New Cyber Home: Fuse

Here is copy done for Fuse's revamped website.

Again, the idea is to inject youth and playfulness into the words while continuing the brand's stance of being a family.

This time also, I've kept the copy minimal according to brief. Just enough to get a feel of the personality.

After all, the reel speaks louder than any words.

Art/illustration done by the ever-talented Walter Teoh, of course.

Office ID and Website: Fuse Adventures in Audio

Being the wife of an audio house owner has its perks. It means I can flex my creativity in other forms. (And I guess I can record my own album of self-penned ditties free-of-charge if I want to, not that I should!)

I may not have expertise in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop but putting art on walls and applying it to a given space according to a budget is both fun and challenging in a good way. Interior design to me is understanding the business or intent of a space. And then mixing texture with colours and form - and with the results - decorate an empty void to inject personality, meaning, function and a livability into it.

Understanding the Business

Fuse's modus operandi is to do with the playful exploration of sound to create interesting scores, tracks and sound design for their clients, hence their tagline: Fuse. Adventures in Audio. They also pride themselves on being a family of sound engineers, producers and composers - creative people - whose different strengths contribute to the identity and success of the company.

Working with the Basics to Create a Colour Theme

I drew out the core essence of 'play' and went back to the basics of cyan, magenta and yellow which are playful and cheerful colours in themselves (individual strengths), but as a team (family), form the building blocks of other colours (possibilities).

Cooking the Scheme for the Kitchen

Everyone looks forward to meal times! So what better colour to use on the main wall than yellow which communicates lightness and joy. To complement the wall, a canary-yellow SMEG fridge was thrown in. (Well, not literally.) Meanwhile, beehive-patterned tiles in black and white were used to play off the brightness and create some texture against the plain surfaces on display. To this end, colourful crockery in playful patterns and primary colours were also purchased.

Minimalist working stations

The Working Area

Work stations are where the most time is spent by an employee. With limited space, there was a need to avoid non-functional furniture so that only essential would be used. As such, I didn't do much with the space here except designate the colour blue for the wall, and select the styling of the overhead cabinets as well as the work tables and office chairs.

The meeting area plus space divider

The cyan wall helps to cool down the space and aims to reduce the stress of being at the computer at long stretches. 

The same colour was applied to the meeting room which is separated from the other spaces - not by a wall and a door - but by a DIY recyclable space-divider in cream and yellow.

The divider can be pulled open and shut from side to side.









First Impressions

The small tight landing leading from the lift to the main entrance features a black and white graffiti-styled wallpaper expounding love. If you wonder what the love is for, you will wonder no more because the two imposing 5-ft tall 'speakers' in pale pink (okay, it's kind of light magenta) that flank the door will clue you in on the topic of affection.

The landing: Pink speakers customised from unused shoeboxes, plastic and foam

Feature Walls

There are two feature walls to stare at once you've entered the office. The hall features a geometric wallpaper design that provides dynamism. And the adjacent wall (which helps cordon off a small relaxation den from the hall with the aid of a huge book-shelf) features scores of old and new vinyl in individual racks to underscore the owner's love for music. Belo, a turntable sits perched on an old 60's cabinet, complete with scratches from wear and tear that you - ironically - won't find on the records.

The hall: Retro purple armchairs and magenta-pink-yellow-orange rug.
Note again the art-easel TV stand, this time in white.

Music den: Records, records, records and a 60's turntable stand from the Salvation Army.
The little armchair and faux cattle rug in the corner are for relaxation and music appreciation.

Cyan, magenta, and yellow here and there. Note the art-easel TV-stand in yellow.

The yellow studio with the glowing bird-nest light

The Studios

The primary colours of cyan, magenta and yellow were used not only throughout the office. Different combinations of these colours were applied to the two studios as well. 

Wallpaper on the main walls feature fun, frivolous outlines of office lofts and buildings with random splashes of colour (either in yellow or magenta and blue). The opposite wall would be flushed either in yellow or cyan, depending on the studio.

Armchairs and cushions and rugs in the other primary colours (with some cream to offset the chestnut-brown furniture) are used to play off the colours in the wallpaper and painted walls.

Painting the Space with Furniture and Decor

Meanwhile, the choice of furniture and decor is an eclectic combination of retro and modern. By modern, I mean TV stands customised to look like art easels, a SMEG fridge, yellow bird cages, etc. (By modern, I also mean affordable but modules with clean classic lines from the reliable IKEA like the rugs, office chairs and work tables, reading chair, cuboid stools and studio cabinets.) Because of space limitations, the number of pieces was kept to a minimum without giving off an overly sparse feeling that suggested a 'sudden death in budget'.

To optimise the budget, the decision was to purchase 1 or 2 expensive items (read: desired piece) for each different segment of the office. Example: Retro cabinet and oval coffee table in the hall, SMEG fridge in the kitchen, oval coffee tables and retro armchairs in the studios.

Meanwhile, the decor ranged from quirky yellow bird cages to an old white 60's TV (on a stand), porcelain birds; and feature lights in bird-nest styling that help punctuate space with the warmth and cosy suggestion of home.

The Website

The link to the website here leads you to the old website prior to the launch of Fuse's new branding of 'Adventures in Audio'. The website is under construction and I'll update the link here soon. The copy was provided by me while the styling and images are courtesy of Kevin Lee, a web designer based out of KL.

You'll notice that the references and tone used in the copy reflect the concept of out-of-this-world audio. The use of quirky humour is deliberate and meant to show off the audio house's playful nature.

The landing page: Choose the avatar on the right or left to begin navigating through the website

The Monkeysuit Protocol: August Man Magazine

I took a break from advertising after the birth of my son in 2009. But I found a fun and fulfilling hobby writing for an NGO (Liberal Banter) who runs the LoyarBurok blog, a platform for social activism and all those who want to write for the good of human kind.

For a year (2010-2011), I worked with a lawyer named Adrian Chew, one of the curators of the blog, on a series of educational but entertaining articles on laws and human rights for a column in August Man, Malaysia's premier magazine for men. The lawyers who started the blog always complained that the average Malaysian had trouble understanding the jargon and dry narrative on articles concerning laws important to every Malaysian. Through the August Man articles, I employed dry wit and conversational English to simplify the scenarios that would call for certain laws. The series of 12 articles were published under the Monkeysuit Protocol banner and can be found here. Just click on any article with the Monkeysuit Protocol prefix in the title.

As both contributor and part-time curator of the blog, I've also written a few articles on topics that concern the average human living in the modern world and/or are important to me. These can be found here, here, here and here.

Hopefully, you'll notice that my style of writing is versatile and shifts according to the target market I'm talking to.

Sci-Fi and Chinese Drama on Channel 9

Campaign: "Subtitles"/"Missing" - TV

Product: Channel 9

Client: Channel 9

Problem: A new channel offering continuous hours of each popular program genre was being launched. We had the perfect medium for dramatisation. So what could we dramatise?

Solution: Offering genre belts meant a person could get more of what he/she likes in a sitting. So the idea of super-serving came up. Essentially you could have so much sci-fi that missing items and UFOs spill into your daily life. Or you could have so much Chinese drama that there's even drama surrounding the Chinese drama. Things like that.

Respect the Ford Ranger

Campaign: "Ran"/"Reverse"

Product: Ford Ranger 4X4 Automatic

Client: Ford

Problem: Pick-up trucks was a competitive category in the 2000's. Toyota Hilux and Mitsubishi Triton were doing well. Meanwhile, Ford as a badge was no longer the pedigree it had once been in the 80's and early 90's, although the brand had long established itself in the country as a formidable car-maker. As one of the earliest 4X4 pick-up entrants into the scene, it still had the advantage of reminding the target market of its built-tough quality, a promise it had made for almost a decade. The challenge then did not lie in creating a proposition that was unique as the hygiene factor for this category was always going to be 'toughness'. Instead, we had to up the ante in interpreting what 'toughness' meant.

Solution: We used TV to dramatise quiet strength. The sort of strength that wasn't brash or obvious or noisy, but that commanded respect. Hence, simple scenarios of everyday life where such respect would be offered were story-boarded and shot.

D6nce wih Kent

Campaign: Desi9n, D6nce, Fash1on (D6nce series)
Product: Kent cigarettes
Client: British American Tobacco

Problem: During the middle 90's to mid 2000's, cigarette brands in Malaysia hinged on a sponsorship platform to escape rules on direct advertising. Salem was big on sponsoring tennis. Dunhill dominated football which took a chunk out of its profits. Its sister brand, Kent, which though unique and came in 3 different strengths (1, 6 and 9 with 9 being the strongest), was left with a small budget and a challenge to create a positioning that would attract and stick.

Solution: The brand eventually zeroed in on the design, dance and fashion-loving crowd - a crowd conscious of aesthetics and who lived on the edge; a crowd unique enough to take up the product's unique charcoal-filtered flavour too. By sponsoring dance music which was exploding in the music scene, fashion and design shows and exhibitions, the brand soon gained a cult following among a niche but loyal group.

Press #1 for the Osmosis event

Press #2 for the Osmosis Event

A promotional magazine advertisement for Dance Music hour on a local radio station

The Second National Car that Cares

Campaign: Corporate Festive - Christmas, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Hari Raya
Brand: Perodua
Client: Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Negara

Problem: A lot of big multi-national corporations invest in corporate feel-good messages during the key festive seasons throughout the year. As a manufacturer of cars, we wanted to anchor the messages on something utilitarian and useful. Further, Perodua cars were not expensive cars but instead priced to be affordable to the middle-class Malaysian. These were cars for the working-class and it was important to represent the views of this class.

Solution: To give the campaigns an edge, we created stories that contained (and hopefully encouraged) social consciousness. For Chinese New Year, it was about bridging gaps and closing distances. For Deepavali, it was about beating down misperceptions borne out of our innate racist views. For Christmas, it was about responsible driving.

Here are some of the ads and TV commercials that have been done for this purpose.

Hari Raya: Asking for forgiveness isn't only the duty of one party

The TV commercial below was created for Christmas and is a dramatisation of the devastating effects of alcohol. In the spot that mimics a typical product commercial promoting the safety features of a car, we are shown ultimately how such features cannot protect us from the dangers of driving under the influence.