Pics coming soon... sorting through the 8 Gb mess...
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
A Jolly Bee
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Balik-Bayan-ing
What it is, world?! I'm writing to you live and direct fromTaiwan International airport, on my way to the Philippines, and let me tell you; the rumors are true, Tsingtao in Asia taste WAY better than the rusty piss Tsingtao we get in America!
Anyways, international buzz business aside, I'm on the way to the motherland, the Philippines, and staying for a bit. Trying to gain some insight, find the roots, all that good stuff. It's been 11 years since I last been back, and I can't wait to see the Philippines again with fresh eyes and a more mature outlook. But no worries, be I in Asia, Europe, or wherever I go next, I will CONTINUE to post up some more fresh fresh Baybayin stylin'. My current project is JUST about done marinating... and is about to hit the grill!
STAY UP!
~cyph
BTW: EVA airlines seats are cramped as hell, but their flight attendants are all female, and all FIT. ^_^
Anyways, international buzz business aside, I'm on the way to the motherland, the Philippines, and staying for a bit. Trying to gain some insight, find the roots, all that good stuff. It's been 11 years since I last been back, and I can't wait to see the Philippines again with fresh eyes and a more mature outlook. But no worries, be I in Asia, Europe, or wherever I go next, I will CONTINUE to post up some more fresh fresh Baybayin stylin'. My current project is JUST about done marinating... and is about to hit the grill!
STAY UP!
~cyph
BTW: EVA airlines seats are cramped as hell, but their flight attendants are all female, and all FIT. ^_^
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Revolt-ing-ly Fresh
The Revolt Hoodie by Pnoy Apparel
Look at the hoodie in action!
Only 300 made (so far). Mine's in the mail, what about yours?
Stay up,
~cyph
Look at the hoodie in action!
Bambu - "Quit" Produced by iLLMind from LightWork Media on Vimeo.
Stay up,
~cyph
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
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Still here...
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.
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."
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.
This ad would be a 1 page magazine ad, as shown in this mock up:
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
And the 2 page magazine ad mock up...
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:
The billboard mock up over Los Angeles
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
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.
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."
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.
This ad would be a 1 page magazine ad, as shown in this mock up:
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
And the 2 page magazine ad mock up...
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:
The billboard mock up over Los Angeles
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
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Tomorrow, tomorrow...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
White Boi Crackin'
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Knock 'em out
Monday, June 8, 2009
Bakit Up
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
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
Dead floor for now...
Love's just a game
Lucky to run into these kids; coolest to kick it with that night
Homie in gray turned 24 that night. His friends were busy getting him crap-faced
Native Gunnas!
After the club (around 2:30ish by this time), went to Kinkos to pick up a special project. Stimey chillin in the back
Thank goodness for 24-hr Del Taco drive thru's
Stimey the Pirate
Ship Wrecked
Pretty cool night, homegirl rockin my biz card like a fresh fitted! Yes maam...
Baybayin freshness coming... quality over quantity this time around; project brewin while I stay coolin'
Stay up,
~cyph
That's them
Dead floor for now...
Love's just a game
Lucky to run into these kids; coolest to kick it with that night
Homie in gray turned 24 that night. His friends were busy getting him crap-faced
Native Gunnas!
After the club (around 2:30ish by this time), went to Kinkos to pick up a special project. Stimey chillin in the back
Thank goodness for 24-hr Del Taco drive thru's
Stimey the Pirate
Ship Wrecked
Pretty cool night, homegirl rockin my biz card like a fresh fitted! Yes maam...
Baybayin freshness coming... quality over quantity this time around; project brewin while I stay coolin'
Stay up,
~cyph
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Mamaya na...
Pictures from Recreation at The Vangaurd in L.A./Hollywood will be posted later on today, so hold your horses as I regain ballast, homeh...
btw, shoutout to any girl that can recite lyrics from 90's hiphop songs, yall the bees knees! And extra shoutout to Del Taco and Kinkos for staying on their 24 hour grind! Yall make the world go!
btw, shoutout to any girl that can recite lyrics from 90's hiphop songs, yall the bees knees! And extra shoutout to Del Taco and Kinkos for staying on their 24 hour grind! Yall make the world go!
Stay up,
~cyph
Friday, May 29, 2009
Ad-ding Up
Lately most of my Baybayin pieces have either been simple hand-style studies or computer based, making it seem like I totally ditched painting canvas pieces altogether. But really, I'm trying to figure out a certain conceptual study on Baybayin design to follow through with to incorporate into what-if, real-world applications, as exampled by the faux-Magazine cover and Dining-Menu concepts...
Well, I think I'm starting to hone in as to what my next series is going to be: Baybayin Ads. Much like Nordenx's take on Pepsi and Coke ads, I'm looking to use Baybayin in pseudo magazine-ads that not only use Baybayin, but also have stylized character forms to communicate a graphic resonance as well... The more I'm getting into typography, the more the possibilities of using Baybayin in these types of concepts grow... Now if only I had the patience to generate all of these Baybayin "typefaces" at a whim!
Anyways, here's a quick non-Baybayin piece I did up for a movie-poster study. The font used is called "Capture it", and this is a study on using cropping and multiple photos to develop a single composition. I used the Smokin' Aces movie poster as a basic template, and tried to give a Guy Ritchie feel to it... It works... kinda.
~cyph
Well, I think I'm starting to hone in as to what my next series is going to be: Baybayin Ads. Much like Nordenx's take on Pepsi and Coke ads, I'm looking to use Baybayin in pseudo magazine-ads that not only use Baybayin, but also have stylized character forms to communicate a graphic resonance as well... The more I'm getting into typography, the more the possibilities of using Baybayin in these types of concepts grow... Now if only I had the patience to generate all of these Baybayin "typefaces" at a whim!
Anyways, here's a quick non-Baybayin piece I did up for a movie-poster study. The font used is called "Capture it", and this is a study on using cropping and multiple photos to develop a single composition. I used the Smokin' Aces movie poster as a basic template, and tried to give a Guy Ritchie feel to it... It works... kinda.
Like Roscoe Umali said, "I'm Filipino, I roll deep with 50 cousins." There were too many of them to fit in this piece!
Stay up!
~cyph
Thursday, May 28, 2009
On Some Next Level *ish...
So, apparently out of the 20 or so shoutouts I did during my Baybayin.com interview, my shoutout to Urduja and whoever wrote Bahala Meditations caught wind on the internets and thus began the conversations with Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor, who dropped some knowledge on me about the ancient Filipinos writing Ambahan poetry in Baybayin, and performing it like a spoken word slam. Check:
Conference? I clicked the link, which led me to a repost of my Baybayin.com interview vids, which led me to the Center for Baybaylan Studies. This is on some serious next-level spiritual/cultural awakening type... a bit dawnting due to their high intensity and passion for self discovery, but very interesting and quite inspiring. Check the vid:
Followed up was an email talking about a Baybaylan 2010 conference. And quote...
Been doing mostly corporate identity and organizational design lately, and though I'll show it soon, I'll also get back to the Baybayin stylin soon too. Stay up!
~cyph
Hi David,
Thanks for the link to Tiksikan! I had not heard of that sort of Filipino signifying poetry before. Very cool.
Ambahan competitions as far as understand it differ in a couple of ways. Tiksikan is a set of quatrains, but Ambahan are seven line poems. Tiksikan are extemporaneous, where as the Ambahan competitions usually start with poets reciting poems they have read while traveling the countryside (the poems are written on live bamboo). The winner of a competition is usually the one who knows the most ambahan poems of anyone else. That's about all I know, though. Like I said, I've never actually seen a competition, just read about them. :)
I've posted your two vids to the Babaylan Files blog: http://babaylanfiles.blogspot.com/2009/05/bathala-project.html
If you live near Sonoma, perhaps you can join us at the conference next year. :)
Cheers! Bec
Conference? I clicked the link, which led me to a repost of my Baybayin.com interview vids, which led me to the Center for Baybaylan Studies. This is on some serious next-level spiritual/cultural awakening type... a bit dawnting due to their high intensity and passion for self discovery, but very interesting and quite inspiring. Check the vid:
Followed up was an email talking about a Baybaylan 2010 conference. And quote...
Hi David! Kamusta na? My fellow Babaylan sisters emailed us about a YouTube Bathala Project video by you that talked about the magikal connection of Baybayin & Bathala. I contacted Perla to watch it and get back to me. I was speechless for awhile after watching it. Me & Perla were at awe because finally our work in relating to our Filipino Spirituality has finally reached the hip-hop generation. This is just the start ot the Bathala/Baybayin/Babaylan movement!Quite excited about it! 2010! That's wassup...
We are presently organizing the next Babaylan Conference 2010. The first Babaylan Conference was last June 2005 in New York City, which Perla, I and our other Babaylan sisters organized. Please visit our website. There are Babaylan files that are posted and will be continued to be updated till the Babaylan Conference on April 17-18, 2010 at Sonoma, CA. We are looking forward to connect with our other Kababayans in your community.
CENTER OF BABAYLAN STUDIES
www.babaylan.net
bathala nawa
mary ann ubaldo
www.urduja.com
Been doing mostly corporate identity and organizational design lately, and though I'll show it soon, I'll also get back to the Baybayin stylin soon too. Stay up!
~cyph
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