I was really excited when I found out that we will be designing a new website for True Yoga, one of Singaopore’s major Yoga Centres. The design thinking and process comes naturally.

The company’s goal for this re-design is to improve the art direction and content management of their website. They also wanted to easily feature their promotions and advertisements from their partner companies.

I started my design process by creating mood boards, collected images that resonates with the idea of serenity and peacefulness.

One of my concept uses earth tones and subdued colours combined in deep contrast with True Yoga’s corporate colour of deep purple. The client liked this idea but they feel that it looks more like a website for a “Spa” rather than a “Yoga” website.

 

So I presented them with another concept; I used a very subtle airbrushed combinations of their corporate colour, purple and added hints of periwinkle. I wanted to communicate a feeling of lightness and air, a design element that would communicate the air that one breathes as one Yoga practitioner breathes their “Ohm”.

The client was really pleased and happy with this concept and I was able to achieve my design goal. Their reaction to this 2^nd concept is that they want to recite the “Ohm”.

Forecepts, the mobile and web development company here in Singapore where I have been working for the past 4 years was commissioned by MDIS. MDIS is one of the biggest private schools in Singapore. The design challenge that I need to address is to create a design that would be usable for all the different colleges. Frequent updates on courses, enrollment schedules, news and events are important information that needs to be considered in the design planning. As a full-CMS website, the client will have full access to all the content of the website. Keeping a simple design structure and using font colour and sizes as the main structure of the design have kept the website clean and beautiful, long after we have handed over the full maintenance of the website to our clients.

Another challenging client is the travel industry sector. These type of websites provides rich content and information on their latest travel packages, promotions, travel information and customer service plug-ins such as live chats and easy access to the travel agent’s contact information. The client wants to create a strong online presence, so our design solution is to create a memorable design that is easy to remember. The blue colour of their logo has been extensively used throughout the whole website. Big thumbnails have been used to highlight their travel packages. Travel packages have taken almost 85% of the space in the homepage. Secondary information has been placed at the right panel of the page to prevent clutter while still providing useful information to the users.

I’m happy and proud to have been part of the planning, wireframing and final design executions of Nam Ho Travel’s website. Nam Ho Travel is one of the major travel operators in Singapore.

On a windy, winter morning,

Crayosa sailed away to a secret island

aboard her floating stacks of blue crayons.

* I used this illustration in my entry for Smashing Magazine’s wallpaper design for the month of December last year.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/30/desktop-wallpaper-calendar-december-2011-christmas/

At half past 6, most people are in their haste.
Waiting for the next bus,
anxiety painted on their faces.

I don’t have time for that.

I’m too busy trying to capture
the orange and yellows of sunset.

Struggling to document how the clouds
can change their colour palette
within seconds.

Amazed that the same view
from my bus stop
reveals different image of those
orange lemon skies.

I know I must hurry…

soon my whole body

will be immersed

in this water

…of flowers

…of sorrows

…of whirlpools and waves

but I don’t want to escape

there’s no need to hurry

Sometimes, it would take some little “accidents” to happen to our lives to propel us into action.

Me and my husband have been training for our major climb to Mt. Kinabalu, Southeast Asia’s highest peak located in Malaysia when I experienced a little but life-altering accident. During one of our uphill walk on a nature trail here in Singapore, I slipped and fell on my right foot. This miscalculated step resulted to a badly-sprained ankle that still hurts until today.

This situation left me with practically nothing to do with my time. Walking long distances is very tedious and there was a time when I needed to use a walking stick. My active lifestyle had been turned upside-down, resulting to a sedentary life.

On a positive note, this incident forced me to slow down and think about things that I don’t usually think about amidst the mad rush of my everyday existence. I have immersed myself in the famous blog site, zenhabits.net and tried to emulate some of the practical things that the author, Leo “preaches”. Meditation and mindfulness helped to ease my disappointment and gain focus. And thus, I started to draw again.

The first illustration was created “before” the accident. I used this as my entry to Smashing Magazine’s monthly wallpaper design. I wanted to create a “winter” theme for Crayosa, my muse for Crayonslife.
For those of you who are not familiar with my website, Crayosa is the girl you’ll find sailing in my homepage, aboard the stacks of floating crayons. http://www.crayonslife.com/

I’m happy and thankful to be featured in their Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: December 2011

Smashing Magazine’s Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: December 2011

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/30/desktop-wallpaper-calendar-december-2011-christmas/

The Girl With The Balloon Skirt

For this illustration, I have started the initial sketches sometime last December 2011. I’m looking through my rough sketches from previous years and I saw my old sketch of this girl, so I decided to create a full-coloured version of her.  The cat was inspired from a wooden Balinese cat that I bought from Bintan, Indonesia.

Since my husband and I started our serious training for our Mt. Kinabalu ascent last January, all my personal art projects took a back seat. It was only after my so-called accident that I was able finish this artwork.

Immersed in Water

I captured a photo of this bougainvillea flower in our neighborhood using instagram. I got inspired and started to illustrate those 3 flowers. During the creation process, I decided to introduce the girl wearing a long skirt. Later on, I replaced her long gown with the flowing water that seamlessly blend with her dress.

There, these 3 girls have kept me occupied these past months.

My creative process is a long and tedious journey. Creating something out of nothing is always a struggle. I’m thankful to that stubborn voice inside my head that keeps on telling me to take that small step, even when my “lizard brain” tells me that to even try is futile. And for that, cheers to my little hands! 

My drawing and doodling habits have stopped since January this year. Ten months of hiatus is such a long time and I’m thankful that finally, I managed to command my hands to hold that pencil to draw again.

My husband, Aaron have bought me a new leather-bound sketch pad. I have been doing some mindless drawing for the past few days. I’m kinda’ training my little hands to draw again. I had fun playing and experimenting with washes, I really don’t want to forget how to draw.  :)

In this drawing, my hands still felt a bit stiff, but they’re starting to loosen up again.

I’m trying to experiment in layering different washes, I’m actually not used to doing this technique.

Here’s trying a bit of semi-abstract drawing.

Trying out dots to create an atmosphere

Experimenting with movement

Drawing faces

Mixed media: pen and watercolour

Here is what I handpicked from their delightful collection:

Hahoe Dance Mask from Korea

Korean Mask, Watercolor Illustration

Chinese Chest and Southeast Asian Burial Jar

Chinese Chest and Southeast Asian Burial Jar, Watercolour

Concepts of spirituality and celebration have been attached to these pieces.  Drawing from these still life figures give me a sense of connection to the concepts encapsulated within these inanimate objects.

Maybe some objects do carry a piece of history engraved within its form.

You can just imagine me standing there, staring at that tin box with all the intensity of a child whose eyes gazed upon a coveted dream toy. And that’s how the idea of a gingerbread house appeared before me.

I want to have fun with our Forecepts’ corporate Christmas eCards, so I created this simple, fun and quirky illustration of a gingerbread house. I added those four tiny birds flying up towards the top of the house carrying four Asian-inspired house accents. I have used curly Christmas trees in our last year’s Christmas eCard, I want to keep that as a “trademark”. 

Forecepts’ Christmas Gingerbread House: rendered as animated Flash electronic Card – http://forecepts.com/greetings/

Forecepts' Gingerbread House

The fun had not ended that  Christmas Season. I’m living in a country where people all get hyped up for Chinese New Year the same way that I used to get hyped up on Christmas Day when I was still a kid. My gingerbread house morphed into an eclectic mix of orange hues with pseudo-Chinese elements. And oh, the rabbits, they must be cute and at the same time, help to usher in a new year of prosperity. This time, we sent out Chinese New Year postcards to our clients.

Forecepts' Chinese New Year Postcard

Gingerbread:

The harder German-style Gingerbread is often used to build gingerbread houses similar to the “witch’s house” encountered by Hansel and Gretel. These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decoration ^[5] often built by children with the help of their parents. This form of Gingerbread houses is also popular in Norway. (Source:Wikipedia)

The Rabbit:

Cuddly, warm and affectionate are the attributes of the Rabbit. Mysterious and a great party-giver and host, the Rabbit enjoys being the centre of attention once in a while. The Rabbit is occasionally over cautious and can be a bit boring. He is also one of the luckiest signs in the Chinese Astrology chart.

Etre Bon Gallery and Academy invited us to pitch a design for their web design and e-commerce project. Etre Bon is a sub-brand of Bon Café, which aims to teach and expose Singaporeans and residents to appreciate the art of coffee-making by conducting Coffee Journey Tours and Barista Workshops. As an exclusive agent in Singapore for selling Ascaso Dream Espresso Machines, the website is also targeted for online selling/ordering of this machine as well as barista tools.

etre bon illustrations

In approaching the design for this project, I focused on this particular statement from their brochure. “JOURNEY FROM CROP TO CUP. It may appear to be simple, but behind every cup of coffee lies a stirring story.” The solution doesn’t involve any rocket science or philosophical art. The solution is simple: I just created a simple illustration of the “story of coffee”, focusing on the idea, from “crop” to “cup” and the processes involved in-between.

etrebon homepage

etrebon shop

I used some of the elements from their branding such as the striped gray line on top of the rich, black background and added some small, hand illustrated icons on the section pages.

I created some burst of colour for the e-commerce page and enjoyed designing the rest of the styling for all the pages.

The programming team, especially Elliot and Ross, our flash guy extraordinaire, have done a great job in the execution of this project. I want to thank Xiong Zhou and Ian, for bringing us this gem of a client for us to work on.

Cheers to us! Or would I rather say, a cup of coffee for all of us!