SELF PROMOTION

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stone Age tribe found in Singapore.

Image
While working on some export promotional packaging for spice paste maker Asian Home Gourmet at the turn of the millennium, I was invited to pitch for a print advertising campaign. These products take the chore out of cooking traditional local specialties like curries, stews, roasts and stir-fries which involve gathering many ingredients that are then pounded or ground in stone pestle and mortar implements. The arrival of electric food processors do help, but AHG’s spice pastes take it one step further by providing all the key ingredients in a ready-to-use sachet. The old way is so yesterday and literally so Stone Age using those granite grinding devices. Hence the theme adopted here to bring out the wow factor of convenience in a bag. The first concept (above)  was to be rendered in comics style, telling of a family rescued from stone age drudgery. I toyed with another headline "Stone Age tribe found in Singapore" but decided prudence was the better part of valo...
Read more

Inspired by the Salon des Refusés, Paris 1863

When numerous artists whose works for exhibition at the annual Salon Paris were turned down by the jury, they found an unexpected champion, none other than Emperor Napoleon III. Responding to public concern over the decisions of the jurors, Napoleon set up the Salon des Refusés in 1863 to let the rejected works gain some public exposure, deservedly or not. Read more here. In my career I have faced many such "refusés" situations, but instead of letting them get me down, I just filed away the works. Some eventually metamorphosised into new works, others are still languishing in my portfolios. In this blog I will resurrect some of the stuff that my clients rejected and post them for public review. Roses or rotten tomatoes, I'll take them in my stride. Preparation works including scanning of pre-digital pieces are ongoing for new posts.
Read more

A life-changing rejection

Image
Upon finishing school I hit the pavement in search of my first job. My heart was set on becoming an advertising artist.  In those days, there were no graphic design colleges here, and artists basically learned the ropes through apprenticeship. I had a good idea of what my job would be like, having seen advertising people portrayed in the movies. It would be packed with excitement, glamour, fast cars, fast women, high octane living. As there were no Yellow Pages then, I ploughed through the telephone directory looking for companies with the word advertising in their names. I wrote to a dozen of them and several replied with the usual regrets, and three offered to interview. For my first interview I went to Papineau Advertising and my rudimentary portfolio was reviewed by art director Bill Mundy. I saw for the first time the actual illustrations used in their Milo press ads. They were photoprints of sportsmen rendered in pure black and white, then retouched by hand using pen a...
Read more