It’s been a while since I posted a What’s the Story entry so I thought I’d share with you a couple of really old design projects that I’ve unearthed from my ancient Mac’s¹ hard drive.
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Up first, Sharon Cuneta’s “All I Ever Want” album, commissioned to me in 2001. I was ecstatic when the record company called me because I thought, ahahay! A chance to create conceptual mainstream OPM album packaging! I was free to do anything I wanted, the only mandatory was that her face should dominate the page because, well, she is the main selling point of the album. Fair enough.
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I came up with these roughs:

The first two are the booklet’s back and front covers and the rest are sample inside flaps.
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I wanted the design to have a painted, dreamy quality using macros of almost indistinguishable nature elements because the “want” in the album title connoted “dreams, desires, & wishes” to me. (Uhm, that made sense, right?)
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After I submitted them, there was no word for a few days. I finally called to ask what the status was and then was told that they² wanted something that looked like her old stuff³ and so have decided to just ask their in-house designer to do it…
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And this⁴ is what it looked like when it came out.
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Oh well. But there’s a happy ending to this tale: I was paid a discontinuation fee.⁵ 🙂
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Here’s another design story, one that pushed through. San Miguel Philharmonic/Master Chorale’s “Great Original Pilipino Music album”.
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Mr. Ryan Cayabyab is always a joy to work with, mainly because he has excellent taste not just in music but in the visual arts as well. He especially likes it when there’s a concept behind the design you present him.
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When I was sent the track list for the GOPM album, “Tuwing Umuulan at Kapiling Ka” stood out at once so I started sketching a couple of lovebirds under a red umbrella almost immediately. I wanted to show the surroundings in blue so that the couple (who were in color because they’re in love) would be the main focus.⁶ As for the jeepney, well there had to be something to make it Filipino, the title is “Great Original Pilipino Music” after all.
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Here are my rough, initial studies. First in pencil, then a study in color.

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Mr. C liked it right away! I told him I would clean it up and improve on it, i.e. ask my talented artist hubby to render it like a painting.
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Arn actually took it a step further. He thought the jeepney was cluttering the background so he arranged the elements in such a way that the artwork looked like it was telling a story.⁷ I liked it much better already!

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But then Mr. C said that he liked the fact that the couple was already together under the umbrella in the first study although he likes the impressionist quality of the new layouts. He also told us that we could lose the jeepney if we wanted. Hmm, maybe he was right.
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We came up with this. The lamps are supposed to make it look like the scene is in Luneta, but if you didn’t get that it’s perfectly okay. 😉 Overall, I thought it looked more romantic and was quite sure we had nailed it.

And we did! It got approved. And produced shortly after. 🙂

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Before I end this, I would like to share something with you.

We met him! And had dinner with him⁸!
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The last time he was here, we queued in Gateway but didn’t get a chance to have our books signed, although Arn had a lucky encounter (and photo op) with Mr. Gaiman in the washroom. A few days later, Azrael posted that photo in his blog. Mr. Gaiman saw it and wrote Az: Thanks to you… I learned that the nice man next to me at the sinks in the mall was Arnold Arre, whose art I had been admiring a few hours earlier. (And I wished he’d introduced himself.) Mind-blowing, right? Two years later Arn, who was a judge for the Graphic/Fiction Awards’ comics category, finally had the chance to introduce himself properly, and Mr. Gaiman was gracious enough to actually remember Arn’s name and the incident, and reiterate that he really does like his art. What a fine, fine gent.
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More kwento and tons of photos in my Multiply.

1. My G4 is turning 8 next month! I hardly use it anymore.[ back]
2. I’m actually not sure as to who “they” referred to.[ back]
3. Why oh why?[ back]
4. It doesn’t look bad but I’m sorry, looking at it again 6 years later, I still think my design should’ve been given another chance. At least mine had a concept.[ back]
5. And so should you if you begin a project that doesn’t get fulfilled. Remember to have that clause in your contract.[ back]
6. Cliche, I know but hey, it works visually.[ back]
7. That’s my hubby, a natural storyteller![ back]
8. Well technically with him tablehopping in the room. But we got to talk to him and we actually really had dinner with his son Mike who was seated at our table.[ back]

Halloo, Arn and I are back from a brief vacation in Japan¹ with my family. This time we took a Shinkansen² to the Kansai area so we were able to cover more ground compared to past visits.³
Spring had just sprung when we arrived over a week ago and we were lucky to have witnessed the once-a-year blooming of the beautiful Sakura during our stay. You can view some photos at the following albums: Kyoto / Kobe / Ueno Park / Ohanami in Ibaraki / Tokyo

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Please pardon the sporadic blog updates, but remember you can always IM me on Twitter and iLike. 🙂

1. Obviously we love the place, that’s why we keep going back. Add to that the fact that my Papa always invites us over and generously sponsors our trip. 🙂[ back]
2. aka Bullet Train. On a regular train, the ride from Tokyo to Kyoto will take 8 hours. Via shinkansen, it only took us 2 hours, tops![ back]
3. Kyoto is actually special to me because we stayed for a month in Kyoto when I was 7 (photo here). [ back]

Since my last entry…
* …PLDT-DSL has gone from bad to worse. Is it just ours or do the lines really fluctuate for one to two hours during off-peak hours? It’s been like this for two weeks now. We’ve reported it 3x but the rep only keeps saying that “they will look into it”. (Boo!)
* …two of my favorite TV shows (1, 2) have gone on hiatus. What do you do when your favorite shows go on hiatus? Why, go bananas of course.
By the way, I got this from Nest:

Aww! Hopefully there’ll be a season 4. The shot is from the episode “Mars Bars”
Regarding Heroes, what an awesome mid-season ender that was, huh?¹ I don’t want to put spoilers here so if you’d like to discuss, leave me a note.
* …I’ve been working on the next issue of WE double time.².
* …I’ve discovered iLike. Take a look at the nifty widget below and you will see what my iTunes is playing right now. The smart sidebar it comes with will also recommend tunes that sound similar to what you’re playing so it’s a great way to discover new music plus it’ll show you what your friends are listening to and vice versa so in a way, it’s like Friendster for music lovers. Also, if you’ve been wondering all this time where my subject headers are coming from, you’ll find the answers for sure in my Recently Played list. 😉

* …I retired my phlog³ and will be posting new photos on my Multiply account from now on.
* …we attended the wedding of Arn’s Korea travel buddy and Cast comic partner (and my VM co-fan) Jamie Bautista. Pictures here.
* …Carlo introduced me to Twitter, a quick way of telling the world what I’m doing at the moment⁴. I can enter one-line updates via IM and they will show up on my profile. It’s very much like a blog except that it’s more spontaneous. So in case I don’t get to update again within the next few weeks, just check my wall and see if I’m *really* hard at work or just puttering around online.

1. Oh no, Peter’s trademark “bang” (singular of bangs) got cut off! I don’t think it’s the end of him though.[ back]
2. Also because I’ve been glued to the TV and my deadline is looming and on top of that Arn and I are FINALLY going away on vacation again next weekend[ back]
3. it’s still accessible though[ back]
4. like the world cares, right?[ back]