Designing from Experience

I was commissioned to design a box for a local chocolate company with specifics including it should appeal to the international and local AB market.

And, of course, there’s the product I should try. Yes, some companies do let you taste their products so you can have the feel, the inspiration to do whatever they wanted you to do for their packaging. For free! While munching on their chocolate, my mind wandered around- time traveling- 34 years way back. 

When I was younger, I used to spend my school breaks in a forested area way out of civilization in Batuan, Bohol. The place was called Tanod, literally, to watch, maybe because you go there to watch over your plants, ala plantation style. This was where my grandparents of my mother’s side lived, their old age no longer allowed them to go back and forth from their original house to watch their kaingin, so they made a house there. The total population? Except for the macaques that were abundant at that time, there were only four adults living in two houses there. Four old adults.

At eight, I never felt out of place in Tanod.

I became one with the cliffs, one of the sources of inspiration. I would go there to look for fossils. I used to hang from one of the sharp promontories that protruded from the steep cliffs. I would imagine Da Vinci or Wilbur Wright and their visions of flying while hanging from the promontory; but felt extremely afraid I would fall off to death. I also imagine dying and death there in Tanod.

The trees were also my friends. In fair weather or on rainy afternoons, I have a special nook in one of the biggest trees where I seek shelter by the lush foliage. No one can find me there. Amazingly, the trees were abundant in the area despite some patches of kaingin. The old folks were slashing and burning for rootcrops and corn, their main staple. Might also be the reason why the macaques, not native to the area, would do occasional raids for food. The old folks would fought back by putting up dangerous traps or shooting them macaques with slingshots. In retaliation, the wise macaques would come up to their houses and made their abode like a tornado just happened inside them. A vicious circle almost always never ending. 

This might be why the macaques would bully small children who came in their way, running after them until they were in some safe place. Can you imagine? I was the only kid in that place.

Why am I telling you these?

Because during those times, having a piece of chocolate bar or a hot cup of chocolate means you have an American friend or one of your relatives is in America. In short- you are rich, because you only have chocolates imported from America.

But not for me. Or us.

My grandparents had a considerable number of cacao and coffee trees around Tanod. During harvests, my taga lungsod eyes (a derogatory term for the much more civilized people from the town center) would pop out due to the war of reds, yellows, oranges and greens everywhere I turned.

Tatay Pastor, my lolo, would then ask me to suck and eat all the meaty parts of the cacao pods and coffee beans. This has a double purpose even if nowadays, sucking cacao seeds is discouraged because it would cause bacteria to thrive in the seeds, hence, affecting the quality and taste of chocolate. But it did not matter back then.

For one- the nutritious seed coating (called testa) is good for children to eat, a better alternative to candies.

Secondly, out of poverty, sucking on the seeds would give temporary relief of hunger pangs and parents would not worry about the need to buy food.

But while the rich had their imported chocolate, ours came fresh and direct from source.

After roasting, the browned cocoa beans would then be crushed using a big shell called melo-melo (Indian Volute). During grinding, my lolo would put muscovado in some portions and feed them to me.

No kid at that time exactly knew how it felt to be intoxicated. But at eight, I already knew. I would glow after several doleouts, my head felt like swimming in an unbeknownst stupor. The sugar-infused fresh chocolate and the hot choco would knock me sweetly down and woke me up famished.

I haven’t been to Tanod anymore. I haven’t been to that place since 1981. All the four people who loved me there gone. The place abandoned. I heard the place is now thick with trees and shrubs and already, the macaques taking hold like heirs of my grandparents. 

I want to go back to see if the cacaos and coffee trees are still there, my hauntings are still there.

So while I am thinking of how should I make this chocolate box appetizing to the international market, my mind wandered off and I became sentimental. Nostalgic. I cried remembering the people and the place.

This is the only product packaging that had me crying. I should bill them more.

My first study for Mint, Coconut, Chili, Dark and Coffee chocolate boxes

My second study for Mint, Coconut, Chili, Dark and Coffee chocolate boxes

Can you guess which of the two studies was approved by my client?

I am proud

I am proud that my works are all over Tagbilaran City for the Sandugo Festival happening this week. My promo designs were chosen for the Sandugo Trade Expo which will open this Wednesday, July 20 at 4pm at the Island City Mall.

I deserve a brag. ;)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I could not help but appreciate this artwork from affinity.com sent through my email from Site Pro News. The design is clean and crisp and pleasant to the eyes. So in this gist that I wish everyone a peaceful and pleasant holiday celebrations all over the world.

Like a Miss Universe candidate I also wish for world peace.

When clients pull you down

I was asked by the printing press to do a layout for a client because, as is almost the case when they ask me to design, it was an emergency job. Emergency could mean they need it a day after, on the first hour; or right then and there.

Well, I have no immediate things to do so I took the materials over the weekend so I could work them at home.

I did not know that the client has a favorite layout designer at the printing press and he was already pressing him to do his project. He could not say no, the designer told me, because the client was very annoying, he said. How annoying, I have yet to know.

I went to the press later in the afternoon on Monday to submit my job. I was introduced to the client. So I opened my files for him to comment.

All I heard were-

I already had my layout. Please use them.

Don't use this because I don't like this.

You are using my pic. But it's okay.

This one I don't like.

I should not have accepted this project.

I am already tired.

I have problems with the materials.

Where is (the other designer)? Ask him about my approved layout.

I am already tired and hungry.

Where is my file? I have them here.

My sister has approved this already so this should be used.

I can not wait for (the other designer).

Blah blah blah.

If it was not rude enough, I could have stuffed my ears with some headphones or ear protector just not to mind him. He was babbling not with pure energy but all negative things about the project. My head ached and I felt drugged.

So I told the other designer and the head of the pre-press department that I have no choice but turnover the project to my fellow designer since he already has the layout which the client preferred. I do not like to start someone else's job.

The next day I came to the press once again and happened to chance by the client there and my friend designer. The client was babbling again on the phone telling everyone he suffered already with that project. Like he was crucified. Like he owned all the burdens of the world. In fact, I never heard an inspiring word from him the whole day he was in the office. The designer was also telling me he was slowly dying a very painful death. I felt his disastrous affair with the client.

And it was just a 20-page souvenir program project.

(pic grabbed from here.)

The Chatto 2009 Calendar Project

I've made a sample layout for the Chatto Calendar Project but it seems too boring for me. Meanwhile, I am sharing them for you to comment and critique. This is Study No. 1.

Realities of Pricing Design Services

Everybody wants a killer design, especially after seeing one that they lust over. Problem is, nobody wants to pay for it.

Quoted from Pearsonified, on How Much for a Design

What Happens When Your Logo Design Is Misunderstood? Or When The Logo Doesn't Come Out Quite Like You Thought!

Pride of Place: Finally a Bohol heritage-style book by Augusto Villalon

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:08:00 03/24/2008

MANILA, Philippines - To be launched in Tagbilaran on April 15, “Sukaran: The Domestic Architecture of the Towns of Loay and Loboc in Bohol,” published by the Ayala Foundation, is a book that takes, as it states, the “first step to meet the need for references that document the stylistic and architectural vocabulary of Bohol.”

Authored by the respected resident historian of Bohol, Marianito Luspo, and cultural worker Ino Manalo, the book celebrates the Boholano’s built heritage—the traditional homes of Bohol, ensembles of rural, straightforward architecture humbly constructed without the ostentation and frills seen in the plantation homes and mansions of wealthier regions in the Philippines.

Steering clear of the misconception that heritage must be grand, this delightful book highlights the often overlooked heritage of the everyday.

This richly illustrated publication pictures the ordinary homes of ordinary people in what formerly was a forgotten province until its recent rediscovery as a heritage showcase.

Bohol is a primary example in the Philippines that heritage, if properly tapped and managed, is a resource for income-generation. And because of that, Bohol is rapidly changing.

Sukaran attempts to regulate the rapid changes that Bohol is facing as a result of tourism and modernism.

Noting the existing predisposition of locals, architects and developers for generic Western-style developments that do not reflect the local culture and appropriateness of traditional Boholano architecture in contemporary design, the publication rightly attempts to focus interest back on local craftsmanship and design traditions.

A folio of photographs documents the parts of traditional homes, from roofs to façades, doors and windows. The folio even takes an unprecedented look at unappreciated vernacular gardens.

More interesting are the patterns from calado fretwork, the embroidery-like cutwork on wooden walls that allows air to circulate throughout houses. There are patterns of amakan (sawali, woven bamboo walling) ranging from the checkerboard to the herringbone and elegant diamond shapes.

“A conscious effort was made to confine the survey to architectural structures that used mainly traditional methods of construction, and, more importantly, materials from Bohol such as stone, wood, bamboo, nipa, cogon and capiz,” the authors write.

“Our aim is to privilege architecture that relates to Bohol’s environment, not only in design but also in use of materials.”

Foreign elements

The exhaustive survey is a result of “the observation of many visitors that Bohol’s tourism infrastructure is hardly reflective of its culture,” the authors say.

“Resorts that display foreign design elements have recently sprouted in Bohol. The island of Panglao, for example, is now home to Mediterranean villas, Balinese hideaways, Swiss chalets and American country restaurants.”

To refocus the globalized, generic look of new architecture back to its roots, the book records the Bohol vernacular and presents a veritable album of architectural details. It becomes a source book to redirect the vision of professionals, developers and aficionados who typically turn to the latest Western magazine for ideas to graft directly into whatever they might be building.

But the book, reference material that it definitely is, does not pretend to give all of the answers to reorient architecture into looking at modern adaptations from the traditional.

There is really no substitute to experiencing the real thing, going to the houses, feeling the space, understanding how light and air are modulated within the space, and finding out that decoration is not simply appliqued into the structure but is something integral to it.

In other words, the book is not something to just copy ideas from, it is something that tries to make people understand why these ideas not only give us our special Philippine pride of place, an identity shared by no other people on this planet.

But for those bent on just copying out of this book, at least they would be copying authentic details that they might take some pride from.

Whether this book finally reins in those individuals still dreaming of constructing more Swiss chalets, Italian trulli or Disney castles on Bohol shores, that remains to be seen.

But this is a good start.

Call Filipinas Heritage Library at services @fillib.org.ph

If Only Our Churches Were Like These

I hate these Scandinavian designers (and their whole race as well) whose impeccable taste for good design can be seen even in the holiest of places, their churches. If only our churches were like these, I am sure people would love to come and appreciate the good things God has given them, even if the priest's sermon is hmmm, boring.

Divisive as it may be to alter houses built for God, these architects do not need to preach to the choir about their immaculate conceptions in renovations, we’re sold. - Andrew J Wiener and Brendan McKnight

Photos from thecoolhunter.net