inspiration Archives — Stampede: the strategic design & technology company

Curating Curated!

Shaiful Borhan — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 18:49:51 +0000

Last week, our very own Curated , a microblog of “a list of stuffs that caught our eyes, updated daily from the design desk of Stampede”, turned one. I had never been any prouder to be one of the most frequent, if not, the sole contributor to this blog. As of date, I have almost 300 posts since my first time handling Curated, where every post is specifically hand-picked.

Personal favourites

Metamorphosen by Austrian studio atelier olschinsky

This illustration piece called Metamorphosen looks like how an array of emotions would look like.

Change it! (aka Wallnado) by Russian designer Amirko

The walls allow us to change the colours according to our moods, as we all know how colour has a huge impact with our feelings. Feeling a little blue? Change it blue!

String Theory by German designer Federico Leggio

Stare at the text long enough and you’ll feel like you’re in it. Try moving left and right repeatedly.

Painting by Korean artist Kwang Ho Shin

Kwang Ho Shin is one of my favourite artists – how haunting is this piece of portrait?

Smeared Skies Made from Hundreds of Stacked Photographs by Matt Molloy

Last but not least is a shot from Matt Molloy of a smeared skies made with hundreds of stacked photographs.

To conclude…

Over the past year, Curated has been my platform for my own daily designs inspiration dose. It started as an assignment for me to look for a few design-related posts in a daily basis – from photography, fine arts, digital designs, even to hand drawing sketches. Little did I know that over all this time, the blog has grown to be some sort of my own measurement scale to train my eyes to spot good design and their trends. Whenever I looked through the older posts, I could see the progress of how much my penchant for design has matured. After a while now, I get really picky on what posts to curate.

Is there anything in particular you would like me to cover in Curated?

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Creative Burst #20

Shaza Hakim — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:08:56 +0000

Every Friday, some of us at Stampede will hunch over our desks, designing anything we want for two hours. We thought it would be nice to share the results of each Creative Burst. All work is property of Stampede so if you want to use them, do ask nicely.

Wan Shariff

I have been sketching since I was still in school. Back then, I usually sketched cartoon characters I watched on TV. I have been sketching and drawing since then.

In this burst, I took a picture of a wolf – mostly the face area. With the picture as my reference, I started tracing the wolf’s fur, line by line.

Line is the most basic element in art after dot. Using only lines, we can create almost anything. In the wolf’s case, the lines actually made it easier for me as I could imitate the direction of the fur. As you can see, the lines help give sense of movement to the fur. It took a lot of time to work exclusively with lines. The space between lines and the length of every stroke play a big role in it.

Besides lines, I am also comfortable using other mediums, for example watercolor, acrylic, stencil, pencil, pens, collage and more. I’m looking forward to use different mediums next time.”

Shaza Hakim

I’m not looking to don my heavy design-thinking cap this week. Instead, I want to share what transpired from a casual chat with a good friend.

Sometimes we forget that people around us doesn’t know the difference between Arial and Helvetica or the deep hatred towards Comic Sans. We tend to think that just because we design things and spend hours perfecting every curve, people will use them. This exclusivity can make designers appear as an elitist, out-of-reach crowd.

I am guilty of this perspective sometimes and I want to correct it. In the process, I found that it’s actually fun and enlightening to listen to how everyday people react to design.

The Case in Point

I have a Swiss Helvetica moleskine pocket notebook that I carry in my handbag. I like to pen down thoughts and prepare my to-dos for the day over breakfast. The Moleskine looks like this:

Lately I’ve been enjoying the busyness of being among people at my third place, Starbucks cafe at Cenang Mall. My friend Rady Razak, who is also the store manager, saw my notebook and asked…

Is that an ambulance notebook?

He is actually correct. As a designer, I immediately associate the white cross on red with Swiss flag and the Swiss style design movement made popular in the 50s.

Newsflash for me: the public doesn’t necessarily know that.

If this was web design, I have made the cardinal error of designing for my benefit and not the user. I never thought of the cross’s other meanings: medicine, first aid kit, health. As a designer, it is my job to know which emotions or meanings people associate with symbols. To be an efficient designer, I need to be able to disregard my role as one and immerse in the role of my users. I need to be better at doing this.

One platform that I believe both designers and non-designers share is pop culture. Pop culture is conceived by graphic designers but fueled by mass public’s love. Using the cross as a starting point, I wanted to see if there are other universally recognized symbols that, due to is close association with pop culture, will mean the same thing to everyone.

I then used these symbols on the very object that started this observation – my Moleskine notebook. I rebuild the notebook in Photoshop – it amazingly took less time that I thought it would – and then treated the cover with elements from each pop culture subject.

Transformers

Geeks and non-geeks alike know about the Autobots and the Decepticons. I believe Transformers reached its point of saturation through its animated series, and then propelled forward by the success of is franchise. We may not know which robot is which (there were so many of them) or which battle ultimately belong to which faction, but the ubiquitous symbols of good and evil have amazing staying power.

Star Trek

Often believed to be inspired by the NASA logo, the Starfleet’s insignia has seen some evolution over the course of the series. The logo, while changing according to the era a ship is in operation, remains faithful to the asymmetrical, arrowhead-shaped pennants. What interests me is how Starfleet assigns uniform colors depending on divisions. The colors appear to have been subject to more revisions than the logo. I also found an Etsy illustration of Captain’s Log that I couldn’t resist from using as the back cover.

Superman

Of course, Man of Steel is coming out to cinema soon. We all know who Superman is. He is probably the one superhero whose backstory needs no retelling. You know where he comes from, you know the motivation behind his heroic acts. But it truly is the symbol S that made Superman, well, Superman. He may no longer flaunt his wardrobe malfunction, but there is no Superman without the S and the ever-billowing red cape.

I hope you have found the thought process useful. I have learnt that inspiration is always lurking. So go out today and strike a conversation with people who knows little about what you do. I promise, you’ll be surprised.”

Zana Fauzi

I am a big fan of museums and art events. Art events promotions are usually traditional in our sense – posters with dates and time, announced through websites etc.

I figured this is because mostly art enthusiasts are traditional, Luddite people who generally mingle around their circle. I notice that not many young people are not interested in going to museums and art events. It frustrated me sometimes that my friends see museums and art events as ‘boring’. It would take a whole loads of behaviour change to drag them along with me to museums.

So, I was thinking, how to get these smartphones and tablet-toting millennials to be interested in going to the museums?

Brainstorming & Associations

Over the years we hear about subliminal messages a lot e.g Chekhov’s gun, the famous vase and face illusion and the backmasking technique in music. It has been proven that these subliminal messages can somehow deliver the messages to your subconscious mind effectively.

The other day I also came through this brilliant street ad execution by advertising agency Grey. I also thought of this app called Word Lens where you could hold it over signboards in foreign language and it could translate it for you. If you look at it, QR code might be an old idea but the the concept is worth a revisit.

Solutions

Imagine a new poster advertisement of an upcoming art event. Utilising the concept of QR codes and subliminal message, every poster of the event now only show the art piece with a copy

Do you speak Art Nouveau?

In order for audience to see the real message e.g date and time of the event, they will have to encode it using a smartphone app which works along the same line as Word Lens. They will have to hold it over the poster to see the hidden message. The app icon can be placed at the far right corner of the poster, serving as a minor indicator that there is more than just a poster of a ‘boring’ art piece.

This solution hopes to serve as the first point of discovery to non-art enthusiasts so they could see that art events could also be ‘hip’ and ‘cool’, and not only frequented by old folks.

We could also have two versions of the poster – one targeted for the ready art enthusiasts which go through their traditional mediums – poster, forums etc. but this one is targeted towards
young people.

Again, this is the first step of discovery for the targeted group – the young people. What do you think?”

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What a Sound Advice

Zana Fauzi — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:55:40 +0000

“Do good work and share it with people.” – Austin Kleon, Steal Like An Artist. via

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Design Journal

Shaza Hakim — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 08:37:45 +0000

In my wonderful years of working as a web designer, I’ve developed a habit of browsing visuals and keeping a snapshot of anything intriguing. I snapped colors, color names, shapes, the immaculate use of white space, serifs, uncanny headings, scientific drawings, book covers, vintage packaging (hell, vintage anything!) and even hand-made circus illustrations circa 1910.

I’m not a classically-trained designer, so from the day I naively decided to be one, I rely primarily on observation and the readiness to stumble really badly and then gain a hopefully steadier footing. As a result, I rarely need to visit web design galleries prior to a design work. It’s good because all the snapshots I’ve kept steers me away from directly copying another designer’s work. It also brings about passive inspiration – the type that burns in your brain for quite a while before you find some good use for it. I’m happy to report that I have six years’ worth of this happy design baggage.

Here is a collection of a few design and UI work I did at Stampede for May 2011. Instead of a full shot, I’ve chosen bits and pieces that matters to me when observing another web designer at work.

In a way, this is a monthly design journal, but I do hope anyone who shares the same peculiarities as mine would find these useful for their very own visual musings.

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Moleskine & Pac Man

Shaza Hakim — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:23:56 +0000

Moleskine celebrates the 30th Pac-Man anniversary with a limited edition series featuring cover art and mini-stickers. The five-piece collection includes pocket and large hard cover notebooks, both plain and ruled, and a colorful set of 4 large Volant soft cover notebooks in celebrative packaging. Moleskiners – quick, with haste!.

Stop-motion film concept by Daniela Fuggetta, animation by Michele Putorti.

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Weekly Bits #1

Shaza Hakim — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 06:07:18 +0000

Beginning this week in April, we’re hoping to do a small roundup of visually interesting things that we came across the web for the past 7 days. It’s our own time-capsule so when we get old and cranky, we’ll be reminded of the era of awesome.

The Rework Illustrations

Rework is a brand new book by 37Signals, a bunch of smartasses who hypnotize people into throwing away the usual management shenanigans and in return bestows us mere mortals wholesome web apps you quickly cannot live without.

They’re the new world order.

See the illustrated version of the book by Mike Rhode. Anyone up for printing these bad boys?

7 Rules to Understand Design & Designers

Rule #5: Good design can be planned, but great design just happened. My favourite.
Get it here.

10 Reasons to Avoid Talking on the Phone

I’m no fan of phone conversation – they’re difficult to track, have plenty of room for misinterpretation and frankly you have to filter through a lot of noises to actually get to to the point. Fantastic and spot-on observation as usual from The Oatmeal.

(via @swissmiss)

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3 Years Later…

Shaza Hakim — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:56:06 +0000

…and still making heads turn.

It’s amazing, mind-numbing even. It has been three years and Bird Malaysia is still getting reviews from design galleries and making it into “n-list of Website with Awesome footer/navigation/header/color Design” blog posts. The best part of all, it’s also one of the few recognized designs proudly bearing the word “Malaysia”.

Thank you to the good people at Junglewalla for letting us go nuts with Bird Malaysia!

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Severn Suzuki’s Earth Summit 1992 Speech

Shaza Hakim — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:31:30 +0000

I’ve just concluded an exhausting yet fulfilling and prophetic read of “Hot, Flat and Crowded” by Thomas L. Friedman.

Going through the book, I scribbled my own notes of interesting and important excerpts that I can share with others. Nothing is more important than what I found on Page 395. It reads a transcript of the speech given by Severn Suzuki, then a 12-year-old, who stood in front of the delegations of 1992 Rio de Janeiro’s Earth Summit.

Severn Suzuki is now an environmental activist, speaker, television host and author.

If You Don’t Know How To Fix It, Stop Breaking It!

“Hello, I’m Severn Suzuki speaking for E.C.O. – The Environmental Children’s Organisation.We are a group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds from Canada trying to make a difference: Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler, Michelle Quigg and me. We raised all the money ourselves to come six thousand miles to tell you adults you must change your ways. Coming here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future.Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come.

I am here to speak on behalf of the starving children around the world whose cries go unheard.

I am here to speak for the countless animals dying across this planet because they have nowhere left to go. We cannot afford to be not heard.

I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in the ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don’t know what chemicals are in it.

I used to go fishing in Vancouver with my dad until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers. And now we hear about animals and plants going extinct every day — vanishing forever.

In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterfilies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.

Did you have to worry about these little things when you were my age?

All this is happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions. I’m only a child and I don’t have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you!

You don’t know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
You don’t know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
You don’t know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
And you can’t bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.

If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!

Here, you may be delegates of your governments, business people, organisers, reporters or poiticians – but really you are mothers and fathers, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles – and all of you are somebody’s child.

I’m only a child yet I know we are all part of a family, five billion strong, in fact, 30 million species strong and we all share the same air, water and soil — borders and governments will never change that.

I’m only a child yet I know we are all in this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal.

In my anger, I am not blind, and in my fear, I am not afraid to tell the world how I feel.

In my country, we make so much waste, we buy and throw away, buy and throw away, and yet northern countries will not share with the needy. Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to lose some of our wealth, afraid to share.

In Canada, we live the privileged life, with plenty of food, water and shelter — we have watches, bicycles, computers and television sets.

Two days ago here in Brazil, we were shocked when we spent some time with some children living on the streets. And this is what one child told us: “I wish I was rich and if I were, I would give all the street children food, clothes, medicine, shelter and love and affection.”

If a child on the street who has nothing, is willing to share, why are we who have everyting still so greedy?

I can’t stop thinking that these children are my age, that it makes a tremendous difference where you are born, that I could be one of those children living in the Favellas of Rio; I could be a child starving in Somalia; a victim of war in the Middle East or a beggar in India.

I’m only a child yet I know if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this earth would be!

At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us to behave in the world. You teach us:

not to fight with others,
to work things out,
to respect others,
to clean up our mess,
not to hurt other creatures,
to share – not be greedy.

Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do?

Do not forget why you’re attending these conferences, who you’re doing this for — we are your own children. You are deciding what kind of world we will grow up in. Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying “everyting’s going to be alright” , “we’re doing the best we can” and “it’s not the end of the world”.

But I don’t think you can say that to us anymore. Are we even on your list of priorities? My father always says “You are what you do, not what you say.”

Well, what you do makes me cry at night. You grown ups say you love us. I challenge you, please make your actions reflect your words. Thank you.”

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The Good Things in Life

Shaza Hakim — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:24:06 +0000

When you live in Langkawi, you are enveloped by nature.

You wake up in the morning to bird songs, inhale a deep breath of fresh air and greet the regular racket-tailed drongos that come to visit your office window. Breakfast becomes a leisurely routine with a good book and a cup of coffee. If it gets chilly, cats and kittens will come to cuddle around your feet. Near the gates on a good day, Rosie the lizard will be out basking in the sun, eyeing you suspiciously as you get close. During the wet season, snails love the soils near the gates, so you have to maneuver the car real good to miss them. There’s also the monitor lizard who likes to cross the road at his own pace, making it wise to stop, alert other cars and let him pass safely. Sometimes, the majestic hornbills come in pairs weeping down from Gunung Raya and that will be the highlight of the day.

Close to sunset, an amazing display of dusky leaf langurs can be seen coming down from the rainforest mountain behind, swaying from one tree to the next. In the evening, our resident gecko – we suspect he has made himself a cosy little pad up on the roof – will croak it’s signature call amidst the jungle ambience.

Taking time to live life and paying attention to nature’s way is quite a recent revelation to us. Irshad Mobarak, the island’s resident naturalist and Sri Sari, Stampede’s new manager, have been our close friends for few years now and their dedication towards nature and its conservation is nothing short of inspirational. The trouble with living on a tropic island is that tourism comes at a price. You see beautiful forests cut down to make way for resort developments and sometimes to fuel political agendas, wildlife’s deprived of their habitats and become victims of roadkills in search of food and shelter. It’s rather unfortunately short-sighted considering that it’s the island’s abundance of nature that keep tourists coming back.

Irshad, an avid birdwatcher and a guardian of the island’s millennia-old rainforest found his life’s call in nature a decade ago and never looked back. I know Sri to be a most dedicated person when it comes to protecting wildlife’s wellbeing. When you see these two individuals out there fighting the good battle, you’ll find a quiet relief because this small little patches of islands, is at least in good hands for now.

Stampede’s day-to-day operation is remotely attached to nature, but it has been our growing concern lately to grow as a team towards something bigger than ourselves. With the launch of Bird Malaysia, Junglewalla and soon enough Rainforest-Aid, we’re now a team that supports sustainable practices and nature conservation.

It is our very small way of saying thanks to all the good things in life.

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