The PhilWeavers Murder by Design Conference

The lootbag contains a shirt, a mug, some stickers and an ID.

Update 3.17: Event pictures are online here

Murder by Design (MBD) is a biennial gathering of the members and supporters of the PhilWeavers, a network of web and graphic designers throughout the Philippines.

Held last Saturday afternoon at the 70s Bistro in Anonas Quezon City, this year's event looked to be a resounding success even minutes before it started. The registration queue spilled on to the street and already the place was packed when I came in, a good twenty minutes before the 3 pm expected start of the 6-hour event.

As a member of the organization, this would be my first time to see fellow designers in person, and I was rapt with anticipation of the impressive speaker lineup. A friend from Cebu, Leo, an art director for an outsourcing company came to town for this event with two of his fellow designers Ryan Anin and Neil Quisaba.

Emceed by Bel Ragay (greencapsule.org) and Jorem Castillo (spoonmarks.com), the conference kicked off with a keynote speech from Juan Magdaraog, creative director of Sparkplug Studios, afflicted with Pompe's disease, who spoke about "this ability" to succeed, where others might consider a disability in a high-pressure career environment.

The next speaker was Randy Villa, CFO of K2 Interactive, who delivered a PowerPoint business finance primer for design studios, small agencies and freelancers.

Kestrel IMC principal Dean Alfar talked about "Setting up your own Design Studio" which picked up where Mr. Villa left off; and proceeded to enumerate best practices in management, client servicing, and self-promotion in a creative business setting. I first heard this Palanca awardee speak in the Bloggers Summit in UP several months back, and had been following his blog for some time now. He was one of the more compelling reasons for me to attend, and it was clear from the audience that, in the compressed time allotment for each speaker, he pulled off one of the most animated and entertaining presentations of the day. There's a much better writeup of the whole thing here.

(PhilWeavers should put up links to the different presentations anytime now)

Liga Grafica came up next with sample works and a presentation reel of its member designers. I had admired Cynthia Bauzon's works and followed her career (thru her blog) since she left BBDO to start Tala studios with her hubby Arnold Arre, the multi-awarded illustrator. I gathered that Liga Grafica aims to be a collective to represent the Filipino graphic design community to the rest of the world. Speaking for our very own Cebugrafika, I intend to correspond with her soon to expand the link southward.

Team Manila wowed the audience with a visual rollercoaster ride of their "Graphic Designed Life Style". Spellbinded at such production values, I was further moved by how they derived inspiration from the everyday Manila, seeing it for its candid street culture combined with the inner city Pinoy's penchant for resourcefulness and adaptability. Their visual gab for familiar Filipino iconography translates to an eyecandy collection of merchandise: Rizal and Bonifacio in aviator shades; isaw, fishball and sawsawan bottles as pictograms; lamppost jungle, jeepney sticker art; sari sari store signage; all of which, true to their words, "elevates the mundane and all-too familiar to iconic status."

The band Mojofly played while we were having the Parokya Picha pie, which we loved enough to order another one. Too bad, I had one too many drinks to get another beer.

Electrolychee came in next. Now this is one duo I have been very very curious when I came across their work in Inksurge and a few European design sites. Electrolychee is Bru and Marcushiro, who presented "Why illustration-based design is pogi". I have to agree with Leo that theirs is the most seminal, entirely personality-based no-formula work; you can just see how much fun they had doing all that electrodelicious stuff.

My evening's fan boy moment came next when Drew Europeo went onstage to present Blackflood, a book project focusing on international submissions on the theme black and white. Like Cynthia Bauzon, I had been following her work since I came across her featured in Netdiver and discovering she's one of the designers behind Halfproject. I stopped myself short of asking for an autograph when she left the stage. Fanboy moment mine bites the dust. Hehe.

The conference capped off with the relaunch of the beloved Pagedown project, a ground-breaking theme-based monthly publication which started early 2000, and which opened my eyes to the then emerging contemporary graphic design scene in the Philippines. I remembered it was Joseph, a Cebuano web designer who invited me to contribute to this e-zine, which I never got around to doing, but which I managed to follow until it trailed off after a few years.

I was wondering what would happen to the future of Philippine design had a bomb dropped in that place. These are jolly fellows who take their craft seriously in the face of rampant intellectual property issues and the proliferation of faux creatives empowered by desktop technologies and a lot of Photoshop.

The talent meter was unbelievable, and judging from the outbound linkages, the Filipino graphic designer is just starting to get recognized in the international scene. We're a long way off to increase in critical mass to really matter, but the few who are in the forefront are certainly working towards the same vision.

And that, my fellow designers, should be wicked enough.