What used to be an annual stand-alone event, Graphika Manila 09 has become the ultimate activity of Manila Design Week 2009. Like its two precedent episodes, Graphika Manila 09 introduced its roster of groundbreaking local artists, and a few top-notch international names.
Establishing an extremist perspective, Ryan Vergara and Garovs Garovillo of Everywhere We Shoot stuck their business card in the design books in popular, high-end bookstores. How enterprising can one get? At one point of the presentation, Vergara showed a photoshoot where Ely Buendia (of Eraserheads and Pupil fame) hams it up, dancing, and deadpanned, “We’re glad nothing bad happened to him then.”
In a theater-full of graphic designers and artists, adobo magazine featured recent eye-popping campaigns that blew the Cannes Lion Awards like BBDO Proximity Malaysia’s Jeep, Japan’s UNIQLO, and The Zimbabwean newspaper, the adobo magazine pair of Angel Guerrero, editor-in-chief and Cynthia Dayco, founding editor, introduced the delicate marriage of design and advertising and how the most successful campaigns complement both crafts.
To have George Lucas as a boss is perhaps a daunting task or a dream come true. For Alzmann, it is both. As visual effects art director for Industrial Light and Magic, Alzmann created the fun stuff on Van Helsing, Star Trek, and Indiana Jones Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as well as Terminator: Salvation and War of the Worlds.
Thanks to a skiing accident involving his boss, Ludo Schorno landed for the first time in Manila. Brand New School is responsible for most of MTV2 and VH1 interstitials and intros and Schorno’s presence at Graphika Manila is representative of graphic design’s supreme reign over pop culture as established by television and music
Sagmeister’s stint was extraordinary, starting with meditation and Bali and midway, an impromptu sing-along to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy featuring lyrics the artist penned just that morning. Amazing material from this artist who designed album covers for the Rolling Stones, David Byrne and Lou Reed.
True to Filipino fashion, the global trio was deluged with autograph and photo-op requests that left the organizers agog. Graphic designers, cross-pollinating pop culture, may be the next pop stars. If they aren’t yet.
