14 Logo Contests Won and It Flies

    Well it didn’t take too long for me to bag another victory. I am just so thankful for the opportunities given to me. This time I won a contest for the logo of a Beauty Company. What’s good about it is that the winning design was rooted from the first and only conept I’ve submitted to the contest. No new concepts were submitted and not much was changed. Here it is and hope you’ll like it:

Brand Name: Evolve Beauty

Price Money: $100

Total Number of Entries: 106

Butterfly! Tell me what you think! 

13 Logo Contests Won and Counting

    Well my momentum hasn’t slowed down so much if we’re talking about Logo Contest Victories. About just a week after my last win with the "Electroland.gr" logo contest, I was truimphant once again and this time it is a contest for the logo of a certain networking company, called "6degrees".

     This takes my record to 13 wins and I ain’t planning on stopping any time soon.

    Here is my latest winning logo:

Brand Name: 6Degrees Connect

Price Money: $100

Total Number of Entries: 50

Scariest Movie I’ve Seen for a While!

    I was able to get a hold of this Spanish Movie "[rec]". The title is supposed to be taken from the caption you see on you camera’s screen while you record. Well to give you an idea of what it is like, I’d say it used the same concept as the Blair Witch Project. Yet even though you are aware about the concept of the movie, its not really that hard to suspend your disbelief. This is because of the amount of realistic styles used in it. The naturalness of the actors, the long uncut scenes and the seemingly absent post-production effects all help in making you say "Whattaf#ck?! This  actually feels too real!" 

    I saw the movie for the first time today and I had Summer Production Workshop class watch it with to, you know, let them feel the Power and Realism of Video and Documentary Style Production. All I told them was we were going to watch a Spanish film and it is in documentary style. I assume not many of them got my description 100% clearly but that was the whole point. And so it paid-off. You couldn’t imagine the chaos that transpired after the first couple of shocker-scenes. Some students were actually wishing that the whole thing is fake and everytime they ask me, I just looked at them with a smile.

    To be totally honest, I truly believe that "[rec]" is the Scariest Movie I’ve seen for quite a while now. I never had a problem suspending my disbelief in films and that really helped me enjoy this movie. I recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have any heart or mental condition and if you do watch it, trust me, you’d want to do so with a big screen and kickass sound system. Just remember one thing, leave the popcorn behind. You’ll just probably spit it back out for most of the film.

Watch this trailer! 

12 Logo Contests Won and Counting

    As I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, I have been earning some buckaroos designing logos. Well, basically there’s this site, 99designs.com, where design contests are posted and designers submit their entries by uploading them. At first, I still struggled.. and man did I struggle. It took me around a whole month and 30 contests to taste my first victory. It was for $100 and for a fashion consultant named "rana saab". (you can check out the logo at www.ranasaab.com) Then a month later, I won another contest and this time it was for an anime website (www.realitylapse.com). So my success in the contests were sort of slow until recently. Since February 2008, I’ve won a total of 8 contests and about $1,500. Its really not a bad way to earn a living if you ask me.

    That’s well and good but why stop there? I know this one designer over at 99designs.com who has won a total of 173 contests as of this writing and right now he wins about two contests A WEEK! So my goal now is to reach that level and I want to share it to the world. That’s why I want to start documenting my Logo Contests Victories so I can evaluate my progress and maybe you can help to.

This is a screenshot of my profile page at 99designs.com which features my winning logos which is a total of 12 as of this posting. 

    So let’s start with my latest triumph which was in a logo contest for a website, named electroland.gr which is basically an online eectronic appliance shop. This contest is extra special because I almost gave up on this since I wasn’t hitting the right mark for the client. Then on my last shot, a sudden burst of ideas came up and I ended crating what would become the winning design for the contest.  Here it is:

Brand Name: Electroland.gr

Price Money: $250

Total Number of Entries: 139

 So that’s where I’m at so far. Hopefully there’s more in the future so for now, I’ll just keep on working on my designs and hope to get better and better. This is something I highly recommend to any artist so if you think you have what it takes, then go and try it. 

Playboy Philippines already out, But boobies stay in

    I guess everyone (or every straight guy) knows about it by now that Playboy Philippines has been launched. I’m sure it got a lot of Pinoy men pumped and I for one will admit that it got me interested. That’s because this means that we are going to see local beauties like we’ve never seen before… right? Well, not exactly. There’s a catch. Beting Laygo Dolor, Playboy Phiippines’ Editor-in-chief said that the our version of the racy magazine will NOT show full frontal nudity. (enter trumpet blows here).

    Wait… let me think this through for a minute. So this means that we are only getting another "FHM" or "Maxim" like mags on the shelves in the Philippines? or perhaps we might consider FHM more aggressive. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m going to hit the streets and rally for my right to see some naked women. What i’m saying is I don’t see how Playboy came up with this idea. Haven’t they done any research on the current Philippine Pop Culture? Our society has been tolerant enough to accept GP ratings for comedy movies that has very suggestive themes, to allow tabloids to be displayed on sidewalks with pictures of scantily clad women on the cover and don’t even get me started with our primetime television shows. I always thought that Wowowee might as well have the tagline "Almost Porn" on their title screen. At least they’d be honest on what really is their top selling point. I mean, who are we kidding? We are so westernized that we might as well call this country the "United Islands of America". 

    So what I want to see now is for how long are they going to keep this catch up until they realize that they are not giving anything new to their Filipino target market. I hear that they are planning to make-up for the lack of nudity with some good writing, Huh? So what?… You’re just going to write a very good description of how the model’s naked body looks like??

Biked Bag Snatching in Davao City

    Yesterday was one of the most dramatic days in my life. Something horrible happened to someone  I care about.

    I was walking along Illustre Street, while accompanying my sister and brother-in-law to look for a PC unit to buy, when my mom called me up. As I answered my cell, I immediately felt the panic in my mom’s voice. I knew then that something terrible has happened. It happened to my cousin. My mom told me to stop what we are doing and go to my cousin as she needs our help. After my mom told me the details, I ran back towards my sister and her husband to tell them about it. I told them that we had to go. Our cousin had been a victim of Bag Snatching. The culprit was mounted on a Motorbike and what’s worst is our cousin was dragged along the road as her bag was snatched. We immediately got into our truck and sped through traffic to get to our cousin.

    We got to Marfori Heights where my cousin boarded. We quickly got out of the truck and went inside the boarding house. One of the boarders there pointed towards where the incident happened. Apparently, she was only meters away from her boarding house when the snatcher spotted her. What aweful timing! We then found our cousin. I heard her crying while she was inside the bathroom. People were standing and talking by the bathroom door. Everyone is concerned. I called out her name. She told us to just give her a minute as she’s tended to her wounds. As she got out of the bathroom, I can see blood all over her. That’s when I felt like crying but I wasn’t so sure as to why. Is it because I felt sorry for her? Or is it because of the overwhelming rage that surged through my body? After she had put on some clothes, we escorted her out then one of her boardmates told us that the police are on their way. We decided to wait for them a bit before taking her to the hospital. And quickly enough, the two mobile police units got there. When one of the officers saw my cousin and laid eyes on her wounds, surely enough, he was furious. "Buhi pa diay nang mga buanga na!?" (Are those wackos still alive?!) The cops then asked some questions. One of the bystanders actually saw the culprit as he was driving away. The snatcher was on a red bike, wearing a red helmet, white shirt and a brown cargo short pants. The police then got on their radios and informed all mobile units about the description of the culprit. Right then I totally wished that they catch the son-of-a-bitch! Our cousin then told us that she can no longer stand the pain so we rushed to Davao Doctors Hospital.

    In the Emergency Room, the doctors treated her wounds. Even the medical staff were enraged by the incident. They cannot believe that something like this could still happen in our city considering how justice is handled arround here. She’s got injuries on both her hands, arms, shoulders, hip, knees and legs. Thankfully, her face did not suffer any gash at all saving her beautiful face. As she was being treated, my cousin wept and wept in pain. There were times that she would scream in agony. I stayed with her all through out wishing that somehow i could take away at least some pain from her. At that moment I wished that the assailant endure as much pain as she did if not more.

    In moments like this are when a person would be forced to eveluate their own sense of justice. That is especially true if your in Davao City where summary executions happen everyday. I‘ve always thought that the existence of such people as the Davao Death Squad is wrong… but its not always that I thought of them as unnecessary. I still think that my cousin’s assailant deserve nothing but pain and suffering. Although it is not merely for punishment but also to serve as lesson to him and people like him who still exist in this world. And for the rest of us who are striving to live honest lives, let us not forget that we also have our responsibilites to stand up against crime. Fight these unlawful acts any way we can. Let these criminals know that they cannot go arround doing such things and get away with ease.

    As for the f#^king maggot who chose to victimize my cousin: I doubt if you’ll be able to read this but we would never know. I do not wish death for you, you bast@rd! No! Death is the last thing I wish that would happen to you. If you’re still too stupid to change your ways, I wish that you rot for the rest of your life.That you will realize how worthless your life has become and that fear will eat you alive. I want you to realize that there is no happiness in the life you chose. That all the misery you have brought upon other will come back to you and more. Are you happy with what you did with my cousin? And for what? For 800 pesos, a bunch of IDs and papers that’s worth nothing to you? Are you satisfied with what you’ve done? No! I guess not! My cousin will heal and she can buy a new bag. And you… your miserable life is far from healing and there is NO WAY you can buy a better life with what you’ve stolen! You better wish I don’t see you WHEN you get caught!

Buda Trip Part 2 (Video)

I’ve finally finished editing our video documenting our trip last March 28-30 at Buda, Philippines. This is our second trip there this year with the same group. Ofcourse, there were additions to the group because of the video of the first trip. hehehehe! 

Have you ever been inside Manny Pacquiao’s Mansion?… I have!

Since Manny Pacquiao was all over the media today, I decided to share another experience i had with the new World Champ. It was February of 2007 when we had a Video Project involving Manny Pacquiao and it was set in Gensan. We were invited by Pacman himself to hang out in his mansion. This was so because he was begging us to let him take a nap first before finishing the shoot and he even said that we could do anything we want while we were in his home. This just shows  how hospitable the Filipino Boxing Legend is. So now I will share to you some pictures I’ve taken while inside, as I would like to call it, the "PacMansion".

  Thats me and behind is the  Boxing Glove Pool and  Pacman’s recreational house (a seperate building where Manny keeps his vehicles and a game room and trophy room on the second floor)

This is when I was inside Pacman’s trophy room. Behind me is the main house and I think Manny’s room is in the window which you can see just above my head. (not sure. hehe!)

Haha! Pacman let me hold the WBC world title in his trophy room. People still can’t believe this picture everytime I show it to them.

 Well, those were just the top 3 pictures I had while inside the PacMansion.  Wish I could visit again soon.