dots AND lines

• For the first time Coca-Cola made change to the design of the shape of their bottle. •
• For the first time Coca-Cola produce their bottles in aluminium. •

This is what happens to Coca-Cola’s new marketing plan, code-named M5, which stands for “Magnificent 5“. This plan gets Coca-Cola to be more involved with design and art with the new bottle designs and cleverly blends each of them with productions of short films. And these films are no Coca-Cola ads gimmick. You may not find any coke at all in them.

This project involves five design groups from five continents to “create and share visions of optimism.” The designers includes Caviar from Japan, The Designers Republic from UK, MK12 from USA, Rex & Tennant McKay (South Africa), and Lobo (Brazil). Each agency created a short video clip with music from some music groups, like Towa Tei, Citizen Bird, Guided by Voices, Fischerspooner, and The Flaming Lips.

This rebranding of Coca-Cola is targeted on clubbing and party events as the bottles have “night mode” where the designs are coated with fluorescent paint to glow in dark.

You can check on them and download the vids/wallpapers at their cool them5 site. You need to complete a simple free sign-ups.

What happen if you take the style of Japanese Manga and mixed it with Pop Art? You’ll find yourself in the world of Ippei Gyoubu. A superb illustrator from Yokohama City, Japan.

As stated in Super Real, Ippei has “a bold clean style that oozed color and design like some kind of pop art anime gone wild.” Which I find is quite true in a sense.

Job title
Illustrator • Comic artist

Techniques used
The character graphics, comics work using the computer.

Inspirations
Old super heroes • The Beatles • My wife.

Interview and picture are taken from this site.

Here’s a link to his site, too much monkey business.

Street art, Post Graf, Urban Art- call it what you like, in it's raw essense it's all about leaving your mark. A trace of existence, to taunt or humour the public as well as a liberating F*** You to the powers that deem our work vandalism.

It's not that it can't be viewed as vandalism, but in my mind, every sticker, every tag seen on the street has artistic merit; be it the sprayed flick or a marker drip on a letter or even the illustration style of a particular sticker bomber. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there is an aesthetic value and a passion sensed in each piece of work that's up, flick through the pages of this book and you'll see what i mean. If the work was taken out of its urban context, placed on a canvas, givan a hefty price tag and hung up in a gallery, it's likely those same people that viewed it as vandalism would see it as art. Although to take the work out of its urban context means the work nearly always loses something in transition, part of the creativity is how it integrates within the environment, the chosen spot which gives it the finishing touch… There is something missing like the interaction and conflict of the work in location. The smack between the eyes of an amazing reach, the build up of tags on a shutter or the layering of stickers on the back of a street sign. Each mark is a reminder to those visually aware enough to notice that we were here as well as a code to other artists that passed through and how fresh the work is when that journey took place. Only the initiated know to whom these psoudonyms belong to.

My first experience of graffiti was drawing on my parents wall with a crayon, aged 8. I knew it 'was wrong but it seemed so much more exciting than the colouring books that I knew I could draw in. A few years on I discovered the book Subway Art, it was an eye candy binge of pick, mixed colours and flavours for a kid that had been starving hungry. See. I grew up on a diet of skateboarding, cartoons and cereal stickers collecting them and swapping them. It was then that the spark leap and the connection between my graffiti dabbling, a love of cartoons and an appetite for sticker that D*Face was born.

A series of disfunctional characters for a disfunctional generation that could be released into the urban environment through an arsenal of techniques, from stickers, hand drawing, painting to over sized pasted posters, I constantly question what myself and others do, why we take time, lots of energy and great risks in putting our work into the public domain. This normally occurs when I'm lying on a rooftop waiting for the police to drive by in order to put up some work. But it soon becomes clear when you flick through the pages of this book and when you get to meet the great people behind this work, love it or hate it you have to admire it.

Keep on keeping on.

Peace.
D-Face

I find what he said was pretty cool. That's why I put it here. Buy the book. It's just as cool.

Finally, it's about time Malaysia's capital has its own festival this year! Kuala Lumpur Festival 2006, Di sini semaraknya seni! It will be held through the whole month of July, throughout various KL locations with its launch at Istana Budaya at 9 pm.

If you are a person who is deeply interested in Malaysian traditional dance, songs and crafts, then this will be a heaven for you. Most of the programmes organised are mainly of these.

But not necessary that there's no place for others. There's 1 with I was indirectly involved in, KL SING SONG 2006, which will be held at KL Pac on 14-15 July organised by Troubadours Enterprise. Here, they will definitely have performances featuring local singer songwriters (not traditional by the way) and workshops conducted by them as well. Mainly targeted on "young adults, who have interests in new and innovative forms of arts and entertainments". Related but not on spot, they are going to have a compilation of 2 CDs launch as well titled Voices from Next Door. Check it out! Seriously, give some support on local art scene! Hehe…

For information:
Jabatan Kebudayaan & Kesenian Negara,
Kementerian Kebudayaan, Kesenian & Warisan Malaysia,
Tingkat 30, Menara TH Perdana,
1001 Jln Sultan Ismail, 50694 KL.
W: www.heritage.gov.my
T: +603.2612.7651
F: +603.2697.5606

I was invited to go to an opening ceremony for a new gallery yesterday. There I met up with 2 Japanese artist who have been residing in France for quite sometimes. 1 male n 1 female. The guy, Shingo YOSHIDA, had been there for 8 years and has his own gallery while the female, Takako KABUKI, been there for 12 years. They are Master holders and been involved into art scene for quite a while. Cool fellas, they are!

During the dinner, they jot down their site, which is not really theirs… but here. For Takako, she gimme a French site titled, Le Fresnoy, which states in the site, "A post-graduate art school and audio-visual research and production centre, Le Fresnoy takes advanced students for a two-year course run by guest artist-professors who themselves produce new work." She asked me to check on the site for Panorama 5 and Panorama 6, where her name and stuff are mentioned.

As for Shingo, he talked about his blog, which he had forgotten the URL of, and asked me to do a Google search for his name. Haha…

Both links, hopefully, will appear at my blogroll.