About the Obsession with the Unseen

Introductory Notes

This is a translated piece from an archive of personal posts written on Tuesday, November 1, 2016. This post was originally uploaded to my Facebook page. Later on, it was uploaded to a site called Quora @ 17 Sep 2018 10:49 and later on here on my personal WordPress blog. The article was written in Indonesian, but since I thought it might be good to get it translated to English, I’m going to do that right now. I also just had an input from an online overseas friend, when I gave him the translated version that it’s a good read, and if it was written over there I might have a different result. So I thought, I guess why not.

Structurally, this article might not be particularly robust, because at the time of writing, it was written as a bit of a late night thoughts came to light. But somehow this is one of my personal favorite short paragraphs I’ve ever written so far. So without further due, I’m going to place it here, who knows if anyone else could enjoy it.

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About the Obsession with the Unseen
First uploaded to Facebook on Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Later uploaded to Quora on September 1, 2018 10:49

I know a fair amount of people who are obsessed with the unseen. As in, things that are invisible to the naked eyes. I used to be confused with all these whole affair back in the day, but in retrospect, I thought, I was actually like that myself without knowing it. Just not in the way people usually think it is.

I am obsessed with the thoughts of advancing our way of thinking, with our ability in putting words into their proper context. Obsessed with advancement of our knowledge and insight. Advancement in methods of educating new generations to see the world in a better way. Advancement in addressing the things that hold back people’s minds. Mental advancement in respecting other people’s opinions, even if that person doesn’t have to agree with us. There are in fact so many other things quite ‘invisible’ in nature that if nurtured, I believe, could improve and advance ourselves up to be a better person and human being in the process.

Not the kind of ‘invisible thing’ that you wished I would reveal? There is no need to be disappointed.

Just like you perhaps, I also fantasized a lot about various things you could imagine. Imagining about mystical creatures such as dragons and flying horses, the guardian gods of the universe, or how huge the outer-space is after we are able to venture beyond the skies. Such is the power of imagination; something which I still believe to be one of the most important components that humans have besides the basic natural sciences. But such powerful imagination combined with our natural, almost-instinctual tendency to imagine, I believe, should not deviate from our main goal here on Earth: to improve the quality of life for the world’s population through the process of ever-advancement of thought, science, and engineering.

To me, an investment worth risking for is an investment that we know very well could build minds and open up new insights and vistas for people who are still alive right now, and will live after I died later. Certainly not the kind of investment in people or things that were already gone, simply do not exist or have never existed.

Humans are arguably the only living species that have the ability to pass on its library of knowledge and technology to the next generation in various forms, particularly through communication and language. That arguably, such a huge responsibility that requires tremendous amount of work and insurmountable amount of considerations. With that in mind, we then have to be of the utmost wisdom with this ability we have by inheriting our best values ​​and knowledge that are concrete and based on our observable reality, and not based on some assorted illusions and unsubstantiated traditions that were simply passed on just because they have been around for a long time.

But with that being said, looking at how things revealed itself recently, I would say that we’re starting to lose our vision for the future. It seems like the majority of mankind’s obsession with the ‘invisible’ mostly only revolves around promises of heaven and fear of hell, that appears to be too strong and thick to be abandoned and archived to be a mere valuable lesson in the development phase of our civilization. It’s safe to say that for thousands of years, humans have very well been shackled by a sort of mental bondage that forced them to be stuck in the mystical and supernatural. Our tremendous advancement of technology and sciences, apparently, turns out to be powerless in unshackling ourselves from paralyzing superstitions, absurdities sprouted from the lack of rational reasoning and the blinding fear when faced with threats and temptations coming from mystical beliefs of occult nature.

I argue that the greatest gift in the journey of human evolution is the our monumental and instinctual curiosity about how the universe works. Indeed, we were once naive and innocent as a species; frightened of the cracking sound of a thunder and the mysterious rumbling from beneath our soil. We did not know what is going on around us. We fear about our eventual death, but trapped in a perpetual dream to be free from the shackles of life. I do think by now, we ought to realize that we have wasted enough time playing around, living our lives in the modern world, yet pondering about the universe like the way our ancestors did who lived at the beginning of our civilization.

My message is: Be advanced in our thinking! Leave behind the shackles of thoughts that have been plaguing our species for thousands of years. Hold the utmost wisdom in passing our knowledge to our future generations. Be bold in the face of the fact that all of us, will eventually die in the end. We should stop harboring hate and grudges against our fellow humans just because they worshiped different supernatural beings. Hold tight to your loved ones in this short life we have.

If people ask me, what is the meaning of ‘heaven‘ for me, it is seeing everyone alive in this world, being happy. Realized that I had been given the opportunity to live, even if only briefly, on this little planet called Earth. And most importantly, to have the knowledge I’d be leaving this world with the full awareness that our children can live in a world much better than the life we had. ‘Hell‘, on the other hand, is simply the opposite of all of those things. Seeing people miserable, neglected, severely depressed, living in poverty, dying in tragic circumstances. Fighting, murdering, and not caring about each other. To die in futility, and passing through life leaving no traces to enlightenment. Or, leaving this world when I learned that our children are under an imminent threat that endangers their lives, both physically and mentally.

I think we should look not much further, friend, about places called heaven and hell. We only have one life, one place to live; we are staring at the same sky and are standing on the same ground. We all recognize the unique aroma of the falling rain or of the burning matches; we felt the warmth of bonfire and the freshness of drinking a glass of water on a sunny day; all in the same way.

Why should then, we quarrel for days on end and act dishonorably to fellow humans just because of our obsession with things that are not based on reality and delusions of holy mandates from the creator of the universe?

That’s all for now, and thank you for taking the time to read.

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Epilogue Notes

Well, what do you think? I do hope it gave you a good time reading it.

Truth to be told, I didn’t exactly remember what came through my mind when I put this down at that point of time, but nevertheless, I can’t say I didn’t quite like how it turned out. 😁

As another side note, to those people who actually took the time to read both the English version and Indonesian version (which I don’t think will be that many, frankly), you might find slight differences in meaning here and there, but that’s just because I’d prefer to have some parts changed to fit each languages better while keeping the core message pretty much the same. I do think it works out pretty good this way, rather than translating it wholesale from one language to another, something which you could totally do with the help of Google Translate (and it surprisingly did a pretty good job at it, from where I stand).

Now, not that I need to mention the following, but after giving it some thoughts for quite sometime, I find it’s so ironic that the positive inputs I had for this piece (which is so meager, it’s almost sad) mostly came from people I barely know or even meet in-person and also from outside the country, rather than anyone closest to me. But that’s another topic on its own and I’d rather not to go into it, otherwise it’d be just another sodium-fest rant people seemed to recognize me better for.

Cheers!
—Teguh Li
Tue, 20 October 2020

Interesting old drawing I found

Upon opening up some old archives, I stumbled upon a particular illustration I made back in August 2011.

What do you think? I think anyone on my Facebook back then would probably have seen this before.

I thought it’s a pretty funny take on how I feel about the situation at hand back in the day, and now – roughly 9 years later – I could see how little things have changed. In fact, certain things on the social/religious sphere is getting more out of hand by the looks of it.

However, personally, I think I’ve had much less pressure and expectations being put on me regarding this matter. Which is a good thing to know.

Signed,
Teguh Li
Friday, 17 Jan 2020

[Archive] Is Talk Cheap?

Just last night, I stumbled upon an article that I wrote quite some time ago–roughly 8 years ago, to be precise. It was originally posted in a now-hidden blog that I made back in October 2012, and my goodness, have I not changed all that much after all these years when I read some of the things I wrote in the past.

I could say, it was amusing to read from the perspective of the slightly older eyes of mine, now that I have gone through past a lot of good and bad experiences. But I would say that no matter how I felt like I’ve changed throughout these years, it seems like… that’s not entirely the case, especially when this sort of thing just pops up. Well, at least not in every aspect–I’m pretty sure I’ve grown more cynical for the past couple of years, although I can’t be sure how much exactly.

The piece was just a pretty random take on the notion of “talk is cheap” that I quite frequently see in my timeline back in the days. It wasn’t all that comprehensive nor citing any studies, but for some reason, it made me wonder what was I thinking when I put down these words.

As for its context, I vaguely remember a lot of people on Facebook were posting those picture quotes about this, but I don’t remember exactly what happened during those days. Still, I find it has an interesting relatability, even through this date. So I guess, why not just post it, just for the record.

Without further due, I’m just going to paste them here for your enjoyment. Cheers!

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Originally posted on Oct 5, 2012 9:11 AM

Is Talk Cheap?

 

Is it? If so, how so?

Many times I have encountered people expressing this notion, until eventually, it finally gets me thinking: is talking really as cheap as they say?

I suspect that what most people have in mind when they get this, has something to do with the word action. That is, a person who just talk does not seem to go along well with most people. I guess we cannot blame us (yes, us);  is sure exasperating to encounter individuals with your-regular-politician quality. That is, to hear all sort of talk about this and that without noticing anything real comes out of him. Sometimes you might think things are better if these people just shut up.

But at this time of age where social media has so gracefully allowed us to communicate our thoughts and ideas so easily like never before, it is just a matter of time until it takes the toll on everyone to hear everyone talking – almost literally – all the time.

Back then, only politicians, people on the news and those who managed to get an air-time on TV or radio would be the scapegoat of the ‘just talk no action’ accusations. You know, people who actually had the opportunity to embarrass themselves in public by saying something then acting otherwise. But now, everybody is a politician! From the Facebook race of fame to YouTube arguments, talking and more talking seems to be the recent obsession of the human race. Everybody has something to say! And quite a lot of them probably think how they talk does not matter. From ppl hu dun cares abt how they sepll to PEOPLE WHO TALK LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME.

That being said, it doesn’t take much to realize how ‘talking’ have such a bad name nowadays. But for the sake of all fairness, I have to propose that talking is not necessarily be degraded into ‘just’ talking. To start off, let us discuss about the gift exclusive to the human race: the gift of speech.

Gift of Speech

The ability to actually ‘talk’; i.e. being able to speak in one particular language that other individuals are able to understand is actually the gift of our species. Don’t you agree? The gift of speech is what separates us from other life-form on the planet. So much of a gift, it had enabled us tremendously to be the species that we are today. You can say that, we started out as cavemen uttering random nonsensical voices until we developed hundreds of different languages over time, but serving only for one thing: to communicate.

We as human beings are unique, in which things about the world we are living in can be inherited into very complex form of communication called history. This, as a result, allows upcoming generations to be able to learn more than its previous generations, as the more knowledge there are, the richer life would be for the following generations. From scribbles on the cave, drawings, symbols and finally letters. Speech and language also serve as the verbal media to communicate ideas from one person to another. However, compared to any other form of communication, I would suppose that the gift of speech and language are one of the latter invention; for one thing, that is – I speculate – why we are yet to be effective in its usage.

Psychology sometimes suggests that language affects the way we perceive things around us. Taking that statement with a grain of salt, the evidence for it is still nevertheless obvious in our everyday life. For example: in my native language (Indonesian), there is no gender-differentiation for pronouns. I swear, after I get used to English and its gender-based pronouns, it sometimes gets to me when I have to listen to someone and keep wondering if it is a she or he, the speaker is talking about. Something that, I realized, lacking in my native language. Not that it really matters, but I find knowing about few details help me to understand a particular situation better.

Being a design student myself, I find it hard to deny that as well. Talking is what defines a chunk of visual communication as a media, especially in advertising. Sometimes, we as visual communicators had to deal with semantics as well, especially in typewriting. It is very evident that language alone can be used to induce certain desired psychological effect. Play of words, the way it is arranged, the way it is put together, the typeface we use, the way it is presented etc. all do affect the way we as audience perceive information.

Another thing about language is the way how certain language have advantage over the other by the use of idioms, phrases, words etc. It is like, some language had it easier to say certain things. ‘No pain, no gain’ is one example of the clever use of English language. We don’t have similar phrases in Indonesia. We Indonesians have something that sounds like this, “bersakit-sakit dahulu bersenang-senang kemudian” which literally means ‘suffer first, then be joyous afterwards’. It sounded much better in my language. But on the other hand, English seem to be – by much – more complex than my native language. With its variety of tenses, student of English as a second language often have a hard time dealing with tenses, especially if it is oral.

A spectacular example of the success of language as a unifying means of communication is the Latin language in biology. I.e. the way every species on the planet have their own universal, exclusive sort-of codename that people all over the world wouldn’t argue about. English as a unifying language might also be another example, as it is one of the major means of communication all over the world. From everyday communication to business, everyone all over the world are using English and expected to be able to speak at least a little of it just for the sake of. This is true as more parents nowadays prepare their children with English language from early on so that they wouldn’t have to catch up that much at the end of the day. This, combined with the fact that United States still monopolize the major media all over the world with Hollywood, will enable English as one of the greatest invention of unifying communication medium. China is rising, but we are yet to see Chinese language replacing English as an international language.

That being said, we human beings are social species; meaning, communication aka talking is and will still be the major unification communication solution of the world.

The Solution

Talk responsibly. Sure the notion is easier said than done, but the fact is, what, when and how we talk matters. Talk only the necessary. Talk only when you needed to. Talk well. As we train ourselves to be more and more adapt to talk responsibly, I find that talking is not that cheap at all. As I mentioned earlier, some people couldn’t be bothered in the way they talk. Don’t be that irresponsible talker. Be that responsible talker whose voice is worth hearing for. At the end of the day, talking is what makes us human. It is a wonderful gift that we have to use wisely. It is a gift we have to manage responsibly. It is a gift we all share in common as human beings and it is the greatest gift evolution had given us so that we can be the species that we are right now.

Cheers.

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And that pretty much sums it up!

I hope you find it at least tiny bit interesting.

Signed,
Teguh Li
Saturday, 11 January 2020

My turn to get bizarrely reported on Quora

I’m not sure if I should be surprised, but just few moments ago I received an email from Quora moderation telling me that I have a “recent content” that violated Quora’s policy on “Spam”:

Oh … alright?

Without even clicking, upon looking at that answer I knew right away which answer it is. Ironically, though, that is probably one of the last answers worthy of being flagged as “spam”. I’m not even sure if you could call that answer “recent” since the answer was made way back in 2016 and only was edited the following years for some extra content.

Here is the copy of the answer in WordPress:

• How has technology changed our lives?

To tell you something, I still have plenty of answers live on the platform whom I thought would be flagged as inappropriate or violated some BNBR rules from the moment I put them up … but out of those answers, they just had to pick this one. Not sure if that was intentional but that was one of my better answer, if you ask me. I mean they could just pick the most annoying one, right? If they’re so eager to give me a hard time about this.

Appealed.

Now since Quora does not provide much detail about whether the answer is flagged by a bot or flagged manually, I have no way of finding out whether this was an act of a bot, or an angry user blowing off some steam at me. Nevertheless, I sent an appeal briefly and let’s see if they’re going to do anything about it.

Maybe they don’t like this photo? I don’t know, you tell me.

I figured that since we’re on the topic, I might want to discuss certain other issues I have with the site beside the ones I mentioned about half a year ago. I don’t know why, but my whole experience on Quora really left me some unsettling things to think about. I’m never quite sure why that is, but I’ve always sensed some things are definitely not right with the site and some of the people there. But mainly I’ll just talk about the site in general, since I thought, if only Quora actually manage their site differently, none of the problems we have right now would exist. But that is not the reality we have.

Regarding Flagging Posts and Banning Users

To tell you something (and believe it or not), I’ve been waiting for some reports being thrown at me. I really am. I was even expecting to get banned or at least got edit blocked, or something close to that when I was still very active the other day (I wrote around 2-3 answers per day). But none of these had ever happened to me. Strange.

It’s quite funny to see this, mainly because there are plenty other writers who got their answers collapsed or edit blocked while they’re doing practically nothing close to what I did the other day—you know, being mischievous and all—which I expected to trigger quite a number of people there, especially some veteran writers on the local topics.

The fact that I only received a handful of “violations” in the past when I was active actually left a really huge question mark in my mind. I mean, I just don’t get it. There are plenty other milder content writers (controversy-wise) that got banned on many occasions over the years, and the more I look into it the less sense it makes to me. I’ve been checking list of users on Quora that got banned on few occasions over the years, and the reason of their banning isn’t always clear. From smaller users to bigger ones, to some of the frequent contributors and the mostly-reader users, it seems like there is no clear answer to why some users got banned in the first place. Of course they could give us any assorted, automated or made-up reasons about why some users got banned (which what they have been doing), but any keen observer would eventually see there is something else happening with the way they moderate the site. It made me really question what kind of direction that the site’s mods are leading the site into, and what kind of standards do they use to ban any user.

Again, there are way too many times that I thought my answer will be at least flagged for some BNBR violations—sometimes to the point that I thought I really am pushing things too far even by my own standards. But well, here I am, having the profile still up and running, without any flattering view counts but still catching up rather well.

As per time of writing, out of several topics I was very active on last time, “Jakarta” topic is the only one that still have me on the Top 10 chart. Not too shabby, if you ask me. I didn’t actually think I’ll last that long after the long hiatus.

I’d even say that some people who followed my content closely would probably thought that I’m really pushing my luck by posting quite a few questionable things up the other day, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they really did—I probably did push my luck too far on occasion.

However, this whole issue about flagging, blocking, banning … are evidently nothing new to Quora—unclear BNBR rules and its enforcement have been one of the recurring themes on the criticism Quora received as a company. Many reviews you could find online about the site would reveal to you that this isn’t exactly a new thing for the site. I could probably give you some links about this, but I think I’ll just leave you to research on it yourself out of some goodwill. I did this while keeping in mind that my review of the site might leave some people with a bad aftertaste, and knowing that Quora in Indonesia is currently managed by a local writer as a part of her portfolio. So as much as I wanted to bring up certain other things about the site, I’ll just close the case here so nobody would personally be dragged along with this. Either way, I’m not exactly clear on why they (i.e. Quora as a company) allowed this to perpetuate for so long by now, unless they’re pretty deliberate about it.

Okay, I’m starting to repeat myself right now.

All in all, I just wanted to post this up as a kind of personal note for future references. It’s a bit of a dilemma for me when I think of the site. On one hand, I always felt that I “owed” the platform for some minor (and rather unexpected) spotlight the other day, but then on the other hand, I have always felt that my overall experience on the site was simply something I’d rather not have, especially the last few months I was active on the platform (around end of 2017).

Don’t get me wrong—the site definitely had a great concept. Gathering real experts to contribute in a kind-of-social-media platform, I think, has its own merit, if only it was done properly. But looking at the way Quora executed such idea and how they manage it so far I can see it, it is definitely not a site I would recommend to another person as a whole package.

On the plus side, there are definitely a lot of great answers in Quora that could give you many useful insights to just about anything. But then again, obtaining such information could have been easily done by yourself and with your own research skills, if one is so eager to learn new things. I’ve definitely researched a lot of things myself before I even figured there is such a platform like this, so in a way I was actually surprised to see that I was once, came to Quora as a knee-jerk reaction when I wanted to know about something important. Such the effect when you’re addicted about something, I suppose.

Anyway … no matter how I think about it, as of now, I think I’ll be keeping my distance from that site for the time being. I’m not quite sure why, but the magic of the site that once charmed me into spending long hours into it just isn’t there anymore.

In the meantime, I’ll be seeing if my appeal would go through for that answer. It doesn’t really matter still, but well, I lose nothing either way.

Teguh Li
Friday, 05 April 2019

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Update on Saturday, 06 April 2019 – 01:44 PM

The answer in question had been restored:

Thanks for that.

Appealing for answers had taken much less time today it seems. I remembered the first 3-4 appeals I sent before literally took Quora around 2 weeks to finally get back to me. But this one and one of my other appeal took around 24 hours. Still bit annoying that this happened but well, at least they got it sorted out. For now.

Apa keluh kesah bekerja menjadi seorang desainer?

Pertanyaan ini menarik, tapi kurang spesifik, karena tidak disebutkan desainer apa yang dimaksudkan di sini. Nah, karena saya seorang Desainer Grafis, jawaban saya nanti akan lebih banyak berkisar di ranah desain grafis saja.

Sebelumnya, sebagai catatan saja—kata “desainer” di sini bisa berarti banyak sekali hal, seperti:

• Desainer mode/perancang busana (Fashion Designer);
• Desainer interior (Interior Designer);
• Desainer situs jejaring (Web Designer);
• Desainer produk (Product Designer);
• Desainer animasi (Animator), dsb.

Namun memang kalau saya perhatikan, saat orang mendengar kata “desainer” mungkin cenderung langsung berpikir ke arah desainer grafis atau desainer mode/fesyen, karena sepertinya di Indonesia itu tipe desainer yang lebih umum/menonjol kebanyakan memang kerjanya di bagian grafis dan mode fesyen. Contoh beberapa figur terkenal di dunia desain Indonesia yang saya sering dengar itu, juga rata-rata adalah desainer fesyen/perancang busana seperti Iwan Tirta (desainer batik) atau yang merangkap artis seperti Ivan Gunawan.

Kalau untuk fakultas desain yang saya dalami sendiri—yaitu Desain Komunikasi Visual (atau DKV)—secara garis besar biasanya bisa dikategorikan sebagai berikut:

Gambar 1: Tabel perbedaan utama dari Graphic Designer, Interactive Designer dan Motion Graphics Designer yang dikutip dari situs Upwork. Sumber.

Nah, kalau soal fakultas Desain Komunikasi Visual, disamping sejumlah kelebihan bekerja sebagai Desainer Grafis (contoh: bekerja dengan sesama orang kreatif, menemui klien atau proyek menarik dari waktu ke waktu), kalau soal keluh kesah, tentu juga tidak sedikit.

Beberapa di bawah ini adalah kompilasi keluh kesah menjadi seorang Desainer Grafis yang saya kompilasi, berdasarkan pengalaman pribadi dan juga hal-hal lain yang diunggah oleh desainer-desainer grafis lain di ranah daring, baik lokal maupun internasional.

1. Suka dipandang sebelah mata.

Hal ini sudah sangat sering saya jumpai, bahkan sebelum saya lulus kuliah. Tidak usah menunggu “bekerja” pun sudah ada yang namanya stigma tentang bekerja desain, dan ini kebanyakan disebabkan karena orang tidak tahu persis desain grafis itu sebetulnya ilmu seperti apa. Dari pengalaman saya, orang cenderung tidak memandang saya setinggi orang yang bergelut di fakultas lain seperti kedokteran, insinyur ataupun bisnis. Saya juga tidak tahu pasti kenapa ini terjadi, namun dugaan saya sih, mungkin ini pengaruh budaya Asia, di mana desainer itu seringkali dipersepsikan sebagai “seniman” yang entah kenapa konotasinya kadang negatif, dengan alasan “tidak bisa mendapat uang banyak” jika menjadi seniman.

Salah satu contoh nyata—ada beberapa waktu dulu di mana orang sempat bilang, “enak ya, belajar desain, cuma nge-gambar doang”—suatu kalimat yang rasanya tidak terlalu asing bagi siapapun yang sedang kuliah/bekerja sebagai desainer grafis. Tentunya kita-kita yang belajar desain tahu betul bahwa pekerjaan kita itu bukan “cuma” menggambar, dan bahkan juga tidak selalu berkisar di soal menggambar saja—desainer grafis itu sebetulnya lebih banyak bekerja merancang visual untuk keperluan komersial seperti merancang iklan, merancang logo perusahaan, atau mengembangkan konsep untuk keperluan marketing. Jadi sebetulnya yah, kita tidak cuma nge-gambar doang, sih, walau memang tidak sedikit desainer grafis yang akhirnya menggeluti bidang ilustrasi—kalau yang seperti itu tentu akan banyak menggambar, tapi ya bukan “cuma” atau “doang” juga, ilmu menggambar itu.

Gambar 2: “Supergirl and Streaky” dari DC Universe, oleh Artgerm (Stanley Lau). Mungkin ilmunya harus setingkat suhu Artgerm supaya gak dibilang “cuma gambar doang”. Sumber.

2. Ilmu kamu (atau malah kamu nya) dianggap tidak penting.

Lanjutan dari nomor 1—dampak tidak langsungnya dari poin nomor 1 itu orang lain jadi ada kecenderungan tidak anggap serius pendapat kamu sebagai seorang desainer grafis, atau bahkan sebagai manusia jika sedang berdiskusi di kehidupan sosial. Hal ini agak lucu, tapi sudah saya maklumi karena toh, namanya juga kita hidup bersosial, tidak akan luput dari namanya persepsi umum orang saat mendengar hal-hal tertentu yang mereka mungkin tidak tahu secara menyeluruh.

Contoh pribadi—saya seringkali menemui situasi di mana dalam diskusi kelompok tentang topik apapun itu—dari hal seperti opini tentang situasi sosial, politik, budaya—orang lebih ingin mendengar pendapat dari orang-orang yang punya posisi sosial yang lebih tinggi (orang yang lebih tua) atau orang yang punya profesi yang lebih “intelektual” (dokter, insinyur, pembisnis) daripada saya sebagai seorang desainer. Tentunya saya tidak keberatan jika saya tidak dianggap serius kalau saja topik yang dibahas bukanlah bidang yang saya geluti, namun entah kenapa, selama ini tidak jarang juga saya tidak didengarkan saat diskusinya berkisar di antara topik yang sebetulnya saya pribadi punya pengetahuan lebih, seperti desain itu sendiri, beberapa jenis tren sosial, atau seni dan budaya secara umum. Entahlah ada apa yang terlintas di pikiran masing-masing orang, tapi ya secara tidak langsung, dalam kondisi seperti itu saya berpikir lebih baik diam saja daripada dibilang “sok tahu”, walau kenyataannya mungkin saja sebetulnya terbalik.

3. Memang, menjadi desainer grafis itu tidak selalu untung secara finansial.

Saya seringkali jumpai banyak kasus, bahwa gaji seorang desainer grafis itu tidaklah besar. Ini memang tidak salah. Di negara maju seperti Singapura pun, ini adalah satu masalah sendiri—di mana lulusan fakultas lain seperti engineering atau medicine bisa memberikan kamu upah minimum per bulan yang dimulai dari angka SGD 3,000 (IDR 30 jutaan)[3][4] ke atas, sebagai desainer grafis, mendapat upah SGD 2,000 (IDR 20 jutaan) [5] saja sudah syukur alhamdullilah. Saya juga menemukan tren yang sama di Indonesia [6][7], hanya saja yah, UMR di sini tentunya jauh lebih sedikit dibanding di Singapura.

Gambar 3: Perbandingan gaji tahunan Insinyur Sipil dan Desainer Grafis di Indonesia. Jika dibagi 12 bulan, kurang lebih gaji rata-rata per bulan seorang Insinyur Sipil berada di IDR 8.427.530,75 dan Desainer Grafis di angka IDR 5.044.542,75. Plafon gaji per tahun Insinyur Sipil juga jauh lebih tinggi di angka IDR 358 juta, sedangkan Desain Grafis di angka IDR 122 juta. Data diambil dari situs Payscale per tanggal 14 Januari 2019.

Padahal, kenyataannya, sekolah desain itu tidak terlalu jauh lebih murah [8][9][10][11], apalagi jika ditambah biaya perintilan yang harus dikeluarkan mahasiswa desain seperti pensil, kertas, mencetak berlembar-lembar karya-karya pribadi dan lain sebagainya. Jika ditotal-total, bukan tidak mungkin biaya yang dikeluarkan selama 3–4 tahun kuliah desain itu akan lebih tinggi dari fakultas lain yang kebanyakan mungkin tidak selalu butuh mengeluarkan uang untuk hal-hal macam-macam.

Dan walau kebanyakan orang berpendapat seperti berikut, belajar desain tidaklah juga jauh lebih “mudah” dari fakultas lain seperti kedokteran ataupun insinyur. Memang betul, hal-hal yang dikerjakan di fakultas desain grafis itu tidak terlalu butuh banyak pemikiran atau perhitungan yang rumit (seperti insinyur), dan tidak juga berurusan dengan soal nyawa (seperti dokter), namun bukan hanya karena itu tiba-tiba profesi ini menjadi lebih remeh juga.

Toh, pada akhirnya dalam kehidupan sehari-hari, produk-produk hasil desain itu bisa dijumpai cukup sering, seperti desain iklan di spanduk-spanduk jalanan, desain produk seperti ponsel pintar, desain sepatu terkini anak zaman  now dan berbagai hal berunsur estetika lainnya yang diminati orang-orang dari segala umur. Apalagi zaman sekarang di mana apa yang terlihat itu adalah sesuatu yang sepertinya dijunjung tinggi, apa-apa harus selalu cantik, ca’em, bersinar dan berkilau di segala sudut, saya pikir ilmu merancang visual seharusnya sudah bisa lebih mendapat penghargaan sosial yang minimal lebih banyak. Namun apa yang saya lihat, sepertinya gitu-gitu aja sih. Atau mungkin sudah ada perubahan, tapi saya kurang banyak keluar rumah.

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Kalau daftar di atas terlalu serius, di sisi lain, ada juga keluh kesah yang lebih sederhana, lucu dan mungkin lebih menghibur, yang juga menjadi meme tersendiri di kalangan desainer yang ada di ranah daring:

A. Permintaan klien yang terkadang kurang realistis.

Gambar 4: Meme diagram segitiga desain grafis—klien dipaksa harus memilih hanya 2 di antara 3 ekspektasi dalam proses desain, yaitu “Bagus”, “Cepat” atau “Murah”. Sumber.

Diagram di atas ini adalah meme yang cukup populer, kemungkinan hasil buatan desainer/pembuat konten yang mau bercanda berdasarkan pengalaman pribadi ke beberapa klien. Saya tidak tahu siapa yang merancang ini, tapi menurut saya, diagram ini sempurna untuk merangkum salah satu masalah dalam bekerja dengan beberapa macam klien.

Memang tidak bisa dipungkiri bahwa terkadang, ada saja klien yang mungkin memiliki ekspektasi terlalu tinggi dalam satu proyek desain, dan terkadang ini menjadi masalah. Sepertinya orang yang mengeluarkan meme ini akhirnya mengunggah ini karena sudah frustasi sekali dengan pekerjaannya. Jadi pada akhirnya, jika mau desain bagus dan cepat, tidak bisa murah; jika mau murah dan cepat, tidak bisa bagus; dan jika mau murah dan bagus, tidak bisa cepat.

B. Revisi tiada akhir.

Gambar 5: Daftar harga jasa desain unik yang menjadi satu meme tersendiri. Perhatikan bagaimana harga jasanya terus naik berbanding lurus dengan besarnya peran klien dalam proses desain itu sendiri. Sumber.

Jika saja ada yang bingung, kok kenapa harga desain nya bertambah terus semakin mahal berbanding lurus dengan seberapa besar keterlibatan klien terhadap satu proyek? Nah, hal ini disebabkan karena ada kasus-kasus di mana satu desain dalam proyek itu terus menerus direvisi ulang oleh pihak klien, sampai-sampai ada satu titik di mana proyek tersebut malah tidak kunjung selesai. Padahal, mungkin saja desainnya bisa rampung pada saat itu juga.

Saya sudah sering dengar bahwa hal ini sudah menjadi sumber kegusaran tersendiri, sampai-sampai ada saja orang yang terpikir untuk membuat tabel desain harga yang seperti itu. Jadi intinya sih, kenapa jasa pertama “I design everything” itu adalah jasa paling murah, disebabkan karena minimnya intervensi dari klien dipercaya bisa mempermudah dan mempercepat semua proses desain dari mulai sampai selesai, jadinya tidak akan sampai terlalu memakan waktu sehingga harganya tentunya lebih murah dibanding jasa yang lainnya.

C. Macam-macam keluhan lainnya.

Yang ini saya kutip langsung dari salah satu post di forum Kaskus:

• Kaskus: Suka Duka Jadi Desainer Grafis

Entah mesti terkejut atau tidak, ternyata keluhan desainer lokal juga tidak terlalu jauh beda dari desainer-desainer di tempat lain:

Gambar 6: Kompilasi keluh kesah desainer grafis lokal. Sumber.

Jadi boleh dibilang, sepertinya keluh kesah menjadi seorang desainer grafis itu tidak mengenal batasan tempat, ruang dan waktu.

Catatan Kaki

1. What Are the Different Types of Designers? UI Design, Interface Design, Web Design
2. Sakitnya Tuh Di Sini: Cuma Para Desainer Grafis yang Mengalami 12 Kepahitan Ini
3. Mechanical Engineer Salary (Singapore)
4. Physician / Doctor, Internal Medicine Salary (Singapore)
5. Graphic Designer Salary (Singapore)
6. Civil Engineer Salary (Indonesia)
7. Graphic Designer Salary (Indonesia)
8. 2018 Cost Guide: Singapore Universities’ Tuition Fee Comparison
9. NAFA Course Fees
10. Biaya Kuliah di Universitas Multimedia Nusantara (UMN) TA 2018/2019
11. Info Terbaru Biaya Kuliah Universitas Tarumanegara (UNTAR)

Terima kasih untuk permintaan jawabannya:

In Indonesia, how much does society value individualism?

Short answer — As much as any other things in this country and as far as my observation goes, the value of individualism depends highly on who you are, what kind of upbringing you have or what you are doing with your life. It also helps to have good circle of friends who would endorse you as a collective, even when you are in quite a lot of ways, being promoted as an individual, which then qualify the people endorsing you as seeing the value for an individual to succeed, which is one of the important criteria for the concept. But things get awry somewhere along the line that it might not be too clear cut what people here want exactly. This might be very confusing at first but let me just explain this a bit.

Long answer — I know that collectivism (the opposite of individualism) is highly regarded as the highest value around here, with some ideas like ‘gotong royong’ (which is highly collective) being put across here and there in times of need. But you only need to take a look at the situation in which either of these concepts (individualism vs. collectivism) take place to see the inconsistency.

Indonesians in quite a lot of cases have very conflicting values and could be noticeably fickle especially if they sense discomfort in either position presented, no matter whether it’s individualism or collectivism.

What I meant is that, I’ve noticed over the time that some people mentioned about how Asian culture is all about being communal and being collective, but then on the other side you have exclusively individualistic entrepreneurs and/or public figures being exalted in some cases. All these things added up to me to the point when it is hard not to think that people only abide to any value available at hand only when it aligns nicely with their own respective personal interest. Maybe that’s pretty crude summary from me, but it’s not hard to notice this when you know what to look for.

In summary, how much individualism is valued would really depend on how you wrap it yourself, or how your friend wrap it for you, or whether there is any vested interest in the opposite of that idea which is collectivism. Another way to put it, individualism can actually be good when people want it to be or when they think it’s good for them, but then when the concept threatens a certain interest, the script could flip and suddenly you have people rambling about how we are all about collectivism and whatnot.

To sort of narrow down the discussion—let’s just take a look at the general definition of individualism that could be easily found on 1 search result:

Then you look at the definition of collectivism just for comparison:

So by that standard, being individualistic, which equals to the word “self-sufficient” or being “mandiri” (independent) sounds really good, and we should all strive for that especially if you’re an adult so you can face the world without relying on other people so much. Being independent is actually one of the many values a lot of young people strive for anyway, especially now when young entrepreneurs and start-ups seems to be one of the more popular career go-to than spending your time at someone else’s office. This way, you could say that superficially, people do value individualism to a certain extent. However, this is precisely where things get confusing.

I don’t know about elsewhere, but here in my city, being “self-reliant” could be magically perceived as “sombong” (arrogant) in some cases, which would usually confuse the person receiving such accusation simply because what the person did is mostly not appearing in one or more peer or family gatherings. But who are we or anyone else to judge someone is being “arrogant” just because he/she is not attending few or more gatherings?

Maybe he/she is busy with overtime work. Maybe he/she just needs sometime alone to recharge from the stressful routines. Maybe he/she is doing some hobby or other activities that meant something for him/her. Maybe he/she isn’t just in the mood. There are so many examples I could give you but the point I’m making is this: to regard individualism as a value worth having would also mean that you can value other people’s time and self-interest which might not align with yours.

This is one of the many conflicts a lot of people here have when they’re dealing with other people here—on one hand you have people talking about the value of being self-reliant, the importance of being independent, the utmost need to be able to sustain oneself as an individual but then on the other hand you have people all over you, seemingly trying to drag you out of that dream while randomly accusing you of arrogance out of the blue.

Image 1: So, which group you think would win in this tug-of-war?

In some extreme cases, it would also extent to some disingenuous low-brow name calling, gossiping or even exile if you went too far from the curve, even when you’re not exactly doing anything that should or would bother anyone one way or the other. I’ve seen some people (like here in Quora) have seen that this goes beyond what can be considered normal and that’s undeniable. Sometimes this kind of thing can also be classified as—what people call—the Tall poppy syndrome, described as “aspects of a culture where people of high status are resented, attacked, cut down, strung up or criticized because they have been classified as superior to their peers.”

One public example of this would be the case of Anggun, an Indonesian singer who got accused of being a traitor to her country because she decided to get a foreign passport to further her singing career:

Image 2: Photo of Anggun (left) with a piece of her 2001 interview snapshot (right).

Long story short, her decision to leave Indonesia and get another passport was simply because she found that Indonesian passport didn’t get her any flexibility to move around, and the government wasn’t really doing anything to help her with that. She mentioned how she regretted giving an account about this issue at all because now she’s getting unpleasant remarks from random people simply because she swapped her citizenship. In this case you could clearly see how much individualism is valued—it is valued only to a certain extent. Once you go beyond what’s considered “appropriate” to whatever standards people here hold, it’s only a matter of time until you get avoided, shunned or even being called names out of hand.

Image 3: Another piece of her 2001 interview snapshot for any Indonesian readers. She basically elaborated how she got negative comments about her work from Indonesians which she found ironic. While on the other hand, she got very positive feedback from people outside the country.

Personally, I haven’t really gotten treatment as bad as what I read elsewhere (eventhough I’m pretty sure I got some myself recently) but the problem is definitely there and I think it’s damaging both in short and long term for the people. Supporting the rights of individual(s) to thrive in their own terms is one of the key for a country like Indonesia to be known worldwide—that there are actually great talents here—and eventhough things are getting much better now with many individuals are getting some national or international spotlights, these are all still minority cases. A lot of people here are still stuck with the pull from the collective mindset, while—confusingly perhaps—being offered or persuaded to take the path to individualism.

Being said all these, of course I’m not saying that individualism is a better stance than collectivism. I am only trying to make a point that people here can be astonishingly confused when it comes to the idea, as they might not get the full picture of what individualism as a concept truly needs and requires—the rights for individuals to thrive, while quite possibly bringing nobody else with them for the ride. In other words, Indonesians might superficially like the idea of individualism, but they are—in my opinion—aren’t completely ready for what’s at stake (collectivism will take 2nd place), and to give space for individual rights to thrive when it needs to be.

Footnotes

1. Cuplikan Wawancara Beredar, Alasan Anggun Pindah Kewarganegaraan Harusnya Bikin Kita Prihatin
2. Penyebab Anggun C Sasmi Pindah Kewarganegaraan Terbongkar
3. 84 Nama Youtuber Youtube Rewind Indonesia 2018, Atta Halilintar hingga Vanessa Sevilla – Tribunnews.com
4. 5 Fakta YouTube Rewind 2018, ada YouTuber Indonesia

Thank you for the answer request:

Apa makna dan cerita di balik logo Starbucks?

Mari kita bahas satu-satu tentang makna dan cerita di balik logo Starbucks.

Secara visual, makhluk yang kamu lihat di logo Starbucks itu bisa diinterpretasikan sebagai makhluk mitos yang bernama Mélusine.

Mélusine adalah salah satu legenda lama Skandinavia tentang putri duyung yang berekor dua, di mana Mélusine digambarkan sebagai arwah penjaga air tawar yang mendiami danau atau sungai yang dinilai sakral.

Gambar 1: Ilustrasi dari Mélusine karya Jean d’Arras, seniman asal Perancis di abad ke-19. Sumber.

Namun karena legenda di negara barat (seperti halnya di tempat lain) itu terkadang bercampur dan tidak selalu konsisten penceritaannya, makhluk putri duyung perempuan seperti ini memang secara luas lebih dikenal dengan nama Siren. Walau kebanyakan orang mengetahui bahwa makhluk di gambar logo Starbucks itu adalah Siren, jika kamu teliti lagi asal-usul ceritanya, kebanyakan dari penggambaran Siren adalah putri duyung berekor satu, dan tidak jarang mereka juga bisa menjelma menjadi manusia.

Gambar 2: Ulysses and the Sirens (Ulysses dan Para Siren) oleh Herbert James Draper, 1909. Lukisan disimpan di Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Museums, UK. Sumber.

Bahkan jika ditelusuri lagi, sebetulnya pada legenda Yunani itu sendiri, beberapa catatan sejarah menyatakan bahwa Siren justru bukanlah berbentuk putri duyung, melainkan wanita bersayap seperti burung.

Gambar 3: Odysseus and the Sirens (Odysseus dan Para Siren) karya John William Waterhouse, 1891. Menunjukkan raja-prajurit Yunani terikat di tiang kapalnya sendiri saat nyanyian para siren ini dikumandangkan. Sumber.

Jadi sebetulnya lebih tepat jika si duyung ini dipanggil Mélusine, walau saya rasa orang akan sulit langsung ngeh juga jika nama Mélusine itu disebut dibandingkan Siren yang lebih populer.

Siren itu sendiri secara populer biasanya digambarkan sebagai makhluk berupa putri duyung yang mendiami lautan lepas dan pandai sekali menyanyi. Dalam ceritanya, biasanya tempat tinggal mereka itu adalah bagian laut yang penuh dengan karang dan kabut, yang berfungsi untuk menenggelamkan kapal. Ini disebabkan karena salah satu kegemaran mereka itu adalah menjebak kapal layar yang mendekat dengan senandung yang mereka nyanyikan, mengarahkan kapal para pelaut ke dalam rumah mereka sehingga kapal-kapal yang mendekat ini akan menabrak karang tersebut dan tenggelam.

Legenda bercerita, bahwa Siren suka sekali bernyanyi di saat ada kapal layar yang melintas, menggoda mereka untuk mendekat karena penasaran, dengan tujuan menjebak mereka. Nyanyian mereka kerap diceritakan sebagai nyanyian yang sangat merdu dan menggoda, bak suara bidadari. Dan boleh diingat juga bahwa di saat cerita ini sangat populer, kebanyakan pelaut adalah laki-laki, sehingga tentunya membuat suara wanita merdu di tengah laut itu dipercaya memiliki dampak yang lebih ampuh lagi dibandingkan jika pelaut itu kebanyakan adalah wanita. Cerita ini adalah salah satu dari banyak cerita mitos yang mencoba memberi alasan mengapa banyak pelaut dan kapal yang berlayar dari pelabuhan itu tidak pernah kembali. Karena mereka dipercaya telah digoda oleh makhluk Siren ini, dan tenggelam ke dasar laut beserta kapal-kapalnya.

Logo Starbucks yang modern memang tidak terlalu jelas menunjukkan makhluk ini, namun jika kamu melihat sejarah dari Starbucks, kamu akan bisa melihat lebih jelas seperti apa makhluk yang digambarkan ini:

Gambar 4: Logo Starbucks saat didirikan di tahun 1971. Sumber.

Nah, mengapa Starbucks memilih logo putri duyung berekor dua? Hal ini dijelaskan di beberapa sumber, bahwa pendiri Starbucks mendapat inspirasi dari budaya melaut para pedagang kopi pada masa lalu:

Terjemahan:
Saat kami mencari logo untuk Starbucks di tahun 1971, kami mau mencoba mengkapsulasi tradisi melaut para pedagang kopi pada masa lampau. Kami menelusuri banyak buku-buku tua tentang kelautan, sampai kami berakhir dengan ide membuat logo berdasarkan legenda Norse di abad ke-16: putri duyung berekor dua, dibingkai lingkaran dengan nama toko kami pertama kali, Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice.

Gambar 5: Foto toko Starbucks di zaman mereka baru dibuka. Sumber.

Sampai sini kamu mungkin heran juga, kenapa kok budaya melaut itu digambarkan sebagai makhluk legenda yang asalnya dari sungai/air tawar? Nah di sini dia kadang satu hal yang orang tidak banyak tahu, bahwa pembuatan logo itu banyak dipengaruhi dengan yang namanya selera dan preferensi saja. Tidak jarang juga sebetulnya arti di balik logo itu tidak serumit yang orang pikir.

Hal ini tergambarkan pada logo merek terkenal seperti Apple, yang menjadi legenda modern bagaimana asalnya kok bisa seperti itu, bahwa seakan-akan logonya adalah tribut untuk Alan Turing, atau simbol dari apel di Taman Eden dsb, namun pada kenyataannya logonya dibuat bukan dengan pemikiran macam-macam seperti yang banyak cerita suka sebutkan:

Terjemahan:
Harus dengan sedih dikatakan, bahwa kenyataan itu berkata lain [tentang logo Apple]. Di wawancara tahun 2009 dengan CreativeBits, desainer asli logo Rob Janoff dipertanyakan tentang teori-teori yang ada tentang logo yang ia buat. Dia membantah cerita bahwa inspirasi logo di dapat dari cerita Sir Isaac atau Alkitab, dan walau dia mengakatan dia sangat terkesan dengan cerita-cerita ini dan juga dugaan koneksi logo Apple dengan cerita Alan Turing, dia tidak tahu menahu tentang cerita ini pada saat membuat logo.

“Saya kuatir tidak ada hubungannya dengan semua itu,” katanya. “Itu urban legend yang sangat menarik”.

Janoff katakan bahwa dulu dia tidak mendapat brief yang spesifik dari Steve Jobs, dan walau dia tidak ingat jelas bagaimana dia bisa keluar dengan ide sebuah apel, alasan kenapa ada ‘gigitan’ di apel itu masih diingat jelas: gigitan itu di sana untuk skala saja, katanya, jadinya jika logo Apple itu berukuran kecil, logo nya masih terlihat seperti apel dan bukan cherry.

Mungkin kamu kecewa ya mendengar hal-hal seperti ini, jika kamu kebetulan sudah pernah dengar cerita-cerita romantisasi logo Apple sebelum kamu membaca hal ini. Tapi tidak usah kuatir, kamu tidak sendiri—manusia itu secara naluri memang suka namanya melebih-lebihkan cerita dan membuat satu kisah terkesan/terdengar lebih penting dari kenyataannya.

Nah kembali lagi ke logo Starbucks: dalam perjalanannya, logo Starbucks mengalami beberapa perubahan desain, sampai dengan ke logo yang kamu lihat sekarang ini.

Gambar 6: Perjalanan desain logo Starbucks dari waktu ke waktu. Sumber.

Pada intinya secara konsep, logonya tidak berubah terlalu drastis, karena desain dari putri duyung berekor dua di dalam lingkaran di sini masih dipertahankan. Namun memang secara visual kamu juga bisa lihat bagaimana desain logo secara keseluruhan sudah disederhanakan sedemikian rupanya untuk beradaptasi dengan tren desain grafis pada zaman-zaman tersebut.

Pada saat pembuatan logo Starbucks baru di 1987, warna hijau diperkenalkan sebagai simbol dari ‘pertumbuhan’:

Terjemahan:
Menyempurnakan Merek
Pada tahun 1987, perusahaan [Starbucks] telah diakuisisi oleh Howard Schultz dan merevisi ulang mereknya dengan pendekatan yang lebih konservatif. Warna hijau yang sekarang sudah mendunia diperkenalkan di sini — sebuah simbol dari pertumbuhan yang akan bersemi dari bibit-bibit kesuksesan perusahaan di kemudian hari.

Berikut juga saya tambahkan ilustrasi bagaimana logo-logo dari Starbucks diterapkan ke gelas mereka dari waktu ke waktu:

Gambar 7: Perjalanan desain logo Starbucks diterapkan ke gelas dari waktu ke waktu. Sumber.

Dan khusus untuk logo terakhir yang didesain di tahun 2011, alasan mengapa mereka menghilangkan bingkai dan tulisan “Starbucks Coffee” di semua logo mereka itu adalah alasan yang cukup menarik: selain ingin merayakan 40 tahun dari merek Starbucks itu sendiri, mereka juga ingin menegaskan bahwa simbol Starbucks sendiri itu sudah merupakan simbol yang mendunia dan iconic, sehingga logonya kembali disederhanakan dengan meniadakan bingkai hijau dan menyisakan hanya putri duyungnya saja, dan mengubah latar belakang menjadi hijau, karena warna hijau sudah menjadi karakteristik khusus dari merek Starbucks.

Hal ini juga disebutkan, dilakukan supaya Starbucks secara korporat memiliki fleksibilitas yang lebih tinggi tentang arah dari aneka produk mereka, sehingga mereka diharapkan bisa lebih bereksplorasi di luar produk-produk sekitar kopi saja:

Terjemahan:
Versi terkini dari logo Starbucks yang diperkenalkan tahun 2011 adalah bagian dari perayaan ulang tahun ke-40 dari perusahaan Starbucks. Desain ulang dari logo ini membesarkan ukuran siren sembari menghilangkan bingkai lingkaran hijau beserta tulisan merek “Starbucks Coffee”. Desain logo kontroversial ‘tidak bernama’ ini “memberikan kebebasan lebih dan fleksibilitas untuk berpikir di luar produk kopi, namun jangan salah … kami akan tetap melanjutkan usaha kami menjadi merek terdepan untuk produk kopi berkualitas tertinggi.”>Selama perjalanannya, Starbucks telah merevitalisasi kembali desain dari logo mereka tanpa kehilangan identitasnya. Warna hijau di sini, siren Starbucks, serta reputasi merek Starbucks telah berkontribusi besar dalam perjalanan mereka menjadi *multi-billion dollar empire,* di mana kesederhanaan dari mereknya sudah sangat mudah dikenali dan akrab di mata semua orang. Kami penasaran seperti apakah masa depan untuk logo ini nantinya.

Selama perjalanannya, Starbucks telah merevitalisasi kembali desain dari logo mereka tanpa kehilangan identitasnya. Warna hijau di sini, siren Starbucks, serta reputasi merek Starbucks telah berkontribusi besar dalam perjalanan mereka menjadi multi-billion dollar empire, di mana kesederhanaan dari mereknya sudah sangat mudah dikenali dan akrab di mata semua orang. Kami penasaran seperti apakah masa depan untuk logo ini nantinya.

Uraian dari artikel [9]:

Terjemahan:
Versi terkini dari logo Starbucks yang diperkenalkan tahun 2011 adalah bagian dari perayaan ulang tahun ke-40 dari perusahaan Starbucks. Desain ulang dari logo ini membesarkan ukuran siren sembari menghilangkan bingkai lingkaran hijau beserta tulisan merek “Starbucks Coffee”. Desain logo kontroversial ‘tidak bernama’ ini “memberikan kebebasan lebih dan fleksibilitas untuk berpikir di luar produk kopi, namun jangan salah … kami akan tetap melanjutkan usaha kami menjadi merek terdepan untuk produk kopi berkualitas tertinggi.”

Selama perjalanannya, Starbucks telah merevitalisasi kembali desain dari logo mereka tanpa kehilangan identitasnya. Warna hijau di sini, siren Starbucks, serta reputasi merek Starbucks telah berkontribusi besar dalam perjalanan mereka menjadi multi-billion dollar empire, di mana kesederhanaan dari mereknya sudah sangat mudah dikenali dan akrab di mata semua orang. Kami penasaran seperti apakah masa depan untuk logo ini nantinya.

Dan juga dari artikel [10]:

Terjemahan:
Para petinggi di Starbucks mengatakan bahwa perubahan di logo adalah metafora dari strategi perusahaan untuk melepaskan batasan-batasan perusahaan dan bertumbuh ke tempat-tempat yang baru. Para ahli marketing setuju.

“Merek ini sekarang sudah berevolusi ke satu titik di mana asosiasinya terhadap produk kopi itu terlalu mengekang dan membatasi gerakan,” jelas John Quelch, seorang professor marketing di Harvard Business School. “Starbucks sekarang ini sebetulnya sudah menjual sebuah pengalaman, tapi itu bukan berarti pengalaman tersebut berasal dari meneguk kopi saja. Ini tentunya sangat penting pada saat ini jika mereka tidak memiliki logo yang terlalu mengekang mereka.”

Semoga ini membantu.

Catatan Kaki

1. European studies blog
2. Double tailed mermaids
3. Sirens Mythology – Crystalinks
4. Sirens of Greek Myth Were Bird-Women, Not Mermaids
5. Siren (mythology) – Wikipedia
6. History of the Starbucks Logo | Fine Print Art
7. Unraveling the tale behind the Apple logo
8. Starbucks Logo – An Overview of Design, History and Evolution
9. Ever Evolving : how the logo designs of Starbucks, Apple and Google have changed
10. New Starbucks Logo Unveiled (PHOTO)

Terima kasih untuk permintaan jawabannya:

In Crazy Rich Asians I noticed that that they eat with forks instead of chopsticks. Is this common in Singapore?

Originally published on 11 Oct 2018 10:07 AM

Short answer — Yes it is. Other answers have shown to you how this works out from the local perspective, so I’d just drop by and add some explanations on this.

Long answer — Spoon and fork are actually common utensils here in a lot of parts of Asia. But since it is a kind of “imported” utensil in a way, quite a lot of people in Asia could sometimes find that eating with spoon and fork is not an absolute necessity, since there are other ways to eat food here in Asia.

A bit about the movie—while the movie’s premise is understandable (a kind of Americanized view on what “Asian” is all about), in my opinion, this is yet again another (minor) mistake and an old stereotype about what “Asians” are. Maybe this happens mostly in the States, but when you get down to it, the word “Asian” is actually a pretty shaky word—Asians aren’t just comprised of oriental Asians like the Chinese, Japanese or Koreans like what is depicted in the movie.

Related reading:

• Do you find Asian noses attractive?

So aside from chopsticks—a very common utensil in East Asian countries—here in Asia we also have other means to eat food as well, including eating with bare hands like what some Asian cultures/countries actually do. However, since the western civilization spread its influence all around the world back then, spoon, fork and knife culture got adopted in many Asian countries as well, including Singapore, among many others.

Image: In some cultures in Asia (mainly in west/south/southeast), eating food with bare hands is considered a normality and actually a primary way of eating food every day. Source.

Of course being said that, this doesn’t mean I necessarily want to disparage anyone just because of this misconception and how the depiction might missed some factual information. This, for me personally is a classic case of product marketing from the makers of the movie, combined with a kind of thick stereotype of what Asians are and what our utensils are mostly observed in some western countries. Just to add, some countries in Asia don’t even use chopsticks.

A movie is a movie—it is a product after all, and it needs the correct kind of marketing if it ever wants to be successful or popular. When you look at things this way, the title “Crazy Rich Asians” surely is more convincing and stereotypical than to have titles like “Crazy Rich Chinese” or “Crazy Rich East Asians”, “Crazy Rich Singapore Boyfriend” or anything else along that line. So in that regard I can totally understand why the movie shows itself as what it is, despite the still underlying problem about the view of Asia and Asians.

Update 12 Nov 2020: It came to my attention that Crazy Rich Asians was a movie-adaptation based on 2013 satirical novel of the same name by Kevin Kwan, something I wasn’t aware of at the time of the original writing. It appears to be that the novel was loosely based on writer’s own experience growing up in Singapore inside a privileged family and that his intention in writing it was to “introduce a contemporary Asia to a North American audience”. So that should explain a lot of things why the movie depicted all the things the way they are.

When it comes to the country Singapore, the country itself is a melting pot—this means that people here are comprised by people of many origins, from west to east, who came here either to find job opportunities, a different taste of living or for a short holiday. Add the fact that Singapore is arguably one of the more westernized country here in Asia, it is not strange at all to see that spoons and forks are very common as well.

After all, as a Chinese myself I find that spoon and fork actually are more practical utensils than chopsticks for quite a large variety of food, especially western dishes. They are slightly more difficult to wash than chopsticks, but at the end of the day it is certainly a good thing to have options on utensils and how to eat your food, which is the whole point of having several types of them at your disposal.

So yes, spoon and fork are pretty common utensils in Singapore, and many parts of Asia as well especially if you’re talking about big cities. It could be any country—Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand,etc.—as long as you’re talking about living in a city, spoon and fork is a common sighting.

Thanks for the request.

Footnotes:

1. Crazy Rich Asians (film) – Wikipedia
2. Crazy Rich Asians Author Kevin Kwan on the Lavish Culture of Asia’s Upper Crust: “The Reality Is Simply Unbelievable”
3. How ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Splash Their Cash

What does “toggle” mean in computer speak?

Originally published on 17 Sep 2017 6:50 PM

In computing, toggle refers to switching from one state or action to another by a single click of a button. In a computer keyboard, there are usually three toggle keys with different toggle-able state:

1. Caps Lock — When ON, it allows you to type on fully capitalized letters.
2. Num Lock — Available on full layout keyboards, in most motherboards Num Lock is usually set to ON after booting up. It allows you to use the Numpad Keys part of your keyboard as numbers pad. When OFF, the number keys on your Numpad will not work.
3. Scroll Lock — A legacy toggle button that serves very little purpose on modern computers. It only makes a difference in certain modern programs, one of it being Microsoft Excel, where as toggling this to ON will allow you to move the scroll bar with arrow keys.

On notebooks or smaller keyboards, they would usually have an extra toggle button:

• Fn Lock — When ON, it allows you to use Function keys without the need to hold on your Fn key. Function keys usually printed as symbols in small sizes with different color just beside regular keyboard key prints.

Basically, toggle just means you switch from one state to another permanently by a single button click. This doesn’t always have to be two—for example, on some computer games, toggling would sometimes mean switching between two to three different weapons with a button click.

In case of day-to-day usage, the opposite of a toggle is a keypress hold, such as Shift button and Fn button, which require users to press down the keys to switch on a different state or function as long as the button is pressed. When released, all the functions will return to normal, unlike toggle buttons that require another press of the button to swap back to previous state.

I hope that helps.

What’s your favourite national flag (aesthetically)?

Originally published on 4 Jan 2018 10:35 AM

There are definitely few favorites.

1. South Korea.

Image 1: Flag of South Korea, also known as the Taegukgi (also spelled as Taegeukgi, literally “supreme ultimate flag”).

Apart from the very cultural Korean look of it, it is actually one of the more distinctive flag of the world, and with good meaning too:

From Wikipedia — The circle in the middle is derived from the philosophy of yin-yang and represents balance in the universe. The red half represents positive cosmic forces, and the blue half represents the opposing negative cosmic forces.

Together, the trigrams represent movement and harmony as fundamental principles. Each trigram represents one of the four classical elements […] representing sun, moon, heaven and earth.

That’s very thoughtful, if you ask me.

2. Barbados. Honestly, I don’t even know what country “Barbados” is, but when I see the Trident of Poseidon on a national flag, that’s definitely something.

Image 2: Flag of Barbados. The three points of the trident represent the three principles of democracy: 1) government of the people, 2) government for the people, and 3) government by the people.

I don’t really like the whole democracy rationale thing to go with the flag, but whatever, it still has Trident of Poseidon. It’s cool.

3. United Kingdom. This one is hell of a cheesy choice, but there’s something about the flag of UK and its aesthetics, and its versatility to be used on product design in general.

Image 3: The national flag of the United Kingdom. It is called the Union Jack, also known as the Union Flag. It consists of the red cross of Saint George (patron saint of England), edged in white, superimposed on the Cross of St Patrick (patron saint of Ireland), which are superimposed on the Saltire of Saint Andrew (patron saint of Scotland).

Many graphic designers are probably familiar with the fact that there are wide array of things you could create purely by slapping the flag onto something, as you could see by following this google search link if you’d like to find out what I mean. The flag itself looks good too, and products with the Union Jack are arguably pretty popular in many places, as far as I see it.

And those were 3 of the more aesthetically (or commercially) great flags from my perspective.

Cheers.

Footnotes

1. Flag of South Korea – Wikipedia
2. Flag of Barbados – Wikipedia
3. Flag of the United Kingdom – Wikipedia