, I valued my 'soul' more than ever. Not everyone is lucky enough to design for worthy causes for a living, but retain that integrity, even if you are designing for that consumerist corporate machine.

Integrity in design is a bit like obesity in ballet dancers - you don't often see it. This is not because designers lack honesty and decency; quite the opposite. Rather it is because preserving integrity in the remorseless climate of modern business is difficult. For designers, integrity often becomes a bargaining chip. We give it away in return for a job that comes with a lot of cash...

Post Ikea Part 2

Big Light + obscure corner = Instant Drama

Post Ikea Trip

Cheap Ikea Lamps + Drawing Mannequin + Mac = Chic Designer Work Station

Just make it pretty Wan. Nobody reads them.

Just make it pretty Wan. Nobody reads them.

Lately I have been hearing that particular phrase more frequently. It happened when I was designing a poster for a certain Asian pastry event. Taking the modernist approach – clean style, symbolic shapes and almost devoid of any cultural references – the poster turned out pretty clean and structured. The information on the posters, information I assumed was critical to the viewer of the poster, was treated to be at their most legible. Clear and undisturbed. Pure legible typography. Not the fanciest of treatments but clearly the smartest I believe. After all, text are meant to be read. They are utilitarian. Of course it was a dismay the client demanded that the text be treated a little fancifully. 'It looks too simple.' she said. 'Spent a little more time on it.'

'Legibility must be our utmost priority here.' I said

'Just make it pretty Wan. Nobody reads them.'

Of course at this point, I was thinking, if nobody reads them, why are we putting up the damn poster? Just to fulfill a requirement that every event needs one? People do read. People must read. People should read.

It seems legibility is no longer a requirement for typography. We are in an age where information and knowledge no longer matters. Fashion and style has become priority. Even when it comes to editorial content. Just flip through magazines. More pictures. Bigger headlines. Fancy treatments. All come with a cost - legibility and the discarding of writing. Reading has become passé. A friend of mine who worked in advertising once gave me a friendly advise that when it comes to educating people, try to use as little text as possible. In fact do it with no text at all. At that time, I refuse to believe that words has no place in life. But now, I am afraid he just might be right.

I am a reader myself. So I impose myself onto the world and believe that the world reads and enjoys reading as much as myself. In fact right now, I am believing that you people are enjoying the words and sentence structures that forms this very blog entry.

Today the nobody reads them rationale had reached its most ridiculous heights. I was designing a mid year financial report and the client told me that nobody really reads the report. 'Then why are you spending huge amounts of money to have me design this report?' I asked frankly and in jest. 'Because I hope that people will read this reports after you make them look pretty.' I smiled and quickly flipped through the report pages. I tried reading it. It was unreadable. It was boring, financial marketing talk mambo jambo. People do not read because there is nothing to read. And my job it seems is to mask the stupidity within.

Obsession of the moment

It must be about the struggling artists trying to make his girl happy, the soothing guitar strums and the naive thinking that love can solve all problems in the world that just gets me obsessed with this song.

Makes me want a Delilah.

Intellectual Pursuits

While I do read Graphic Design theoretical books, I am not really a fan of Graphic Design essays in general. Most graphic design essays are usually not graphic design essays at all, but conceptual exploration of a made up idea of a Utopian society – Graphic Designers are obsessed with the idea of Utopia. I like writings to hold certain substance that is practical or at least references the real world. After all designers do not work with fantasy clients, but real people who think the more fonts there are on a page, the more value they are getting for their money. So it is quite surprising that I actually decided to pick up a book of graphic design essay collection. I believe I should indulge myself the occasional intellectual pursuit of academia – no matter how optimistic the writings are.

Looking Closer - Critical Writings on Graphic Design is a collection of essays that are edited by a group of respected and renowned designers – Michael Beirut, William Drenttel, Steven Heller & DK Holland. Not really a new book, but contains enough current writings that could possibly entertain the bored graphic designer commuting on a train. To tell you the truth, the only reason I picked the book is because I am such a big fan of Michael Beirut's work. Did the book change my mind about the state of graphic design essays? No. But it did me give this renewed optimistic exuberance that I had never felt for a while.

"I was raised to believe that, as a designer, I have the responsibility to improve the world around us, to make it a better place to live, to fight and oppose trivia, kitsch and all forms of subculture which are visually polluting our world. The ethics of Modernism, or I should say the ideology of Modernism, was an ideology of the fight, the ongoing battle to combat all wrongs developed by the industrialization during the last century. Modernism was a commitment against greed, commercialization, exploitation, vulgarization, cheapness. Modernism was and still is the search for truth..."
- Long Live Modernism by Massimo Vignelli
one of the many essays that champions Modernism

One Year Old Baby Birthday

W: I got to go some one year old baby birthday party
L: One year old birthday party?
L: Why would any one year old need a birthday party?
L: First of all the infant mortality rate for this country is very low.
L: So its not a big fucking deal if your kid reaches one year old!
L: 'HEY LOOK WE DIDN'T KILL OUR BABY!'
L: Geeze... one year old birthday party..
L: What's next..
W: So you really hate kids huh.. ._.;;

Hi. I am Sudirwan and I make posters for a living.

Social gatherings. We all know the drill. We all probably been through it. But being a graphic designer in a social setting full of random strangers can be a very hectic and pressured situation. It is not that graphic designers are social misfits or really ugly people, but it is the very nature of our professions makes introductions very hard. It usually goes this way. You are in a room full of strangers. Your partner decides to introduce you to his peers – most of which either intellectuals or at least they look that way. 'So what do you do?' one of them would ask, his body slightly bend forward trying to hear you. 'I'm a graphic designer.' I said in a controlled enthusiastic manner. 'Oh.' He replied. 'So you can tell me where is the best place I am going to put my new sofa?' he added. 'I probably could. Though I am no Interior Designer.' I replied, my partner sniggering under his breath.

It is elusive the nature of being a graphic designer. If I were to say, I'm a fashion designer, or an interior designer, chances are they would probably guess what I do. But say graphic designer, and this illusion and assumption of what we do for a living is made up in their minds. Take my mum for example, when I first told her that I want to pursue a career in graphics design her first reaction was - 'Kau nie draw draw boleh dapat duit ke? Kau nie pandai Wan, boleh cari kerja lain kan?' Roughly translated that means 'How are you going to earn your keep if you just draw the whole day? You are smart. I am sure you can find other better jobs.' My mother's assumption that graphic design equals to drawing probably stems from the fact that during my schooling year I would sketch the whole damn time. I don't blame her, and now that I am contributing to the family, she ain't complaining much. She still doesn't get what I really do in the office. For my birthday she got me an architecture book.

So here is a compilation of funny and sometimes irritating replies I usually get when they know about me and my job.

• "Wow." after an akward 15 second pause. "So you sit around and draw the whole day?"
• "So what do you design?" - not a bad respond, but it usually having me end up saying advertising and stuff.
  
• "So what do you do?" - which is not a good thing to say to anybody after they just said what they did.
• "So you are like the future Gucci or something?" - design is not equal fashion people though being compared to Guccio Gucci can be a good thing.
• "My little brother/wife/second cousin/nephew/son does that too. They love messing with photoshop"
  
• "Finally some hope in this world!" - the most original respond I have ever received. Coming from a jaded lawyer who thinks lawyers are responsible for the downfall of civilized society, it was probably not surprising.
  
• "My brother is a graphics designer. I don't know what he actually does, but all I know he likes what he is doing and get quite good money for it. Envy him." my lovely sister to a bunch of her friends.
  
• "That's not really work right?" - Mary Ann - my plus-one to many social events and backup girlfriend should the situation requires it - when she first heard that I am one.
  
• "That is just a temporary thing right?" my dad when I explained my jobs entails things like designing posters.
• "That's so cool." - never fails to get me smiling