Pink Velvet designers Lin and Rachel have created a selection of purses with plenty of girly charm and a little extra pizazz, including the little number in the photograph, which I picked up over the week-end.

Their creations are full of vintage glamour mixed with a contemporary edge, featuring diamante details, lace, suede ribbons and flowing fabrics from silk, to wool, and even upholstery material. Each piece maintains its own amalgamation of colour and design and of course, has its own story. “The material is deconstructed and re-worked and combined to produce the unexpected.” Rachel explains. ”Our inspiration comes from all sources – interior design, high fashion, Japanese handicrafts, paper crafts … things we see everyday or chance upon.”

Each item is hand crafted from beginning to end. “We just like creating things. We’ve always been sewing and crafting things for ourselves because we enjoy the process of making things. And because it’s all handmade, no pieces are exactly alike.”

Drop by DIS to pick up one of Pink Velvet’s sweet handcrafted purses.

Spotted! is a digest of fly work by fresh off creatives.

THE DESIGN

Skulls, red hearts and crosses are just some of the flights of fancy that make up the quirky jewelry designs of Rayson Tan, founder of the L’ile aux Ashby label.

“My accessories portray my invention of recipes for the inner soul. I select the ingredients for their aesthetic flavor, playing with shapes and forms, mixing the hard with the soft, juxtaposing the quirky with the vintage, the old with the new and sometimes a little bit outlandish behavior to evoke the emotions of life. My accessories are designed as extensions of one’s self and not just as vacuous decorations to be worn mindlessly. They are hand-crafted to enhance your personality; staying distinctively edgy, yet stylishly wearable.” MORE »

Hi, my name is Tomaz Goh and I’m the founder of rehybrid®, a creative studio project specialised in design, illustration and Art Direction. I’ve since been actively involved and participated in local and international creative initiatives. Recently my work has been featured in Creative Review, Semi-Permanent 07 Book and Tiger Translate. Rehybrid® signifies the creative diversity that involves and evolves throughout the process. I believe in fluidity and constant shifting in your creative pilgrim, to challenge and experiment and bring new meaning and dimension into my work. MORE »

Have you ever wondered how much work goes into the creation of your favorite game? We have too, which is why we approached 22-year old freelance flash game designer, Zi Jian about breaking down the making of a game for us. He was kind enough to explain the major steps behind games development.

But before letting us in on the design process, Zi Jian insists on giving us the definition of the word “game”. “I believe almost everyone has played games at some point. But have you ever really considered what it is about a game that makes it a game? Game design involves creating the rules and interaction that describe how a game should be played. It also involves making sure that the game described by these rules will be fun. But most of all, a game is something that involves “play”. I love playing games and that’s why I create them!” MORE »

THE ART

Sometimes the things that take place in life begin to dull our senses. We may wake up seeing the same familiar things again and again without realising that it has been jaded to greys in our perception. Graphic Designer, Jim Chai, tries to pool the lines, strokes, dots and colours to make things look different and interesting for him again. MORE »

Organized by Yolk and supported by MDA, GotCharacter offers the opportunity for designers to have their characters published by the biggest names in the industry. The concept behind the site is to help nurture an online community of artists and art fans and to create a platform where artists can showcase their characters. “Through GotCharacter, you can create your own profile page that describes you and your idea of character design, links to your home page and showcases your designs,” says Kelveen Soh, founder of the site. “Fans of your characters can visit the gallery to comment, feedback and show their support. The initial aim was to target local budding designers and art students, but the website has, since it’s launch, received positive and overwhelming response from other countries around the globe.”

GotCharacter also organizes an annual competition where the most voted design wins cash prizes, and prizes from the site’s key sponsor. This year’s winner, Chis Thornley from the U.K. , came from 480 entries submitted by participants from 30 countries around the world.

Hello, I am Christy Chow and I am an apparel designer. I have a fashion label, Tangle, which was started in late 2006. Currently under the collective Studio Privé, the label will take flight independently in 2008. The label envisions the beauty of mixed movements and embraces the love for texture. Come December, Tangle’s 2nd collection - We Are Obscene: The Obscenity of Rock, hopes to incite and excite in different planes. Envisioning an age of uncensored voices from the backlane, the pieces encourage you to take a moment and waste time in them. Being erratic and influenced by too many wonderous things, the label is also a platform for me to explore different areas of art and design. To me, music is about infusing a state of mind. It need not inspire, so long as I have fun and indulge for that brief moment.

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THE DESIGN

Most people who use computers would probably say that fonts are not really their concern. In fact, they would probably express mild amusement if you went on about how important fonts are.

Danis Sie’s oversized graphic layout booklet, The Sans, is designed to promote the sans typefaces which are arguably a very popular and one of the more powerful typefaces in the design world. The publication is focused on education and looks at the proliferation of the sans typeface as part of a campaign about the way typefaces affect our daily lives. Danis explains “Each font includes a brief history and is represented by its own colour and a unique pangram. The booklet also features a few sans-serif typefaces that are widely used by the design community: Avant Garde, Din, Helvetica, Futura, Akzidenz Grotesk …” MORE »

The Lilac Saints are giving their fans a Christmas present in the guise of a holiday tune. ‘Give me Love on Xmas Day’ is a lovingly crafted and nicely written song to get yourself into the Christmas spirit.

The band enlisted ‘a little help from their friends’ for the vocals, and the track features artists including local music scene veteran, Joe Ng, Electrico’s David Tan, Saiful Idris of The Great Spy Experiment, female vocal powerhouse Shirlyn Tan, bossanova muse Olivia Ong and jazz singer Joanna Dong. Oddfellows/ Typewriter’s Patrick Chng contributes by appearing as a guest bassist on the single.

The recording is entirely self funded by The Lilac Saints and will raise money for the band’s adopted choice of charity, Boy’s Town. HMV and Gramophone stores will be retailing the single at $10.

Head over to their myspace for a taster of the track and ‘give the Boy’s Town boys some love … give them love … give them love on Xmas Day!’

The lovely Karl Maka boys are generously giving away a pair of tickets to catch the Karl Maka themselves, IGO and the DJ set of Goodnight Electric as part of the Esplanade Electrolab series. The electrifying gig is on Saturday, 15th Dec at 8pm, i.e. tomorrow.

The first person to email me with their name and contact details at cien [at] culturepush.com wins the tix! Jon and Ken will leave the tickets with the winner’s name at the door.

Update: The tickets have been given away!

THE ART

Baby in Green is one of Amanda Ang’s first digital illustrations rendered in photoshop. ‘I had intended to do a piece with minimal colours, gently accentuating the illustration’ Manda explains. ‘I love drawing girls and this was good practice for a start. It was inspired by a song from the now defunct band, Agnes Gooch … “she likes dirt, dirt dont hurt, too much. She sees me, at eighteen, baby in green, she likes the way I sing to her …” MORE »

Every Friday, Ginette Chittick, George Chua and Joe Ng, play hosts to BEAT! by continuing the tradition back in the 90s when George spun indie disco tunes at the legendary Moods bar. A Home Club -styled no frills take on partying with tunes that matter! Expect huge chunks of independent rock and an eclectic mix of other space oddities! Let’s BEAT the tedium of this humdrum town into a pulp! MORE »

If there’s a quality in a band that I appreciate — second to how vigorously they make my toes tap — it’s their ability to connect with the audience, i.e. me. Nothing makes my night more than to find out that the brains behind the music I love, also has a personality to match. It’s the equivalent of the musical first date, will I come out of a gig loving them or having my heart broken? And in that respect, I’m a sucker for the funny band, the sort that make silly jokes, take the piss out of themselves and thereby putting a grin on my face. And that’s where The Karl Maka come in.

Named after the famous HK actor, Jon Fong and Ken Hayashida make up the electropop duo that have garnered their fair share of fans for their cheerful pop ditties and their propensity to turn their gigs into impromptu karaoke sessions. On 15th Dec, they’ll be opening for Chinese electro band, IGO, as part of the Esplanade’s Electrolab series, a 3-day electropop extravaganza. I caught up with them to find out more about their friendship, the gig and that song about a certain foxy TV host… MORE »

Paul Koh and Michelle Chang are the artists behind a unique body of captivating cat-inspired art, popularly known as the catmaSutra series. Sexy, amusing and karmic, the catmaSutra paintings showcase pure indulgence of the artists’ pets at play and at rest. While Paul roots around pop culture to pull out treasures that encapsulate the irreverence and bold spirit of himself and his cats, Michelle continues, from dot to point to spot, to create luxuriously-relaxed worlds that are as free-spirited as they are magical. MORE »

Opening this week at the Night & Day gallery, is “Hard and Soul”, an exhibition featuring snippets and moments from the inner world of artists Michael Ng and Andy Yang.

Andy draws his images and raw energy from his talent as an artist and illustrator and from his background in music. Michael shares some reflective moments with paintings which he created based on doodles and words from his journals. “Art and drawings that are infused with heart and soul are fascinating and very often the sketches can be more interesting than the finished piece of work.” says Michael. MORE »