Little Stories 268 : Finally Visited the IPC Shopping Mall

Several weeks ago, I went to KL and saw someone using the IPC shopping mall tote bag (that I illustrated in 2021 but never really saw up close because you can only redeem it at IPC mall as a gift if you shop there). 

I posted the picture of me with the man holding the tote bag in the background, he did not notice that I actually wanted the picture of that moment. After posting it on my IG story, Vickie, the person who was in charge of the project contacted me again and asked whether I wanted the tote bag because she had 1-2 pieces left at the office. Of course, I wanted it. Then she invited me to meet last weekend. 

And so, we set the day to visit the mall to hunt for all the illustrations that I did.

First, we met Jatte, the 7.5 m tall giant inflatable Dala horse that they have installed for their 20th anniversary: 

I saw the giant umbrella at the customer service counter and Vickie said I could bring one home :

Then we saw some more horses at the 20versary Ferris Wheel:

Here is more stuff that they made last year for the Christmas season, these are just the remaining that she got for me, some wrapping papers, a tote bag, and a badge:

 

They are planning on making more stuff like socks and round hats next. 

I would definitely come to get some socks for sure. 

Soo happy ❤︎₊ ⊹

Work Related : Icon Making for Bfab.my

I love making icons. I'm still finding a style that I want to stick to but for now I'm exploring some different options. In the learning process, there will be a lot of unused/unwanted icons so I put it up on my Behance. 

Some icon designers put a lot of effort in the pre-development stages : they do nice hand-drawn sketches in a book and all. I'm still in the stage where I want to explore my styles and learn how people actually do it. My favorite teacher is Dribbble, that's where I find inspiration and nice colour combos. 

Here is the latest simple icon created for Bfab in 'Benefits' section. The left part is the rough sketches I did to show my boss when I explain to him about what I was planning do. While the right part is the icons.

My mistakes :

• Didn't stick to the 9x9 box while creating the icons, some icons are a bit long - but suitable to be use next to the longer paragraphs. It is just a bit odd when compiled into a gif.
• Didn't stick to the branding colours - it is supposed to be black and peach, instead of grey and peach. I just thought it looked nicer this way. But later it seems a bit off in the website.
• I'm not fully satisfied with the style, but I was the one who gave the initial idea in using one-line-icon for the branding. So I guess I need to stick with this for now.

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A compilation :

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Work Related : Dribbble

All digital art enthusiasts and designers might have heard about Dribbble :  a community of designers answering that question each day. Web designers, graphic designers, illustrators, icon artists, typographers, logo designers, and other creative types share small screenshots (shots) that show their work, process, and current projects.

I wanted to be a part of them. Although I have an account for several years, I only got to follow and like all the designers that I love but not post any shots or write any comments. I strongly feel that I need to keep my online portfolio updated to get more interesting projects and improve so I thought Dribbble is one of the great platform  available other than Behance. And Behance proved to be really useful in my career development.

So I've been waiting and trying. 

Last week I finally - finally got an invitation to be a player at Dribbble. 

I was invited by a local UI/UX designer : Razlan Hanafiah. At last ! Thank you ! T^T 

We get 48 shots every month, so every post matters. 

Here is my Dribbble portfolio at this moment. I uploaded my version of Sailor Soldiers because they are my latest works. I thought about posting stuffs from works as well but I know that I will get annoyed with the combination of illustration and vector work in my portfolio - there's no folder :( My OCD can't deal with the differences of my leisure work and my work-work. 

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Yeay for finally being accepted as a dribbbler of the world!

*jakunzist mode*

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Ohh, and I found a really interesting website on UX Designer Salary all over the world. Although the salary paid to UX designer in Malaysia varies from being really low to quite high in the survey - we can conclude that most of them still receive fairly low salary, but tiny bit higher than normal graphic designer *based on jobstreet posts. Unless I'm going to work in Eastern Europe, India or the US. So I'm still considering whether to pursue my next skill to UI/UX or focus on illustration and icon design. Hm hm hm. 

Based  on the survey, average UX designer's salary across 70 countries is around $57,117 or RM 243,705 per year or ( $4,760 or RM 20,308 per month ). Not bad. I should definitely consider to migrate elsewhere :F

Work Related : I'm a Backpacker by Halian Azurin

Months and months ago, I got a freelance job to do illustrations for upcoming Travelogue Korea by Halian Azurin. As this would be my third time working for a book company but first time to be finally on print, I am super excited :F 

The first one was with PTSone, but I only did the coloring part - they cancelled the whole finished illustrations due to the similarity of every characters T^T but I got full payment nonetheless so I got no complains just frustration. The second one was with Karangkraf, it was for a children book on traditional games in Malaysia - I hired my ex-collegue to do rough sketches for the whole scenes because he worked as a sketchboard artist and he did it super fast. But I never found the book at any the bookstores - it was printed but I just never found it at bookstores. So this is my third and official first time :D

The project started even before I got married, I've been keeping the excitement in secret and I finally got to see the physical copy after so long. Last week I just received the book from them :D Thank you Miss Jann ! It is a nicely detailed book on backpacking in Korea. If you are a fan of travelogue, or will be going to Korea soon, you should try this book.

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I only did some of the illustration parts like : map, clothes, seasons, foods and several more items. It's not much than what I think can be offered, but I'm still excited to combine two of my personal interests : illustration + travel in one project. Hope to get more of this in the future :)

Some examples :

PS : I got a whole lot copies of travelogues in my keeping and this is a nice addition.
Hope you guys will support them as well, you can go to these links to buy it :

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Wesite PTS | Putehpress

You can buy it here : Bookcafe

Buy the e-book here : Im a Backpacker - Korea

Work Related : Viralcham Website

This is one of my last year's project. We were asked to design a logo for a local website's branding called Viralcham. Basically it is a website that share random contents that I'm not quite sure of because I can't read it *it's in Chinese. As they mentioned, 'cham' is a mixture of everything.

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So we sent our logo proposal. My moodboard consisted of research from companies that uses hand-writing/free-hand style in their logo. I wanted to incorporate my doodle in the logo - and the boss thought it was a great idea! 

This was the first sketches draft :

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The client thought that it is a great idea to create several characters to be used for their branding. So in the second draft, I created more characters - and they can seem to accept my cute-cute little monsters, but they thought Asian loves cute things =,= By this time, the boss asked me to take on the project.

Here is my second draft : 

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The boss asked me one last time to make a variation on the second draft to see where it might lead to, but I kind-of played in the same park and produced this :

Personally I love the grafitti-like logo and also the one with my hand-writing *A8.
But oh-well, the client finally agreed to go with one of the logo and all my new little monsters.
> Here is the whole Behance-prepped presentation :D <

PS : I don't really like the characters for Viralcham compared to the Begadang Backpackers project because this was all too structured and vectored. In the BB project, I used the Wacom Intuos fully to illustrates those BB beans. 

Work Related : Begadang Backpackers 3

It would be another 8 days before my final day at LGM and I'll be taking my short holiday for a few weeks before starting a new job. Life at work has been so busy because I am finishing off all the list of works that my boss passed to me. Everyday when I go back home at night I'll be exhausted beyond words and all I want to do is to sleep :F *or watch AF watches his videos.

I've began to wonder whether it is a sign of I'm getting older or unhealthy food intakes or lack of outdoor activities or I am just worn-off after 9 hours of busy day at work - lately. So we decided to spend weekends with outings like we used to. And eat more healthy foods and fruits *super expensive =,=  And spend 10 days at home relaxing and freelancing before our trip to Tokiyo. And I'll run everyday during my holiday. That should do. Experiment mode 101.

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Other than *almost open* Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe at Sunway that we are still working on, I'm still going to work with Begadang Backpackers  - the client finally decided to hire me as their freelance designer :D 

So I'll still be doing the designing with them even after LGM. 

Yeay for still growing up together with my baby! 

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We are still working on the website. So the client asked to put elements on the website to customize everything and give more personal touch. I'm working on tabs and headers and icons. For example things like this :

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To this :

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So the idea is to customize everything and make it more happy and funky :

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Sometimes I wish for extra hours because I keep on feeling like I need more time, to do more.
But I guess that is just an excuse. Kan? Kan? Fine. Read this.

Little Things 198 : Sampul Duit Raya

Having a designer as a husband means 

I'm getting random hand-made items as a gift every now and then ❤

What's not to love?

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and this is for those who still believes in love :

Work Related : 634 days with LGM & TRP team - Part 1

I received another great offer from a local start-up company about a month ago. It has been 6 months since they approached and offered me a job but that was the time when I was too busy with the Hello Kitty Cafe project so I had to decline. 

Surprisingly, they approached me again and after a week of consideration I think it's time for me to go and spread my wings to new challenges and skills. It is hard to leave, but they had a better offer, new scopes that I wanted to learn and I've been wanting to work with a startup company for awhile. T^T

To make it official, it was a great 634 days with the team. 

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Here is what I learned from LGM & TRP team :

1. Always be aware of your weaknesses. 

My boss mentioned that my weaknesses are : Colour combo, style variations, and basic designing rules/terms. I wasn't majored in design, I was majored in IT so I didn't know a LOT especially basic theories. I asked her what I was bad at, and I gave myself space to learn from my colleagues. They critiqued my works as I critiqued theirs. We have a very healthy working environment.

I also keep links to my references : Colourlovers , Flat UI Colors

Knowing your weaknesses is supposed to help you improve. 

Always refer from any resources and create a moodboard before you start on a project. 

For example, this is the colour combo I originally chose for Hello Kitty Cafe and that was the mood/style I was looking for : brush/watercolour/soft style :-

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2. Keep a huge collection of inspirations + researches

I'm using Pinterest, Behance and Dribbble for my personal library. They are my ultimate teachers. If you think learning from other people is low beneath you, then you will never reach anywhere - *because you are being arrogant. The important thing in teaching ourselves how to be good in something is by learning from our surrounding. Just like how you learn when you grew up as a baby, it was really fast, isn't it?

I have a Pinterest folder of everything from : Magazine, Poster, Packaging, Website, Infographic, Uniform, DIY, Branding to other little things like : Machine, Girls, Little Apartments and stuffs.

I also have my own book where I keep every moodboards I ever printed on projects :

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3. Learn the right way to imitate

Not everyone is born with a good talent in designing and own a 4-year graphic degree, as I said before some people like me needs extra effort and time to learn the skills & techniques. Learning shouldn't be intimidating. It should be fun, exciting and challenging to the point that one day, you will find you, in every one.  

So I learned a lot by :

1. Imitate the pros,

2. Learn their techniques,

3. Pour everything you learned in a bowl,

4. And bake your own cookie and do magic !

As Steve Jobs said :  " Creativity is just connecting things ". 

So you just have to learn from the pros. 

Note : Imitate and copycat (plagiarism) are 2 different things though.

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4. Adapt fast

I realized that every art director/clients have their own favorite and style. My task as a senior graphic designer is to adapt to their likings fast and time-efficiently, but not to forget my own style completely. It is important to be flexible and accept things requested with an open-mind. 

As a designer, I know it is hard for you to put limitation on certain things because you have your own way of doing things but; work is work. You can always do freelance or personal jobs using your own styles and strokes, but at work you need to adapt to what is needed and requested.

Lower down your ego, follow your art director or supervisor. 

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5. Keep all the rejected works

I have tons of rejected works in the past 2 years. All because of my try-and-error artworks and having a perfectionist art director. Sometimes it is quite frustrating to have things rejected for weeks, but those things can always be used for other projects or personal portfolios.

So it is not a waste of time & effort.

See all these rejected icons for various projects that I did since last years.

Other illustration from rejected project : The Wise Bear

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Work Related : Begadang Backpackers 2

Usually it takes several attempts to have a task approved by my boss. Take for example this little poster of "Keep Calm", I tried around 10 times of having it improved or rejected. Certain design even took several days or weeks T^T

She taught me a lot about doing research and keeping inspiration moodboards on Pinterest so that we keep on refreshing our mind with designs from all over the world.  Learning to be a designer takes a lot of time and huge amount of practices, and even after 2 years of trying to be a designer, I still don't feel like I'm good enough to label myself as one. 

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My personal Begadang character :

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Ohhh, and I posted the Behance post for Begadang Backpackers,
>> here, here, hereee. <<
:D

Work Related : Hello Kitty Cafe 2

Last weekend after work, we went to Sunway Pyramid to see the "Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe" in making. This second baby of mine will be due end of August 2015, we will be having a soft launch and later a grand opening :D It is located right in front of the Sunway entrance door *I noticed there are a lot of entrance door, this would be one of it. 

PS : Images are a bit pixelated and dark due to the moody rainy afternoon.

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This would be the main entrance :

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This is the side corridor :

It is already painted !

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This is the side view, right next to the main road.

It is supposed to be 2 levels, but I only did the panels for the lower level :

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And here's for the back door :

That's Hello Kitty wearing the main dress as a chef.

:D

I also did 2 of the mascots for the launching, I can't wait to see them *I hope it won't be ugly. 

Although I'm not a big fan of Hello Kitty myself, I personally cherish this project. Plus, the stroke for this Hello Kitty version is challenging enough for me. But I managed to do it - along with another partner of mine at the office. I'm really thankful for this.

Thanks to AF for bringing me here right after work :D

Work Related : Begadang Backpackers

I discussed with my boss and she told me that I can share this project online now. We've been working for this project since early this year. Personally, this would be my most favorite project while I'm working with LGM. This is my baby ❤ 

This is a little hostel in Gilis Island, Lombok, Indonesia.

Links : Website, Facebook

It should be a place where things are nice, friendly and fun. A place to relax, enjoy the sunset, dance to a psychedelic music, and talk all night.

There are few reasons :

1. For this project, I got 'almost' complete freedom in illustrating - guided by my boss and the client. At first, all my drafts were rejected and I remember she said to me that it was all too 'safe' and boring. She asked me to try to have fun with anything I can come up with. So my second drafts was totally different - I was given the permission to do anything, so I came up with what I'm good with, which is little random creatures. Long story short, they liked it!

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2. I decided on the colour mixtures, style, font type, and those little things. My boss decides on the final say and new additional ideas. I love that. This is some of those little things that I illustrated based on the need to add new items in the illustration :

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3. I met the owner, James. He's a bit quirky and friendly. It's great having a client that agrees and appreciates what you do. Even though I hardly say anything and I'm comfortable with sending emails and say less than I need to. It's really different; what I really feel in my heart and what I show to people. *pure introvert breed.

4. I created each characters based on the people in Begadang Backpackers' family. James & Paula gave me the descriptions on all the people and I illustrated them. I feel like I know them because I've been listening about them for so long; I know what they are like or how they look and all :D

I even created my version ! James thought of me as a designer/painter, but I don't see myself like that so I drew one with a book :

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Other characters :

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I got a lot of works on BB that got rejected, because Paula is a perfectionist *a good one. So I'm going to put past works and share it here little by little, because I like those rejected stuffs as well and Paula okey-ed it. So this baby deserves to be shown in every phases - the good and the bad. 

Work Related : Hello Kitty Cafe

It's no longer a secret! 

We've been working on this project for almost a year and as much as I wanted to share, I had to keep it as P&C project until it is ready for public. But it is almost near to the launching date and they've put up some teaser stickers last week :

( These images were taken from my boss's )

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This would be my final and biggest project while I'm with LGM. And because I am there from the initial start of the project until it is ready to be born, I feel super excited and proud. I designed those sticker panels along with so many other things, I never have physical things printed and put up in a mall - so I'm going to mark this amazing year. My teammates and I worked very hard for this project.

I hope the launching will be scheduled soon.

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PS : And I will go there soon and do selfies and take more overly-excited photos.

The cafe is located in Sunway Pyramid by the way :D

design

This was supposed to be on of my t-shirt design. :)

doodle on shoe 1

Just a simple doodle on shoe. :)