the poetry of me

Making a difference by investing and contributing into the lives of others have always been my passion. Knowing of my abilities, i’ve been humbled and surprised by the little things that i do can affect or influence the people that i meet with everyday. And many times despite my calling into the design ministry i have always wondered or even believed how much difference can i make by being just a designer. In New York, where the government hosted campaigns for the cleaning up of graffitti from the subway stations and filled with friendly advertisements opened doors for the crime and suicide rate to drop by 60%. It goes to show how much expression in artworks can affect a person psychologically and sub-conciously without us even knowing it. Living in a world where art reflects on lifestyles, decisions/judgements, personality and image/identity is surely a living proof of being in a world without realising our surroundings. This here is an article(cut short) by a designer, it’s about that difference, responsibility and duty to serve the matter where it matters most. It’s something which i can devote my life towards, changing hearts and lives.

One of the great things about being a designer is that you get to directly affect the lives and experience of other people. Granted, some might say that’s one of the scary things about being a designer, but the fact is that what we do makes a difference. Everything we produce brings some sort of consequence. If that’s not power, I don’t know what is.

Design is powerful because it can connect ideas with the hearts and minds of people. Design connects aims with results and marries expectation with experience. Design is at once filter, lubrication, glue and conduit. In fact, driven by sufficient understanding, design is what we need it to be and it does what we need it to do.

That last part is important and I make the point of mentioning it because design doesn’t just happen. People possessed of specialized understanding make it happen. Who we are as designers and how we employ our craft determines the kind of impact we make with our work. As professionals with such great power at our disposal we have an equally great responsibility to do a credible job. This is because poor design is as powerful as excellent design — just for different reasons. So I think there should be sober consideration of the sorts of differences design can make and should make, and for the mechanisms that allow design to make a difference.

Answer to that question? NOTHING. Many of us live our lives by having this constant question that eats away our dreams. It stagnates us from building relationships, from moving forward and from reaping the benefits that we ourselves deserve. Depression is a stronghold that comes in many forms that we do not realise. Just because something bad had happened to us despite during our childhood or adulthood we choose to be in an unforgiving and unrelentless quest in hope to search for sympathy, understanding and revelation of the truth. As if to know that if we acquire that knowledge it would help us. We have to realise that every individual goes through hardships and struggles and is it what we choose to do with it that matters the most. Given to a mother a child that was born with defects does not do justice if we pity or sympatise with them. Every child that is born should be appreciated as a blessing that despite their physical appearance it is the well-being of the child that matters most. The world does NOT owe us anything, that’s the way it IS and that’s the way it will always be. It is what we decide to do when we are put in a situation or be in any circumstance. To forage the positive rather than looking at the negative in things is always harder than being negative all the time. Good things always comes to those who work for it or putting it in an extreme situation or circumstance maybe in even bleed for it. I am a person who has gone through many hardships and i do not feed my depression by competing with others about how my situation is worst than anyone else’s. For i know that from overcoming hardships comes growth and benefits me as a person. To overcome our problems is always a hard task but living in a world with full of regrets doesn’t justify us as humans who are able to lead the dream life that we want to have. It’s like dreaming endlessly in a vast open sea with nowhere to go but just float around and eventually drown in our sorrow. We are always concerned about being comfortable and having the security at where we are doing the same things over and over again. Life will always throw things at you, some people choose to avoid it and some people stick with it and go head on. Sure, we might end up getting a few scratches and bruises but we can also gain from it. Life is like a box of chocolates, you’ll never know what your’e gonna get. Opportunities are always in that box, it’s whether we choose to open it or not. Faith is always a hard thing to achieve, we are often given the chance to believe in something that is not there and fear to decide because of the knowledge we have limits us. Life is about taking chances and learning from mistakes and getting up over and over again from being beaten down everytime. It’s not easy and fun at most times but it builds a person’s character to be better at whatever it is. We fear mistakes and the chances of being hurt but at least we try and never give up. I always think that whenever we are confronted with a problem it’s because we HAVE the capacity to overcome and it gets harder each time. So does every level in a game that we play, nothing ever gets easier but each time when we are able to achieve victory we move on ten times stronger than before. So strong that eventually not everything can fall apart. One phrase to leave you all with is that, "If it doesn’t kill you, it will only make u stronger!" and i find that many times to be TRUE! So challenge yourselves by believing in taking a blind step everytime, it’s when you learn to trust in yourself you will discover that you are much stronger than you think. Every individual is unique and special and is able to be the potential that he/she is meant to be. Don’t fear but rather welcome challenges for it builds a person. Two words: JUST BELIEVE! -adieu

What up people? How’s it going? Seeing as i will be leaving on a long trip to Sydney tomorrow for a two-day design conference (and 3 days partying), i’m leaving ya’ll with two new artwork recently produce by mua. Comments are greatly appreciated, as it’s been the birth of a new me in design, slowly venturing into the world of funk, pop culture and the 80’s. Be easy on me kay, it’s my first time. The first artwork is a postcard designed by turning real raster images into vector form easily on photoshop and illustrator. In order to keep into the theme of pop culture i tried several backgrounds which led me to this one here. Old funky cowboyish & circusy font was placed as well to enhanced the theme. I thought it work pretty well for the first time, though at the same time improvements can be made.

The second one is a recent piece done yesterday to promote a band that will be visiting melbourne soon (Invite your friends for those who are here). Due to time constraints and me leaving later for the airport, i have constructed an ol’ skool radio with illustrator and moved it to photoshop to make it even more realistic looking. It’s the best i could do. Simple, clean, and ol’ skool is what i think of it, reminds me of waking up every morning and turning on the ol’ skool radio to listen to the classics as i prepare me a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I guess that’s it for now. Till i get back, ya’ll take it easy. Will update then on my trip. Cheers, God bless, love, peace and gooni goo goo!