Bodonation

You see, I have been terribly misled to think that Ah Bengs are totally uncool.
I confess I often make fun of them (together with their girl friends, the Ah Lians)
I am wrong.

This is the revelation.

My regular Ah Beng DVD supplier knows more about foreign movies than me. In his bad english he raved and reviewed enthusiastically about Almodovar, Ko ko xi li, Kieslowski, Bus 174, Todd Solonz, Kim Ki-duk. He made me pay for many movies which I have never heard of. (This is apparently the same Ah Beng who inspired Yasmin Ahmad’s Sepet).

My regular Ah Beng computer supplier knows more about technology than I do. Ask him anything about processor chips, SATA drives, bus speeds, 64-bit, 128-bit, AGP, PCI, etc etc and he would draw from an extensive knowledge bank to reply on what to buy.

The Malaysian Ah Beng pirates know far more sophisticated technology to hack movies off the net and mass produce DVDs with slick title screens, distribute them around the world faster than any movie power-house. The Ah Beng version of U2’s How to Dismantle an atomic Bomb was in the market 1 month before the official legal version appeared. The world bestowed recognition on them. Malaysian pirates are top on international piracy watchlist and every major magazine (Times, Newsweek, Economist) had reported about them.

And while I am using my bare-bone Nokia 3120, the Ah Bengs are probably familiar with any leading hi-tech phones and PDAs that are available right now in the market. With a lap-top they could even setup stalls anywhere to provide ringtones and games downloads, and maybe, do a firmware upgrade for you if you asked.

Of course, they have always been in the car business. Any upgrades, any hacks, anything. I am sure the Ah Bengs have the solution to make your car look good, sound good, and perform better than how it was originally manufactured.

So they are pushing technology, selling super-cool hi-tech gadgets, controlling the entertainment market economy,  producing cars that perform better than those from Proton factories. Intel needs them. Creative, BenQ, HP, Epson, nVidia needs them. Nokia, Samsung, SonyEricsson and Motorola needs them. Universal Pictures, Disney, Miramax and Sony-BMG can’t do anything to stop them. Even Proton, equipped with Lotus technology can’t make Satrias run faster than Ah Bengs’ upgrades.

So, who am i to say that they are not cool?

(Behind every successful Ah Beng, there is a supportive Ah Lian.)

Forrest Gump: When I got tired, I slept. When I got hungry,
I ate. When I had to go, you know, I went. 
Elderly Southern Woman on
Park Bench: And so, you just ran? 
Forrest Gump:
Yeah.

I had been working on an identity project for the past few days.

I have an obssession with creating identities that do not conform to a one-logo-fits-all approach. My working methodologies on identity programs had always revolved around establishing perimeters on how the identity should behave and how it could continuously evolve to remain relevant and fresh. I am excited about the thoughts of having an interchangeable logo, and am challenged by the thoughts of creating a dynamic identity that still works within a consistent implementation framework.

Needless to say I am not so much of a fan of a big-concept-delivered-logo, with implementations rigorously documented on huge corporate identity manuals.

However, such a working approach carries its own perils. It is risk-taking - and given the complexities of executing such a program - I am not sure whether I could carry it through.

There are doubts on my part and I wish I had someone to guide me - at its very least, to provide some pointers on how to keep this project manageable efficiently. If someone out there had worked on an approach as such - I supposed I would have gained some valuable insights from his/her experience.

Looking back.

Being shouldered with the responsibility of leading a studio at a fairly young age, for many years I secretly yearned for guidance from people with far more experience than me. There are numerous occasions where I felt somehow unqualified to lead and would rather be led. But common sense told me that it wasn’t such a good idea to show subordinates the doubtful and inferior side of me. Thus whatever that came as a job, I gave it my best shot - sometimes without knowing whether I did right or wrong - until many years later. It is funny that as designers, we are often misled to believe that our ideas-at-that-moment are the best. Whenever I come to learn and realise the so-called invincible brilliance was actually crappy, the thoughts haunt me.

How I wished at that particular moment, someone more capable and qualified had looked through the works and say, "eh, that’s crap." And I could have learned on the spot, instead of learning after a few years.

I think, working designers should have people whom they could bounce off ideas or nit-pick at each other’s kernings and leadings. This is the part which I sorely missed out.

So now here I am.

My idea of design has been a mixture of what I have done, what I have read, what I have heard and what I have seen. It is adequate to provide the skill sets to easily solve design problems and to deal with clients. But somehow, I know there are still much which I haven’t done, haven’t read, haven’t heard and haven’t seen. I will still face occasions where I am uncertain and filled with doubts.

If there was someone I could turn to, that would be so nice.

Lately, I had been clocking unhealthy hours at work.
Not a terribly exciting thing to brag about - work is work, though I wished that I don’t have to work too hard. The peculiar thing about design life is that some how, jobs tend to come in together. As if clients had plotted together to murder their designer.

Colors 66 came in today.

This issue comes at a reduced size of 12cm X 15 cm, which is almost the size of a standard greeting card. It carries 240 pages of various wishes from people around the world.

I have always liked Colors for the simple fact that it reminds me of humanity. It reminds me of the hardship of life for many others out there - where survival is the only real goal in life, while we live in a world where LOST is downloaded to see how Jack, Locke and Sayid survive. Come to think about it, life is too easy that people have time to create blogs to show expensive dinner photos, to bitch about people, to exhibit holiday trips, to exchange dating and relationship tips and for some, to describe last night’s orgasm. The different worlds. The great divide.

Ignore all the criticisms hurled at it as being Benetton’s branding machine and the pretentious humanitarian approach, Colors, for what it is, is still a remarkable feat in editorial and design.

"They called him Superstar. He was a talented football player and was even in the police youth squad. He taught the younger ones street games. He helped all the old people fetch water and food… He had a piggy bank and was elated when someone bought him an electric toy car as a gift for looking after a sick granny. Refusing to open it , he kept it hidden for Christmas. He never got to open it. On Monday night two teenagers opened fire on a group of people hanging out to escape the heat during a power out. The bullet entered the back of his head, bounced around and exited his mouth. He was not into drugs or a gang member, and had no wishes to be one. He was just 13 years old. He was going to be my assistant. I wish they hadn’t killed Billy."   - Alex Smiles, UK photographer  at Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

"When I was a child I had many dreams and wishes. A nice house, a good job, enough money. But now I have only one wish, that my son will not work as a prostitute like me." - Lek, 28, Bargirl, Susaket, Thailand.

After reading the many wishes from around the world, the editor ends it with this:
"You’ll find out if wishing is just the easy way to escape reality or the first, giant step toward creating a new one".

I supposed our rantings and whinings about everything from clients to computer crashes to 30 cents petrol increase are insignificant, when we start to see what goes on in other people’s life.