Creativity Gone Wild: from Poster Competition to Illustration

The First Version (with text)

The Final Version

If you notice there is a little weird looking worm on top right of this page along with "Creativity gone wild" text, it comes from this complete artwork. It was a poster design for Highline Community College Portfolio Show event. All the students in the class were required to submit their design, and there would be a winner base on the voting by all Visual Communication Department students and staffs.

I didn't win, 4th place only. Not bad. But since I personally like my design, I didn't stop modifying the poster, until it come out like current version.

The final version image has a deviantART watermark on it. You can check my other design on my DevianART Channel here: http://manthono.deviantart.com/

The Sad Cat: Illustration Design

This cat has a very long story. Begin with the day when my teacher in Graphic design I asked the class to make an illustration of any animal in a shape of either circle, square or triangle. The animal can be anything, but the shape has to be in the form the three basic shapes.

I am a cat people. I like cat and I also have a personal story about cat. When I was a kid -- around 3-4 of age -- I  had a very nice white cat. This cat was so smart and good. He follows me everywhere I go, into the forest -- near the village where I was born. Funny, because normally people bring dog into the wood. But my mother allowed no dog in our house. I like my cat anyway, because he was able to catch bird and brought it alive to me so I can roast it at home. This cat died hit by car. it was so sad.

I also have a dark story about cat. When I was in around 9 or 10, I killed a cat. I didn't mean to, but this cat ate three little bird that I was planning to pet, taken from the wood. The cat ate the birds when I was busy building the cage. I hit the cat with a stick very hard. It wasn't died right away. It ran with hobble. Three days later I found it's dead body not far from my house.

I felt so guilty. Killing a cat is a kind of taboo in our culture. Cat is the prophet's pet, that's what my mom said. I grew up with the guilt. It makes me always threat cat nicely after that, trying to live down my sin. Until I grown up cat become my favorite animal.

So, when my teacher ask me to make a picture of animal in a shape, of course what first came to my mind was cat.
I try not to draw the cat literally, because my drawing suck. I make it a little bit abstract look. It turned up pretty good. I liked it. My teacher did too.
The first version of this image was a black and white image mounted on mat board. I scanned it up and brought to Illustrator, convert it to vector and add some painting look. It ended up like this.

To get a print copy of this artwork, please go to my DeviantArt page: http://manthono.deviantart.com/#/d3f3wij

Coretan tengah malam: Aku ingin menjadi debu lagi

Jika sedang turun salju, malam di luar jendelaku akan terang seperti akan segera pagi. Cahaya dari langit malam terpantul oleh salju yang membalut semua permukaan halaman, jalan, mobil-mobil, juga sekujur batang, ranting, dan daun pohon evergreen yang tumbuh menggapai dinding apartementku.

Jika bukan karena dinginnya, ingin rasanya aku berlama-lama duduk di balkoni sambil menerawang sepinya malam. Ditemani secangkir kopi dan krimer tanpa gula—favoritku. memikirkan jalan hidup.

Dulu waktu kecil, di kampungku yang jauh, jika malam sedang terang bulan  aku suka sekali duduk di beranda rumah panggungku. Menatap langit malam yang bertabur beribu bintang. Terangnya sama seperti malam ini disini. Semakin larut  jalanan akan semakin sepi. Pemuda-pemudi yang biasa bercengkerama  di bangku-bangku yang dibangun di depan rumah-rumah penduduk akan pulang satu demi satu. Mobil-mobil pun semakin jarang melintas lagi.

My favorite Facebook status of mine

I was trying an awesome application in my Facebook that showed the list of all my status. It's so fun reading all the status again. I found a lot of my status that are very coo. I really like them. Some are so creative, some so deep thoughtful, some are so funny. Some are coming from my own mind, some are just quote. But anyway, i love them all.

Here is the list of some good ones:

• Everywhere I go I find love has been there before me...

• Di hari lahir ini aku berharap bisa hidup seribu tahun lagi, namun di atas semua itu, aku berharap kata terahir yang kusebut di ujung usia adalah nama-Nya. Thanks untuk semua doa dan harapan dari teman2 semua. Penuh cinta untuk kalian semua... (8:06pm August 13th, 2009)

• andai semua hari adalah minggu.... (9:07pm August 11th, 2009)

• one man's sunset is another man's dawn. (1:04am August 27th, 2009)

• "Being" the Best is not at all important,"Doing" the Best is all that matters.... (3:18am September 5th, 2009)

• dari jauh: "Waaaah..." dari deket: "Yaaahh....." (7:30pm September 14th, 2009)

• sudah kubuktikan bahwa sejauh ini aku bertahan dan berdiri dlm keadaan baik baik saja. hanya tak kutemukan saja cara untuk meretas waktu menuju nanti: masa masa menagih janji. maka cobalah aku terus sampai kau yakin. dont ever think i cant survive. yes i will... i will...!! (10:05pm September 25th, 2009)

A Letter to Hillary Clinton

Ini adalah tugas untuk kelas Global Leadership Development Program saya. Kami disuruh menulis surat kepada Hillary Clinton tentang program yang kami ikuti ini yang mengantarkan kami sampai ke Amerika. Jika kalian baca, mungkin hanya hal-hal baik tentang amerika yang saya tulis disini. Bukan karena saya tidak menemukan hal buruknya, tapi lebih karena saya fokus pada hal-hal baik saja.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520


Dear Mrs. Clinton

I am a Community College Initiative Program (CCIP) student from Indonesia. Currently I am studying at Highline Community College, Des Moines, WA under Information and Technology field. I come here by CCI Scholarship which is funded by U.S Department of State. I have been here since August 22, 2010.

I am writing to express my opinion about the program and about what have I learned from my classes and from American culture generally. This letter is also a requirement for the final assignment of my GLDP (Global Leadership Development Program) class, which is purposed to develop student’s leadership quality and introduce American history and political system. By being involved in this class we are prepared to make chance in our community back to our home country next year.

First I want to start by telling that there are some stereotypes about America in the mind of Indonesian people, depending on their educational background, political view, religion, age, interest, etc. For those who have a low education America is nothing but a rich country where people eat hamburger instead of rice and everybody shoot their gun each other on the street every day. For the higher educational background, America is an economical developed capitalist country, people has a freedom to speak or do anything they like, technology is advanced, and the government is busy to keep their country to be number one in the world.