Category: Jobs

  • Design and Politics – The Obama Era

    Despite whatever views I may have on Obama’s policy, decisions… or the lack of a firm position (and how much his ideas reminded me of the traditional Latin American candidates during their campaigns) – I do agree with many designers who point out how good his campaign is. The most throughly article I ever read (mind you, I read this a long time ago~~~ perhaps almost a year ago) was Expertinent: Why the Obama “Brand” Is Working – not only the thoughts and critic people involved in graphic design did, but also the comments on the article. Yes, there are a few bad-mouthing the article pointing out how they are not voting for Obama for his marketing, but there are a few others that are quite insightful too. Doing a quick search, you end up with articles such as The Hardest Working Presidential Candidate Logo, which show the pretty awesome use of the Obama-branding… crazy I tell you. As well as NOTCOT’s Obama design post, Ten marketing lessons from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign, and How Better Marketing Elected Barack Obama.

    So we all agree. Now, moving on…

    So I’ve been Mood: Political for the past week, and I’ve been watching a lot of political shows (which I’m tired off, because I always end up grumpy and cursing interviewers to hell and back), but I’m S&M like that sometimes~

    Anyway!!! I got curious, went online and looked up websites of the main political parties here in Peru. APRA, Unidad Nacional, Partido Nacionalista Peruano and… is Peru Possible still relevant? Anyway, I did search for them. I’ll just let you look at my captures instead…

    Very 90’s… compared to Obama’s right? Lack of sophistication, graphical quality… but let’s even forget about apperances and focus on the content and its organization. These political Peruvian websites lack ANY information architecture, perhaps interface design needs… a lot of work?, and a total lack of interactive design. But my main problem with all of them is the amount of information, which obviously hasn’t been edited. So in short~~~ They lack structure, and they lack strong content. And don’t even mention the Unidad Nacional website which is just a placeholder saying it’s the website, it has a few links linking to .htm pages with NOTHING on them!

    SHAMEFUL.

    So now that we are in the Obama Era… the times of globalization, will the political parties take notice of this, and begin minding their design and content? Will good marketing finally matter here?

    I may have to agree with something I remember Simon Cowell said~~ that politics in America were great because they were very engaging. Something to that extent… I remember, but can’t find the quote. LOL’  But I remember! That was the reason I watch a lot of CNN, and the voting results with their graphics. There was so much design to be seen there! And I had wished that Peruvian politics took their job that serious and stepped it up with their marketing. *sighs* If only!

  • Demasiado Extranjero, Por Favor Cante en Inglés

    Esta es la traducción de inglés -> español del artículo que escribí para YAM 003 titulado “Too Foreign for your Own Good. Please Sing in English” en el que hablo de los más recientes lanzamientos de artistas de no habla inglesa estrenando material en el idioma para entrar en el mercado.

    Como el artículo es un poco largo, pueden leerlo después del break.

    (more…)

  • Happy 3rd Anniversary, As If!

    BALLS. I suck at working anything new or worthy with this fanlisting, but I do try to keep up with members. But it’s 3 years since I opened it!! Only 150 members barely though…

    As If Fanlisting - 3rd Year

    Many or most As If websites are either inactive, or totally gone… HOWEVER! You can still find some activity in Facebook! First, the As If Appreciation Society (who by the way are using the banner I made for my fanlisting, without crediting… balls much?) And there is also… and this is VERY important~ There’s the As If/Et Alors/Asi Somos/Som Aixi on DVD FB group. Yes, you read right… it on DVD.

    If you are still interested on the ‘original’ set, you can still sign the petition (which I made) and has over 700 signatures – whoa~~ and where are these people and why aren’t they on the fanlisting? LOL’

    Things against the petition, and the whole As If on DVD idea~ copyright music on the show. The show had an uber cool soundtrack, and because of this it probably gets killed by copyright fees of use for the music on dvd format. Just to tell you an example… I wanted to use a Sony Music song in a project in film school once, and this is the info I got.

    STUDENT FILM MAKERS
    $200 administration fee payable to Sony Music
    Proof of school enrollment as well as proof of class credit
    A VHS copy of your film

    Depending on the particular recording and the scope of your project, we will determine your total cost.

    And that was only for a song use for a weekly assignment TOTALLY non-profit … LOL’ – Of course I didn’t use the track ;) – so imagine how much a profitable project would have to pay. They already pay for the use of music on broadcast, but they will also have to pay fees to have the right to include their already made episodes on dvd… and a +10 dvd copies has a different price range ;) at least in some websites like ‘freeplaymusic‘ which is not so FREE.

    So the As If DVD idea is kind of expensive to do, unless you want to swap the soundtrack on the whole series for other cheaper music (like The WB’s Popular did on their DVDs), but you don’t really want that with As If.

    Well, this turned into sort of a rant… anniversary rant, but I felt it was time to put these on a post, instead of just complaining on IMDb, and getting people who keep asking the same question. “Why isn’t this show on DVD already?” Because of copyright music… *sighs*

    In the meantime, do support the fans As If DVD project. To the lack of actual content, fans do what fans gotta do~~~ we must mess with the status quo, because the status is NOT quo. xD LOL’

  • Easter YAM! YAM Issue 003, that Is…

    I just posted YAM 003 over at my portfolio~~

    There’s a lot of international flavor in it… all by chance actually. It really wasn’t planned, it all just came together like that. There’s a couple of rant articles on movies and music, loads of reviews including complete non-fanatical reviews of Ao Akua, Utada Hikaru, DBSK, Hathaways, U2, Madeleine Peyroux, and Michel Gondry/Bong Joon-ho’s Yu Aoi’s Tokyo!

    ALSO! A special on the Peruvian film winning the Berlinale’s Golden Bear top prize~~ The Milk of Sorrow, and some of the discussion regarding the original name “La Teta Asustada”.

    YAM - Issue 3

    Head over there now!

  • Me in Red~ Jumping, and Bumping my Knee

    LOL’

    Yes, I hurt my knee doing this, but still~~ was kinda fun. What you think?

    I also need to get a remote control for my Nikon D70s, anyone has any good suggestion as to what I should get? It’s hard figuring out when the timer will go off, jump and get a good shot… also, going back and forth from camera to spot to jump – so NOT FUN.

    Comment me here, xD

  • Showtime Re-Launches Emmy Digital Online Campaign

    … Now if only they’d begin getting rid off region restrictions, I’d die of happiness~~~

    According to this article at Derby LA Times;

    Showtime will continue with their innovating Emmy campaign by allowing Emmy voters to watch episodes of Emmy-contenders online through a portal exclusively for them. They get like a Showtime voting kit in the mail, where they get a code which they can use to access.

    This is after they got 21 nods last time when they were doing a similar campaign. With the code, they apparently get some episodes from shows… normally 3. They will be getting the first three episodes of United States of Tara, the first two episodes and season finale of Weeds Season 4, first two episodes of The Tudors Season 3, episodes 5 and 10 of Dexter Season 3 (the one with Miguel finally getting Dexter’s trust, and the one in which that cycle gets completed LOL), and the first episode and finale of The L Word Season 6 (and final season) – which by the way makes kind of sense. In my opinion those episodes where shot the best, and I said that you could watch those two and wouldn’t be missing anything~~~ LOL

    The Launch
    The Progress

    The next idea should be ‘no region’, right? xD

  • Interactive JDramas and Voice-over your Anime!

    Well… ‘interactive’ almost haha

    Hmm… two weeks ago, in fact~~~ On February 25th, I was watching NHK and saw this pretty awesome segment where they showed this JDrama that you could put your face into, the second segment mentioned a new for of ‘karaoke’ to voice-over anime~~~ To tell you the truth, I found it hilarious!

    Anyway, I was trying to find some info on it, but since my Japanese is so limited I couldn’t really google anything. Luckily, I was watching NHK this afternoon and recognized the hosts, so I could go to the show’s website and find out. And so I did!

    The first segment is Sangwoo & my Story – obviously a romantic JDrama aimed at women who want to put their face into the protagonist body. LOL’ You literally scan your face, and they will make it all digital and moveable… they will even give u a digital surgery so your face is not wonky xD ~~~ Then they just paste your digi-most-improved-face onto the body of the person playing the lead, make your digi-mouth move at the proper sync and you got yourself into your love story JDrama. You buy it on DVD, go home to watch yourself on screen with your Asian hunk.

    Sangwoo & my Story - Face Scan and Tweak

    Pretty amazing stuff, really… even if it’s kind of weird. Can’t possibly imagine what the porn industry could do with that… LOL – Can you?

    Anyway~~~

    The second segment was a feature on JoySound.com – who have released a type of Karaoke machine to dub anime, so otakus can go… knowing all their favorite anime lines, begin recording with a passion, and then watch their masterful over-dubbing~~~ Funny stuff considering I could sit with my friend and play Harry Potter PoA while watching the film~~~ I find this one more funny, than impressive though… The above ABOVE idea was crazy.

    Now, if all dramas could be like that~~~ let’s start with Japan. Can you imagine being in Nodame? Or Osen??? Can you imagine put your face into Eita’s body and get to hug Juri playing Ruka. LOL Can you imagine that in a western show… or I mean, your favorite American or English show?

    I know a few that will probably considering being on FRIENDS… Well, I know many will likely do the karaoke-voice-over thing with it anyway.

  • BSB Unbreakable Latin America Photos!

    It’s 4.20am, so quit it. I worked hard to get those photos out as soon as I could… over 700 photos, that were reduced to a little over 600, because 100 shots were awful. I managed to get at least 20% useable photos, some pretty good too~

    But you’ll see…

    All photos are not public yet, only half… but I’m already tired. They will be made public this afternoon. They are about 145 photos. Low resolution… big enough to post online and share via e-mail. If you do, a link back to amy-wong.com ~~ you’d better do.

    For bigger resolution, I mean… RAW files~ or big JPGs, email me~ all contact info needed in the following link with the photos…

    Head over here… watch and read.

    BackStreet Boys

    That one up there is a big stitch… 4 photos into one.

  • Photographer in/around Toronto, CA?

    This is a post to help out the friend of a friend… xD

    oscar-cotillard-7-gx-24feb09

    Actually, check here for the details~~~

    I would help out, but not in the Toronto, California area~~ maybe you are? or a friend of a friend?

  • More Sholly Fanart~

    A few days ago, I posted some Sholly fanart over my portfolio. I thought I’d post that in here as well… just in case. Since my blog seems a bit more visited than my portfolio.

    hi amy wong - letter monsters

    Check the process over here… and the full size here.