Journal of Mark Wu

Croydon Riots

2011-08-08T22:29:36+00:00

When you read and watch something like the riots in London, you feel frustration, sympathy but also distance. Well, right now, I live at the back of West Croydon station and down the end of my road, the pawnbrokers was torched. It's very close, and never more real than with my ten month old daughter asleep upstairs.

To get home this evening around 8pm, I had to walk the long way around to my street since the main road around West Croydon station was blocked off by riot police. Just a small area mind, and so our street actually became one of the routes that the looters were using to get in and out of the main road. I was closed enough at least to hear the clashes happening.

I passed groups of amped up youths, some in masks and watched as cars with blacked out windows (no loud music for once) drove along the street, with the drivers sometimes stopping alongside their mates and taking on stolen goods.

Forget any sense of just cause - these youths were laughing, enjoying their free ticket to materialism and egging each other on. "Don't miss out, bruv".

Youths were heading down towards the main street and coming back with their arms full. A few passed with guitars with their price tags on and I watched from my window as a guy walked passed with his arms full of hair extensions, dropping one as he went. Some stocked their parked cars up and went back for more.

Around 8.30pm, I started noticing the smoke from out of our back window which looks onto West Croydon station. As it slowly worsened, we found out online as we tracked the news sites and Twitter, that the pawnbrokers at the end of our road was ablaze. With the ebb and flow of youths on our road as the evening darkened, mild shock and nervousness at the reality of the riots caused me to start packing some essential items.

The smoke still lingers in my sinuses as three hours later, we're still at home as it quietens outside. The smoke has drifted into a light smudge in the sky and we read about the looters moving onto Purley Way.

Watching the various responses by suits on the news really doesn't help. As residents, we're cowering behind closed doors in our homes, hoping that the looters don't move onto our cars and then our homes. We don't hope for the stores not to be set on fire because it's already happened. These events just exasperate our disbelief and disgust. Disgust at what looks just like pure greed, disregard and a misplaced sense of entitlement of the youths causing the riots. There's no better way to worsen the perception that the rest of society and the police, have on them.

But to hear the deputy mayor stating that they can't afford the army and that there are already enough police on the streets, well, tell that to us residents and business owners all over London. And to warn the looters that they will be caught if they persist? As far as I can tell, they're carrying rather than watching tv's.

If the youths responsible feel they can get away with the looting that's already happened, who knows what else they'll try in the next few days. It so happens that I'll be moving out of Croydon in a few weeks and its a shame that it coincides with the rioting that's happened so far. Judging by the last three days however, nowhere feels safe.

Fitting It All In

2011-07-17T04:21:51+00:00

The Problem

We all have busy lives and they aren't getting any quieter without compromise. Personally, I always have a persistent to do list ranging from menial tasks to major, creative, long term projects. And with home and family craving more of my attention, life is a constant struggle to get things done. And then there's "actual work" of course.

Things do get done, whether it's within a half-implemented GTD system, via my To Do checklist, stickies notes or reminders and tasks in my calendar. I even get inbox-zero once in a while. But I'm always wondering how to be more efficient, more productive. And I'm assuming I'm not the only one.The Daily Grind

After a tiring day at the office, I can still put in a few hours at night, but my energy will have mostly deteriorated leaving only a mental husk that reverts to habit and ease of use.

That means I can do things like keep tabs on rss news feeds (which is basically research for my blogs), react to simple email enquiries and process little jobs that can be accomplished without much preparation or research. As work-like as that all sounds, these are mostly personal things I need to do, some pleasurable and which I deem to help keep me away from "work". An attempt at balance in my work/life life...

The thing is, I'd like to make progress on the more creative, more major projects on my list. Self-initiated ones, where I need to constantly be aware of the thinking and ideas and basically stay in the "zone". I can't do this in two hours a night and still make progress. The weekend days aren't giving me a solution either when there's a super cute toddler (my daughter) drooling over my keyboard or squeaking somewhere else in the house.

Forming Creative Habits

However, one thing I'm trying at the moment is to see if I can "make a habit" out of doing my creative projects, a small piece at a time, less but often, much like I have a habit to check my rss feeds.

I'm seeing if I can organise and prune the material for my creative projects into simpler (digital) notes that I can easily scan and read, together with "journal-like" progress notes to help bring me up to speed every time I look at them.

And then I'm going to try and "stay in the zone" constantly.

The objective behind this is to try and immerse myself into each of my creative projects for a shorter period each time but as often as possible, so that I minimise the need to catch up. Perhaps a little every day or two. The constant creative process could also help maintain interest and harness mental attention and processing for times when there is little else to do but think (commuting).

In my experience, not touching a project for a few weeks, because I "can't find a whole day to work on it" makes it trickier to get back into - because I'd have already fallen behind by then. I'd have forgotten what I last thought about and more crucially, what I had to do next. So even more time is spent bringing myself up to speed and acquiring that creative flow again.

It seems making creative projects happen is alot like learning a language. Frequent study and attention is the only way to make progress - and become fluent.

I'll see if making creativity a habit like this will genuinely progress my personal projects, but I'll still be constantly looking out for more ways to efficiency and productivity enlightenment.

New International Program Content Network Website

2011-03-30T23:01:00+00:00

A little after the start of 2011, I finished another Expression Engine CMS based website for IPCN (International Program Content Network), who are an Anglo-Chinese entertainment and media business specialising in the Asia Pacific region with a particular focus on China.

The architecture, visual design and layout were relatively simple as this was the approach my clients favoured. Initially, the idea of a restrained design for an entertainment and media business website sounds counter-productive. However, it's an approach that is more relevant when considering that the business negotiates rights to a variety of media content between both the UK and China, rather than showcase the content itself.

The difference between my use of Expression Engine for the IPCN website and other EE sites that I've designed and built is the implementation of both English and (Simplified) Chinese language.

The Techie Bit

Multi-lingual, content managed websites can be achieved in a few ways with Expression Engine and of course with content management systems in general, but the most elegant was to set up subdirectories using a country code ("en" for English and "ch" for Chinese) and then using a global variable to monitor which language version to use. Templates to display dynamic content then simply query the global variable first before displaying the correct language content.

It's a solution that wasn't without issues but which generally worked well with little work arounds. Plus, additional languages can be built in with minimum complexity since more country codes can be made up and added to the system.

Administering Multi Languages

In difference to a single language site, the only other major consideration was to allow administration of content for both languages and the most appropriate way was to facilitate input of both language versions for each post into a single admin page.

This method has proved to be more convenient for IPCN staff to manage and also poses less of an issue with missing language versions of a piece of content. The alternative was for IPCN staff to create 2 posts - one for each language, which would have been more cumbersome to manage with the way the information architecture was structured.

Taiwan Photo in Monocle

2011-02-26T05:06:22+00:00

Whilst selling photography to magazines is an everyday transaction for some people, for me it's not. So it is with an amateur's glee that I announce the publishing of one of my shots from Taiwan in the latest issue of Monocle, one of the only mags I actually still buy. I wish I could write a post on how to do it, but in fact, the Monocle photography assistant simply got in touch after seeing the photo in my Flickr account. A modest sum was arranged and I was a happy holiday snapper!

Even if the shot is actually so small that I missed it the first time I flicked through the Monocle Taiwan special. And that they spelt my name wrong. Unless you happen to be writing the pinyin from the Mandarin pronunciation of it (Hu). Publishing evidence below.

Pretty Petty Conflicts - Designers & Developers

2011-02-13T01:36:43+00:00

Ever since the digital media industry has carved out roles such as visual designer or developer, if you've ever worked AS one of them, I'm betting my virtual soul that you've worked WITH the other.

Take this scenario. The designer comes up with a snazzy new interface that uses multiple colours, one for each section of a website. The designer's boss approves and even adds to the idea. He gets the sign-off and talks to the developer to make it happen.

The developer double-checks. "You want each section to have its own colour?" Yep.

The trouble is, the developer has to build this interface inside of an existing content management system that already allocates a generic colour and isn't built for such customisation. The developer rolls his eyes and declares that it's not worth their time to figure out a way to do this, just to have some "pretty colours".A typical digital project could have lots of intricate paths and processes both conceptual and technical, so of course the scenario above has been described simpler than real.

Developers

However, if you're a developer, don't always assume that you're being forced to do something just because the idea is proposed. Especially if you haven't been consulted in the first place. Don't fold those arms just yet as digital designers aren't all about unimportant fluff and as much as you'd want it to justify your attitude, they're aren't all out to complicate your job.

In fact, design is sometimes as much about perceptive logic as it is about visuals and a good degree of thinking might have happened beforehand to merge the creative idea with the underlying scripts as comfortably as possible. So don't judge too early.

Designers

Similarly, if you're a designer, don't assume you're stuck with the limitations that a technical infrastructure might have. Sure, you should know them, know how far you can go with them, and always respect where developers are coming from. But then you can try pushing that little bit further, so long as your idea is good. But remember that there is usually more than one solution for your visuals, but once something technical is broken, it's broken.

Resolution

Indeed it is an intricate process when it comes to executing work that inherently combines both design and programming and experienced practitioners of both understand the importance of communication.

But sometimes, it doesn't matter how much something is judged to be a waste of time - by either side - the powers that be might simply demand that it be done. At which point there's no point saying no. It's your job to make it happen.

Footnote

I firmly believe that when a good designer and a good developer work well together, then the work they produce goes from good to great. However, in parallel to this comes the rise of the designer developer - creators who've grown up with the technology and are more likely to be fluent.

These are people who can work well on both sides of the page and when they take on just one of the roles, the other person will love them all the more for it.

Who are you and what do you want to be?

Making British Chinese Visible - Article on Euromight

2011-01-30T22:36:33+00:00

I recently met with a budding, young journalist - Carmen Kong - who was interested in talking to me about Visible Chinese and about British Chinese identity in general. She also hails from my ancestral home town of Tai Po in Hong Kong, so she had me at hello. The result is the following article for Euromight (a website that focuses on ethnic minority), reproduced here with kind permission from Carmen. Update: Carmen also posted the article on her own website here.

MARK WU: MAKING BRITISH CHINESE VISIBLE

By Carmen Kong

Meeting Mark Wu for the first time in central London inexplicably brings a sense of familiarity - busy traffic, chained-coffee shop and a very Chinese face screams "Hong Kong!" to me. We spend quite a long time reminiscing about the places and food, and chatting in a mixture of Cantonese and English.

Like me, the 34-year-old graphic and web designer has a vivid memory of Tai Po district, the suburban area in Hong Kong where I spent the first 17 years of my life. But Wu grew up in a completely different environment, as a son of British immigrants from Hong Kong. Wu's parents moved to the UK before he was born and opened their own takeaway food shop in North London. Like many Chinese immigrants, they worked countless hours every day, seven days a week, to provide a good education and decent living for their three children. Wu, who runs his own interactive design and consulting company, still recalls the days (and weekends) working behind the counter taking orders. And like many Chinese immigrants, they were silent. They caused no trouble and made no comments on society or politics. It was as if they were invisible.But what makes Wu's story different from many others is that he decided to claim his British-born Chinese identity. In 2007, he created the website "Visible Chinese," a simple but highly focused archive of profiles. It features a variety of people, Chinese and non-Chinese, who contribute to Chinese culture but have not yet made it into the spotlight. They come from all fields, including business, media, fashion, politics and social enterprise. Wu hopes the site will help encourage a more audible Chinese voice in Britain.

"The Chinese are known as the silent majority. They don't make trouble and they don't say too much," he says. "There is no voice from the Chinese community in the country."

And Wu wants change. He explains that it's important to build the identity of British-born Chinese, not Chinese in Britain, and recognize the difference.

"Identity and labels are two different things. Labels are stereotypes but identity includes acceptance," he says.

He believes that once the British-Chinese identity exists, politicians can better target the need of this community, which in turn will allow British-Chinese to finally have a voice in society and policy making.

"Many Chinese people do not vote in the UK. The generation who came here minded their own business and taught their children to study hard and not cause troubles. They are simply apolitical -they can't and don't complain too much about the outcome or the work of politicians."

Even as Wu uses the site as a tool to raise awareness and to educate, he also works on other fronts. As an executive of the "British Chinese Project," a political integration group, he helps organize events such as "Trial Voting Day," which teaches the Chinese community, especially the elderly, voting procedures in the UK.

When asked whether he thinks "Visible Chinese" has had an impact on the Chinese, or wider, community, Mark's humble, Chinese attitude shines.

"I won't say impact - it is too big of a word," he shakes his head eagerly, "the website has not landed; instead it is something that has influence overtime. It is something, I have realised, that comes in small doses and by the spread of words. I believe the website has made some influence but I don't want it to disappear."

Wu stays optimistic, but also realistic, as to whether a vocal Chinese community will emerge soon.

"It will take generations for the Chinese community to have a voice and be political involved, or even active. It is too late for my generation, but I will definitely raise my kids differently, to encourage them to voice their opinions," he says.

"But as for now, I either build a website or I do nothing."

As a Chinese person living in the UK, I'm grateful that he ditched the latter.

New Chinatown Arts Space Website

2010-12-28T02:25:21+00:00

Just before Christmas, I finished the new version of the Chinatown Arts Space (CAS) website. It's actually the first major project I've completed since returning back to the UK in May from my travels in East Asia.

It's by far the most ambitious Expression Engine project that I've developed and quite rewarding because of it. I've been able to really explore and work through a number of challenges in making some areas of the site work, namely the membership profile side and the ability for dynamic content such as the news items, to be loaded up to the front end, edited and saved back to the database. The CAS website will also be further developed throughout 2011, with greater functionality planned, rather than just refinements to existing features, so I'm quite looking forward to this.

Looking back currently, I suppose the functionality is quite basic when compared to sites such as Facebook that feature profiles heavily, but over the years, I marvel at the ease with which software now allows people like myself - a team of one - to build fully featured websites.

The tally of Expression Engine websites in my portfolio of experience now amounts to seven, and with each site, I become more enthusiastic about the potential of this CMS. I do think free alternatives such as Wordpress have their advantages, but the proprietary tags system that Expression Engine uses is perfect in allowing me to code up my own front end templates and control the presentation of data down to the last character.

Where in the past, an additional programmer was a necessity for every dynamic project, the website development industry has reached a point where briefs requiring high design and functionality but with a more modest budget, can be answered by a designer-scripter like myself.

A Digital Christmas

2010-12-27T01:19:57+00:00

Over the last couple of days, when I've actually torn myself away from the screen, I pondered the change of the celebration of Christmas for non-religious folk. Every year, Christmas has often become the time to catch up with family and friends. Yet also every year, I've watched the number of physical Christmas cards arriving on my doorstep dwindle down to a single figure this year.

I'm ready to accept that I'm just unpopular, but the switch of communications from analogue to digital in all forms of community celebrations has been pretty tangible over the years. Whilst I yearn for the personal touch the analogue approach allows, I'm also enthused about the freedom that digital communications allows.Digital Freedom

For one thing, its quicker and easier to do. For another, more and more of the population are able to do it. But most importantly, it uses less of the environment to carry out. Let alone minimise all the unnecessary paper you're left with after an event like Christmas has happened.

For purists who demand that a handwritten card is the only way to go, well, in digital times, the thoughts behind such actions are only emphasised further and cherished more as a result.

Digital Season

As we send out e-cards and text messages that are both generic and personal, I find it more obvious how other digital channels have taken advantage of the festive season. We bought a gift voucher online for a relative and rather than expecting a paper note to be posted either to us or to the recipient, we later found it went straight to her digital junk folder.

Other digital routes are facilitated by etailers such as Amazon, who allow us to avoid a physical shop queue. However, it's painfully clear that the arrival of a physical gift can still be hampered by delays such as the snow the UK has faced so far this Winter.

Virtual Gifts

But will physical gifts actually go virtual? They already do in some areas. The delivery of gaming for instance, provides consumers with a choice of disc or download for Playstation and Xbox or via Steam on your Mac and PC.

Though opening a physical package can't be beaten, it may only be a matter of a generation before the action is passé and gamers wonder why people wait an excruciating age for a disc when the latest release is downloadable in a matter of seconds over a hi-speed connection. Running out of stock would be a phrase confined to the history books.

Other forms of entertainment are even more commonly delivered digitally, with Apple's iTunes championing an ecosystem that provides TV, film and music as well as gaming.

Though of course, not everything can be digital. Things the body needs such as food, clothes and cosmetics for one. But for other things in life, I recently wondered which of those will become digital through technologies we're not yet aware of.

Policing Freedom in the Next Generation

2010-11-26T20:40:38+00:00

Whilst I'm open to both sides of the story regards the recent demonstrations over tuition fees, I'm sure I'm part of the majority who are slowly turning our thoughts against our barely elected coalition government and in particular, the actions our UK police force are reportedly taking.

I've just read about the kettling in of student demonstrators a couple of days ago, some of whom are just school age and frankly, I'm disgusted that this strategy was used at all. The police knew what they were doing. Is the point to turn people off in the future? Because the only thing it will do is shift the attention from the streets to elsewhere. Perhaps that's why the police are seeking the power to shut down websites in the UK's domain.

Sure, the UK's suffixes aren't the only domains accessible in the UK, but even if one step at a time leads to policing of the whole world wide web, they'll always be a way for those governed to "govern".

The Role of the Designer in Social Media

2010-10-09T03:08:50+00:00

Although social media commentary has saturated our technology news feeds, the BBC's Tim Weber wrote an excellent article analysing the various efforts of companies who adopt this strategy.

As a consumer, it is with some satisfaction that I read about the power and the influence that consumers "who tweet" now have over companies that could once ignore their unhappy customers, previously isolated from the world and in no danger of causing PR damage with their complaints.

The shift in power and the reported mismatch of timely reconciliation in the fast moving world of social media brings most misery to corporates who lack the agility clearly absent from their old world cultures. As individuals, we sometimes read with glee, how mammoths are brought to their knees, buckling under their slowly crumbling reputations that are subsequently picked on by that little blue bird. All power to the people - we're only asked to be treated right.Designers and Social Media

As a designer who works in the digital realm social media has also had an impact professionally. Since the advent of tools like blogs and then Facebook and Twitter, the process of website consultancy often touches on the incorporation of these tools. They're useful to help connect an isolated website to a community and so the design, or more so, the information architecture of a site may be geared towards the efforts of a social media strategy.

Include social media and possibly a whole can of worms lies waiting to be opened. With clients using social media at different levels or more realistically, having variable budgets available to spend in this area, it's understandable, when a passive approach is adopted whereby Facebook and Twitter are further outlets for news perpetuation - extended from the trusty RSS Feed.

Experts would argue that this isn't an effective use of social media. It's much less a conversation and more akin to a loudspeaker (or small speaker in most cases). If there isn't a way to hear some feedback, who knows what everyone else is saying in the Twitterverse behind the client's back. Or more literally on YouTube. Tim's article gives great examples of social media backfiring.

From a designer's perspective, it can be considered the designer's role to integrate elements of social media. Graphic cues still apply to designed Twitter and Facebook profile pages as extensions of a brand, in addition to the design of a client's website and its integration of calls-to-action buttons and perhaps, exclusive-to-social-media content pages. But then what?

PR and Marketing responsible for Social Media

We've seen how successful social media campaigns have been the reason for a website's purpose, created separate to a corporate site. In Tim's article, social media seems to be the sole preserve of pr and marketing strategists and even the majority of them seem to get it wrong.

Some corporate structures I've come across involve pr and marketing departments retaining responsibility for the messages that a website is meant to harbour and then liase with a designer to make it happen. I could play with fire to suggest that any designer in this situation has been asked more than once to change a colour because someone in marketing "didn't like it".

Multi-Disciplined Designers

A decade ago, being a designer who creates websites often meant that to stand out, you simply had to adopt several skills sets. Visual layout skills were expected, but you were appreciated further if you could code. Were paid more if you did Flash (or Director even) and considered a magician if you could manipulate motion graphics.

Being a designer today, I've found little has changed except that the situation appears to be more common. Experienced designers have nurtured their multiple talents for years and utilised their experience to elevate themselves to more managerial roles, whilst new generations of talents have grown side by side with the technologies they work with.

Whilst social media may be considered less visual than traditional creative crafts, there's no stopping a new breed of multi-skilled designer, comfortable in the digital realm and all that it offers, from taking the mantles of social networking and declaring it another weapon in their arsenal.

Selling Design and Social Media

Design in its purest form is about communicating a client's message in the most effective way to the right audience. A designer fluent in social media could extend their capabilities beyond the creation of visual designs and offer to translate the client's message further in a strategic mix of graphics, content and timely conversations - basically, the whole package. With this degree of integration, the point is still the same, to communicate a message.

Opposers to this view will no doubt emphasis how it isn't this simple and that there are various researched techniques to consider etc. There are stats to monitor, customer relations to manage and buzz to build. Again, perhaps the preserve of the pr and marketing departments.

A key scenario for a commissioned (freelance) designer to sell a social media strategy to clients, is often whether they're only creating the website or whether they're retained on an ongoing basis afterwards. The latter is open to strategic social media work but understandably less practical for budget-conscious clients.

The Suitability of Designers Selling Social Media

Designers might have touched upon analysing the metrics of a website they've been working on. Looking at the effectiveness of different landing pages and what areas of a site sell, informs the designer of changes that are worth making.

Whilst this is arguably comparable to managing a successful social media campaign, but probably less so to managing a reputation disaster, the approach still adds a different dimension to the creative requirements of a designer and to some individuals, will provide encouragement for further learning. Though social media may in some schools of thought, still belong in the PR and Marketing departments, it is not unheard of for there to be designers who are also skilled in those areas too.

Ultimately, how much a designer integrates social media into their skill set is up to them. If the interest is there, then no doubt they're already fluent and getting their stats on.