An Odyssey

T E N WE E K S T H A T MA T T E R S .
ROMARI O S UWANDY
A N O D Y S S E Y
T E N W E E K S T H AT M AT T E R S
ROMARIO SUWANDY
AN ODYSSEY: TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERS.
An editorial written in conjunction of second industrial training
at DraftFCB Kuala Lumpur commisioned by
Taylors University Malaysia & Northumbria University.
Copyright 2014
TAB L E OF C ONT E NT S

If pain doesnt lead to humility,

you have wasted your suffering.
Katerina Klemer
03
11
19
33
41
COMPANY PROFILE.
What Matters: Agency.
What Matters: Confidence.
What Matters: Learn.
What Matters: Humility.
What Matters: History.
THE BRANDS.
THE WORKS.
THE EVALUATION
APPENDIX.
Having the chance to humbly work and learn from the astounding
people at DraftFCB KL is truly a grateful experience for me, who
is still striving to learn about things that really important in the
upcoming years.
Thanks to Ms. Maureen Gomez who granted me an opportunity to
accomplish my industrial training here as well as Mr. Eric and Ms.
Diana who mutually conducted the interview passionately.
Many kind gratitude to Mr. Maharis and Mr. Christopher for their
invaluable guidances throughout these short period of cherishable
internship.
Id also like to thank all of the colleagues in XPAX team who has
relentlessly provided substantial supports day by day, including
Elizabeth, Chee Haw, Yau, Yivonne, June, Andrew, Leonard, Siew
Voon, Dee, Shashvin, Jesheila, Adzee, Waisim, Miki, Steph, Daniel,
and Mr. Richard.
I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to Mr. Razif
Mohamed for his infallible guidance (for the second time) throughout
this internship period, as well as Ms. Prema for her applaudable
supervision.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
All problems are
illusions of the mind.
Eckhart Tolle

2 JAN - MAR 2014 1

AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
COMPANY P R OF I L E
DRAFTFCB
O1
4 JAN - MAR 2014 3
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
DRAFTFCB is an integrated advertising agency
with its headquarter located in New York, Chicago.
Integrated advertising agency is different from
the regular advertising agency in the sense that
they focused on deploying campaigns for clients
through the use of multiple channels (inclusions
of Above The Line, Through The Line, and Below
The Line) to deliver comprehensive and impactful
ideas across both print and digital media under
specific strategic direction in a more consistent
manner.
Dispersed throughout 92 different countries
across the world, DRAFTFCB is one of the oldest
advertising agency in the world under the name
of Foote, Cone & Belding (abbreviated to FCB,
evidently.) before the merging with Draft in 2006.
Similar to many global advertising agencies that
signifies its culture, identity and uniqueness
through definitive approaches, DRAFTFCBs
6.5 Seconds That Matter is invariably the
catalyst strategy to drives and deliver their
ideas successfully. The specified amount of
time is regarded as the average engagement
time between the message of the brand and the
consumer, based on the conducted research.
This short moment, in fact, is observed to be the
best chance to effectively deliver the creative
ideas and visions of the clients brands.
At its utmost importance, the whole 6.5 Seconds
That Matter is all about engaging and delivering
the brands message to the consumers. With the
variety of brands and products to choose from,
its really important for the marketers to deploy
strategies that would engage and capture the
audiences invaluable attention.
The Agency Model
Owned by NYSE-listed Interpublic Group, the 141
years old agency is one of the subsdiaries of the
New York Citys holding company alongside with
big names such as McCann Worldwide, R/GA and
Lowe + Partners.
Previously called Interface Advertising, the legacy
of Kuala Lumpur based DRAFTFCB Malaysia,
with its partner-in-crime, Ignite, (which focused
on digital marketing and independently handles
different set of clients) was officially established
in the mid-2006. The agency is specifically
located at the 17th floor of Midvalleys Menara
IGB.
PROFILE:
DRAFTFCB
6 JAN - MAR 2014 5
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
DRAFTFCB
Q U I C K F A C T S
Were previously known as Lord & Thomas Ad
Agency when founded in 1873.
DraftFCB was officially established in 2006, after
its merging with Draft ads agency, and is currently
a subsidiary of Interpublic Group.
The agency was the third oldest advertising
agency in the world, with John Walter Thomson
(JWT) and N. W. Ayer & Son being the first and
second advertising agency opened in the United
States, respectively. The latter was dissolved in
2002.
Key clients include: Kmart, Oreo, Mini, Kraft
Foods, Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKlyne, Dominos Pizza,
KFC, and Electronic Arts Inc.
Honors included 17 Cannes Lions, 4 ARF David
Ogilvy Awards for Excellence in Advertising
Research, and Adweeks Project Isaac Gravity
Award.
8 JAN - MAR 2014 7
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
Te product that will not
sell without advertising
will not sell protably
with advertising.
A L B E R T L A S K E R

10 JAN - MAR 2014 9

AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
THE
BRANDS
O2
12 JAN - MAR 2014 11
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TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
In the local region, DRAFTFCB has several
notable accounts and partnerships from local
and regional brands that ranged from snacks,
banks, to telecommunication.
Notable clients includes the likes of CIMB Bank,
Telekom Malaysia, Vans, Celcoms Xpax, Nivea,
Kraft and Nissan. Albeit there were variety of
brands, I was only exposed and worked on one
brand: Xpax, throughout the internship.
The agency has a designated department that
mostly handles ATL advertising, including social
media, digital and marketing campaigns for
XPAX, which presumably has the largest account
compared to the other brands in the agency.
Through the creative uses of online platforms,
integrated campaigns such as U.O.X (University
of X), S.O.X (School of X) engaged the students
from various educational institutions in inter-
schools competitions such as cheerleading,
dance, and marching band. has been successful
in redefining the brand, leading to significant
upsurge of the brands social media popularity
and most importantly, the increase of sales.
Xpax is a prepaid service brand created by
Celcom that has a very specific target audience:
the youths. For the past few years, the success of
DraftFCB in winning several integrated campaign
awards can be justifiably traced back at their
campaigns and executions in resurrecting the
presence of Xpax as a primary prepaid service
brand among teenagers and young executives.
Title Save & Invest
Award Marketing Pulse Memorable Malaysian TV Ads 2008
Idea
Title Xpax Voice Resuscitation The Truth
Award Marketing Excellence Awards Gold 2013
Idea
Client
Client
BRANDS:
DRAFTFCB KL
PAST CAMPAIGNS
S P O T L I G H T
The CIMB Bank Save & Invest campaign was to help
consumers meet the rising cost of living as a result of petrol
price hikes. DraftFCB produced four TVCs that depicted
different scenarios of the extreme measures the public take to
save on expenses, using humour to entertain and lighten the
mood of viewers.
The campaign aimed to re-engage audiences to refocus on
voice calls a declining trend globally among mobile users
without alienating the social network services that Celcom
provides. The campaign wove social media with TV, cinema ads
and mobile into an integrated campaign that centered on the
idea of a romantic relationship and the misunderstandings
that can occur when you dont pick up the phone.
14 JAN - MAR 2014 13
AN ODYSSEY
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Title The SOX Drum & Dance Campaign
Award Bronze Effie 2010
Idea
Title Facebook Caller ID Hijack
Award Kancil Award Rebel Idea and Innovative Use Of Media 2013.
Idea
Client
Client
School of X All-Stars Drum & Dance seek out and showcase the
best drumline and cheerleading performances from schools
all over the nation. TV,print and digital were used to generate
participants. Once the competition begun, the whole action was
turned into a reality show posted on the Xpax website. Xpax
successfully increase its market share in the prepaid segment
after the campaign.
To prevent BurgerLabs customers from choosing McDonalds
when they felt like having a burger, DraftFCB developed the
Facebook Phone Caller ID Hijack which works by sending
a message from BurgerLab on the customers phone when
someone called McDonalds delivery service.
PAST CAMPAIGNS
S P O T L I G H T
DON
BEL
DI NG
1879 -1969
03.
16 JAN - MAR 2014 15
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
FAI R
FAX
CONE
1903 - 1977
EMER
SON
FOOTE
1906 - 1992
02.
01.
18 JAN - MAR 2014 17
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
THE
WORKS
O3
20 JAN - MAR 2014 19
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TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
WORKS:
BEING AN INTERN.
Ten weeks of internship is considerably a short
amount of time to learn myriad things that
matter, but this wasnt really the case right
here. Job requisitions were avalanching most
of the day with clients providing feedbacks that
would be deemed relatively slow.
It was definitely uneasy and unsettling at
first, being someone who werent initially
accustomed to execute designs at fast-pace
and quickly response to clients demands in
a limited amount of time, but in the end its
all about our ability to adapt to change and
willingness to learn more than ever. Instead
of treating myself as a student or intern, I find
it really helpful when I tried to push myself
harder to get to the next step as a budding
designer.
As an interactive multimedia student, it does
make sense if you would love everything on
screens to flow in particular motion, where
every elements crafted through the wonders
of pixels could be controlled and experienced,
in the same way we experience physical,
sensible objects. You wouldve love it if these
elements could intuitively response and satisfy
your urges, your temptations, your desires in
exploring more than what it looks and feel.
Lamentably, it was the call of nature that I
couldnt lay my hands upon these imaginative,
artificial realms and wonders throughout
these period. Delivering emotions, engineering
life-enhancing experiences, and discovering
enlightening immersion couldve been a
revolutionary bit throughout these period.
Apparently, it doesnt really matter whether
I would picture myself being someone that I
wished I could be, but without putting myself
through all the efforts and burning the
midnight oils every 24 hours, nothing would
work out the way we wanted to be.
Being an intern in advertising agency where
majority of the skillsets you wield wouldnt
be technically utilized due to the number of
established talents on set, could be somehow
frustrating in the way that it might just cease
your opportunities to apply and sustain your
skills in the industry level.
It seems burdensome to make everything
seems perfectly right, but trust me, Im trying.
Breaking it down to the simpler terms, most
of the works that Ive been given by the
department were anything but interactive-
related. Although I would humbly claim its
not particularly the perfect spell for not doing
something within my niche, it wasnt too bad if
I reflected back to it.
By designing static objects, playing around
with old school visual effects, composing
typefaces and adjusting the visual hierarchy
seems to be the right thing to rejuvenate
my frail design sense. I think that technical
skills without the appropriate design senses
wouldnt be feasible in long run as a designer,
and to flourish that sense, practicing is the key.
So, here were some of the accomplished works
during the internship.
22 JAN - MAR 2014 21
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
WORKS.
IT MATTERS.
REALLY.
WEEK 1 WEEK 2
Resizing images for Kraft website.
This is quite accurately the first productive week so far during my internship as
we moved from the digital department to XPAX-exclusive department. It was Mr.
Christopher, the senior digital art director of the department that brought us in since
they were quite occupied every single day. The whole team mainly handles XPAXs
social media, digital campaigns, visuals, as well as Celcoms e-commerce portals,
including Bachabooku, Buzzaar, and The Crescent.
First task received from Mr. Chris was to do layout for XPAXs Anugerah Lagu Juara
EDM (Electronic Direct Mail).
Another task received was to design the website skin for one of Celcoms e-commerce
website called The Buzzaar, supervised by Ms. Liz. Chinese New Year is coming and to
celebrate the festive, the website will undergo a visual revamp that would suits the theme.
Mr. Lawrence, the client service director, conducted a short orientation and
presentation about the company to the newcomers.
Carousel banner visual adaptation for Celcoms The Crescent supervised by Yau and
Chee Haw.
Ms. Diana briefed about doing some visual mockups
forDraftFCBs website Chinese New Year post but
apparently she took leave the rest of the week, which
left me undone. Faridz had the visuals covered
already at the same week.
Mr. Maharis Azman gave a task to conduct some
research on previous successful campaigns that may
be deployed for Krafts Chipsmore cookies. Several
examples that I found out includes Kelloggs Krave
campaign of using social media to reverberates the
products peer-to-peer, as well as Netherlands-based
Jamin Chocolate Christmas tweets.
WEEK 3
+
-
24 JAN - MAR 2014 23
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
TO LEARN IS
TO HUMBLE.
WEEK 4 WEEK 5
The angst-ridden week continued as we received
prompt feedbacks from the client regarding the
Chinese New Year themed web skin for the Buzzaar,
which they deemed were too modern, too cute, and
doesnt make it feel like Chinese New Year
subsequently. It was quite a laid-back week in terms
of the amount of job requisitions.
Well, it would be justifiable to call it self-exploration
week whereby there werent much anything to cover
or design, apart from fixing several copies for the
MMS. Theres always going to be a time where you
would be in catch-22 situations everytime you think
about what youre going to do after you graduated
from the university.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; for-
get them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered
with your old nonsense.
R A L P H WA L DO E ME R S ON
26 JAN - MAR 2014 25
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
MOST
IMPORTANTLY,
ATTITUDE.
WEEK 6 WEEK 7
Once we were finished with the Chinese New Year
themed web skin for The Buzzaar, the upcoming
Valentines Day took its toll as the client wanted us
to start researching and do some visuals that should
be finalized before 14th February. Captained by the
talented Ms. Liz, we set to embark. Clients are,
apparently clients and theyre not going to know or
understand what they wanted until you gave them
what they want. It could be quite innocuous and
unappealling sometimes, but I guess thats part of
learning - it matters how you would react towards
certain things.
Another work was assigned by Mr. Christopher to
revamp the layout for XPAX website promo pages.
This week also marked by the visitation of Mr. Razif
to the office to conduct a brief internship evaluation
with Mr. Maharis and Mr. Christopher. On the
following day, the office held a belated-Chinese New
Year celebration with food. Free food for goodness
sake.
To summarize, the seventh week started at a pretty
slow pace, with Laksmi provided several images
for Malaysia Tourism to be resized to specific
requirements. It seems to kicks me in when youre
pondering about yourself and your ability to satisfy
clients needs, chasing deadlines, and doesnt
peacefully enjoy your job. Its sort of depressing in
reality, but I learnt that the more I knew, the less I
understand and the more ignorant Ive became.
Mainly, these week tasks involved alot of
photomanipulation, playing with photoshop
effects and image compositing to get the looks
the clients wanted, particularly XPAX promotional
banner handed by Jesheila. Another task which
was supervised by Chee Haw,The Buzzaars MMS,
called the Share and Win promo, also kicks in this
weeks where the works were mainly about adapting,
replacing copies and visuals that get modified day by
day.
If You Are To Fail,
Fail Spectacularly.

28 JAN - MAR 2014 27
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
Brand Celcom / XPAX
Task Revamping Layout for the ongoing XPAX
Anugerah Juara Lagu 2013 EDM.
Brand Celcom / Escape
Task Visual adaptation for ongoing
Barclays Premier League promotion.
Brand Celcom / The Crescent
Task Carousel banners visual adaptations for the
ongoing promotions.
Brand Celcom / XPAX
Task Visual mockup for website
main page revamp.
Brand Celcom / The Buzzaar
Task Designing Chinese New Year
theme webskin
Brand DraftFCBs Kissmas Facebook Application
Task Extracting elements for HTML5 conversion.
30 JAN - MAR 2014 29
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
Brand Celcom / The Buzzaar
Task Designing Valentines Day
theme webskin
Brand Celcom / XPAX
Task Visualizer for XPAX Time to Upgrade promo
background and final look.
Brand Celcom / The Buzzaar
Task Adaptation for sites carousel banner.
Brand XPAX / CIMB
Task Visual change for EDM CIMB promo.
Brand Celcom / The Cube
Task Carousel banners visual adaptations for
Stand By Me promotion.
Brand Celcom / XPAX Reload Page
Task Revamping the layout for XPAX website.
32 JAN - MAR 2014 31
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TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
SELF
EVALUATION
O4
34 JAN - MAR 2014 33
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INTROSPECTIVE.
Once upon a time, there was a kid who dreamt
of never wanting to grow up, regardless of the
circumstances. He was naive and reckless
but the curiosity and his impetus to explore
everything around him was unquenchable.
Dictated by his creative impulse and feeble
understanding of frivolous thoughts, creating
and painting magic out of nowhere were the only
things that made him happy. He didnt seem to
care what others might thought about his messy,
incomprehensible strokes of lines that left their
footprints on his dads leftovers papers.
Being happy wasnt his choice. It was the only
thing he knew, and his little piece of hope was to
keep this feeling from subsiding anytime soon.
The world he used to knew froze into shimmering,
thick lattices of the spectres that haunted his
dreams every night. Vanquished was the rollfilms
that kept his old days memory intact as the
anguishing rain hammered his will and dreams
all over the place. The worldwide torrential
rainfall swiped all the rhetorical questions on his
mind from that day onwards.
The remnants of his strength was banished,
scrunched onto the roughest grounds, and
decimated to pieces - to make sure he wont
stand up. In the end, the series of such calamities
was nonetheless a state of his own suicidal mind.
He then convinced himself, itll be all over by
tomorrow. Tomorrow.
Ive been wondering if every distraughted minds
that walked the Earth did felt the same way that
I did in certain point of their life. Weve been
thinking too much, felt way too little, and failed to
cherish the opportunities around us, eventually
failed to seize the day.
It keeps me pondering whether what weve been
through so far would worth it all in the end. As a
novice, a learner, jack of all trades and master
of none, its always important being persistent
and thrive throughout each of our journey and
hopefully, this humbling internship is more than
a mere raindrop that dissipates across the ocean
- the life were living. All stories would eventually
ends, but in the end, its the odyssey that matters.
The kid once fought for everything he could to
be the boy he wanted to be. The broken pencils
were the dumb witnesses of his fragility
and insecurity in the midst of his ceaseless
patience and desire to learn.
Tick. tock. The only thing that would stop
his obsessively abstract thoughts from
wandering around ethereal places was time,
and the silencing barrage of doubts of himself,
although that didnt keep him from being still
from fending away the monsters that slept
inside his head.
But something wasnt right. In fact, it was
never right since the beginning of the time.
He tried to fix it, but he ultimately failed.
36 JAN - MAR 2014 35
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
This second industrial training definitely taught me several new things, if not
many. DraftFCB is one of the largest global advertising agency around, and this
affirms that the creative talents are more than sufficient to execute huge ideas
throughout different departments, which leads to wider exposure of different
creative approaches and the apparent differences of working in the industry
compared to working for assignments.
As a designer, we tend to overlook copies that come alongside with the visuals
for advertisement. In fact, it is substantial in advertising industry for the
creatives to truly comprehend the copy, working alongside copywriters and to
incorporate the idea that resonates the brand message. A brilliant visual with
pointless copy will potentially mislead the target audiences, ultimately defeat
its core purpose of conveying the message. Copy, most of the time, dictates the
overall feel and aura of an advertisement.
Most of all, timing is critical in delivering the products to clients. Its important
to work smart instead of work hard. Utilize icons and images that can be
downloaded instead of painstakingly trace the visuals. Time is money.
Most of the colleagues are very approachable and
reliable when technical assistances were required.
Lack of interns active involvement in campaign
ideation, brand pitching and creative process.
As an intern, I think the involvement and sense of
belonging to the team is pretty satisfactory, and the
job requisition distributions are concise and clear.
Lack of exposure to the whole workflow and process
of pre-production to post-production within the ads
agency.
High-paced, dynamic and empowering working
environment makes work productive all day long.
Limited variety of brands to work on, and nature of
creative job is growing repetitive day by day.
Flexible break hours and sensible amount of job
requisitions on daily basis.
To a least extent, clients feedbacks and instructions
were rather abstract and incoherent to the initial task.
SENTIMENTS
THE GOOD
THE LESSONS
THE LESS GOOD
38 JAN - MAR 2014 37
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
Being in the XPAX team is definitely an enlightening experience as it
allows me to slightly polish my layouting skils and pay more attention to
details. The devils are in the details, anyway. Although basic designing
skills shouldnt be overlooked, it would be wise if there would be chances
where we could participate in active brainstorming sessions for upcoming
campaigns and ideation with the art and creative directors. It wouldve
definitely improved our way of understanding things and generate quality
ideas that would really matter.
Perhaps it would be wise to expose us to different brands that the agency
is handling, since it would widen our perspectives on the nature of each
brand, the types of clients, and the creative directions that each brand
are accustomed to.
The suggestion may not be academically related, but perhaps it would be
wise if the agency could subsidize parking fee for interns who drive to the
office everyday since the rate is pretty expensive.
Understands what the clients want, quickly response it
and take it into actions.
The need to be quicker and agile in operating
softwares such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
Shortcuts do help alot.
I think it can be summarized that throughout these
short weeks, mental endurance, stamina, patience,
reliability were my main assets. I do learn pretty fast
as well.
The need to lengthen my attention span and focus on
finishing the given tasks at much more comprehensive
manner. Paying attention to details was apparently my
greatest challenge.
The need to communicate more often and be more
active in asking for things that I want to know rather
than passively waiting for tasks to be received and
idling the whole time.
Time management and setting priorities.
Indecisiveness and low self-esteem are seemingly my
another productivity-plaguing weaknesses.
SENTIMENTS
MY STRENGTH
SUGGESTIONS
MY WEAKNESS
40 JAN - MAR 2014 39
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
THE
APPENDIX
O5
42 JAN - MAR 2014 41
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TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
WEEKLY JOURNAL.
EXCERPTS FROM HTTP: //WWW.TDS.MY/I NTERNSHI P/ROMARI O/
First day at DraftFCB. Well, the typical scene
of the capital city congestions greeted the
morning as the clouds hovered across the
azure sky. Couple of new interns arrived this
morning as well. A soon-to-be Taylorian lass,
Wai Lynn will be interning for the next two
months.

Nicole from our junior batch, alongside with
me, will be supervised by Mr. Maharis for the
next 3 months. The office wasnt enormously
space V. although the modernistic and dazzling
coloured walls gave it a sophisticating flair.
The first day was rather irrevocably unproductive
and arguably barren as the only thing we did for
Mr. Faridz was to resizing 78 images (which we
divided equally to half) from 250z px to 45W px.
Our supervisor didnt make it to the office
throughout the day so we had the freedom to
do other things on the first day, albeit its not a
satiating first day.
Let that be it for today. Just today, hopefully.
The team are currently ideating on a campaign
for Krafts Chipsmore in which you can find at 7
Eleven or like, 3 bucks? I never had any of those
since too much calcifies would be deposited as
saturated fats, if you are not physically active.
(and its processed, of course.)
The target audience would be teenagers around
13-15 years old. Basically the whole idea is to
get as much insights and ideas about successful
brand activation campaigns that had been
executed previously and choose 3 that generated
most impact. Brand awareness campaigns
ought to translate the audiences actions and
permeates it to the message and values.
Of course, such marketing activations requires
to establish some sort of emotional attachments
between the products and the prosumers (rather
consumer).
As the target audience are mostly Gen Y and
Z. the brand awareness can be significantly
amplified through the use of digital content,
social media, and user generated contents
While the preferences may vary, the largest pool
of audiences are considerably technologically
literate and highly self expressive.
Talked to Mr. Maharis about the campaign
research that he assigned to Nicole and me,
and he was pretty much interested on this one
particular campaign by CMW London.
The concept was pretty engaging because it
revolves around the audiences rather than
the products. In fact, the most reverberating
campaigns doesnt need to directly boast its
features, taste, or its beneficial factors. Many
popular brand activation campaigns (like
Gatorades Replay & Volkswagens Ping Pong)
jumped onto a much indirect and subversive
approaches in creating brand loyalty.
Mr. Maharis mentioned that Nicole and me
might be involved for the upcoming Krafts
Chipsmore brand activation campaign pitch,
doing reviews on the research ideas and
possibly work alongside the creative directors
to develop the idea into a working one.
Will definitely look forward on it.
The end of the first week wasnt that bad. It
wasnt surreal, but it wasnt strenuous either.
Particularly, I wasnt assigned any important
tasks by our supervisor(s) and thus spent most of
my time researching for my finals.
Scripting and model texturing would be potentially
a mountain to climb on the later stage so I guess
it would rather better to start earlier or mourn
about it when the time comes.
Well, we started the day by helping Eric and Diana
to cut several Hawaiian-themed graphics and
gimmicks styrofoam boards for DraftFCB annual
dinner. We were invited to attend the dinner but
I didnt manage to go though. Some staff in the
office was pretty much occupied with the dinner
while the rest were busy on clients works.
The social media marketing department was
currently handling an ongoing project by
Celcoms XPAX, called the Anugerah Juara
Lagu 2014, in which their primary tasks were to
generate promotion contents on social media
and analyzing SE0 (search engine optimization).
The campaign itself was started about two weeks
ago.
6/1/14
MONDAY
8/1/14
WEDNESDAY
9/1/14
THURSDAY
10/1/14
FRIDAY
WEEK 1
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WEEKLY JOURNAL.
EXCERPTS FROM HTTP: //WWW.TDS.MY/I NTERNSHI P/ROMARI O/
// WEEK 2 WAS SKIPPED DUE TO LACK OF SUBSTANTIAL TASKS.
We were relocated into the arguably the
warmest looking cubicle with orange-walls-
and-stuff to work closely with the Celcom
XPAX team. Mr. Christopher, the digital director
for Celcom team approached Nicole and I to
brief us about the things that we could assist.
Basically there were two things (Well, actually
there were much more.) that the team was
currently working on: XPAX Anugerah Lagu
Juaras E-DM (electronic direct mail) and
Celcom banner redesign.
Few moments later Yi-Vonne brought another
job requisition about designing Celcoms
Buzzaar websites skin for Chinese New
Year and Valentines Day. The job need to be
finished as soon as possible so I was under
Ms Elizabeths supervision, the art director, to
design several options for the web thematic
skins.
The polished E-DM was emailed back to
Mr. Chris to seek for clients approval, while
Ms. Liz provided some visual guidelines and
references for me to work on by tonight.
Continuing with yesterdays works, Mr. Chris just
received the clients feedbacks about the E-DM
in the morning. The copy requires minor revision
while the visual had been approved.
I was mostly occupied with several iterations for
Celcom Buzzaars web skin design throughout
the day as Ms. Liz ran through few visual options
for the clients to choose from. The deadline for
the first visual mockup was supposedly today so
its tolerable to mention its a rush job.
We look through several Chinese New Year
ornaments and oriental pattern designs. Ms.
Liz suggested to tweak the design to suit it
with modernistic and contemporary feel rather
than ancient China styles, so many of the
visual references given were simple, clean yet
identifiable visual elements.
There were a couple more things to say but
apparently I stayed up until 9 PM before the design
was approved by Ms. Liz. Its pretty interesting to
work on the creative side of agency; an experience
I didnt get (unfortunately) during last internship.
Production, production and production was the
only thing back then, but I guess things were
changing over time.
The day took flight as newcomers were invited
for a (supposedly) exciting short orientation
held by Mr. Lawrence, the client service
director of DraftFCB + Ignite. The contents
of presentation was actually pretty much
textbook Wikipedia materials and moderately
interesting in profounding ways.
Back to work. I was pretty much settled as
yesterdays job requisitions were accomplished,
so there was only 1 task given by Ms. Yi-Vonne
in the morning, that is to restructure the
layouts for Celcoms Crescent banners into
15 different sizes. Supervised by Mr. Yau, the
art director and Chee Haw, I guess its pretty
much a straightforward since what I need to
do was just to resizing the copies, inserting
the logos, balancing the whole layouts and
images. Iterated by Mr. Yau once before sent
the final outputs back to Ms. Yi-Vonne in the
afternoon. Its something that looks like below,
just different sizes.
To conclude, I didnt have to work overtime for
today and Im grateful either way. So little time,
so much things and people to learn from.
Chinese New Year is coming, and most of the
designers computer screens in the office were
populated by fiery crimson graphics as their
pencils danced across the table. Todays tasks
were basically revisions of Celcoms Buzzaar web
skins and Crescent WAP (wireless application
protocols) banners after yesterdays clients
feedbacks. Not much of come hell or high water,
but I learnt that haste makes waste.
Ms. Jane passed two job requisitions as early
as 10.30 AM, so I managed to finish re-layouting
the similar banner (shown in my last post), in
exclusion of several elements within the graphics.
Continuing with personally-I-find-it-more-
interesting Celcoms Buzzaar project around 2
PM, the client mentioned that the art direction
was too cute, in preference of some solid,
oriental ornaments with horse (since its Year of
the Horse) for the website skin.
Pretty much occupied through 9 hours but its
arguably a field day. Weekend just feels good
when you were engaged with several things
throughout the week.
21/1/14
TUESDAY
22/1/14
WEDNESDAY
23/1/14
THURSDAY
24/1/14
FRIDAY
WEEK 3
46 JAN - MAR 2014 45
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
WEEKLY JOURNAL.
EXCERPTS FROM HTTP: //WWW.TDS.MY/I NTERNSHI P/ROMARI O/
Im not sure how to start, but professedly I was
occupied with only a task to design Buzzaars
Chinese New Year web skins (still doing that
since last week??). Received the job requisition
from Ms. Jane after the client replied that the
second iterations visuals looked rather too
modern and clean as opposed to traditional
China. (But.. but the client didnt mention
anything about that in the initial job brief!)
In a nutshell, Ms. Liz took another direction
that were more ancient, dynasty, Chinese
impressionism-oriented styles to dominate
the white spaces. Less vectors, more rasters.
The whole thing is quite strenuous albeit there
were still much things to learn. Ill post it once
the client agreed with the visuals.
Presumably, clients will not understand what
they really wanted until you gave them what
they think they wanted. Still, its dreadfully
important to learn how to resonates with the
clients (customers) in every single thing we did,
regardless of the scale of impact. Sanguinely
I wish the clients would just get over it and
proceed with the Valentine day visuals.
After the client requested for the whole
calligraphic, ancient China artistry styles
fuss yesterday, Ms. Liz and I were pretty much
dumbfounded after Ms. Jane distributed the job
requistion, wherein they decided about the art
direction they wanted.
The whole ink, landscape painting skin styles
were rejected, and they improvised by putting
in the light horse graphics that were used in
another XPAX TTL banners. Below were the
designs that were turned down by the clients. All
were just retouched stock images obtained from
123rf and Shutterstock, so calculatively, each
version would cost the client about MYR 70 for
commercial purposes usage.
The feedback somehow eased the whole job
since I did not need to recreate the whole thing,
nevertheless well scrap out some previous
elements and replace it with XPAX horse. Pretty
much that was the only thing I did for today.
Anyway, I might ditch out tomorrows post since
expected tasks would be fixing several minor
iterations with the design. Ill post the end result
here only once its published in their website.
27/1/14
MONDAY
28/1/14
TUESDAY
WEEK 4
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
IM RUNNING BACK HOME. WOOHOO.
48 JAN - MAR 2014 47
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TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
WEEKLY JOURNAL.
EXCERPTS FROM HTTP: //WWW.TDS.MY/I NTERNSHI P/ROMARI O/
I wasnt sure if its nervous breakdown or
whatsoever mental tremors, but Im pretty
sure that everybody had been in a state where
they were losing some sort of reality grounding
that attached their preconceptions towards
their surroundings. It just felt like there was
a fathomless emptiness that astringed your
thoughts. How would I say it.. a hypothetical
dilemma?
Whatever was that, I felt that theres an
important part of us that radically changed
every single day -making us less us, day by day.
Coping with this transition was quite a major
challenge for grown ups, especially when you
were bombarded with various critical choices
which could lead you to different paths in
your later life. The real challenge during this
transition isnt about defying changes, but to
react from the undesirable and unpredictable
consequences.
To survive these changes, we need to be
prepared. To be prepared means being ready
to welcome the arbitrariness when the time
comes. As human, we tend to undermine the
possibilities of all negative consequences and
bombarded ourselves with all the positive
prospects. The essence of positive thinking
might sound intermittenly hopeful for most
people out there, but not for me. In fact, it had
burdened me a lot in many ways an ultimately
disheartening experiences. Im losing my
grounding. Really.
Well, to be honest, Im scared. There would be
a day where everybody you knew would just
completely disremembered you, so I guess its
really important to do things that would really
substantial rather than chasing something
ingrained with false intentions within.
Let go.
6/2/14
THURSDAY
WEEK 5
50 JAN - MAR 2014 49
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
WEEKLY JOURNAL.
EXCERPTS FROM HTTP: //WWW.TDS.MY/I NTERNSHI P/ROMARI O/
Received 2 major tasks in the morning,
sustained with another 1 minor task in the
afternoon after lunch. The 1st major task from
Mr. Chris is to reiterate and restructure the
visual mockup for XPAXs website Reload Page.
Not much of a difficult-kind-of-task, but there
were quite a number of tabs that were required
to be added and deleted onto different layouts,
while most of the copies were projected for
alteration as well. Its kind of revamping
the step-by-step visuals, like the example
below. There were 5 more different pages that
required changes on the tab and the content
below the tab (obviously), so its more-or-less
a painstaking task.
Second task was from Ms. Liz, that was to
continue with designing the webskin for
Buzzaars Valentines Day theme. On account
that Yi-Vonne mentioned that the client didnt
give any art directions about the design, Ms.
Liz proceeded by providing several visuals for
the guidelines.
Its halfway through this second internship and
time indeed passed quickly.
I remained idle throughout the morning since
several account managers who usually gave out
tasks, including Yi-Vonne, Miki and Jane were on
leave throughout the day. The only task I received
was a continuation of Buzzaars Valentines Day
webskin from Waisim in the afternoon. The client
has reviewed the first submitted visuals, and the
feedback that we expected from them was classic:
too cutesy and colorful. They wanted a Valentine
theme that was more traditional-driven, subtle
and old-school visuals.
Honestly Ive always had hard time dragging
anchor points to stack up the perfect curve and
dynamic-looking arcs throughout the canvas, but
thats what I need to pick up as soon as possible
right now. Vector graphics intimidates me.
Euclidian vectors did not. Again, I digressed.
Spotted a shimmering-looking guy at 2.30 shortly
after lunch, and he was none other than Mr.
Ajeep, who came to save the day. Subsequently
to the short talk between him and Mr. Chris,
our current supervisor, Nicole and I had a short
meeting with him, discussing about several
matters and potential issues concerning the
current internship experience.
This morning Mr. Chris approached Nicole
and I, informing that well be invited for the
brainstorming sessions every Friday together
with the whole XPax team. The ideation session
would involve everybody, and each of us has to
come up with new XPax brand engagement or
marketing campaign ideas to be presented to
Mr. Richard, the boss every weekend. Frankly
speaking it sounds exciting for someone who
had never been involved in ideation process in
previous agency, and would definitely looking
forward to it. I guess Mr. Ajeeps mantra
worked. Hehe.
Received only single task from Yi-Vonne about
the Buzzaars Valentine Day skin design, and
the clients suggestion was to tweak the
movements and colors of the pink ribbons
make it resonates with the Buzzaars logo.
I guess I really had hard time in drawing
ribbons on Illustrator without any guides. To
my disappointment, Ms. Liz ended up sending
me some EPS and AI ribbon templates for me
to play around with rather than starting from
scratch. I guess Ill really need to properly
observe the minute details, shades, rhythm
and movement of things in physical world.
In the morning I received another visual revision
for the Buzzaars Valentine theme from Yi-Vonne.
Based on the clients comment, most of our
previous designs were regarded bastardizing
the main logo, and they werent happy about it.
Consequently, minor adjustment were made
whereby the flow of ribbons would be placed
behind the logo instead of coming out from the
plastic bag.
After the lunch, the classic case strikes back
the client changed their mind, and preferred
us to design the batik-motifs (below the
navigation buttons) into series of ribbons. Not
as straightforward as the previous one, since Ill
need to slowly warp and map the low-res motifs
into less-flowy ribbons from other files. To make
it less flat-looking, burn and dodge some part of
the ribbons were necessary emphasizing the
highlights and cast shadows. Its kinda similar to
the procedural mapping in Maya, but its kinda
manual in PS and AI.
Finished the whole mapping around 8.30, but I
hope its pretty much the finalized visual since
tomorrow is Valentine Day Friday already.
10/2/14
MONDAY
11/2/14
TUESDAY
12/2/14
WEDNESDAY
13/2/14
THURSDAY
WEEK 6
52 JAN - MAR 2014 51
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
WEEKLY JOURNAL.
EXCERPTS FROM HTTP: //WWW.TDS.MY/I NTERNSHI P/ROMARI O/
17/2/14
MONDAY
19/2/14
WEDNESDAY
20/2/14
THURSDAY
21/2/14
FRIDAY
WEEK 7
Regarding about today received tasks, there
werent much things to explore on. Im not
really sure if Monday actually felt like Monday
without any mental turbulences.
As Lakshmi came over, she provided several
Tourism Malaysia images that needed to be
resized and standardized. Straightforward.
There was actually another XPAX related job
that were sent over by Ms. Jane, but since the
deadline is tomorrow, well, you understand.
Still in the midst of dilemma whether should
I kickstart my career or pursuing further
education. Myriad pros and cons, but the
process of learning should be everlasting until
youre stationary on your deathbed. So, learn
as much as possible while youre young, they
said.
The first task came from Yi Vonne, wherein Chee
Haw supervised babysitted me throughout the
day for every iterations that I did. The client is
none other than Buzzaar which had seemingly
grew fonder day by day. We were required to
produce MMS and carousel banner for the
upcoming promotions, and most of the images
were already available online.
Another JR was from Mr. Chris and Ms. Jesheila,
which is for XPAX Prepaid Bundle Promo. My
task was to polish up the visuals, rearranging
the layout, then add up glaring lights, flare the
layout up, lighten the background up, blitz the
phones up, or whatever-it-was-to-shine-the-
spotlight-on-the-phone task with photoshop.
I guess XPAX love lights too much. Just. too.
much. I can felt my rods and cones screaming
for breaks. To ease my job a little bit, Chee Haw
provided this set of lights that the department
peeps has abused recycled for XPAX visuals.
Mr. Yau also provided a set of visuals for lights
aura, flares, and laser lights to adapt into the
visual.
Anyway, this morning Yi Vonne notified Chee
Haw and me to change the visuals into
something more subtle so that it can clearly
represents the products that Buzzaar are trying
to sell. Finished up the visuals around 1.30 after
Chee Haw suggested visual modifications.
Coming back from lunch, we received clients
feedback for Buzzaars Share and Win promo
carousel banner and MMS. Guess what the
client replied. After all of the time we spent
yesterday and killing our precious, unretrievable
time on thinking about redirecting the visuals
from bombastic and expressive to subtle and
this and that, the client requested to just reuse
the original image and make it like a slideshow.
Following that, we continued with the weekly
initiative for XPAX brand whereby well send
our idea for brand engagement campaigns
synopsis to Mr. Chris to check on every Friday.
Todays first task was assigned by Yi Vonne,
where in Celcoms The Crescent will be
launching six new brands (3 batches) soon. Our
task is to adapt the visuals and copy into MMS,
carousel banner, and EDM. Its pretty much
the same thing all over again, but apparently
this time the client would only like to see the
1st batch of the visuals before proceeding with
the another pair of batches. The due date was
supposedly next Monday, but since its a concise
job, then lets overcome procrastination.
The second task was to update the Buzzaars
Share and Win promo copy to BM after Indra
sent it over. Quickfire.
Last task in the afternoon was assigned by
Jesheila regarding the XPAX Prepaid Bundle
(The one with lights, lights and lights.). Since
Mr. Chris suggested to send the client to sets
of visuals (One with his original art direction,
and another one with client-requested light
blinks over 9000 version). The client preferred
the first visual set, but they would required us
to tweak the hue and remove the copy. Finished
couple of the visuals around 6.20.
54 JAN - MAR 2014 53
AN ODYSSEY
TEN WEEKS THAT MATTERED
WEEKLY JOURNAL.
EXCERPTS FROM HTTP: //WWW.TDS.MY/I NTERNSHI P/ROMARI O/
25/2/14
TUESDAY
26/2/14
WEDNESDAY
27/2/14
THURSDAY
28/2/14
FRIDAY
WEEK 8
Anyway, Mr. Chris showed this DraftFCB +
iCRMs Merry Christmas Facebook application:
Merry Kissmas!
The application is a simple, interactive rendition
of the Christmas kissing under the mistletoe
tradition whereby you can send a kiss to anyone
in your Facebook friend list.
From what I understood, Mr. Chris mentioned
that they are planning to convert the whole
application from Flash into HTML5, therefore
Ill need to convert the visual elements inside
the application into tiles, as it should be as
lightweight as possible. I spent the whole
morning dissecting the patterns that can be
tiled and generated few files for each assets.
However, Mr. Chris didnt want me to export the
whole assets as images, but rather to create
the tileable assets inside the photoshop layers,
organized those, and to be passed to the ICRM
guys.
Hi.
Its the midweek again.
Apparently I didnt receive any new task from
the team, which sums up my pretty monotonic
day. In the afternoon, Yi Vonne requested
a little tweak in the copy of Buzzaars Share
to Win MMS, which shouldnt take very long
time to get it done. Continued doing research
and mockup for my report design and few
competition initiative ideas.
Anyway, I do think that room temperature and
ambient noise really affected productivity. As
far as Im concern, the worst working period is
always after lunch. The blood is diverted from
the head to the stomach after some time, and
people said food with high sugar content would
make you sleepy. Especially fast food.. which is
practically packed of fats and sugar.
Anyway, theres supposedly two tasks to be
completed by the end of the day due to some
non-technical issues (I hope it was.), I only had
one given task from Mr. Chris, that is to create
the digital wireframes for upcoming XPAXs
website revamp.
Check the current website here. It surely isnt
an embodiment of The FWAs best website
nominee or whatever awards are out there, but
if anybody would glorify its design, I humbly
beg to differ.
Anyway, the whole task was to create layouts for
both desktop and mobile version of the current
website, with both expanded and collapsed
version of the tabs. The Windows 8 Metro tiles-
style would still be the key elements, although
Mr. Chris wanted it to suit the design towards
XPAXs visual signature curves and the two
key hues.
Anyway, todays task was to continue a bit of
minor changes on the Xpaxs wireframe visuals.
Pretty straightforward. Another rather-exciting
task was the opportunity to help Mr. Chris & Mr.
Richard (our CD) to develop some storyboard
sketches for the XPAX initiative campaign.
Currently its still a classified project, but the
keywords are: football & cats.
The last minor task was to help Yivonne to resize
and adapt the current The Crescents Banner
into smaller size. Could say that I was pretty
impressed when Yivonne showboated her witty
photoshop skills. For account manager, thats
a plus. A great big plus. Yay.
T H A N K Y O U .
2014