In this blog post, I am going to be making my final decision on the question that I’m planning to work on for the rest of this semester. It’s a pretty big deal. Here are some opinions and findings on three questions which appear to be more interesting among the six questions that were given.
Q1: Analyse in depth a design related issue that has courted major controversy in both professional and public domains. Evaluate if the negative accusations of the media artefact are merited.
First of all, I’ve totally mistaken controversy for conspiracy after writing a whole paragraph on aliens and the disagreements and arguments between the truth and the ideal truth, it made me so excited to talk about conspiracy theories. Ahhh life.
Well moving on, I found a few major issues that sparked heated debates between the professional and public domain; one of which is the controversial KL Logo that went viral recently in April when the it was announced. Many local netizens including myself do not find it appealing on the design aspect and are mocking the design, but the jaw dropping news is that it costs RM15k (Nurul, 2016) to create a logo, tagline, description, rationale and strategy that many argued can be solely created on Microsoft Word! A twitter user proved it in just five, short minutes (Ruxyn, 2016).
As an art student, the drop shadow and font choices remind me of my primary school days when I tried designing my invitation card with Microsoft Word. But it’s not just that, many other mockeries have been made on social media. There are even blogs about a list of Malaysian Designers who will do a better job at branding and designing the logo, and the list goes on. This is a very interesting topic to me. I find it entertaining to read mockeries online and also as a design student, insights of the media culture of this country can be drawn from the responses of people/netizens regarding such controversy and the way the KL Mayor and other important people are dealing with this matter.
I didn’t expect my first paragraph to be that long.
Another issue include a Wombat ad displayed on an electronic billboard at by an Australian company, Servcorp and was mistaken for a pig during the holy month of Ramadan.
The ‘pig’ was also seen to be dressed in a Malaysian attire. People started freaking out when a picture put online went viral so the company apologised and took it down. But many comments have been made saying ignorant people should be educated about the Wombat, which is the mascot of Servcorp.
In other words, the exaggerated reaction is redundant (Middleton, 2015).
There are more but I’ll end it here because I’ll probably decide on working with the topic on the KL Logo, if I had to choose among the research I’ve done.
Q2. Who are some Malaysian cultural icons that have found success at an international level? Did nationality and/or local culture contribute to their achievements?
Here are a few successful and well known people from Malaysia - Amber Chia, Yuna and more. Most of them them are mainly recognised from social media so, thank you social media on behalf of them! Without you, a lot of people will still be hiding in someone else’s shadow. Honestly this question do not interest me so, I’m just gonna skip it.
Moving on,
Q4: Fashion and music go hand in hand. Explore this concept and consider its implications for designers of your field.
If I were to analyse it logically, yes, fashion and music do go hand in hand. But really, it’s a question that’s been asked again and again. Just like how the statement, Life imitate art will never be proven to be true. A very simple explanation would be if you are a die hard fan of lets say, Death Cab for Cutie, you would not only put their songs on replay, but also try to dress like them. There are even times when music had changed the way fashion is perceived as for example, sagging pants within the hip hop culture has led majority to accept the style (James, 2014).
Fashion is vital in music awards ceremonies like The Grammys and Billboard Music Award because celebrities will be recognised and criticised or admired for how they dressed (even though its a music award ceremony). In this short paragraph, you can see how music and fashion complement each other in creating a cultural influence (Medardo, 2016). As a designer, a lot can be learnt from how cultures can come together in creating better things or how a simple movement can influence an entire culture. It increases our perceptions from different aspects and get that stagnant brain juice flowing and venture out of our blinded souls…
But nah, I’ll go with Question 1.
Question 1 it is then!
References:
James, R. (2014) ‘HOW FASHION AND TRENDS GO HAND-IN-HAND WITH MUSIC CULTURE’. Available at: http://ohindustry.com/How-Fashion-and-Trends-go-Hand-in-Hand-with-Music-Culture (Accessed: 1st June 2016).
Medardo, P. (2016) ‘Grammys Show That Fashion and Music Go Hand in Hand’. Available at: http://www.nyunews.com/2016/02/18/grammys-show-that-fashion-and-music-go-hand-in-hand/ (Accessed: 1st June 2016).
Middleton, R. (2015) ‘Malaysia: Wombat ad mistaken for a pig pulled by Australian company Servcorp’. Available at: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/malaysia-wombat-ad-mistaken-pig-pulled-by-australian-company-servcorp-1509633 (Accessed: 30th May 2016).
Nurul, J. (2016) ‘Controversial KL logo costs RM15,000, says City Hall’. Available at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/controversial-kl-logo-costs-rm15000-says-city-hall (Accessed: 30th May 2016).
Ruxyn, T. (2016) ‘Netizens Claim KL's New Tourism Logo Looks Like It Was Designed Using PowerPoint’. Available at: http://says.com/my/news/kl-s-new-tourism-logo-and-tagline (Accessed: 30th May 2016).
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