LIMELIGHT'S PROFILE

When a self-confessed 'database person' turns his mind to the creative field, the results can be most surprising. Just ask this month's student limelight, Benjamin Encarnacion.

Wowing the crowd at Aniwow

Benjamin loves cars, gadgets, games, Japan...and New Media. After four-and-a-half years of working in the advertising and graphic design industry, he returned to The One Academy to embrace Multimedia Design and exercise his previously acquired knowledge in a new field. That seems to have turned out well for him, as he and his team recently bagged First Place in the Best Interactive Web Design category at the Beijing Aniwow! 2009 Awards, a yearly international competition aimed at encouraging young creative talent.

"Kids in Malaysia below the age of 10 are getting obese," he said of the motivation behind their winning project, 'Is Your Kid Chubby?'. "This is notable for younger parents because of their negligence for their kids at an early age; they let them eat too much and spend less time with them. They are also at the age where they're very busy and may not have time to be with their kids like they should. The challenge therefore was how to carry out the serious message "is your child getting too fat due to your ignorance?" in a very direct and memorable way. Our creative solution: communicate the seriousness of child obesity in an entertaining and informative format. 'Is your Kid Chubby?' also ties in to our art direction which was also cute and simple.

"Our lecturers Joanne and Eugene were happy with our work and mentioned that after a few minor enhancements, we should enter it into a web competition. On the horizon lay the Beijing Aniwow! 2009 awards which had a related category for 'Best Interactive Web Design'. We went for that. We spent about a week doing simple touch ups during our semester break to enhance certain sections before submitting the CD to the Communication University, Beijing, China."

The spirit of Malaysia Boleh

Benjamin and his teammates, Dominic Chin and Tan Sue Lin, were the first students from The One Academy and indeed Malaysia to take part in the Aniwow! Awards. Their success came as a welcome surprise against stiff international competition. "For three of our team members, it was their first trip to China! It was beautiful - and cold. We needed a lot of jackets. We met several international students as well, and gained much insight from Western professionals such as the pros from Dreamworks as they shared their techniques for animation and art It was a friendly, high-spirited experience to be with people all over the world that are just like us."

He confides further, "To be honest with all of you, I initially had doubts about taking this elective subject (Advanced Web Design) at first. However, a few of my close friends encouraged me to just do my best and most importantly have fun doing it. I walk away happy, satisfied and with a great sense of accomplishment. It does not matter what elective you choose. Every selection is correct. You just need to be passionate and happy with what you're doing to achieve such greatness.

"I hope that after this our juniors will feel inspired to enter Aniwow! in the future and make the presence of the One Academy stronger in China. Malaysia Boleh!"

Success, happiness and the Moon

Beyond the classroom Benjamin describes himself as meticulous, resourceful and absurd. "Humans cannot grow feathers, so we build machines with wings to fly or pack a huge amount of gunpowder on a 3-stage cylindrical rod just to go to the Moon. I've learned that sometimes we just have to be very radical whenever we approach a problem in order to tackle it as creatively as possible. The key is innovation; how do we either evolve or change the rules of the game to be one step ahead?

"I find that I love this line of work so much, I tend to give as much as I can to make it simply outstanding. I've learned however, it can sometimes dangerously lead to over-thinking or becomes decoration rather than solving the problem. As a creative business designer, my challenge is to find equilibrium between speed and craftsmanship: the balance of light and shadow. And not to get sick while doing it," he adds.

With two majors now under his belt, Benjamin plans to return to the creative industry. "I believe this to be the perfect combination in contributing to richer, creative business solutions for prospective contacts. (In five years) I see myself being transformed into someone that can be of great help to those who need my specialized skills. There are no shortcuts. I have to prove that I can be a causative value to a company first."

In parting Benjamin has this to say: "Success does not bring happiness, but happiness brings success. All of us are born into this world with nothing, yet after we're gone, anything we do echoes in eternity. So whatever you do in life, must not just bring joy to others but joy to yourself. Otherwise you're merely polluting the world. You'd never eat in a restaurant where the lead chef is a skinny, sad bloke. Know what you want to do in life, focus on it and become the best in your field. Make your specialty the reason everyone wants to go for you."

This month we speak to Tan Zi Hao, a New Village boy who has successfully dabbled in commercial art, fine art and even the performing arts.

Curious Kyoorius Culture

Zi Hao makes a big point of infusing cultural elements into his work. "I think image-makers are interpreters of culture; whatever we do reflects our background and social upbringing. The value of an artwork lies in its historical and cultural relevance. As visualisers, our knowledge of local history and tradition is highly important because that is what makes us original." He further adds, "History and culture are substance to design. Design without substance is superficial."

This is the sort of young man Kyoorius Designyatra had on hand to design their Siar-Siar guidebook when the renowned design conference and talking space arrived in Kuala Lumpur in 2008. He and his team joined Figtree Design Studio's experienced designers to come up with a whimsical guidebook for visiting designers to learn e about Malaysia's capital city. "Considering the targeted readers... the places and products introduced in the booklet were hand-picked based on what my group mates and I deem inspirational to them. The cartographic illustrations contain many details and the copy needed to be interesting. The booklet needed to portray a fun and zestful journey for all.

"The idea came from logical thinking, by visiting and observing Petaling Street and Jalan Tun H.S. Lee again and again. I'm pretty happy with the outcome as that was the first book we made. I personally hope that the tour guide booklet is a successful visual translation of the essence of the streets and the journey. Being different from other guidebooks, I hope the readers may find it interesting to explore the kitsch and the profound culture within their trip." Zi Hao is still itching to give the project another attempt, however, citing the organized design and 'polite' typefaces as being out of step with Malaysia's noisy streets.

Art for art's sake

We mentioned performing arts earlier, which our young subject is quite happy to talk about. "I initiated a theatre group called Logamaya. We have done two series of plays since 2007. The group focuses on socio-political commentary, satire, dark humour, conceptual plays and performance art. Our topics are mostly political.

"Projek Semai is another art project I initiated to introduce art education to early learners. Inspired by community art projects like CAIS, it is an attempt to bring arts to the children through conducting non-conventional workshops based on studies of Montessori's method and Piaget's theory."

'A relevant visual artist'

On the topic of inspiration, Zi Hao has this to say: "My principle for inspiration is it should be derived from the concept that we have and nothing will do better at inspiration apart from the concept itself. I try to avoid using visual references during my working progress. Even if I have to, I will only get a minimum amount of references and analyse them thoroughly.

"There are people whom I've met and have immensely changed my notion of art-making: Marion D'Cruz, Mark Teh, Fahmi Fadzil, Fahmi Reza, Joseph Foo, Chu Yuan, Farish Noor and the late Redza Piyadasa (never got to meet him, only read about him). They don't inspire, they make me aware of the intrinsic values that most of us have but have never appreciated. This awareness later becomes my source of inspiration."

Now that he's graduated and headed for greener pastures, Zi Hao wishes to continue working on his projects and research, read up extensively on local traditions and venture into fine art. "Not interested to work in big agencies," he says firmly. "It's a little ignorant if you ask me to further my studies in the West - no point studying foreign culture when we don't even know about our own."

Zi Hao is also currently writing a series entitled 'Decoding Serdang', some parts of which have been published on arterimalaysia.com. Just when you think he couldn't get any busier, he also works in oil, produces short films, makes sound art and experiments with sound and extreme music. He sets himself quite the timetable, but it's all part of a plan.

"I hope to become a relevant visual artist (being relevant is more important than being merely 'established' today) in Malaysia. I will change people's mindset about arts and culture, generate awareness and appreciation on culture. Hope to have the opportunity to educate the younger generation about local culture, arts and design language. How would I do it? Read, research, travel and read."