Supreme presents Graphika Manila 2008

We at Supreme are all about spotting and supporting young Filipino talent. Through our over 10 years of experience, we are proud to have worked with industry mavens as they first found footholds with us.

So, this year — our first year in the Philippine Star family — we are celebrating by presenting the biggest gathering of design professionals in the Philippines. This is Graphika Manila 2008.

Over 1,200 of the country’s brightest artists are at the SM Mall of Asia Premiere Cinema today. Pixar Animation Studios, tokidoki, Robert Alejandro, The Acid House and Collision Theory will all speak. There will even be live doodling, care of tokidoki’s Simone Legno and the members of WeeWillDoodle. Details on this page.

And tonight, the artists will all be at the Embassy Superclub for a special Graphika Manila afterparty, with a one-night-only exhibit featuring the work of tokidoki. The Supreme Team will be there as well to unveil a very special project. The night will be “Extreme!”

Supreme cheers to a bigger, brighter, edgier design scene. See you at Graphika Manila 2008! And to all you designers, we hope to see you on our pages soon.

Say it with us, “Supreme ako!”

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We’re always on the lookout for talented new Supremos. Reach us at Supreme.ph, and at feedback@supreme.ph.

Tokidoki

Speaker: Simone Legno

Hello, my name is Simone Legno. I was born in Rome, Italy on June 1977. In 2004, I moved to Los Angeles to develop my own apparel, art and lifestyle licensing brand with two business partners, Ivan Arnold and Pooneh Mohajer Arnold.

We launched tokidoki as a clothing line, and ‘cause of its amazing success here in California, we are spreading the word around the world with other tokidoki items such as vinyl toys, art-skateboards, pin badges, jewelry, watches, sportswear, accessories, shoes, stationery and more to come.

Tokidoki has collaborated with other brands like LeSportsac, Smashbox cosmetics, Fornarina, New Era, Onitsuka Tiger, Hello Kitty, Ride snowboards, and Be@rbrick. I designed the creative concept for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week LA 2005, the main fashion event in LA, and the West Coast and Pool Tradeshow in Las Vegas in Aug 2006.

www.tokidoki.it started as my professional portfolio and artistic diary while living in Italy, where I created illustrations, advertising and new media design for various clients. Today, the list includes Volkswagen, MTV, John Galliano, Champion, Toyota, Renault, Daihatsu, BenQ, Microsoft, Narcotic Bureau of Singapore, Telecom Italia, TIM and many more.

Tokidoki is a happy world. It is a cute, playful and pure, yet provocative and sophisticated world that I imagine, live and dream of. Tokidoki means “sometimes” in Japanese. I chose a Japanese word because I love Japan. I love everything from the ultra modern happy face of Shibuya to the serious magic silence of Kyoto. I chose “sometimes”, because everyone waits for moments that change one’s destiny… by chance or by meeting a new person… tokidoki is the hope, the hidden energy that everyone has inside, giving us the strength to face a new day and dream about something positive, that something magical will happen to us.

Pixar Animation Studios

Speaker: Kristophe Vergne

Pixar Animation Studios is an Academy award-winning computer animation studio with the technical, creative and production capabilities to create a new generation of animated feature films, merchandise and other related products. Pixar’s objective is to combine proprietary technology and world-class creative talent to develop computer-animated feature films with memorable characters and heartwarming stories that appeal to audiences of all ages.

Pixar is represented by animator Kristophe Vergne who has worked with the company’s latest computer- animated films, Ratatouille and Wall-E. His talk will focus on the animation process for a feature movie. It will follow pre-production, test shots and final ones, as well as present a few examples — movies and references based on the production Ratatouille.

Robert Alejandro

Hi, my name is Robert Alejandro. I’d like to think that I haven’t passed up an opportunity ever. From designing stamps to malls, and everything else in between, I’ve done it. TV show hosting (Art is-kool and The Probe Team) — strange jobs for an introvert artist like me – I’ve done done them as well.

I immigrated to Canada in 2004 because I felt I had no other “mountains” to conquer in the Philippines. But five months overseas was enough for me to realize the Philippines is the greatest, toughest “mountain” of all.

I came back to Manila and never looked back. I’m really happy here. My life makes sense here. It isn’t a glamorous Sex in the City life – it's more like Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag life, full of cramp MRT rides (where my mobile phone was snatched).

The conscious decision to stay in a third world country like the Philippines is not an easy one and I’m aware that not everyone has the luxury to stay home. OFWs are our heroes, but those who choose to stay are heroes as well. We choose to toil, sweat, put up with traffic, corruption and chaos to see if we can do our own little share to hopefully make this mountain a bit more livable, most especially for those who need our help (that’s a lot of kababayans).

So here I toil with my fellow artists – we set up Illustrador ng Kabataan (INK, an organization of Children’s Book Illustrators), Liga Grafika (organization of Graphic Designers), bring street libraries and art workshops to the poorest of the poor, give pro bono design and art for those who need the service. We set up libraries in towns where children have never seen children’s books.

We’re artists – we build nations and lives, too.

Right now, I’m coming up with a travel/backpack book teaching Filipinos the wonderful skill of “saving money” and thereby inexpensively enriching and educating yourself by traveling .

The Acid House

Speakers: Ivan Despi & Pauline Vicencio

The Acid House is a small, Philippine-based team of artists that conceptualizes, produces, designs, directs and animates various concoctions of motion design, live action, 2D & 3D animation. The studio funnels into their work a wide range of applicable styles, from illustration-based animations and vector motion graphics to straight-up live shoot video, glossy 3D formations and full-3D rendered scenes.

The studio hopes to contribute to raising the bar in terms of Pinoy motion graphics so much so that someday, foreign contemporaries will get excited for new work coming from the Philippines.

The speakers will be me, Ivan Despi, owner, lead designer and director, and Pauline Vicencio, my studio manager. We shall discuss several things: How we got started and what our creative process is. We will also dish out advice for people who’d like to get into motion graphics (or whatever it is that we’re doing).

FEATURE:

WeeWillDoodle

WeeWillDoodle is a group of artists deeply in love with the power of the doodle.

This artist collective believes in, respects, and harnesses the raw power of spontaneous ideas to capture them on different media. On paper, plastic, walls, your bare buttocks — you name it and they’ll draw on it.

Collision Theory

Speakers: AJ Dimarucot & Arvin Nogue

Collision theory explains how chemical reactions occur and why rates of reaction differ. “For a reaction to occur, particles must collide. If the collision causes a chemical change it is referred to as a fruitful collision.”

Collision Theory aims to achieve fruitful collisions in the world of design and art. Collision Theory is AJ Dimarucot and Arvin Nogueras a.k.a. Caliph8.

Their talk today will cover three topics: One, “Colission theory: our philosophy of putting our own stamp on projects.” Two, “Caliph8 as an individual — how music influences his visual art — from graffiti to commercial works.” Three, “AJ Dimarucot as an individual — the new canvas. His use of t-shirts as a medium for art.”