Kuala Lumpur Design Week 2010 @ Cap Square KL Part 2 – The Neighbourhood (1st floor)

OKAY! Let’s take a walk around and see who’s around us. Let’s start with the Big Boys! First off, there are the guys who told us about KL Design Week in the first place, and whom we first met at last year’s event.

Wall Tailor! – A company that does some very cool custom wall decal stickers that are guaranteed for 5 years! They have the most polished, professional and just plain kick-ass booth in sight. Looking at them, we figured there was no point pumping more money into our booth just because there was no way we could outdo this…

No funny jokes about the balloon over her head.

 

A photo booth for people to take pictures and post on their blogs. Note the syncing of inside and outside illustrations.

 

A wall of kisses where people can try to see how easy it is to paste Wall-Tailor’s decals (verdict: pretty darn easy).

Incidentally, Wall-Tailor is having a competition too!

Visit www.wall-tailor.com for more info!

 

At 9 oçlock are the stone creatures from HapaHapa. This is the quietest booth in the exhibition primarily cos they’ve got the worst location on the floor (ours is 2nd worst due to late booking). It’s basically a showcase of stone creatures created by Lucas Blim. He basically wants to generate interest in his project, which is to use these little creatures for an animated movie.

 

Up next are our neighbours. At11ó clock are the Click Clack Club, a formation of photographers from MIA

They’re selling some really cute camera keychains (RM8 each). I bought one for someone’s future birthday.

 

Then at 12 oclock is the super colourful puzzling booth of 3 boutique design studios. pixelplayground09, Mars Psychedelic Studeo and iryssstudio.

 

They’re selling everything from T-shirts to button badges, and their booth and dressing looks like they take copious amonts of drugs. Although I’m sure they’re clean as a whistle.

Kids, say no to drugs.

 

At 1oçlock are the new boys in town, Cut Out magazine. They’re pretty much the first design-focused mag in town, and aim to concentrate on the synergy between business and design. Suitably, the two founders are Jay (an art guy) and Vivian (a very tall former account servicing girl). Yes they are going out.

They were hosting a competition for their 4th issue cover, and here were their participants. If you want to join, do visit www.cutoutmag.com for more info.

Oddly enough, they’re sharing their booth with a guy that does Sugar-sculptures. They’re really impressive when he does them live. You’ll never look at sugar the same way again.

 

 

Over on the other side of the 1st floor are some really cool exhibitors as well. My personal favourite was a very very talented artist called Nana, who brands her items as roomism. I’ll let her art speak for itself.

It’s very Tim Burton, but i love it for not just being design wankery. Each picture has some really funny undertones. Aside from that, she also sells these pouches…

And Has this really adorable rabbit paper sculpture…

 

 

Another one of my favourites was Urban Cr3atures, with their really cute paper foldable dolls at a criminally cheap RM6 each. These dolls are basically a printed cut-out sheet, which then fold to become these sorta cute, helpless caricatures. We told them they should be called Foldees instead of us.

 

  

 

 

Here are some other pictures from the various other exhibitors that I didn’t cover...

There really was too much talent to cover, so I’ll just leave it at this, and post Part 3 tomorrow – everything else :)

Kuala Lumpur Design Week 2010 @ Cap Square KL Part 1 - Us

Hey guys… in case you can’t make it this year (and shame on you), or to entice you to come, here’s a rundown of what you’ll find at KL Design Week 2010! I’m posting this live, thanks to P1’s free Wireless KL service (although I’m pretty sure i’ll be using up my 500MB limit posting this up!)

Anyways, here’s the rundown on KL Design Week. It’s basically the 2nd year this is happening, and it’s a city-wide event to draw all those hibernating and hiding artists out of their immaculately designed cubby holes.

Here in Cap Square, it’s the design showcase. There are students, hobbyists, and full-blown businesses here, all cheerfully side-by-side, some selling, some not. Don’t worry, we are :)

Here’s the awesome marquee outside by Raffles International College, made of 100% recyclable goods (except maybe for the plastic tomatoes… hmm..

 

And here’s our booth

We got the booth quite last minute, so we basically spent a total of RM54.80 on design, consisting of a few large format prints, sticky-tape and a box of 2B pencils to replicate the background of our website.

RichardLee’s Wang Lee Hom typography was a real hit – a Swedish guy even asked for a poster!

.

Oh yea, and the sticky tape was really crap. We kept having to restick them three times a day.

 

And of course an endless stream of people checking out the cards…

 

It’s not really optimal to be working on Labour Day, but we’re glad we did!

 

(… coming up in Part 2, the other exhibitors!)

PS: Don’t forget you have only two more weeks to get your designs in for A Modern Fairytale! Only at www.foldees.com/contest.

Uncle Keong – Malaysia’s most honest cab driver

Hey guys,

I believe that good deeds should be rewarded so lemme share you a story.

Last month, on the only day I decided to take an LRT in 2009, the bloody thing breakdown. So I waited as the train crawled to Bangsar station, got down, and jumped into a cab. Because I was already late for my appointment, I was in a hurry to get off once i reached Mandarin Oriental. Only after my appointment did I realise that I left my 2-month old iPod Classic 160GB in the back seat!

Because I didn't get the cab's number or company, the only thing I could do was to call the Mandarin Oriental and ask them to just check if any cab driver would return it the next day. I asked them to call me back the next day to double check and they said they would. Unfortunately, they didn't.

Assuming it was lost, I was thinking of getting another one. Luckily I am a procrastinator, cos 2 weeks later I get a note saying that my iPod is with my neighbour! I am totally confused, but when I go to collect it, my neighbour says the cab driver tried dropping it off at my house but i wasn't home. So he left it with a note.

Dear Lau Chak Onn,

I found your iPod in my back seat. Call me at 012 923 2333.

Uncle Keong

HOW THE HECK DID HE KNOW MY FULL NAME AND MY ADDRESSS?!
When I called hi that night and explained who i was, he sorta mumbled into the phone something like

I can't hear you... Ï'm drinking, call me tomorrow!

Next day when I called him, he said he passed the phone to his daughter, who pressed some buttons and found my home address AND my IC and full name! Confused, I thanked him for returning the iPod, and wanted to meet up with him to offer an AngPow. He said he was very busy and would call me when i was in his area.

After I hung up, I immediately went to my iPod to see what button he pressed. At first I thought because I bought it online that Apple puts your data in there. But it wasn't in the About section, it was in the Photo section cos iTunes automatically syncs with My Pictures, and I had a very old scan of my IC there!
And up to today (about 2 weeks after the incident), Uncle Keong hasn't even called to collect his reward.

3 Lessons I have learnt from this.

1. Even when in a rush, always remember the cab number if you can, and look back at your seat.
2. Be careful what you sync on your iPod
3. Sometimes, a Malaysian cab driver can offer much better service than the ridiculously expensive Mandarin Oriental

Thanks for listening, and Thanks to Uncle Keong for giving us hope in an increasingly hopeless country.

Please give him business at 012 923 2333.

chak
www.foldees.com

No it’s not an April Fool’s joke, it’s a Modern Fairytale

Sorry to disappoint, guys. We actually totally forgot to con you guys today, unlike last year. In fact, irony of ironies, we’re launching something actually quite different (no, really… we are this time).

We’re making wedding cards. No seriously, we are.

The theme is “A Modern Fairytale”, and what we’re looking for is an update on wedding cards, beyond the frills and fancy cut-outs. Here are four pointers to get a better idea of what we’re looking for.

1. They shouldn’t be too slapstick, and yet, not too normal instead. Think a nicely cut suit with a modern pastel colour on the inside, rather than a clown suit with flower buttons.
2. Be sure to include lots of empty space on the inside of the card so that couples can add their details. You can even leave room for photos on the cover of the couple. 
3. For wedding cards, people like to write the words themselves, so use a maximum of 10 words, or better none. Instead, try to convey as much of your idea through illustrations as possible.
4. Submit EARLY! For a new category like this, we anticipate quite a bit of tweaking of your designs before they’re market-ready. The earlier you submit, the more time we have to assess your design, and give you the appropriate advice on how to improve it.

Speaking of the cover, we have THREE new templates for you guys to try out, just for this contest. Please note that we are not accepting cards made in the standard template.

• SQUARE & TALL Templates – These are essentially the same format as our Good ol’ A5 sized cards, except one’s .shorter, and the other one’s taller. This is because people getting married want things a little different. Don’t ask us why.
• SPLIT Template – This one’s a bit tricky. Basically the cover splits in two, to reveal the inside. We actually allow you guys to customise the back on this card, so do feel free to put a little colour there (although don’t depend on the back of the card to convey your idea entirely).

On top of that, we now allow variants of a single design, meaning that the same card can be translated into up to 4 variants. Our upload engine at www.foldees.com/contestentry.aspx should allow you to do this quite easily. Once all your entries are in, we’ll nominate one as your main entry.

Here are some additional idea directions to explore.

• Pop Couples – particularly for the SPLIT template, you can use a Mario and Princess, or R2D2 and C3PO combination, or even an Orc and an Elf.
• Updated Fairytales – Very much in theme, feel free to update classic fairy tales like Snow White or Alladin with a modern twist. If you want to see a great example of this, watch the Shrek trilogy again. Now.
• Modern Romance – These days, people meet in all sorts of never-before heard places – in Warcraft, on forums, over a game of poker, texting on their mobiles or even on Facebook. Perhaps they might also like to buy cards that highlight these moments.
• Motifs – Modern cards have alot of twirls and flowers on them, repeated in patterns ad infinitum. Perhaps you could come up with a modern intepretation of those paterns, using iPhone earplugs or even keyboard pieces.

*Whew*…. okay. This is going to be our last contest for a while, so do your best! Also, because wedding cards are usually ordered in quantities of 200 or more, you can look forward to some really juicy royalties as well!

Contest closes 5th April 2010, so hurry on to www.foldees.com/contest now.

 

 

 

Ok, that last part was a joke. HAH! Gotcha… contest closes 15th May 2010.