logo designing

remember when i told you in previous post that i wasn't in a rush to come out with a logo for kukubal maju? well, i lied :P i couldn't resist myself from working on it intensively.

so here is my first design proposal. i call it the "cool tree" logo. it represents me as a whole. why tree? well, i've always like to link trees with human character. the roots are the characters or values. the branches are the behaviours portrayed. in order to have good or balanced living we need strong roots. something like that.

the sort of like creeping up branches are symbolic to the word rising or getting better or growing. suitable for the word "maju" which means success in malay.

furthermore, here is the improved version of 1905 from the previous post. this is to be printed on yellow t-shirt for the pavillioners or those old boys from mohd shah house. i've improved the edges on both the end of number one and five to give it more balanced kinda look. i've also moved the since wording to the upper left corner to give it a more meaningful "since 1905" wording chronology.

more designs coming. stay tuned! :)

kukubal maju enterprise

i have decided to pursue my long life passion in graphic arts. and my new project is to set up my own t-shirt printing company. i have registered an official company under my name. kukubal maju enterprise. it's a sole proprietorship company and it has a current account opened under its name :)

why maju? it's a good word for success in malay and hopefully will be a constant prayer everytime people mention it. i know it might sounds like a retail shop. but i have my own reasons for it :P

my first design will be for next year's MCOBA weekend celebration. usually some old boys will come and set up booths to sell merchandise. this time around i think i want to participate by selling my own t-shirts or maybe some other form of merchandises.

here is my first design. i will come out with more designs, probably another 3 or 4 of them.

the artwork is called "since 1905". the malay college was formed by a group of malay rulers back in the 1905 with the help from some british academicians, hence the name. school of kings and leaders :P

i'm still in the midst of designing my company's logo. trying to come out with something catchy, something worth remembering yet simple, so simple that people will straightly know that it's me just in a glance. very personalized and institutionalized. and i'm not in a rush for this. hope i can be successful in this. doing something that i love. always have :)

shrunken world

i bought a new lens. i had always wanted to learn how to capture small and tiny living things. so i decided to buy myself a macro lens. i didn't buy the original canon made lens but i bought a tamron 90mm f2.8 macro 1:1 instead. much much cheaper but it offers almost the same performance as other lens within its specifications.the lens can take portraits too. so it's like two in one kinda lens.

the next morning, i woke up early and went out to my mom's small garden within our porch in search for any insects to be photographed. so here are some of my captures. my début photos in macro. i think i kinda fell in love with macro photography already :) it's like zooming and shrinking myself into their world. their tiny world. reminds me of the lame movie (it wasn't that lame back in the 90's) honey i shrunk the kids. lol!

p/s : for better resolution, click on both pictures for a better viewing. or you can go to my flickr page. thanks in advance! :)

faster

i've been listening to matt nathanson's new single entitled faster. i really really like the song. it's fun, the beat, the melody and the lyrics. they combined really well. reminds me of his previous hit called come on get higher. i think he writes good melodies. and he sings well too!

anyway, i've been practising the guitar and try to sing it simultaneously. it's quite hard actually, especially to hit the right notes plus maintaining the groove :) maybe one day, i'll post it here, when i'm ready. of course. i don't want to embarrass myself in front of the whole world. definitely not here :P

here's a video clip of matt singing it live. he rocks, does he? :) what a fun song to sing!

convocation

i went to my baby sister's convocation yesterday. my mission was to take pictures, and to be there for the family. rarely for me :)

despite the blessing to be with family, occasion and the fun, somehow i could say it ended with tragedy. blame on the landscape, i fashionably, recklessly jumped and tripped myself by heavy landing on my both knees, to save my camera from breaking. what's with Malaysia's universities and hilly terrain landscapes!?

i hurt myself quite badly, torn pants on both knees, my shades dented, my camera scratched, nasty cuts everywhere, bleeding like hell, and list went on and on.

i guess, that's the price for being lazy to follow along the provided walkway. i could have done better. seriously. but lesson learnt.

anyway here are some of the picture i took.

my dad. with artificial noise (grainy effect) added to give more drama of a proud father in his smile :)

my mom. first class kiss from first class graduate.

and another blow on my aunt's cheek! she's a kisser, didn't she?! :)

singing birds

look at how far rozio's angry birds have come. from a 2D games to merchandise to a complete irresistible thing in the society now. it's like everybody is playing angry birds via mobile phones nowadays.

so i've decided to come out with my own version of angry birds. sort of. i thought why not start a new vector project in illustrator. but for me being angry is not good. so i decided to name them singing birds instead. i think they are not angry anymore, right? hihi.

so here are the artworks completed for the time being via my newly installed adobe illustrator and photoshop cs5. enjoy! :) maybe one day i'll commercialize my singing birds into merchandises like t-shirts and mugs of myself :P

self portraits

i couldn't sleep. so i thought why not try to photograph myself. i used RAW format for ease of editing with maximum exif data retained by the camera processor.

again, using white cardboard, my tripod, in my bedroom's total darkness, so dark that the lens couldn't find anything to focus on so i used my guitar pick as proxy focus point, my speedlite flash and an ikea stand lamp as artificial illuminations, tapes and now, me. after minor tweaks in adobe lightroom, here are the results. i know it's not much and those probably mediocre shots for some of you or perhaps all of you but, it's a good start. i think. and boy, i had fun, at least :)

room for improvements? of course, always will be. i need more gadgets. i need (want actually is the right word) soft box(s) and studio lamp(s)! greedy mode on! hahaha!