In Brands We Trust

This “transparency” thing has got me thinking.
If you’re not bogged down in the delightful world of marketing, here’s a quick catch-up. It’s pretty much what it sounds like. The metaphorical extension of the physical property of allowing light to pass through a material… that is: openness, communication and accountability. It’s all the buzz in the [...]

Make Some Creative Noise

If one more person says to me “Singapore’s so boring”, “there’s nothing to do here” or “there’s no opportunity to be creative” I think I’m going to throw up on their carefully curated sneakers.
Look around you people. The government, businesses and people in the creative industry are pretty much doing backflips to encourage people with [...]

Let Your Fingers Do The Talking

Perhaps this statistic will make you feel ancient. It did for me.
American teenagers send and receive an average of 2,272 text messages per month (almost 80 per day, or one every few minutes). Apparently it’s not uncommon for some to send hundreds every day.
That’s more than double the average from a year before.
I wonder what’s [...]

Through The Mist

I don’t write about Spark Media Lab projects much here. I’m trying to maintain that carefree illusion that I’m independently wealthy and just flit around town taking photos and finding things to complain about.
But Spark’s extremely talented senior designer Liow Hon Sang played a backstage role in some success recently and I thought it was [...]

If At First You Don’t Succeed… You’re Probably Creative

We’ve all experienced the reality gap. Probably much more so when we’re wide eyed and bushy tailed, fresh out of college, and less so as we progress in our careers. The gap narrows. Partly because our skills get honed and we get a lot better at our jobs. Partly perhaps because our ideals get tempered [...]

Putting Imagination & Creativity Back On The Curriculum

A simple definition of divergent thinking would be: the ability to see lots of possible answers to a question. It’s not the same as creativity, which is more about the process of having original ideas that have value, but it’s long been recognised as a prerequisite for it.
A test for divergent thinking would be something [...]

Putting Imagination & Creativity Back On The Curriculum

A simple definition of divergent thinking would be: the ability to see lots of possible answers to a question. It’s not the same as creativity, which is more about the process of having original ideas that have value, but it’s long been recognised as a prerequisite for it.
A test for divergent thinking would be something [...]

The Voice Of God

In television land, The Voice of God is that off-screen host you never see (Janet Housewife, come on down! You’re the next contestant…). No offense fundamentalists, I’m not making this up.
This past semester I’ve popped up (or reached down, as the case may be) as The Voice of God for a class of [...]

Creativity – Does Daddy Know Best?

I’ve seen quite a few Ted videos lately, but my favourite by far is Sir Ken Robinson talking on the topic “Do schools kill creativity?“
He’s an amusing man and although his talk appears effortless and conversational, he ticks off a number of astute points about recognising and nurturing creativity. It’s a sure sign of an [...]

Mothers, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys

The City of Santa Ana in Downtown Orange County has a number of handy ways to spot a tagger in YOUR family.