Vs. Manila Exhibitions

Three years after the seminal Project Versus exhibition,

15 design studios — from industry stalwarts to envelope-pushing youngbloods, come together for Versus 2 this 2009. VS2 is a charity exhibit benefiting two fledgling NGOs, and the various artworks will revolve around the 8 Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

Participants

27+20 / Robert Alejandro / The Acid House / Electrolychee / Dan Matutina / Darkbulb / EveryWhereWeShoot (EWWS) / Inodoro / Ge Madriaga-Mapa / Christian San Jose / Mike Sicam / Springboard / Studio Dialogo / Team Manila / Vgrafiks Design + Consultancy Agency

27+20

Versed in music and art, Nico Puertollano and Katwo Librando are 27+20. Katwo is an art director for an ad agency and Nico is a creative director + director for a visual effects and design post facility. 27+20 is a boutique that delves in print and broadcast design – an extension of the couple’s pursuit to close the growing divide between visual and commercial art and pave the way for an industry where artists are recognized for their talents and ideas rather than being skilled drones.

www.2720.tv

Robert Alejandro

This award-winning Filipino designer’s projects include space and environmental graphics for architectural projects, magazine and book design, including cover art and illustration for children’s literature and art tomes.

Since the 70′s, Robert has been designing items for the family gift shop business Papemelroti. Today, he continues to design products for various clients.

Tito Robert is known as “The Drawing Reporter” on Cheche Lazaro’s “The Probe Team”, and is often shown sketching during the reportage. He also hosted the popular “Art-is-Kool” art show for children.

www.raadesign.com

The Acid House

is a small, Philippines-based team of artists that conceptualize, produce, design, direct & animate various concoctions of motion design, live action, 2D & 3D animation. Take a sip of the latest mixes we’ve done for the broadcast, advertising & music industries. Acid House bagged four awards at the 2008 Animahenasyon festival organized by the Animation Council of the Philippines.

www.acidhousepost.com

Electrolychee

is a local studio in the Philippines that merges illustration with design. Our works play within the realms of slick, computer-generated vector art and organic, hand-drawn imagery. We are also full-time visual artists who frequently showcase our pop-inspired artworks in the metro’s alternative galleries.

www.electrolychee.com

Dan Matutina

(Twistedfork) is one of the Partners in Idea!s — a social enterprise that has been developing social communications & design for three years. With print, web, moving images and social design venues, they have created awareness, shifted paradigms and empowered social development organizations.

Apart from Idea!s, Dan illustrates, lectures on graphic design at the University of the Philippines (College of Fine Arts), blogs on social advertising at Osocio, bends forks for bracelets, creates shapes, speech balloon monsters and does a lot of other stuff in his free time. He also founded Plus63 (www.plus63.net), a website that features the most current perspectives on Philippine Creativity.

www.twisted4rk.com

Darkbulb

Is Nelz Yumul. When not working on his day job in a giant broadcasting network, he takes on projects under Dark Bulb, his graphic design moniker. He’s also one of the founders of WeWillDoodle, an art collective whose aim seems to be to make the world as disturbingly cute and colorful as possible.

www.darkbulb.net

EveryWhereWeShoot (EWWS)

The duo behind Everywhere We Shoot, Ryan Vergara and Garovs Garrovillo, trained under College of St. Benilde’s Design & Arts department (Ryan was a Multimedia Arts major, Garovs, Fashion Design and Merchandising), they worship art through photography, fashion, and graphic design, they established a style that’s unmistakably EWS: ironic and playful, always with a hint of humor. They simplify the complicated, and exaggerate the basics. They clean up the dirty and stain on the clean. They glamorize the masses, and make the high-end seem reachable.

www.everywhereweshoot.com

Inodoro

is a Cebu-based graphic design joint founded in 2003 by PJ Ong & Cy Sanoria. Our work ranges from illustration, print, branding, web, multimedia, photography, motion graphics, graffiti (interior and wall art), design merchandise and such.

Inodoro envisions itself to become a creative force providing fresh new ideas and raising visual communication into a new dimension.

www.inodoro-design.com

Ge Madriaga-Mapa

after finishing a degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts Major in Advertising at UST, immediately got a slot in Publicis Philippines Adschool (an agency program offered only to a selected few). At present, she’s a Senior Designer at JWT Manila. To keep her sane from her usual logo-mandated projects in the office, she does her own art expressed through graphic design from fashion to album covers, and sometimes just getting a kick out of an exhibit.

Christian San Jose

is a 20-year old Graphic Designer and Illustrator based in Pasig, Philippines. During the past year he has worked with clients such as Nike Phil., The Coca-Cola Company Phil., ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation, and OctoArts Films, under Team Manila Graphic Design Studio Inc. as its Art Director. As a freelance artist, he has collaborated on the branding and merchandise of such big-name bands as Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, Cobra Starship, Family Force 5, Worth Dying For, Plain White T’s, and Forever the Sickest Kids. He currently works full-time as a Senior Designer for Internet Marketing at US Auto Parts Network (Philippines) Corporation.

www.csj89.com

Mike Sicam

continues to push the boundaries of advertising by incorporating different media–like art, sculpture, and online channels–to find new ways of communicating to people and building brands. Presently an Associate Creative Director at Ogilvy Manila, Mike has received recognition for his work from both local and international competitions. Campaign Brief Asia, a leading industry magazine, ranked him in 2007 as one of the Top 10 Advertising Creatives in the Philippines.
He consistently tries to expand his horizons and exercise his creative muscles by taking part in art exhibits. In 2006, he participated in “VS: Design vs. Music”, a group show held in Makati City. Another show, “Alternate Endings and Deleted Scenes”, happened a year later.

Springboard

is a fledgling directing collective. It combines creative minds from different disciplines of commercial art and produces inspiring and innovative work.

In the past 3 years, Pancho Esguerra, Mark Mendoza and Greg Garcia have collaborated on various commercials, music videos, and various other small screen projects. Well received because of their high-art direction value, thorough production design and eye-popping motion graphics, these videos won for the fledging directors numerous local awards and nominations.

Their creative success motivated the threesome to formalize their combined efforts, hence: Springboard was born.

www.wearespringboard.com

Studio Dialogo

is Abi Goy, Liza Flores, and Jesse Liwag. We’re a small design company offering web design, graphic design, and corporate identity design. We believe design and creativity are important for any organization, big or small. Studio Dialogo is based in Quezon City, and was formed in 2006.

www.studiodialogo.com

Team Manila

is a multi-disciplinary graphic design studio based in the Philippines. It has worked with only the most prolific creative individuals in the fields of fashion, photography, events, and production. Team Manilas clients come from the fashion, art, music, film, and broadcast industries. Each project is treated as an opportunity to enhance the clients message, product, or service through the language of graphic design.

www.teammanila.com

Vgrafiks Design + Consultancy Agency

is a social design enterprise that works with individuals, organisations and corporations on a diverse range of commercial and social development projects ranging from advertising, branding, marketing, print and interactive digital media.

Through the years, our team has produced an extensive portfolio of work ranging from advertising, art direction, branding, print and interactive online campaigns to project management, street advocacies and social development projects.

www.vgrafiks.com
Limited Edition Totes

Limited edition VS2 tote bags will be available for purchase at the opening on August 13, 8pm.

Three years after the seminal Project Versus exhibition,

About Versus
Even if they’re not aware of it, every institution utilizes graphic design

to pass on information—say, through well-executed posters, a recognizable logo, or the organization’s website. Though it is lauded mostly as an effective advertising crutch, graphic design is also recognized as a contemporary art form, not just in its industry, but by urban communities as well.

Now, after witnessing firsthand how interest in the medium as a lucrative career and art expression has taken hold in the Philippines, the original proponents of Project Versus have come together once again to present a body of work that represents their ever-evolving craft, alongside stalwarts whom we’ve always looked up to even before the computer became an indispensable design tool, and young bloods who continue to push the boundaries of graphic design.

Versus I
The concept of Versus has always been about design collaborating with another tangible discipline.

For our seminal 2006 exhibit, Versus: Design and Music Collide, graphic design studios paired with musicians to create visual representations of these aural artists’ compositions. Besides the exhibition, Project Versus also produced limited edition designer kits containing a CD of the featured songs and merchandise from graphic design’s best.

Versus II
This exhibit is dedicated to art advocacy,

a catch-all term for promoting the arts. This is inline with renowned American designer, Milton Glaser’s Designism movement. An “articulate spokesman for the ethical practice of design,” Glaser and his Art Directors Club fellows birthed the movement in 2006, believing that design has a social intent to create a better world.

Giving form to intent, artworks created for the exhibit will be inspired by the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG). These goals– “which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.”
VS2: Design Changes will prove two things:

that graphic design is an ever-evolving art form, and that—as an engine of modern communication, it is an excellent platform for social change.

VS2 is a satellite event of Manila Design Week.

Venue and Duration

VS2: Design Changes will run from August 13 until September 4 at Alliance Française de Manille. The cultural institution and gallery is located at 209 Nicanor Garcia Street, Bel-Air II, Makati City.

Limited Edition Totes

Three years after the seminal Project Versus exhibition,

Share the Event

Tell about the event in Social Networking sites.
Facebook / Del.icio.us / Digg / Twitter / Stumble Upon / Myspace

Spread the Word

Post the VS2 poster in your websites, blogs, etc. Right-Click and “Save Image As..”

Limited Edition Totes

Limited edition VS2 tote bags will be available for purchase at the opening on August 13, 8pm.

This exhibit would not be possible without our Patrons:
Bench / Human / Ipanema / M.O. Dermatologic Laser & Surgery Center / Philippine islands
Oishi / Gallery 7 Digital Studio

VS2 is a satellite event of:
Manila Design Week 2009