Pinin: Internet Superheroes of the telephony age

And drew this:

My role at Pinin is usually vague at best since I don’t really go to the conventions and I don’t really keep up with my posting.

However we can finally give you a sneak peak at what the skunkworks of pinin have been working on over the past few weeks and been conceptualising over the past few months.

At the moment we can’t really tell you what we’re making but we can somewhat show you as well as the theory behind it (so anyone with a short attention span can exit, stage left)

But first, here’s a picture of a family of birds who felt that it was appropriate to defecate on my car as revenge for me consuming their bird related brethern (we were eating KFC)

The first glimpse of science fiction came from people such as Wells or Verne. You had these fantastic locations hidden in the Amazon, or lost cities engulfed by tidal wave. Civilizations hidden in the deep crevasses of Tibet, stories that would bring wonder to any child’s eye. Of course eventually we realised that most of Earth had been discovered and that we were not likely to encounter any lost civilisations.

Fortunately we had people like Edgar Rice Burroughs. He along with the pulp writers of the early 20th century (Lovecraft or Howard) created lost mythos set either in the past or in Space. Such was Edgar Rice Burrough’s ‘A Princess of Mars’.
It must look and seem so outdated now, that a civilisation can exist on Mars at this very moment. Our space probes have disapproven that but for that particular time, it was one of the last bastions of freedom for the writer and as a book it moved onto influence most of the great science fiction writers of our time. Even directors such as James Cameron cite ‘A Princess of Mars’ as their starting point and to a degree it has influenced me as well as I bring you never before seen photos of our next big thing:

I set up a side by side comparison. We came up with a quick prototype (left) over a very short period, after lots of discussion and critiques, the design was revised to the final version on the right.

Each panel represents a character from a story, the story is told out through the contents in the box, it is as much a re-telling as it is a re-interpretation. Stories, myths, old movie licenses now in defunct and even concepts of the vague nature all play a part of this.

You can notice that some differences are small while others are drastic and provide a different flow altogether. The design of a singular character can potentially affect the mood of the story. Even if it is imaginary and has to be told through a non-conventional medium.

What exactly is Sumi-S? We can’t really say but we are hard at work trying to get this down and done well.

On a side note, Supanova will be on This Saturday. Quinton Flynn will also be there. Many of you will know him from Kingdom Hearts but I personally see him as Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 (and 4).

If there’s any reason why this thing isn’t done on time it’s because of Metal Gear Solid 4.

Ever since this blog started I’ve been flooded with requests by Matt aka. Meow Chan to post something.

“Sid, you should post”

“Sid, why aren’t you posting?”

“Sid, have you ever considered posting?”

“Sid, would you be interested in.”

Well you get the picture.

So here you have it, for those who don’t know, I’m Sid, Pinin’s creative director and I’m more or less in charge of developing Pinin’s creator owned products and any swanky ads or posters you might see.

I don’t actually have a nickname so we’re going to have to be boring for this post.

A long time ago I used to design happy meal toys for a giant faceless conglomerate. While I did get the chance to work on many properties that I was a fan of, it was also very disheartening to see that I couldn’t do certain things that I thought would make say, One Piece or Naruto justice (I worked for the Asia division).

With Pinin though I have no such restriction and I’m more or less free to do things at my own pace and create products based on designs that I’m proud of and then to trust these designs in the hands of Jackson and Matt where they will more or less sell to people and/or preach like rabid monks.

One thing I do believe in is the concept of evolution rather than revolution.

Sure you can re-design the wheel but how many times can you do it?

One of our upcoming lines focus on the concept of evolution and it’s a unique take on a traditional medium with speckles of Japanese aesthetic design that I grew fond of at the beginning.

I didn’t want to jump right in the pool and do a carbon copy of anime’esque ideas and themes.

All our stuff has its roots primarily in anime but the branches show our developed influences and ideas. Designs are things that should continue to grow, be refined and continue to excite.

I think that is in essence what Pinin’s design philosophy is. We create things that we ourselves would buy and things that not only look good but also complement it’s internal environment. There’s no theme or emotion behind these designs, nothing that artsy anyway. We’re just enjoying what we’re doing.

Hope to see you kids at Supanova (and Smash and Animania and Manifest etc. etc. etc)

PS. In case everyone was wondering what I’m currently listening to while I design things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toQQGmYekj8

Yes, I am a very twisted individual.