My first lesson in graphic design

Being singer of Frontline, a local singing group specialize in multi-part harmony contemporary Chinese Christian music, I got exposure in music, audio, adminstrative and PR things. But I never think of it as my first step in graphic design. I would say it's just one of chances passing by me in one day, however I'm grasped by the magic, and start to spend time and money in exploring the real art of graphic design.

Frontline decided to setup an independent non-profit making organization in Hong Kong in year 2002, to promote Chinese Christian music (especially group singing culture) in church and outside church. The first thing came into our mind is namecard design. We have developed some ideas about our mission and ministry: vocal mechanics (I should write an article on this later in Frontline Forum), music production and evangelist. These three words kept evolving in my mind, and finally it became the concept of group of gears - they have to stay close together, work close together in order to transfer energy from one place to another, and this is the spirit of group singing too.

I invited my friend Mathrew Chan to be our designer of namecard. We had a nice dinner, talking about the concept of Frontline and namecard. He started designing using pencil and paper at the restaurant, and then Macintosh G4 workstation at my home workshop. He used Macromedia Freehand to finish the whole design. I sat by his side, watching every move he made, occasionally asking him questions about the software, design process and offset printing. I helped in choosing font, color and content of the namecard. Within three hours time, the namecard was finished. It is a two-color design, and I finally chose blue background color with blacks words in the printing company.

It was 2002/07/22 23:15 - 2002/07/23 02:30, my first lesson in graphic design.

I'm just having fun

My occupation is recording / sound engineer, while I love to involve in graphic design projects in leisure. Not a graphic designer, since there's still a long way to go. I'm just having fun in graphic design.

Having no formal training at all, I learn graphic design by observation. I love to watch people doing graphic design, and that's the way I learn software and design process. I do read a lot of design books, and I love to dig into design elements in daily life. "Design" is so cool to me, it's visual mean to communicate, to express emotions and to enhance beauty (aesthetics). When I come across design items in daily life, no matter in areas of interior design, furniture design, product design or graphic design, I know that there're designers backstage taking care of me. They bring convenience and beauty to my "would be" ordinary life, and I'm really thankful to all of them.

Being a "free"lancer, I didn't get outside jobs aggressively from day one. My major works are for Frontline (a singing group involves in Hong Kong's Chinese Christian music scene which I've joined over ten years), friends' weddings and ad hoc outside jobs refered by clients. I never think of displaying my portfolio in public, since most of the works are conservative and not-that-fun to me. Upon my recent work: wedding invitation card and programme booklet for my friends Danny and Tim Tim, I start to become much adventurous in using fonts, color, and other graphical element. I start to enjoy graphic design so much, and unexpectedly I'm addicted in my own works. Clients can read messages from my works, which encourage me to share my works with more people, to hear from you, thus enhancing my ability in communication.

It's not my wish to get all of you "loving" my work. I'm just here to get some noise from you, no matter good or bad. I love to know your interpretation and feeling over my works.