I’ve been quietly observing the whole blogging scene for the past few years. First as part of the old media (or mainstream media, whatever you may call it), and now as a PR guy on the other side of the fence. And through it all, as a “blogger” myself with my own website and constant flow of entries outside of my official comms work.

From all my observations, I’ve realized that a lot of people have no idea that blogging is just another form of communication. When you say “I’m a blogger”, it often implies that suddenly, your smallest online opinion has some sort of intrinsic value to the world. That anything you put on your blog is worth reading, worth linking to, and hopefully, worth some revenue as well.

I was amused when bloggers suddenly saw themselves as “the new media”, as if they knew the workings of the old media and knew how to improve on it. The funniest was when the old media started to buy that story themselves!

Can it be? Does it mean when everyone’s opinion is now in the public sphere, that it qualifies them to become the messenger to the masses?

But many bloggers (not all, lest you get offended, dear reader) fail to understand that – to reuse a common mass comms cliche – the medium is not the message. More precisely, what’s your message and how you intend to deliver it is more important than anything else.

Some homepage history first.

This blog has been around for four years plus, but I’ve always maintained a personal website on free sites like Geocities or Tripod. When I started out in about 1996 or so, I only knew how to write pretty infantile stuff online like my love for mee pok. Nobody (or at least me) knew back then what really constituted a good personal website.

Only a few years later, did the Internet correct itself and people begin to realize that no matter what sort of interesting personal snippet you’d like to boast about on your website, nothing mattered more than great content delivered in the way most pleasing to the largest audience.

So recently, when I read this emotional blog post by a Straits Times journalist, I was reminded that blogging doesn’t come naturally to everyone at first try. This is presumably his first blog post for ST.com and it shows. If the link still exists when you read this, you’ll see the comments from outraged readers attacking his assumptions, approach and attitude relentlessly. I didn’t add my comment into the website because at 143 comments and counting, any new comment would probably get lost and not get read.

Or how about Catherine Lim’s controversial letter to parents following the AWARE saga? A lot of people pointed out in the comments section she had no basis for her recommendations on AWARE’s sex education curriculum since she never did read it. But she blithely ignored everyone and never addressed the issue even in her follow up posting here.

I took issue with her on other matters but that’s another blog post for another day.

So here are some of my thoughts, and if you don’t mind me, recommendations for people who want to make a difference with their blog contents. They are derived from “old media” principles, which are in turn, derived from centuries of publishing practice. Unfortunately, when everyone becomes an author, few people even grasp that they need to know the fundamentals of using the written word that people in the past learnt by severe trial and error.

1. What makes your content worth reading?

Above all other new fads, Twitter is reminding everyone that few people really care for what’s on your mind unless you’re able to convey something impactful. Who cares if you’re eating your breakfast now?

But people will care if your eggs exploded in your face or you’ve discovered some secret recipe that will bring greatness to your bloodline.

My take is : Opinions are worth nothing if they don’t change other people’s lives in significant ways.

2. Do you want to be respected for what you write?

This boils down to asking yourself – what actions make you credible? What actions make you worth being listened to again and again? I’ve learnt the hard way that to be respected, your writings have to put your base emotions aside and acknowledge that other people’s feelings can be hurt by your wanton words. Put reason, logic, empathy and compassion first, and you’ll realize rational people will step forth to appreciate that.

Remember that this is explicitly different from your words having a real significant impact on society. A sentence of rubbish won’t help anyone, but a sentence of wisdom can save lives.

As a journalist, you can either choose to hanker after the glory of the byline, or learn to care for your newsmakers’ well-being. If you only want to write a hot news story for tomorrow’s paper and not be accountable to your newsmaker, why should they ever want to talk to you again? A lot of young rookie journos burn bridges by the hundreds because they only seek the story, but not the humans behind the story.

Being honest and transparent with your newsmaker is the best way to make him trust you – there are some senior journos I’ve heard about who demand information from newsmakers or PR departments without coming clean. Belonging to a newspaper doesn’t automatically confer you the right to all information. Bloggers should remind themselves of that too – having a virtual space to blog doesn’t give you the right to say anything you want because other people can be impacted by your actions.

In short, some things are better kept out of print. People have forgotten that not too long ago, diaries were highly private items. You are free to expose every dark corner of your soul online, but can you deal with the consequences?

3. Edit, edit, and edit. And edit again.

Ever shot out an email you wrote in a hurry and regretted that afterwards? Same with blog posts!

And the scary thing about blog posts is that Google can cache your post within minutes if its bots scan your blog frequently enough. Great writers always edit themselves to death to write their best piece ever. You’ll never read a blockbuster novel that has been untouched by an editor, but aspiring bloggers often just blab whatever come to mind.

A reason why people have continued to consume old media materials is because they often trust that it’s been properly vetted, edited and approved by someone of a certain standing. When your publication appears to its readers that it hasn’t been vigorously edited or that its written by talented folks, that’s where your circulation begins to fall and no amount of redesign is going to bring it back up.

Remember, your personality and emotions comes through.

The beauty of writing is that no two people have the exact same style and tone. Like fingerprints, our writings are unique to ourselves. That’s because our personality influences the way we write (yes, even on some boring research paper).

The more you write, the more you develop your style that conveys your characteristics. If you are furious with something, your writings will transmit that no matter how you think you’re not. If you’re antisocial, your words naturally will give off a scent of your attitudes and your disdain for social company.

Bottom line here? If you want to project an online persona different from who you really are (ie. make yourself sound nicer than you really are), you’ll find that more difficult than you think.

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(This post first appeared on http://iantan.org)

It’s been quite some time since I posted anything on this blog – I blame it on all Facebook! If you’re not on my friends list, do add me soon since I post alot of daily thoughts, rants and visuals there.

Just wanted to pen some thoughts as I approach the 33rd year of my life in Aug  (that’s impressive okay, 1/3 of a century), and having seen quite a fair bit of human nature. I’ve spent a long time observing and writing about people interacting with others.

And with that, I’ve made some casual observations that I’ve found to be quite true (but never fully, of course, as a caveat) in most situations. Below are results of conversations I’ve had with several friends over the past few weeks. The gang also recently visited Derek’s grave to commemorate his third anniversary to going to Heaven, so there was time for some more reflection now that we’re no longer 16-year-old kids but mostly fathers ourselves.

Feel free to disagree and comment.

There seems to be an age where nearly everyone becomes hard to teach new things or mindsets. Unless tragedy strikes.

It can be 20, 30, 40, or 60, but most of us seem to reach a stage when we resist learning new things. The culmination of knowledge and skills seems to hit a wall when people amass enough to keep repeating a certain level of success in their endeavors. It will take usually a death, a retrenchment or a calamity to wake a person up from his state of mind and re-examine the status quo. Some never encounter that situation and being to fossilize further.

There are those who insist on evolving all the time, but society can sometimes brand them as anarchists or unpredictable. The power of labels in society remains as deadly as ever.

Thinking out of the box is not as common an ability as the Gahmen tells us.

We hear it all the time – think out of the box! But here’s the problem – most people don’t even know the size of the box they are in…or that they are even in a box. An alternative solution is not thinking out of the box. A true alternative takes current conditions, smashes them against a wall, and relooks at the basic issues again from a completely different angle. Most people are content with coming up with solutions that are slightly different, not wholly different, because they fear the high risk of failure. The Matrix was a nice example put on film, but most people didn’t even understand the underlying philosophy. Personally, I believe the ability to think outside the box can be unlocked in everyone, but it is best done at a very young age.

PS: Philosophy is often seen as a dirty word, when it’s simply an exercise in thinking processes that we should all do.

PPS: Thinking out of the box does not guarantee a solution. Getting to the root of the problem gets better ROI.

When someone tells you that no one is indispensible, that’s usually because he believes he’s dispensable himself. He becomes “everyone”.

There are pistons in every engine and some are obviously better than others. Take away the critical pistons and you’ll see the engine stop working after a while. Groups or companies which subscribe to that attitude that good people are easily replaced will always be staffed by mediocre folks and often run by mediocre bosses. Unless of course, it’s boss wants to have only mediocre people under him for easier command and control.

That said, it’s important for people to work in mediocre companies or teams at least once in their lives – if you don’t know the benchmark for mediocrity, you won’t know what to aspire to. Or remain as.

The people who play dirty politics (in school, work or elsewhere) are usually people who are not terribly skilled or talented, but need to make up for their incompetencies somewhere else.

This is not to say talented people can’t pay dirty too, but talented and inspired people usually spend their time focusing on creating good work and not worrying about what people think about them. Unfortunately, the people who spend alot of time worrying about other people get ahead because they tend to invest more time in relationships (or shudder, backstabbing) rather than pure work in itself. That’s why I’ve found many incredibly talented people shunted away to live life in dejection and they meekly accept this as their fate. Common scenario in the many industries.

Many people are fixated on fulfilling a certain ideal existence. Which remains ideal unless divine intervention happens.

There’s nothing wrong with this you know. Just that life in itself is so unpredictable, can we really work towards a future that we are sure will happen? Say a guy wants to work to become CEO…and he drops dead the day before he does it. Does that mean his life’s work to become CEO is now meaningless? Not really, but if he had ignored everything else to reach his goal, then maybe his life wasn’t that fun at all.

As a practicing believer in Christ, I believe utterly in God’s will and that I have no idea what will happen tomorrow. Being a journalist reinforced that because every day and every story was so incredibly different! How can I know what I will be in even a year’s time?

That confounds certain people because I often talk like I’m so sure what I want.

Well, what I only want is to be satisfied with my work and be happy in my life, so I work at those two things which are not too specific and actually quite achievable. That way, I don’t think I’ll set myself up for any disappointment in the long term.

Power is fluid. Power does not remain still. Everyone has power to play with.

This I learnt from Foucault. Power in its many forms (literary, human, emotional, political etc) ebbs and flows today. One day, you can have a huge and invincible army under you. Tomorrow, your best generals either die in battle or stage a mutiny. Or make you Emperor of the Universe. What do you do about it? What can you do about it?

In our daily lives, our interactions with people ebb and flow in the same way too, for better or worse. The problem here is most people don’t see human relationships as a network of power flowing through the system – but a series of nametags stuck on a magnetic board : they assume they are either weak or powerful based on the titles given to them. In society, people take up the roles they assume they’re born into, hence a lifetime of inertia from thereon.

But the weakest member of the system can disrupt the flow by simply refusing to work – eg. the cleaning lady in the office who says she’s had it and is not removing any rubbish anymore. Or the clerk who runs away with money by using shady accounting moves. How does the most ambitious member of the system keep power flowing towards him, and not away from him? Or more positively, how does one keep power flowing around him in a “recyclable” manner to achieve the desired outcomes?

By the way, this also reminds me of the character Tom Bombadil in The Lord Of The Rings. This guy was completely unaffected by the One Ring of Sauron, but didn’t bother to do anything about the global crisis in the storyline. Such people do exist – utter power in their hands, but sheer indifference to the external environment, preferring to lead their own contented lives on their own terms.

Not a bad position to be in, and no, he wasn’t in the movies because he would have thrown the script completely off-course.

PS: You can substitute the word “power” with “love”, “respect”, “influence” and so on. Same principle applies.

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This is the question that has bugged me for the longest time (not that it really matters in the daily scheme of things) and is something everyone should think about if they have the time.

Some thoughts on passion…

I look at my two kids and they’re bursting with passion. Everything they do, they do it to the extreme. Be it playing, fighting or just arguing with each other. Other kids aren’t as crazy as Isaac and Isabel, but it doesn’t mean that they are robots, or perhaps I just don’t see them in their home element.

So if kids are passionate beings, it’s only logical to assume that people lose their passion for things as they grow up right? What makes them become colorless creatures?

I look at myself – everyone knows I’m a pretty passionate guy with my work and my hobbies. But how did I become like this? I can’t place a point in time when I decided that I would put my heart to things and do it till I get it really right.

For example, when I was young and learning how to draw, I would go on for hours and not stop because I just wanted to make my drawings better. A lot of A4 paper went into the basket.

It’s within my personality to be a perfectionist, but does perfectionism equate to passion? I’m sure that many passionate people are able to let go and not get too caught up with the details.

So common sense says that not all perfectionists are passionate people…perhaps some are just anal. Perhaps I am guilty of that to.

And why is it that when I take the MRT in the morning, I see so many people who are standing their, holding the railing and so disinterested in anything? These people obviously don’t love the job that they are doing.

But I also know many people who don’t hate their jobs either – they’re just doing it because they want to keep earning a living and they don’t wish to rock the boat. When they do their jobs, it’s merely to get things done with minimum effort.

The one thing they look forward to every day is the 6pm check point where they can quickly pack their bags and rush to the trains. (Personally I don’t look forward to 6pm because I usually haven’t finished the work I had to do by then.)

How did these people lose their passion and zeal for their lives, their work and their daily actions? Was it a matter of choice?

Or is it just the nature of things that the majority of people must end up being blase about their jobs? See, another thing I believe is that the Bell Curve is a realistic breakdown of any demographic.

A small minority will be leaders/innovators, the small minority on the other end of the scale will be the losers and the vast majority remain as average as they could hope for and be the followers to make up the masses.

Here’s an interesting question – what if everyone was as passionate as I hoped they could be? Would the Bell Curve still exist? Everyone would try to outdo each other – not competitively, but being the best they could be within their capabilities – and the Bell Curve would flatten out (but not totally because everyone is born with different scales of abilities).

I have no answers…just more questions.

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The Facebook group calling for Ms Lee’s removal from STTA. Click on picture to join. 

So, it appears the Olympics table tennis saga has ended.

Only because the Gahmen said so. Or so we are led to believe by a rather vague press conference (as reported by Channel News Asia, maybe other media will flesh this out more.)

SINGAPORE: The controversy surrounding the Singapore Table Tennis Association has been called to a close by the Ministry for Community Development, Youth and Sports.
In a special media conference on Friday evening, it announced that team manager Antony Lee will continue for another three months, to finish up his Olympics reports. He will then move to the Singapore National Olympic Council in November.
The association will also have two separate head coaches, one each for the women’s and men’s teams.
President of the Singapore Table Tennis Association, Lee Bee Wah, apologised for causing grievances and stress. With that, the dust has settled over a week-long saga that mired Singapore’s silver medal win at the Olympic Games. Minister of Community Development, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said the issue was caused by misunderstandings and ties have been mended.
He added that the local sports scene, especially the Singapore Table Tennis Association, has emerged stronger from the incident.

It’s pretty obvious what has happened.

New STTA president messes up by dissing her own team in public. The public goes nuts over her dampening of our first Oly medal in 48 years. Gahmen gets alarmed, steps in and tells everyone in the team off. Calls for hasty press conference on a FRIDAY NIGHT (people got a life you know). STTA president issues a way overdue apology in order to keep her job and save whatever is left of her face. Rest of table-tennis team stands together in public to tell everyone everything is ok, because it’s not possible to do otherwise anyway. Team manager keeps his job…sort of. Gahmen says “IT’S OK. MATTER CLOSED. STOP TALKING ABOUT IT.”

Well, I hope the average Singaporean can see what’s happening for themselves, apart from the fact these guys don’t know the social value of a Friday evening. 

The matter is far from closed because as of time of writing, we have no idea what the misunderstandings were. Controversies are not closed by one sentence by a minister, but by a general agreement with those affected. Unfortunately, in this case, it’s the whole country who needs to agree with him.

And I’m pretty sure you can’t mend ties overnight, especially with sobbing male table-tennis players on television and angry words exchanged in the media by key parties. And lots and lots of angry online postings.  

At this point, I can only see a few logical next steps:

Ms Lee Bee Wah really has to step down now because it’s the honorable thing to do. And sports is all about honor and glory.

Just because the Gahmen says she has done/will do a good job doesn’t mean the rest of the population agrees. And it’s our taxpayers’ money that funds these people, not some private angel fund.

She issues an apology that she should have one week ago – the real issue is not her management decision (why, she may have been completely right to re-org the team for matters we may not be aware of), but her extremely poor public timing that she should fess up to.

And the fact she hurt an entire country’s ego and pride by letting on about a decision that should not have been made public. She might blame the reporter for misrepresentation, but the fact is that she said what she said, without realising its real impact.

Why should future table tennis stars have faith in that she’ll do well, given that she refused for the longest time to admit any wrongdoing?

And why are people who have no experience in dealing with sportsmen running the show here? Where are our sporting greats who know the pain and agony it takes to get to the top and stay there?

So why do we have trouble winning medals? It’s not necessarily a factor of not having the right talent, but the right management. We complain all the time about the foreign talent we hire in SG, but do we complain about the people who hire them? Why aren’t we gunning for the people responsible for the state of matters, instead of blaming the symptoms of their decisions?

The Minister ought not to take our intelligence for granted if he wants to be credible with the masses. The more you try to tell people to shove it, the more they will push back, especially online.

We can see what’s wrong for ourselves, even though we may not know the full picture. We don’t have to be told whether an issue is closed or not, and we’d be fools to let this matter rest with such vague and sweeping answers.

Sports may or may not unite a country, but a public dressing down of high-achieving sportsmen and their managers rankles everyone who has a degree of EQ.

Get it right, we’re not unhappy over individuals, we’re unhappy over the lack of sportsmanship and political etiquette by the people who are supposed to champion it.

Of course, this perception may be the result of the way the news report was broadcast. Who knows? But like I said, the entire country has been hurt, and there’s no remedy in sight.

Anyway, we can only talk here, won’t change anything except the hope we actually have an impact on Ms Lee’s ability to see sports in the way she should. Have a good laugh at Mr Brown’s latest MP3 on the Pingpongsaga.  

Update: Indeed, CNA’s report left out alot of stuff, probably because of the short time left for editing. ST’s report tells alot more, but my points above remain the same.

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Wikipedia picture of Nan Hua students. Picture by Mailer Diablo.

Our education system has evolved over time, in response to the changing needs of our nation, as well as the external environment. We have a first class education system that is respected internationally. But we can always do better. We want to maintain high educational standards that give every Singaporean student a valuable cachet and recognition worldwide. Moving forward, we want to create more space and focus in our system to impart values to our children. We want to nurture each child, to believe in himself and be self-sufficient, to care for his fellow man, and to be able to contribute to the larger society around him. These are simple goals of any public education system, but few can say that they have delivered. Singapore must aspire to attain these worthy educational goals. MOE will lead the way, but to succeed, we will need all stakeholders to support these initiatives.

- Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence, at the 4th Anniversary Public Lecture at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, on Thursday, 14 August 2008, at 11.30am

Educating The Next Generation

All great and good, dear Minister, but I’d also like the education system to be able to sport the following.

1. Impart (not teach) a proper history of modern Singapore and why we are the way we are today.

I doubt anyone reading this blog has a clear understanding of how Singapore came about. What we read in history textbooks in secondary school was sanitised and severely truncated. For eg. there was never a clear explanation why Singapore was booted out of Malaysia (ie. LKY vs Malay nationalism), because of the desire to maintain racial harmony in class. It took me years after school to finally see the bigger picture and hidden facts of the past. Kids today will probably learn more reading Wikipedia’s SG entry and the PAP-Umno conflict page. The first step to true nationhood is understanding your roots, and we don’t know it at all. Racism simmers under the surface of the society, but we often brush it aside as if it doesn’t exist, and many Singaporeans have no idea what type of region the small island is surrounded by.

2. Teach a view of Singapore that is not just through the Gahmen’s lenses.

This is going to be tough, given that PAP ideology stretches throughout the civil service and has been embedded for decades. There are many good things about PAP ideology (which they and media supporters keep harping on incessantly). But teachers need to be able to give a balanced perspective on all things. When foreigners criticise Singapore, it’s not always because they want to tell us how to run the country, but because they simply have a different viewpoint. The Singapore way is to tell this guys to shut up and cover our own ears…or sue them. What happens in the end? Our people grow up, see reality for themselves, and leave the country for good because they don’t want to be nagged at anymore. 

Brain drain doesn’t only occur because we are better educated academically, but because we may not want to stick around with people with closed minds and hearts. Teachers and students need to be able to question and prod the system that nurtures them, but the system still encourages rote learning at all levels. GP classes need to stretch minds, not impart fixed views. I guess scholarly policymakers don’t grasp this concept – Nationhood starts from the buzzing classroom, not some boring government public campaign or social studies textbook. Look at the French as a classic example – they argue about everything to death but they love the idea of France.

3. Get more teachers who actually know what the real world is.

I don’t know if anyone realises this – but teachers are being churned out like crazy out of NIE, and they become teachers without having any experience outside of the school system. As they are not affected by profit and loss margins, they don’t know the realities of the business world, economic shakedowns, the relationship between government and businesses, you scratch my back I scratch yours, ERP and parking costs, 360 degree employee feedback mechanisms and so on. These are things important for students to learn about because the world is getting increasingly flat and more competitive. I see young people today entering the marketplace thinking they deserve a mid-level manager’s post immediately because they have some fancy graduate or masters’ degree.

Wake up, kids, everyone needs to start at the bottom to excel at the top. Grades mean little in the long run when you cannot perform.

Of course, the question is why anyone doing well in the business world would want to teach a bunch of students and not get the pay they are used to.

4. Stop stressing on just performance but on individual development.

Obvious statement right? Every child is special, and every child develops at his own rate. Our system is unforgiving and does not recognise soft skills (another reason for the low levels of cultural development here). Self-expression and creativity is not truly encouraged because it does not help raise the school’s academic ranking or make parents desire to send their kids there. When some schools enter music competitions, the intent to win it is far greater than the intent to expose the students to musical expression.

Some kids don’t do well at studies, but they are potentially great leaders because they sport abnormally high EQ levels. Yet are teachers or the system able to nurture these people to reach their natural height of abilities? In ACS where I came from, there were teachers who could, and we appreciated them for there effort with eternal gratefulness. But it’s a thankless job when the majority are just focused on finishing the curriculum for the day.

5. Let the kids have fun

Duh. Many students spend too much time studying in Singapore, too little time hanging out, falling in puppy love, getting into hijinks etc. People learn life lessons from the mistakes they make, and I fear there is little room for such minor infringements in many schools to let students tumble and pick themselves up.

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All that stuff aside, what fascinated me most were the uber-powerful labels MM Lee used on Chee Soon Juan, and very successfully too – the local press immediately picked up on them and used them in the headlines.

“Political juvenile”

“Near psychopath”

You know, CSJ has been ranting for a good 16 years already, and is widely disregarded by rational local folks who have better things to do. Yeah, I want more liberties too, but more importantly, I need to pay the bills and feed the kids.

He’s said alot over the years, but I’ve sometimes felt that nothing has really registered because he hasn’t demonstrated the same mastery of the language that the Old Guard had/has. I once read an old speech to RI boys by Eddie Barker and boy, was he brief yet memorable in his words.

The right words, used just once (and not repeated again), calibrated carefully and in the right environment, will create a framework of thought that just sticks and refuses to disappear.

Now MM Lee’s two labels for CSJ are truly impressive – they are simple to understand, yet are loaded with meanings, and immediately carved out a public persona for people to frame CSJ into.

It doesn’t matter who you’re siding with politically. As someone who’s sometimes fascinated with the use of language and semantics, I’m struck by the use of those two labels and their sheer potency.

Politics is about pushing the right buttons, and life will really be more fun if more politicians here figure out how to use powerful language for their cause. All we hear these days is the boring language of administrators. We need more orators, poets and firebrands to spice up the imagination and drive emotions/thought, and that’s what the MM is really good at.

We don’t need a Speak Good English campaign. What we really need is a Speak Effective English campaign!

PS: Don’t bother commenting here, dear supporters of the Chees or even the Lees, this post is on language, not on which political side is better lah. ie. The older generation generally has a better grasp of English and its nuances. Fault of the education system or just a general trend towards simpler usage of English? Shrug, that’s for another day’s blog post.

PPS: From what I’m reading online about reactions to the court proceedings, I suspect some people may not even grasp the concept of “contempt of court”. Dear fellow citizens, please note that this is not an episode of Matlock or some John Grisham novel. If you think I’ve injured the raging political animal in you, you can always email me at iantan AT pacific.net.sg

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Well in design, you need to give elements their breathing space too.

Consider the pinnacle of Depression-era art – Norman Rockwell’s art pieces.

All Rockwell pics from www.normanrockwell.com

Space here is created not just to provide breathing space, but to provide potential space for the kids to swing into. Space sets the context, space gives the picture the ability to depict motion. Just imagine what this picture would have been like if the background was cluttered with other visuals – it just wouldn’t have the same impact.

Now look at this one:

Space is used to draw your attention first to the paper note, then lead your eyes back to the blue eyes of the kid.

These days, too much design is done without giving space, well, its due space. But there are ways to bend the rules.

For one newspapers can often swing from one extreme to another.

The lack of breathing space in the WSJ is deliberate. For practical reasons, squeezing text together reduces pagination and saves trees. For design reasons, the suffocating alignment is meant to drive an impression of intellectual superiority and information overload. It may not be a pretty design, but it’s an effective design.

Back in 2005, me and Simon Ang worked on the massive Canon photography series in The New Paper.

Click to see slightly bigger version! 

In this case, we had to give it sufficient breathing space because the full spread was over two tabloid pages, and allow a gutter running through the centre. It was really annoying that we didn’t have the centrespread to work with, but Simon did what he could to ensure the space drew attention to the text, and not just the pictures.

The following year (2006), the Canon series was designed by Cel Gulapa, and thankfully, we had the centrespread so we could go for a more integrated and tighter design.

My shameless use of wedding images of Edwin and my sis.

With hindsight, we could have really used less text in the body to give more breathing space, but you know, it was really tough balancing educating the public and getting the design right. So in 2007, when I developed The Young Photographer Of The Year series, me and the TNP artists (I believe Hup did the initial groundwork), simply went for visuals over text:

Doing the Canon photography series over three years really taught me how to take space seriously. As you can see, the series kept evolving in shape and form, and it’s a pity I won’t be doing any more such photography series from this year on. I was learning more design stuff with each instalment!

I could go on and on about optimal use of space, but my suggestion is to take a good look at how movie posters do it.

The Iron Man movie poster follows the classical style set by the Star Wars series:

In earlier instalments, I wrote about proportion and colours, and you can see how space is now added to the Iron Man poster for a real POW effect. Most of the poster is given a dark tone, and key characters are carefully brought out with the use of contrasting colours, spatial alignment and minimal gradients. I don’t agree with the use of the explosion visual next to Jim Rhodes though, it kind of spoils the entire image.

Now I was mentioning Star Wars, and the following is just about perfect in use of major elements:

The original 1977 poster!

The SW poster is brilliant because not only does it expertly balance light and dark visuals (yes, my Padawans…) the artist somehow managed to also introduce a radial element – see how the guns, X-wings, lightsaber etc manage to form a radial circle around Luke Skywalker. Frankly, they don’t make movie posters like they used to. Again, let me point your eyes to the careful use of space to create desired visual and emotional effects.

To sum up, here’s what’s important about space in visual design:

• Proper use of space is required if you want to create the right context for your images.
• There is no hard and fast rule to providing space in a design. It’s a matter of gut feel, and allowing elements to have "breathing space" or be isolated enough to appear important.
• Space can provide visual depth, or even remove depth (depending on how you use it)
• Less is more, but not always. It’s always good to have clean, simple designs with generous space allowances, but expert users will know how to fill up the space effectively (see WSJ eg.)
• Proper use of space, especially in interior design, creates ideal environments to work and live in. That’s why, as common sense tells you, you shouldn’t clutter your house with stuff! And neither should visuals be cluttered with too many elements.

Related posts:

1. Visual Literacy: Fonts Part I of II
2. Visual Literacy III: Proportion
3. Visual Literacy: Fonts Part II of II

Meanwhile, the public continues to read about what they already know. And they hang out only with like-minded people. There are huge cadres of people who are practically duplicates of each other. They all think alike, dress alike, and go to the same group-approved places.

With the slow death of newspapers, this beehive-like behavior is only going to get worse. And schools are not helping; they tend to have a political agenda and seem to limit, not enhance, world perspective. This is worsened by a de-emphasis on actual learning and an over-emphasis on personal self-esteem. The self-esteem movement in education has fostered underachievers who are now out in the world of business, taking on jobs as clerks and cashiers. They can’t add. They can’t spell. They have no idea where Chicago is located on a map. They can’t read a map, in fact. They are seemingly stupid and mostly incompetent. But hey, they think they are winners just because they’ve been told they are winners. It was drummed into them.

Losing Perspective – John C Dvorak

I’ve always liked reading Dvorak’s columns, since way back in 1989 (OMG it’s almost 2 decades!) when I would stand at the bookshop and browse through those ultra-thick editions of PC Magazine. Today, PC Mag is a very thin magazine, and most of the content is placed online anyway, but Dvorak hasn’t stopped his funny rants.

I liked him even more when I got to interview him when he visited Singapore back in 2003. Very level-headed, very engaging. And I think his latest column makes a lot of sense – basically the Internet may not be making us smarter, but more narrow-minded.

I’m also guilty of narrow-mindedness – I regularly read maybe 10 tech/gaming websites, apart from Fark and Facebook. So I do try to read BBC and CNN for a wide range of news and perspectives, and ST online for some local news.

Now you do require some high level skills to be able to sift through Internet junk and get a bird’s eye view of the universe, but how many young people are equipped to do that? I really don’t know, but it is worrying.

Related posts:

1. Goodbye, PC Mag print edition
2. PC Mag Vs Edelman
3. Write a book?

Proportion determines, whether we like it or not, whether you are pretty or otherwise.

Take for example, the two women whom I consider as among the top classical beauties of the past 50 years:

Monica Bellucci, with relatively little Photoshop touchup done on this pic. Still a babe though!

Cherie Chung, a picture from the 80s. Photoshop didn’t exist then, so yes, her skin really looked this good as airbrushes could only do so much then. 

Both are from different sides of the world, yet they share largely the same facial traits that made them incredibly famous in their respected hemispheres.

Note the following:

1. The length of their eyebrows, and how they frame the eyes

2. The size, shape, width of the lips, and their distance from the nose.

3. The relative size of the nose, versus the distance between the eyes.

Okay, this may seem biased to people who fit the Monica/Cherie mould, but as scientific studies have shown, there is apparently a Golden Ratio of 1.68 that works across most objects and architecture.

 Leonardo Da Vinci’s illustration from De Divina Proportione applies geometric proportions to the human face. (Wikipedia)

So it’s not just faces we should be concerned with when it comes to visual literacy and proportion. We have to be able to discern when architecture is out of whack, when cars are badly designed, or when furniture that we are buying will not fit in proportion to the rest of the house design.

Let’s take cars for example.

Why does a Toyota Corolla Altis, in my opinion at least, look better than a Vios?

Corolla Altis

Vios

Both share very similar design lines, but in order to squeeze the Vios down to a smaller capacity, the overall proportions took a hit too. Given the shape of the Vios windscreen and side windows, I feel that front portion is not long enough. The boot has also been reduced.

The result is that the Vios, although still a very capable car in its own class, looks too cramped and constricted from the exterior. Nothing wrong with it in the real world sense, but from an aesthetic point of view, the Vios could really do with a less obvious physical compromise.

Disclaimer: I own an Altis, but I’d rather own a Camry

So what do other car makers do when faced with such a scenario? The VW guys know this best – make the same compromises the key design element:

When you can’t beat them, accentuate them!

You would be surprised to find out how much work goes into the design of everyday items to ensure proper proportions, both in colour and other visual elements, exist to meet specific goals:

See how red and white are carefully proportioned to drive certain messages. Coke has a dominance of red to probably drive excitement/fun/fizz, and the white colour is used to highlight the cursive fonts more than anything else. Colgate, on the other hand, uses more white to possibly drive motivation to get your teeth cleaner, and the red is used to anchor the white element. So you’ll never see a yellow Colgate tube!

The same goes for interior design too.

In 2003, me and my sis Joanne decided to overhaul the Bishan flat, and here’s how our original kitchen looked – very 80′s, very generic, and very boring.

Our Bishan kitchen (1986 – 2003) 

I had a big headache trying to visualise how to redo the kitchen, and took a crash course in 3D software to come out with this:

Note that the proportion and placement of various items are all very deliberate. A black floor (easier to clean) and black Corian kitchen top, requires a large amount of bright tiles to prevent the kitchen from looking too constricted.

I also chose metal finishings for the wall cabinets to reflect more light and reduce the impact of the black floor tiles. The red colour was meant to anchor the entire colour scheme down and provide a visual focus and identity to the design. White portions (the sink and the washing machine) are simply used to expand the visual palette from three colours to four)

And here’s what the kitchen looked like after renovation, (very close to my 3D model). The floor is actually much blacker lah, as it wasn’t washed yet in this photo.

But till today, I’m not entirely satisfied with the proportions of the kitchen. The hanging cabinets are too long and reduce the "airiness" of the setup. It’s not the best looking kitchen on earth, but the proportions are both practical and aesthetic.

That ends this chapter of Visual Literacy!

Related posts:

1. Visual Literacy IV: Give Space
2. Visual Literacy course : Part 1
3. Visual Literacy: Colours

Boutet’s 7-color and 12-color color circles from 1708

We are surrounded by colours, but do we stay still long enough to appreciate the way colours play around with each other?

Why is the sky pleasant looking when it has white fluffy clouds with a cyan sky? Why does the same sky look so dull with grey monotone clouds? And why is it so beautiful with red dusky streaks at dusk?

Three different photos from my Bishan living room window, previously posted on this blog. Notice how the colour schemes lend a different mood – from slightly divine, to dark/moody to peaceful (from top to bottom)

That’s where colour theory comes in. For the long explanation, read the article at Wikipedia. There are also many differing colour theories, each with their own merits and tastes.

For the short explanation, read on.

Obviously, some colours go well together, some don’t.

Often, it really depends on your cultural outlook when it comes to choosing colours. Some ethnic groups like the dull green/brown/red (like some Peranakans) scheme, others like Technicolor combinations (like some sari-wearing Indians).

BUT one thing is common, is that no matter the palette of colours used, it’s useful to mix colors opposite each other on the above wheels (complementary colors), or colours next to each other if you want to accentuate a certain colour family, or even colours that alternate on the wheel.

Then again, why am I writing all this – I don’t even bother with the theory. I go by sheer gut feel and trial-error methods.

I believe that good colour theory is innate. You just got to keep trying different combinations to figure out what works and what doesn’t. For example, you don’t wear a maroon shirt with bright blue pants because of the clashing tones, and the "warm/cold" conflict. It’s better to look dull with a warm brown pants, than suffer to look like a clown.

Many Singaporeans, because they find it too much of a hassle to do so, or don’t realise the importance of colour theory, just go for safe and INCREDIBLY boring combis like black/black, black/white, black/grey, white/white…. you know lah. Boring and very serf-like. Unfortunately, the same principle applies to their choice of car colours (yawn).

Colours also need to be balanced against each other. 

When I take photographs, I do some quick mental calculations at the back of mind with regards to having the right colour mix and balance of tones. For eg, in the picture here of Isaac at the beach….

…I took into account the blue, the green and the sandy colour tones, then let Isaac be the foreground subject with his higher contrast colours (white clothing and tan skin). Composition of the photo’s elements not only take into account the relative size of the objects, but also their colour weightage in the photo.

So yeah, it’s a simple photo, but you can see how the careful balance of colours doesn’t let the background overwhelm the subject.

Using colors is an infinitely interesting thing to do, and it’s important to keep looking at beautiful pictures like the ones below because that’s where you also learn different palettes and how to apply them in your home decor or daily dressing.

Notice how Leonardo Da Vinci uses different palettes (Color combis) to create different effects. Mona Lisa exhibits a muted, duller palette to convey sophistication and mystery, while The Madonna Of The Carnation (below) uses more vibrant tones to achieve a mythical, divine scenario.

Color should also affect your choice of purchases. For example, Dell’s great XPS 1530 laptop originally came in three shades – deep red, blue and black. With the silver accents, blue just doesn’t look that good. Then you’re really down to choosing just the red or black versions.

Then it had to come out with this new colour combi : Pink and Silver.

The press release says:

Identified by Pantone as one of the Top 10 Fashion Colors for Spring 2008, pink is one of the new shades for the season. It was all over the 2008 Fashion Week runway shows and is expected to be a shade that women and celebrities will be draping themselves in all year.

Well, I’m not a fan of pink and silver (a bit Pink Panther, you think?), and I think the XPS (which is one laptop you should really buy if you want a powerful bang for the buck) needs more aggressive colours like red, maroon, purple etc to highlight its strengths as a machine.

Colours, needless to say, convey a whole bunch of meanings. If you can’t co-ordinate your colours for nuts, it may just indicate that you are sending out mixed or wrong signals to others.

Related posts:

1. Wall colours and photography
2. Visual Literacy III: Proportion
3. Visual Literacy course : Part 1