This month’s landing page comes from Djulian. Commonpeople had the opportunity to interview Djulian as he shares with us what makes him tick.

What is your background and what are you currently doing?
I graduated from Temasek Polytechnic School of Design with a diploma in Visual Communications. Currently, I am serving my time assisting at a commercial photography studio.  In my free time, I work on my own projects, ranging from fashion to experimental processes.

How did you get into photography?
I found photography as I spent time with my father at his job in a prominent photographic film company during my formative years. It just seemed like a natural progression. My dad just kept bringing home the film, and I just keep shooting. Processing the film wasn’t much of a problem either, since I have an aunt in the film processing business.

Were you part of a particular community that inspired your desire to choose the medium of photography? Or provided a meaningful context to move into photography?
Yeah. I started shooting the local indie music scene when I was about 16. A friend of mine suggested to give music photography a try, and got me my first real gig shoot during Baybeats at The Esplanade. That was when I started taking photography seriously.

What is it about photography that interests you?
Being able to capture memories of places I’ve been to, people I’ve met, feelings I’ve felt, and being able to share these memories or events in my life with others.

What are the kinds of photos you take?
I’d like to think that I don’t belong to a particular kind, but I am drawn to landscapes, and cityscapes.

How do you usually conceive a particular idea? What is the creative process behind the conception of each piece or series of works? How do you come up with an idea?
Ideas usually come to me at the oddest of time and places, most of the time it’s about something that happened to me … the mood that I’m in. How do develop your idea? I sleep on it, or while taking breaks from actually thinking about the idea. Going out, the mood I might be in, the environment has a big effect on anyone. How you execute your ideas? I guess you can say that I have a very fluid or spontaneous “process”.

How has your perception of photography and your expression in general changed since when you started?
I don’t think the way I would approach something has changed much, and neither has my perception of photography. I like the jovial and juvenile honesty to my pictures.

What are some of the noteworthy photos or series that you have done? Care to briefly talk about them?
I’m particularly proud of my final year work I did on HDB void decks. It’s on my website, and it’s titled In Between. But it is never meant to be viewed online. The book that I printed is how you are supposed to view the series of work. It’s eighty images of void decks and corridors of randon HDB blocks. The idea of the book is that, as you flip thought the pages, it’s like walking from the void deck to your gate, but along the way you stop at a picture and say “wow, that’s nice” … or admire it for a moment, then you continue  …. but by the end of the book, you would have forgotten where you’ve stopped, and what that picture you said was nice, looked like. Just like how we don’t notice the subtle beauty of our closest environment. Something like that …. =)

What are you working on right now?
Testshoots and helping a friend out with some pictures for a fashion label.  Also I’m working on a photography project with Jovian with a ‘HOBBYIST’ point of view.

What do you see yourself doing in the next 5 years?
Hopefully running my own studio, and having a show at least once a year …

Click here to view the embedded video.

When is it really that designers feel they can have total freedom to create awesome work? Rarely.

With clients being in the picture, the design process is always dialogic; purposeful to the solving of a problem or challenge. How then, can designers create creative context for themselves? To showcase new ways that design can be relevant and implemented in the market place.

Courage for creatives in fields of design to move outside of their traditional spheres of practice has in recent years been causing a stir. With rise of design thinking in realms of management consulting to new business initiatives with design processes at its core, design in an increasingly technological world has found radically new expressions.

With the above said in mind, we are slowly beginning to witness this zeitgeist in some form or the other here in Singapore. Commonpeople had the opportunity to speak with Felix Ng, founder of Silnt and the recently formed Anonymous. In the interview, he shares with us his thoughts on design, his current projects, and aspirations for a greater role of design in the Singapore landscape.

Anonymous was responsible for organizing the recent DesignFilmFestival.

Shot & edit by Meng Han
Produced by YC Teo
Music: Uriollach by Wisp

Special thanks:
Felix Ng

William Chua better known as Xiaobaosg is freelance illustrator from Singapore.

Pictured on the landing page is Monster of the Year, an image done in collaboration with Chinese artist, Shadow Chen. The character is inspired by “Nian” ( which means “Year” in English ), a furious monster that lived in ancient times. Nian was born to be very ugly and ferocious, and looked like either a dragon or a unicorn. It is believed that around the Spring Festival, the monster would come down from the sky to hunt people. SBABGZ37YZ8V

Song-Ming Ang makes art about music. For our new landing page, Song-Ming put together video screenshots of Michael Jackson fans.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What does it really mean to be a relevant business today? With an already over saturation of products and services in our market and new forms of consumer consciousness emerging, what might the key components of success be for small businesses?

The crew from K.I.N/SIFR seem to be heading in the right direction. Their approach to business combines a passion for community, creativity in design, and their ability to think global but act locally.

Commonpeople had the opportunity to speak with them as they share their philosophy behind their business; their new clothing line SIFR; and of course their new swanky store front designed by FUUR ASSOCIATES.

Interview by Seraphina Woon
Shot & edit  by Meng Han
Produced by YC Teo

Special thanks:
Chris Fussner (waddap?)

We are proud to feature Troy Chin on our landing page this month. Troy had been kind enough to specially create this particular piece for us.

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Music producer and one-half of NYC’s musical sons, Metro Area, Darshan Jesrani takes a trip down The Rabbit Hole and hangs with Commonpeople to talk about the duo’s new album and staying true to their aural roots. Known to serve up a delectable dish of New York City’s finest sounds, Darshan’s inspiration flows from an eclectic fountain of old school disco and prog rock synths, distinctively eschewing the superfluous influence of modern-day musical consensus.

Shot & edit by YC Teo
Produced by Seraphina Woon

Special thanks:
Cheryl Ho
The White Rabbit

Click here to view the embedded video.

Transitions. Change. Progress.
With so much static noise around us, how do we find any kind of order or structure to guide the way we navigate ideas and images today? How would one go about claiming the use of cultural signifiers as if it was his/her birthright?

Perhaps we have come to a point of space-time compression where the flow of images and information have become so fluid, that the act of reading and watching moving images has replaced the authenticity of navigating real environments.

Suddenly the world is so much smaller.

If the above were true, how then can artists today truly express authenticity in the production of their art?

One possible answer is the honesty, boldness and naivety of the human expression.

Enter Wong Lip Chin. At age 22, he still embodies a healthy dose of teenage angst, naivety, and innocence that guides his expression as an artist. His blind ambition to rise above himself often pisses people off, but it doesn’t seem like something he is too concerned about. Situated in the thick of images transmitted from music, magazines, internet, and movies, his art reflects his direct response to a world he is constantly exploring. Like a child, his eye knows no bounds.

Commonpeople had the pleasure of speaking with Lip Chin as he shows us a glimpse of his life and art making process.

Shot & edit by Meng Han
Produced by YC Teo

Special thanks:
Wong Lip Chin
The Wong Family (Y’all Wongs feel so right)

Music:
José González

Our new landing page this month comes from Jonathan Han, a fresh grad from the School of Visual Arts with a Bachelor’s in Graphic Design, who is currently working at R/GA in New York City.

He was kind enough to design a landing page that reflects his perception of what commonpeople is all about. Jonathan is interested in exploring new graphic languages that might possibly alter human behavior. Some of the questions he asks that guide his exploration are:

“What if we could develop an interface that would carefully monitor and analyze complex human behavior based on simple abstract shapes?
What if we could understand behavior more in-depth when we reduce the variables to just movements between simple abstract shapes?
What if we could further develop the understanding of human interaction based on the reactions between simple abstract shapes?”

Now, what would that be like?

Words of encouragement go a long way. They don’t even need to be epic gestures. One individual in particular has been taking the liberty to do just that. In the beginning of 2009, JJ (he rather keep his anonymity) started a project of drawing positive messages on post-its in a hope he could encourage people who chanced upon them. Fast forward a couple of months, he is still doing just that, only difference is, his project gained a massive traction with the Singaporean (and foreign) public.

Commonpeople had the pleasure of interviewing JJ, as he shares some of the insights he gathered from his post-it project.

Who is JJ?
Well, I’d like to keep my true identity a secret for as long as I can. I know some people like what I do, but I suppose others could view it as littering or graffiti.

Why did you start the project?
It was by accident. In January this year, the economy went down the drain. Many of my friends lost their jobs. Many others lost fortunes in stocks. But most importantly, most of us lost hope. I was sitting in a taxi on the morning of January 14, 2009 and the taxi driver was going on about how screwed up everything was. And I realised that in the last month or so, bad news was all I’d been hearing; the people I met, the papers, TV, radio, was full of bad news. When I got to work -I’ve since moved on to a new job- the first thing I saw on my desk was a stack of Post-Its (They used to be a client of ours, so we always had them in abundance). And I sat down and did a little note that said ‘Have  a dream’, because if we are to sail through a storm, we must keep our eyes on the beacon. That was more a reminder to myself to not get sucked into the negativity all around. But then I thought it would be cool to share it with someone. And the next morning I left it in another taxi. That’s how it started.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
It helps that I’m an eternal optimist, I guess. Before I sit down to draw the sticky note each day, I take stock of my life experiences and ask myself what I should remember. I hope that the things that inspire me also inspire others.

What do you hope to achieve?
I didn’t start this project with the hope of achieving anything. But I hope that it cheers, inspires or makes life a little bit brighter for whoever comes across it.

In your opinion, how has the project affected the people around you? Any interesting responses or stories you got from the initiative?
I think Singaporeans are very private and reticent, so after almost 270 days of doing a note each day, I’ve had only seven people tell me that they found the notes. And their response has been very encouraging. But I have people from all over the world writing and saying that they hope to find one. In fact, I left one in the Commonwealth MRT station today because somebody visiting Singapore for three days asked me to and I hope they found it. I’ve had mail from lovely people who replicate the notes in, if I remember correctly, Germany, Korea, Argentina, Canada and the United States. People have been very kind to me on the facebook page that I use for the notes.

Do you think there is an increasing necessity for people to remind themselves of rudimentary thoughts or philosophies?
I think so, don’t you? I mean we all forget that the most important things are the simple things.

Is there something crucial to be gained from producing a low-tech project?
Well, it costs nothing except my time. So why not?

What’s next for you?
I really don’t know. But I hope to be able to do one note a day for as long as I can. More than anything, it’s a reminder to myself. And I’m also trying to get other people to contribute thoughts every now and then on the facebook page which I then draw and put up. I really don’t know what’s next except that it’s going to be wonderful . I told you I’m a die-hard optimist !

Our new landing page comes from comics artist, Koh Hong Teng. The subject of Hong Teng’s compositions is uniquely Singaporean, and focuses on the common landscape of Singapore by enhancing the scenes through highlighting the interesting features that are often unnoticed.

After a short stint as a graphic journalist with The New Paper, Hong Teng embarked on a 2-year collaboration to illustrate a graphic novel, titled 01321. Self-published in 1996, the first page of 01321 won the gold award in the digital art category at the inaugural Siggraph Asia Pacific Animation and Digital Art Competition 2001. Between 1997-2002, Hong Teng was the design director at Patroids Creative Works, before deciding to work full-time on comics art and painting.