The Bathala Project

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Speak On It...

Political prisoners. No answers, no mercy. An American prison would have been heaven.

Melissa Roxas speaks at Press Conference from Anakbayan Seattle on Vimeo.

"Melissa Roxas, a United States citizen of Filipino descent, narrates the story of her abduction and torture by alleged members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines on May 19-25, 2009. At the Los Angeles press conference (Saturday, June 27, 2009), Ms. Roxas describes the human rights abuses she endured while being held for six days in an alleged military camp. The press conference, which was held at the Echo Park United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, California was streamed live over the internet where Ms. Roxas detailed her experience at her first public appearance.

Ms. Roxas, an American human rights advocate, is the first known American citizen to have become a victim of abduction and torture in the Philippines, a country which has drawn international condemnation for state-sponsored human rights atrocities. She is a member of BAYAN USA and HABI ARTS, a cultural group also based in the United States.

For more information please visit bayanusa.org or bayan.ph"

After watching the video, I'm disgusted at the whole cover up that the PI government employs, but at the same time, I'm sadly not surprised. North Korea is ridiculously worse... but the fact that this happens to our own people, by our own people, is just horrendous. But please, people, let's keep this completely on track and work towards the mission of her goal: to bring them to JUSTICE. Let us NOT use this event as a lever for other political agendas...

Stay up,

~cyph
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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Still here...

Been enjoying the summer lately...

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But I'll be back with some fresh Baybayin stylin' for you all soon...

Stay up,

~cyph
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Saturday, June 20, 2009

Baybayin in Design: The Swerte Ad Campaign

Finally, at long last, the project reveal: Baybayin in advertisement design, the Swerte Vodka Ad Campaign

I've often wondered, if Baybayin were still used today, how would it look like? How would it be used? What kind of typographical or design rules would be coined throughout the years as Baybayin made its way into print media? The clearest comparison would be other Asian writing systems that are typically written either vertically or horizontally found in modern print. However, the curvature of the Baybayin characters are unique in its own right. This became the main question in this Ad campaign study; the use of Baybayin in modern print advertising.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with a former ad director who worked with Bebe clothing (OFFICIALLY pronounced as "BEE-BEE") and Skyy Vodka. It was the liquor campaigns which intrigued me, since I would see so many of them on billboards around the Hollywood club areas, and in the magazines of men lifestyle magazines. She told me her research process; figure out your key demographic, then talk to the waiters, waitresses, bar tenders, club owners, promoters, and ask them about what kind of drinks your demographic orders and why. So... I figured I'd appeal to somewhere around my alley: early 20's, heterosexual men and women, socially active, and love a good drink.

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I was inspired by a press video by VuQo Vodka of the Philippines, where the representative said that the idea of introducing lambanog was to introduce something exotic, yet familiar, hence, VuQo VODKA. So with this in mind, and after numerous talks with bar tenders, waiters, waitresses, it came down to the liquor that is pretty much 50/50 for men and women to purchase and consume: Vodka. I would call my Baybayin Vodka, "SWERTE", which means "Lucky" in both Spanish and Tagalog. I thought about how it would sound at the clubs and bars: "Let me get a Swerte on the rocks." "Swerte and sprite, please" "Pour that lady in the red dress a shot of Swerte... tell her it's from me."

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The first ad would thus be a product-driven ad. In America, typical product-driven ads for vodka have been a white background and the bottle, to exentuate the fact that vodka is clear. In Asia, typically it's a colored background, opposite of what the bottle color is as to highlight it. I wanted to go somewhere in the middle, so I chose a black background, also to give resonance to a night time drink. This ad would also serve as the main thesis of the corporate identity. The first thing you may immediately notice is the title for Swerte. Using the S, We, L, Te symbols, I styled them to mimic the shapes of the suits of cards, Spades, Diamonds, Hearts, and Clubs respectively. The background is tiled with the product logo, which is... a graphic representation of the components of copulation. Enough said. The tag line for the entire campaign is, "Game ka na ba?" (Are you game?). The tag line in this ad is written down the middle in Nordenx's Kufic font, and is the only ad using a font. The font suited perfectly for this ad, I just slimmed it down a bit. The narrow, sharp and square edges matched the title treatment for Swerte nicely. Along the sides of the ad I placed the images of the card suits, to give some graphic echoes to the character forms of the title treatment. Lastly, I arced the word "Vodka" (Bo-D-Ka) on top of Swerte on the bottle, in an effort to give some subliminal phallic imagery... So, with a graphic logo featuring copulation, and a title treatment featuring both phallic imagery and graphic parallels to gambling with cards, and a tag line implicating either sex or gambling luck, I was already forming the double meanings... Lastly, THE WEBSITE IS NOT REAL, it doesn't exist. In Asian ads, even though their ads may have their national character writing on them, the websites are always printed in English, thus, SwerteVodka.com was born. But don't bother typing it up... yet. Click for full size.

Swerte-Bottle-WEB

This ad would be a 1 page magazine ad, as shown in this mock up:

magazine-1pg-back

My main ad would be a 2-page magazine spread. Modeled by my mixologist cousin Libby (btw, photoshopping your cousin to look attractive; not awkward at all...), I wanted to give a visual echo of a slot machine; so, the background bar wall was formed such that it would look like the 3 columns of a slot machine, and the bottle on the right would represent the lucky lever to pull on the slot machine. The bar tender is mixing a grape martini, which came as a result of my research; when I was talking to bartenders about what kind of drinks do people order in regards to flavored vodka, typically its either a special martini or some other mix drink; I'm trying to appeal to a more male crowd with this ad, so I thought a martini (and a male hand grabbing for it) would help represent this idea. The bar table is actually a brown rectangle with an overlay of a stock wood texture that I would perspective distort. The bar wall was originally red, and rather incomplete, as some of the bottles had to be reconstructed to make a full wall. In between the columns of the bar wall I placed the card suits again, to give more imagery of gambling and parallels to the SWERTE vodka title. Everything was color matched to purple, to give that grape vibe, and also since purple/magenta hues gave much graphic resonance to night clubs. Whenever I go to a night club, the colors I always remember seeing are blue, green, yellow, purple, and pink... so to keep with the Swerte title visual continuity, purple. The bar tender model wasn't wearing any makeup what so ever, so this was a good learning experience as to how to apply make up. Thank goodness for the millions of girls on youtube posting videos of themselves putting on make up! Lastly, on the bar napkin is the tag line, "Game ka na ba?". My hand writing ofcourse... Click for full size

2PageAd-WEB

And the 2 page magazine ad mock up...

Magazine-2-page-sim

The final ad I was trying to go a more American route of the white background and product placement. However, I still wanted some fun imagery. After a late photosession (and multiple wardrobe changes later) I would get my queens; modeled by my friend Lani, I wanted to show a lucky hand, 4 queens and an ace. This was fun, as we wanted to keep as much visual continuity with the actual cards; so, the way their heads are turned are accurate in comparison to the actual face cards (except the clubs... kinda). And we gave personalities to the queens: The spades is young and playful, Diamonds is glamorous and haughty, Hearts is young and lively, and Clubs is the eldest, agressive and the leader of the queen sisters. And of course, Swerte Vodka as the Ace card. Spades was chosen for more of the phallic imagery. The typeface used for both the website and the card numbers is called "Detective". Most of the work in this piece was on the model; photo retouch, masking, make up... and hours later we get the lucky hand. Click for full size:

Queens-Web

The billboard mock up over Los Angeles

Billboard-Sim

This was a long, but very fun project. The research, the photo sessions, the brainstorming, sketching, endless hours of photoshopping... it was all a fantastic learning experience on layout, marketing, ad design and most importantly, modern Baybayin design. I'm looking forward to my next Baybayin ad campaign, to see how far Baybayin WOULD have come had it still been in print today. The only way to know is if we, the Baybayin writers, make it so.

Stay up,

~cyph
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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

BIG PROJECT REVEAL TOMORROW! I've been working on these pieces for the past 2-3 weeks, researching, getting references, photography, sketching... man...

FREE SWAG THURSDAY! Be sure to follow twitter or facebook for your chance to win!

STAY UP!

~cyph
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Happy Birthday Tupac!

I'll be bumpin the 2pacalypse Now album all day...



Rest In Power

~cyph
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Monday, June 15, 2009

Coming soon...

Baybayin modern... like, chic modern.

Magazine 2 page sim teaser

coming soon...

Stay up,
~Cyph
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Sunday, June 14, 2009

White Boi Crackin'

Still got it... in spades.



Ridiculous.

I'm still alive, just ridiculous busy with this project... will be revealed by the end of this week...

Feelin lucky? SWERTE. Hahahaha...

Stay up,

~cyph
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

"It was cool at the time"

Hypercolor stretch pants.
ESPRIT sweater.
Reebok pumps.

gnarly 90s

Oh, those gnarly 90's...

~cyph
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Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Knock 'em out

I've been working on this logo for the past couple of weeks, and finally submitted the final version. Comps all around, final in the middle... opinions about the comps are yours and mine.

sands LogoComps

Yes indeed.
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Monday, June 8, 2009

Bakit Up

1st Year Anniversary for BakitWhy.com - Decided to use this upcoming event as a study piece for event flyer layout and using Illustrator

3 comps, 3 teases...

BakitUpTeaser

Stay up,

~cyph
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Sunday, June 7, 2009

Sorta Swerte...

Study shot

P1050570

Stay up,

~cyph

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Thursday, June 4, 2009

Steady Brewing

Coming soon...

IMG00362

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Soon to come...

IMG00358

IMG00348

Stay up.

~cyph
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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Oldie Goldie

Pics from The Recreation event from May 30, 2009 (Saturday night) at the Vangard in Hollywood/Los Angeles:

That's them
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 2

Dead floor for now...
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 3

Love's just a game
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 4

Lucky to run into these kids; coolest to kick it with that night
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 5

Vangard: 5/30/09 - 6

Homie in gray turned 24 that night. His friends were busy getting him crap-faced
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 7

Vangard: 5/30/09 - 8

Vangard: 5/30/09 - 9

Native Gunnas!
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 10

After the club (around 2:30ish by this time), went to Kinkos to pick up a special project. Stimey chillin in the back
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 11

Thank goodness for 24-hr Del Taco drive thru's
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 12

Stimey the Pirate
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 13

Ship Wrecked
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 14

Pretty cool night, homegirl rockin my biz card like a fresh fitted! Yes maam...
Vangard: 5/30/09 - 1

Baybayin freshness coming... quality over quantity this time around; project brewin while I stay coolin'

Stay up,

~cyph
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