The Swords Are Drawn.

If all goes well, you'd see a screen printed version of this on sale at the I Am David Sparkle Fundraiser tomorrow. It's going to be a busy day. Later blader hater.

These lights.

Taking Care Of Itself.

Hi folks, hope things are doing great. The year's coming to a close and new frontiers lie ahead. If you see new years that way, then yup, hope you have a good one. Am in New York right now and its awesome. Shot these 2 images using a Sony point-n-shoot, and also edited with Photoshop. More pics to come i'm sure.

And yes, finally gotten the Evan Hecox monograph, Urban Abstract. He is amazing.
Later blader haters.
Djohan.

You, Me and The Things Unsaid.

Almost done with the CD packaging for Amateur Takes Control. Hope the measurements turn out alright. The tickets for their KittyWu Records debut album launch show have been sold out, I'm really happy for the boys. Next up in the art department for them will be posters for the album promo, merchandise, etc.

Meanwhile..
Manchester City got ridiculous, Platini lost control and Newcastle is still without a manager.
We're facing Bolton this weekend. Let's hope things have warmed up in the camp.

Speaking of which, with the brilliant addition of ATC to the KittyWu roster, i would say Team Wu has a pretty decent soccer side now, the youth and speed of ATC and the vision, maturity and nonsense of the rest of us. All we need is an emblem, team colours and a cool name, some where in the veins of F.C Souvlaki. When that's all set and done, we'll come for you.

U-N-I-T-E-D
United is the team for me.
Djohan.

You, Me and The Pictures Taken.

Photographs proposed for packaging and design of the new Amateur Takes Control album.
Shots were taken using my trusty F80 and probably a roll or 2 of TMAX 400. Can't remember. It might just be a normal B&W roll. And yup these were taken in Switzerland. There's one more which i think is pretty alright, maybe i'll post it some other time.

Among the dead we pray for height.

The last time I updated this blog was June 29th. Apart from my day job, things that have been in my mind include the packaging for Lunar Node's release, the art direction for Amateur Takes Control's new album, my annoyance with United's lack of strikers prior to Berbatov's signing and the banner art for Culturepush. The image above is an example of the art direction taken for the Culturepush banner, which i think is gonna be up in October (I might be wrong).

I had tonnes to talk about, but my body is aching for sleep now.

Later blader haters.
Djohan.

Walk In Fire.

Spent most of my weekend finishing up on the poster for the Envy show. Sourced out for royalty free images and finally got a decent medical and anatomical one from Page One.
I thought about what comes to mind when one is envious. I did a digital collage of what I thought manifested the darker side of envy, with the anatomy shown acting as the tools that could be used to trigger or manifest emotions associated with the subject at hand. The eye for sight, the ear for hearing and the mouth. More exact would be the tongue, but was worried it'd turn out more grotesque then it should. I'm thinking of changing the details at the bottom. We'll see how it goes, what not with the placements of logos, etc.

Have a good day.
Drop shadows,
Not feelings.

Djohan You! Black Emperor.

Spotted on Culturepush.

If you guys have the time, drop by Culturepush to read my rantings on the design of I Am David Sparkle's This Is The New packaging. It feels great to have someone put your profile online and I really appreciate it. Thank you Michelle for your consideration and time and to the folks who left comments, thanks!

Amateur Takes Control | 20th June 08.

Some edited pictures from the Amateur Takes Control set last night. Shot with Roanne's D70.
Click on the images to see bigger shots. Might upload more later.
Film is still dope, but after using Roanne's camera, it has gotten me thinking about digital photography.

Drop shadows,
Not bombs.

Djohan.

Type Is Physical.

Type Is Physical from dropshadows on Vimeo.

This is a short animation for fonts I did. Check them out at the links attached below.
Letters A - L / M -Z
Font usage in My Little Black Book.

I Am David Sparkle'This Is The New' CD Packaging.

Finally got shots of I Am David Sparkle's 'This Is The New' release (Thank you again Roanne for lending me your camera!). I figured it'd be cool to provide an interactive environment for the listener, from the folding out of the folds to find phrases, to means and ways of undoing the stitches on the CD pocket to access the music. The band sees themselves as a narrative channel that goes beyond the music. Hopefully the CD provides this avenue that carries the stimulation into sight and sound to simulate an environment for the story the band is telling.

The graphics used was adapted from works I did for school. My fascination of words, in its function i.e. to relay thought and emotions we have and it’s form i.e. placements and treatments in a given space, spearheaded the project. I was messing around with some illustration techniques and it turned out pretty sweet by chance. It portrays a sterile / synthetic environment narrated by thoughts we have in our head, but not necessarily communicated to others around us.

Drop shadows,
Not pills.

Djohan

Turn off the lights.

Thank you Roanne for the Camera.

Fastcode.

It was such a hassle uploading this image yesterday. Anyways. This is going to be the 'official' Mono promo poster. Was selected over this one. I hope to make a screen print out of this one. I still love this the best. Maybe I ought to do a screen print out of this instead.

Later blader hater.
Djohan.

Get lost.

There's too many black and white works up at the moment, so I thought of injecting some colour before posting one of the final installments of the MONO promotional packages, but the colours of the images I posted turned out really bad. I dunno why. I don't understand web graphics and how they work sometimes. It can be mighty annoying. Tried to upload another image but the connection or fucking something is being a cunt.

This one's a series of flyers to be put in stores, etc. Take one. Take more, and pass to your friends.

Sidetrack.
How is it possible to concede 7 goals. The Singapore national team lost to Uzbekhistan 7-3. Why. Why? I'm still furious over the fact that the FAS pulled out from the Malaysian Cup. Its been more than 10 years and I'm still bitter. Don't tell me to get over it, because you know you're just as bitter as I am.

Drop shadows,
Not goals.

Djohan.

Sun in an empty room.

The weather's brilliant. Keep it pouring. Keep it dark.
Ok it's not as dark anymore. Anyways.

I'm finally done with the Mono promotional stuff. Mainly the poster and ad. Added an extra element into the mix, hope it turns out ok. Hope that I'd be able to make big screened posters out of these illustrations, without the sponsor logos. That'd be really cool. The sponsor logos are in colour but i figured since the poster's just for show here, I'd put the black ones instead. The portrait one would probably be used for magazine ads. The landscape one will be used as the main poster to be placed in shops, etc.

The bottom 2 are animated banners for blogs, myspace, etc. I'd really appreciate it of you could place them on your blogs / myspace too. Like help to spread the word.

Thank you for your time
Drop shadows,
Not ______ .

Djohan.

You can do better.

Good morning folks.
Was stoked when I was asked if i could contribute some designs for the new Plain Sunset t-shirts, so i cooked those up last week or so. Practically grew up with these guys, so it's really awesome to be considered in contributing to the band's history. Hope that works out fine. Their new CD is out now, so grab it when you can. They've also been nominated for Best Singapore Band and Best Local Song at the power 98 singapore music awards. Show your love. The voting system sucks big time though. In order to have your votes submitted you HAVE to vote for the others. No 2 ways about it. It's quite unfair to the people voting. What if they're clueless about the other artistes or simply don't like any of their stuff at all? So what weight does the voting carry in this case? In other words, some fella might just win something out of inefficient administration and not by the choice of the voters. I'm sure a better system could be set up in place of the current one.

I doubt Ronaldo would leave United this season. I hope he doesn't. Would love it if he sees out his contract and build a legacy with the current team. Euro 08 is coming, and I was rooting for Scotland to make it through, but sadly they did not. So i don't know which team to look out for. Maybe Portugal, since they've got Christi and Nani there. And perhaps Holland so I could form my humble assessment on how that Huntelaar guy is. And Italy cos no one does drama better than them. Hah.

Drop shadows,
Not lousy online forms.
Djohan.

From Moscow with love.

Guys, we did it. Victory is ours again.
We are the kings of Europe.

Quik.

Did this video some time ago when I was till in school. Struggled to get it online, it keeps getting rejected by the provider or something. Come on United.

Blast from the past.

Good day folks.
My body clock's really screwed up. I sleep in the mornings only to get up in the afternoons. I don't really enjoy this habit. But it ought to come in handy for tomorrow's match. Come on United. Just one more game.

Been working on the Mono promotional material, and also compiling stuff for Villains. Those 2 things have been keeping me occupied. Finished my illustration gig for The Peak magazine last week, it's going to be used in the June issue. Quite excited for that. My first illustration in an editorial. May the numbers only rise.

As the title of this entry suggests, the 2 works featured above were some of the early stuff I did. I don't know where the soft copy is, probably in my old pc. These 2 works probably got me more interested in working with graphics in music. The first one's a promo poster for a metal band my good mates had, Dyfectra. I sort of helped them release their stuff under my bedroom label El Radio. We also hand crafted the CD packaging. I had a great time doing it. Damn I should put all these stuff up. This was done in 2003.

Next up is a promo poster for My Squared Circle, a band which I liked a lot but didn't manage to keep themselves together. They broke up soon after this release, which was a pity. This was released under Straits Records. Am pretty happy with how the CD turned out. Also did tour posters and merchandise. I'm happy with the vibe this poster had but the typo in the CD inlay is much more flattering. Dammit I really should get pictures of these stuff taken.

More blasts soon.

To Moscow with love.

Hi, it's been a while. We got 2 more games to go. Ok if you guys arent already in the know, Manchester United is a win away from the Premiership and yup, we have a tough final coming up. Guys if you feel me, wear your colours, the team needs us.

Meanwhile in the subtle reality called life, above's a rough sketch of the Mono poster / flyer. And do come down to the show. Hope to put up the full poster soon.

Different cloaks.

These week's gonna be intense. Hope it passes by smoothly. United's leading by 5 points, thats really good stuff. Let's just hope the guys can soldier on without Vidic for a few more games. Barca's gonna be a bitch to play, let's hope Rio and Van Der Sar get their shit together. I still have no idea who to support for the Euros man. Will probably be Italy, more for the drama than anything else. I've got my mind set on Scotland. They were so close to getting in. Anyways. Here are some online promo bits I did for ATC.
Show some love, grab them and paste it on your blog / website / myspace / facebook / capitalist social network that thrives on your 'About Me' to market the next big thing.

Click to see actual size.

Built On Miles Of Hope.

Good day folks. Hope everything's working out for great for y'all. Some updates on my end.
I've been fortunate to work on Amateur Take Control's new CD single, 'Built On Miles Of Hope'. The guys are releasing it this Friday, 18th April 2008 at the Scape Lab, alongside my mate Heypowerpopstar, who's releasing his graphic design book / journal. I've been given this oppurtunity to work on the band's packaging, merchandise, promotional material and it's the most fun i've had since Sunday soccer.

A blog has also been set up to document the activities leading up to the launch and we've been updating it regularly. Too regularly in fact. Visit us at here. Meanwhile, here are some pics.






From top to bottom.
a. Flyers
b. Packaging prototype
c. T-shirt variations.


Once again, drop by Built On Miles Of Hope for merchandise sales and info/updates for the launch. These folks are raising funds for their upcoming full-length, so the proceeds from ticket sales and merch will be used to fund their new release. My mate will be contributing works for the cause as well.

These blokes have something good going on for them and it'd be really great if we could do a part in supporting them. It's about time that support is being given to the right people.

My Little Black Book: Photos

Hey folks.
These shots were taken from an exhibition I had with my mate. Click here for the initial flyer. Basically I did a typograhic execution of selected prose my friend had written over the past few years. I had a set of fonts I did for school some time back and nothing much was done with it. (Click to check it out). It sure did come in handy with this exhibition. We spent about 12 hours setting it up (supper and rest included of course) and we were aided by our good friend Adel. Without which we'd have struggled more than we already did and possibly not meet the deadline. There are more photos, but I thought these could summarise the art direction for the exhibition. And do click on the pictures to see bigger version.

It is safe to say that the team is happy with the outcome. Sort of a reminder to give thanks.
A big thank you to those who came, specially to friends whom we've not met for a while. Of course, shout outs to Razi for the collaboration and Adel for roughing it out. The exhibit runs till the 20th April 2008, so do drop by if you haven't already.

Photographs by the magnificent Djulian.

Your Heroes Were Ghosts

This shots are long overdue. Little shots of the degree show I had last year. Scroll down or click here to see the poster I did with the help of some mates. There seems to be an overflow of items posted today. Catching up with time lost perhaps. Clearing the table to make way for the new. Will post pictures of the exhibition I just had with my mate soon.

Anyone got the new NIN release? It comes with 4 parts. You could download part 1 for free at their site. The downloaded package comes with a PDF of the sleeve and also wallpaper for your comp. Nice photographs in there.

* The last picture is the namecard I did for the show. I made a rubber stamp with my contact details, and left a stack of empty cards at my display, so you know, if people are interested, they'd make their own card.

White Print

Thought that this could lay the foundation for future works. Would probably play around with this idea for The Foundation. Digital shots, contrasted in Photoshop. 2 digital entries in a row. Damn.

Tides

Some photos to fill up these empty days. They are digital shots.

I was looking for lyrics for Cavity's Supercollider, and one of the search results came up with Indieworkshop.com's 'Our 20 Most Underrated Metal Albums'. Haha brilliant! Do check it out. In the list includes Cavity's Supercollider, Training For Utopia's Plastic Soul Impalement, Assuck's Misery Index and Black Sabbath's Never Say Die!.

The Little Black Book

I started the day flipping at the considerations being made by the English F.A regarding Premiership matches being played overseas. By overseas i mean Dubai, China, Singapore, etc. It's ludicrous isn't it? So i released my disgust on Sparkle's blog.

It's the festive season and i spent my holidays mostly at home. Caught Juno last night, and it was really nice. Had a wonderful soundtrack as well. Today was spent finishing up on the flyer above which is an exhibition my mate and I are doing on 1st March. Do drop by if you can. Below's a small write up.

Founded on the poems of Razi Razak and art directed by Djohan Johari, My Little Black Book is a typographic showcase that observes words as a channel of solace in a constantly shaping environment.
Words are commonly used as either an introverted channel or one of liberty. Regardless of its form or function, its depiction is universal. Interpreted in this showcase is the integration of prose in an urban context.

Have a good weekend folks.

Portrait

Hi everyone. I am looking forward to going out later. Meeting Adel from Amateur Takes Control. Ok do click the link to check his band out. It's really good. Anyways, United lost last night, so that's quite a bitch. And I still think that the internet is a cold, dead place. And I still can't remember HTML codings. Damn.

Bought Juxtapoz last night. Am not really a big fan, but it has an interview with my favourite illustrator, Evan Hecox. Some of my illustrations are just futile attempts to emulate his magic. Last month's issue was a feature on Shephard Fairey. I dunno what you guys think, but he's amazing to me. Quantity & quality. Respect.

Illustration above was a self-portrait done for a workshop I attended in school. I forgot it even existed. I want to submit this for Brookly Art Project's 'Faces' thing, but it can't be uploaded on their site. Which is just plain annoying. I have another similiar illustration, but it's of Amran Khamis. I should put that up some time soon.

It's Monday tomorrow. Let's hope it's a good one.

The Pinholes Acoustic Sessions.

From the top:
i. Rough imagery for poster / CD / packaging
ii. CD Cover
iii. Sleeve
iv. Sticker given in every packaging

Last Thursday and Friday nights were spent crafting The Pinholes' new release to be sold in the Lime Juice music festical thingy. The images here are just the graphical content I did for Ghosts On Radar. Would post the actual packaging photos once I've gotten the time (going to start work. again. tomorrow. urgh). Anyways you could get the Pinholes Acoustic Sessions at Straits Records.

On a side note, Russia lost to Israel? That's fucked up. Hiddink has been going on and on about building a good team and now he has fucked it up and England has a chance to qualify. Hold on to your horses, they might just make a DVD about their triumphant entry to the Euros. ( Remember the DVD they made about the friendly win over Germany? Urgh. )

My heart goes to Scotland. They deserve the chance. Even a DVD to their name.

I Am David Sparkle

I am quite excited. Sparkle's new CD titled 'This Is The New' is coming up pretty soon under KittyWu Records and things are looking good. We're playing Global Gathering in Malacca come end of the month, a small hardcore show in November if all goes well and ZoukOut at the end of the year. Shown below are rough takes on the CD design. It's an extension of the lines project I did in school, which can be seen somewhere if you scroll down.
* The top image is the closed size. The bottom one is the cover opened to full spread. Click on 'em to get a better view.




Hopefully there'll be more updates soon. Thank you for your time and have a great weekend.

Be smooth with Bismuth.

I did some splash graphics for Bismuth some time ago. Just realised that i like the one above best, without the band name. I didn't think of that when i was doing it. damn. Click here to check their stuff out.

p.s. and i also realise there's too much cyan / black & white imagery here. hope that'd all change soon.

Mailer Aligator.

I got shortlisted for a 2nd interview at Trine and was required to do a mailer for an upcoming travel themed magazine and they're looking for reader submissions, tickets, photographs, etc. Required items include packaging to hold a sketchbook, a CD, and a return envelope for the readers' contributions. These are some of the stuff I did. This is gonna be a long entry, so bear with me. And yea, click to enlarge.

Many ideas came up while brainstorming the execution of this project. I wanted to stay away form the common cliches of travel / holidays that come in packages of postcards, stamped envelopes, etc. Packaging plays a huge role in deciding the art direction, so the idea of passport bags that come with various pockets came to mind. The required items were fulfilled as such:

Sketchbook
The sketchbook comes in the form of a passport. A logo was created to fit in the regalia approach found in most international passports. The images that follow the logo are the pages inside the 'passport'.





Return envelope.
The return envelope comes in the form of the boarding pass holder and the boarding pass itself. The boarding pass acts as a form where submittors could fill in their personal info and details for submission, etc. which would be inserted in the envelope along with their contributions. The stub could be kept for future references.




CD
CD-Rom to be included inside the mailer.

Boarding passes and passport layouts were referenced from actual passports and boarding passes, images used in the passport regalia logo were collaged from images I've gotten from Heraldic Designs for Artists and Craftspeople - John M. Bergling The Tonicwas provided by Trine.

The Void @ Music For Good.

I had an oppurtunity to do an ad for the new practice / recording studio at Music For Good. It's stocked with great equipment, set in a cosy environment and most importantly, it is run by dedicated folks. Click the ad above for details.

The photograph in the ad was taken by the wonderful Noor Hazmee. Click on his name to visit his website. He's a really ace photographer.

And if you don't already know, the new Interpol album is out.
Later skaters.

Agitate.

It has been eons since I've put anything up here. More entries comin up soon I hope.

Pictured above is a long overdue flyer for Straits Records' subsidiary project, Agitatsiya (which means agitate in latin i think). It's meant to be printed on newsprint paper. I'm working on some ad slots for Music For Good. Let's hope that turns out fine. Drop by again and have a nice day.

AD + GD Degree Show 07.

Here's the electronic direct mailer for the Advertising + Graphic design cohort. Do come down if you have nothing to do. Yup.

Discourse.

Been a while yup. Days have been occupied with preparation for the degree show. These last few days of academia, i've got a brilliant oppurtunity to work really nice mates. We got a class to ourselves, so it felt like a 'studio' so that's really awesome. I did up a design for the degree show poster and it went through the eyes and ideas of Zhihong and Shing and it ended up looking really sweet.

El Radio

There was once in my life where I was infatuated with Cooper Black. Used it for school. Used it for my personal projects as well. This was a flyer for a small music distro I made. I was annoyed that not many people were bringing in good heavy stuff. Or good stuff for that matter. It was a pretty cool idea to deal with music releases I love and share it with friends and like minded people. And it also gave me a reason to make flyers. So I used whatever money I had and did it on my own. It survived only 2 shipments, before school finally beckoned.
The art direction taken was a light hearted one. 'Heavy' music is always synonymous with blood splatters and broken fonts, don't get me wrong I love them gritty looks if done tastefully, but I'm sure there's another way to approach it right? And since it was my distro, I get to do it how I want it to be. And that I must say, is quite punk rock.

*Click on it to see the selection I brought. I might have some leftover copies, so drop me a note and inquire.

A Vacant Affair.

I tried doing a profile on CPLUV but it doesnt update my saves. I hope it works later. I'm more than comfortable in using blogger anyway so i guess there isn't a need to worry. On to the work.

The poster above was done for Singapore band A Vacant Affair, sort of a CD launch (at Baybeats) + mini tour with Calerway. The coloured piece was a bigger one measuring 15cm X 42cm. The B&W one was 10.5cm X 29cm or so. It was printed on coloured paper. Would probably take a picture of it (if i manage to find it) and put it up here. It's nice when bands request art pieces from you. It's an honour fulfiling them.

Oh Antarctica

There's something about photographs that's mysterious and unresovled that's so appealing. And i'm sure many of you feel the same too. It sorts of speaks to us on another level altogether. Here are some attempts taken on my trusty F80 & TMAX 400.

Sometimes In A Fall.

Taken from a room in Switzerland. Can't rememebr exactly where. Shot using a Nikon F80 & TMAX 400 film.
Film is still the only way to go.

Choose.

These 2 resulted from the trip to the I.U.A.V. University in Venice, Italy to participate in the first installment of the international design workshop, Observatoire Europeen de l'Objet. The first piece is a poster for the presentation we had to give upon returning from Venice. The second piece was illustrated from a picture taken in Japan during our transit. Oh the Japanese charm.

Heart Of Stone.

This was taken of last semester's project. It talked about visuals being broken down and how we build walls to isolate ourselves in the process of comprehension. The phrase I Love You But I Have Chosen (the top image) was taken from the band I Love You But I Have Chosen Darkness. Probably the coolest name a band could have.

Esmond & Sue.

Realised that this space is becoming a little too sterile with all the grayscale images. I've decided to put some colours in it. Just some. This poster series was done as a request from Esmond. He was asking his friends to do posters for his wedding, sort of a rock poster series. I can't remember the exact size of this, its probably A1 or A2. I thought'd it'd be sweet if I did 2 posters, one for Esmond and one for Sue (his lovely wife, who's expecting soon =) and did it as such that if they were put next to eat other, it'd look like a set. You know, couples and all. It was nice of Esmond to have thought of me to contribute to his special day. And yes Esmond, your pictures are still with me.

Phrases Are Physical.

These are applications of the alphabets created in the previous entry. Words and phrases offer so much insight on the human condition. This set highlights the physicalitites involved in type, a more architectural type structure in this case. The fusion of the structural and the emotional intrigues me.

Type Is Physical.

These 2 posters were part of a series done for the project 'Anonymity Of Words'. The project further developed into an experiment of type and its relation to our surroundings.




Above is the chart of type created from the basic idea of alphabetical shapes. Photographs were taken with provided guidelines to aid the approach of creating a new set of letters.