Philweavers, the long-standing organization for Filipino webdesigners, is now open to everyone for membership.

Starting in the web 1.0-era with a humble membership of less than 50, Philweavers today has grown to be the de-facto standard organization for Filipino webdesigners worldwide. Membership has always been closed; today, however, the group formally opens it’s registration to all Filipino enthusiasts, practitioners, amateurs and professionals in the web design industry.

It’s a shame they’ve closed their content site and replaced it with the forums. However, there are lots of interesting discussions happening that would be relevant to web professionals.

External link: Philweavers.net

I’ve updated Behance with some of my lesser-promoted web design work. More to follow soon!

Most creative warriors ought to know about Creative Commons by now: a set of licenses to let you release your creative outputs with open free-culture principles.

Still, a lot of Filipinos using CC licenses don’t realize that they’re using general-use unported licenses. There are now versions of CC licenses adapted to Philippine laws. You can see the ported licenses at the Creative Commons International - Philippines site.

On a related note, do check out Philippine Commons–a local movement advocating open content and free culture.

*Jozzua has recently posted the slides to my design basics presentation I recently made for the Internet Marketing Bootcamp.

While the presentation isn’t exactly as verbose as I’d want it to be (it was a short 15-minute talk), and the slides posted don’t have explanations or annotations, I hope it offers a modest insight into the basic web design process. Also, I obviously advocate grids a lot!

Check it out here:
8 basic steps to web design →
(jozzua.com)

Here’s the new redesigned Sunsilk bottle, in line with their new campaign.

Unilever recently launched the Sunsilk “Life Can’t Wait” campaign, which presumably aims to revitalize the Sunsilk brand and conquer new markets. Quoting Wikipedia:

The Life Can’t Wait campaign features three of the world’s most iconic women; Madonna, Shakira and Marilyn Monroe, who all symbolise the power of expression and making life happen. (…) the campaign showcases these universal icons and reveals significant and life-defining moments in their lives. (…)

Sunsilk is targeting 20 something girls across the world, giving them the opportunity to share with each other their own life stories fitting the Life Can’t Wait theme – of how they have thrown caution to the wind and taken a chance which resulted in a life changing experience!

Now, let’s distill this to a cliff-notes of the creative direction for this campaign. From the snippet above, we can say that the “Life Can’t Wait” campaign is about:

1. targeting young 20-something girls;
2. screaming out a bold message about “power of expression” and “making life happen;”
3. taking a personal approach with focus on an emotional marketing message.

Whoa, what a modern and energetic direction to take! Their new bottle, though, seems to steer off-course.

The good (sort of): the patterns

If there’s something in the packaging for me to say something positive about, it’s the use of trendy patterns clipped on the “S” shape. It helps in bringing the brand some character. One of the aspects that the campaign promotes is power of expression, and this is their answer to that.

However, these patterns today are cliche and dated at best. Good (enough) idea, but lackluster execution.

The bad: the typography

Have a look at the old logotype for comparison. That old “S” definitely brings a good feminine touch to the style, while the contrast in stroke widths bring out a nice overall elegance. These traits are perfect for a brand that positions itself to a market of young, hip women.

Now, have look at the new logo. This is definitely a step backwards: from slender and elegant, to stark and lifeless. On top of that, it also has absolutely no character, completely going against the creative direction to be expressive and vibrant.

The ugly: the what?

Oh, you know I’m going to say it. What on earth is that thing in the middle? It looks like a punctuation mark with an identity crisis–as if it can’t decide if it’s a question mark or an exclamation point. It’s an abstract shape masquerading as faux typography, the result is that it screams out to the eyes in a bad way,

Going down one more level of nit-picking, this is a horrible contrast between a sharp shape and a round circle. The “S” curve seems to be aiming to bring in an graceful, refined rhythm, but it’s too thick to do so.

Bonus: the lack of coherence

To top this failure off: this bottle, their TV commercial, and their campaign website (lifecantwait.com) have no coherence at all. The font styles used all jarringly differ. Their TVC aims for retro, the site aims for modern, and the bottle is lost somewhere in the middle. Even the campaign taglines aren’t used consistently.

Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director) is now back in full, CS3 glory.

But WHY? Why? Why revive something that has been dead for nearly half a decade? Director enjoyed it’s utility back when interactive CD’s were all the rage (circa 2000). In our current decade, however: it’s just a tired, decrepit piece of archaic technology that’s better off forgotten.

The new CS3 version includes DX9 3D support (well, Director’s always been able to handle 3D anyway), a physics engine (promising) and better support for Flash (so that, er.. you could do what you could’ve done in Flash, anyway). I’m not too excited about this feature set.

As for web, Shockwave has long been deprecated by Flash. As for desktop applications, Flash and AIR are miles ahead. So where’s Director’s niche?

Verdict: I don’t think Adobe is aiming for getting new people excited about Director here. The update is, in my opinion, just a simple move to keep old users afloat and to delay it’s complete demise.

(Source: Adobe; Ars technica)

It’s a sad day at Yahoo. As part of their 1000-employee layoff plan, the entire design innovation team has been layed off. I’m pretty sure this is related to Microsoft’s bid on Yahoo.

From what I know, Yahoo’s design innovation team has been responsible for the product development of some unique ideas at Yahoo. They had some really interesting data visualization projects, see them here:

• Traffic map (shown)
• FlickrLens
• Delicious DNA
• Trip map

[Links nabbed off Solsie.com]

First off: Grant Nelson is playing in Manila! His name might not ring a bell to the consciousness of most unless you’ve heard his remix of SOLU Music’s
Fade (Hed Kandi’s pride), but he’s contributed numerous remixes and productions to the deep, soulful house scene.

Grant Nelson will be on the decks at Friday, February 22 in Warehouse 135, Makati. For now, have a listen to my picks from his dossier of productions.

Grant Nelson
Switch
Download (mp3)

Physics
Civa L’amore (Grant Nelson Mix)
Download (mp3)

Here’s an event that hasn’t quite received the attention it deserves: Moony is playing in an early-evening concert. It’s on February 16 and it starts at an early 5PM, so it just might be the right warmup for those looking to go to Hed Kandi that night.

Moony previously played in Halo back in 2005 (remember Halo?). Fast-forwarding 3 years after, she’s pushed out at least 2 new hit tracks, and will be returning to Manila in a concert at the Fort open field this weekend.

Oh: Beautynomics is giving away free VIP passes to bloggers! If you write on a blog, head on over to their site and see how you can claim yours.

I’ve recently inherited a case of insomnia. On the downside, I’m tired as hell, but on the other hand I get an excuse to do more things like these.

Sleep issues aside: check out Jared (J3concepts)’s blog @ Electrichoneyhornetmitten. Aside from his brilliant illustrations, his blog hosts a collection of electronic music up for listening/downloading. I personally endorse his picks, this fella’s got taste.

We’re putting together an Internet marketing seminar and you’re invited.

First off all, I apologize for the blogging silence; I’ve had my hands full for the past few months. But that’s not to say I’m out of touch with the design community, actually one of the ventures I’m responsible for now is a small seminar, with one of the topics being web design.

We’ve put together the Internet Marketing Bootcamp: a series of half-day Saturday seminars as an open-to-all crash course on Internet marketing. I’m speaking on the web design segment, so if you’re interested please head on over to the site and request for a free invite (you can say you got there from my blog ;)).

More info and press release after the break.

(more…)

Happy new year! See you 2008.

Salut to everyone I ran into at the Lomo Manila event (Oct 26 @ Team Manila offices, Makati). Aaron (AR/DP) has some pics posted on his multiply site. (though unfortunately none of me!)

(Image unrelated)

Getting ready for bigger things. By the way, got twitter? Random updates over at twitter.com/aescnt

Adobe™ Photoshop® has a new logo.

Now, it’s a nice approach, marketing-wise, that they’re expanding Photoshop from the single piece of software it used to be, to be a range of products that would cater to different markets. (For those who don’t realize it yet, so far there’s Photoshop CS3, Photoshop Extended, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop Lightroom).

But from a technological perspective, I don’t like where Photoshop is headed. Photoshop online edition? The inevitable bloat per version iteration? Now, a new cliché-rific logo? Photoshop needs some serious competition.

Just about most professional software out there has at least two key players out there. 3D modeling/rendering? Max, Lightwave, Maya, XSI. Digital audio workstation? Pro Tools, Live, Cubase, Cakewalk. Now… 2D image editing? Paint Shop Pro’s nowhere close, GIMP is a joke and so are Pixel and Krita. Someone needs to step up, make the image editing software market a free market, so Adobe won’t have a monopoly-like control to come up with junk like this—including their lifeless, generic, glossy logo.

(Salut to AJ of ajb{log} for the heads up.)

(O, good song and video by the way)

(A little incomplete image to test out a concept we’re developing, so be gentle on it’s obvious flaws and the pitiful quality.)

Help. Anybody got some panoramic shots of the streets of Manila/Makati? I’d love a small collab of sorts. I’m not a photographer (I’m terrible behind the lens), so I’m trying to solicit some hires shots to mess around with. Yes, this image partly tells what I have in mind with your photo.

Credit for this photo goes to Jasper Espejo. Be sure to check out his photography work too, because he does some pretty wicked travel shots.

Above, a little impromptu collaboration with the lads of GSM. Credits for the illustration go to Greg (Enceladus) and Jared (J3concepts/EHHM).

Below, use your cloaking device. HAHAHAHA! I didn’t think so.