ruben.flores

The Mind Museum: Mobius Strip

2009-08-01T20:18:00.001-07:00

Viewers get to immerse in the magic of the mobius strip in this larger-than-life exhibit. They can climb up and slide down the surfaces and really appreciate the single-sided wonder.

More about The Mind Museum here.

The Mind Museum: Giant Rainsticks

2009-08-01T20:10:00.001-07:00

The transparent oversized tubes show how pebbles rushing through crisscrossing rods create the rain sound effect in the aptly called Rainsticks.

More about The Mind Museum here.

The Mind Museum: Drums

2009-08-01T19:50:00.001-07:00

Jumbo-sized drum heads have reflective membranes inside, letting the users (presumably kids) see their reflections deform as they hammer away. Masochist observers can also walk into the drums which in turn would prompt the question: "Feel the beat yet?"More about The Mind Museum here.

The Mind Museum: Gravity Exhibit

2009-08-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

A balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces keeps the moon in orbit around our planet, and this exhibit shows a motorized model of the moon being spun around the earth. Viewers are allowed to tip that balance by being given control of the moon's speed (see the big red speed dials?). Too slow and the freely hung moon crashes into the earth. Too fast and the moon moves farther away, eventually "escaping" its orbit.

More about The Mind Museum here.

Betonit Booth at Conex 2009

2009-05-05T22:30:00.001-07:00

The booth I designed for Betonit at WorldBEX was meant to be modular, and this setup at Construction Expo 2009 (April 23-26) shows it covering half the original space at 3m x 3m. Had to cheat a little - having to overlap some pieces - but all were nicely concealed.

Betonit Booth at WorldBex 2009

2009-04-01T17:49:00.000-07:00

Here's the booth I designed for my regular client - Betonit/Altamira - showcasing their products in WorldBEX 2009 (March 18-22). Being my first exhibit booth design that was to go on to production, I made sure I was on top of everything and sweated the details - from arranging the content, specifying dimensions for each pre-assembled piece, and making the components friendly for transport and open to reuse.

I should again give credit to my contractor who faithfully followed my drawings. And as you see here, it does appear as it was drawn.

Bado Display Rack

2008-12-08T07:10:00.000-08:00

The instructions were to make a clean & unique display rack which would keep the standard department store branding system and not overpower the clothes to be hung. I ended up with this thin, bow-legged rack with no straight lines on its side profile.

Though I didn't get to check the production, the welding, panel fit and finishing were very cleanly executed.

Susie's Natural Body Essentials

2008-12-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

Cramming required information into small packages is something I can actually enjoy doing. Here are two products from the makers of Susie's Lightening Soap which offered such a challenge.

Songyi White is a rebranded version of the lightening soap which they plan to release for export. "Songyi" is the name of the mushroom which is an active ingredient of the product, thus the hidden mushroom in the logo.

Tamanu is a scar remover in a diminutive 5ml bottle.

The actual label size is 5cm x 7cm, smaller than what you see displayed below.

Science Museum Exhibit Design

2008-12-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

Here are exhibit concepts comissioned for The Mind Museum -- an ambitious project conceived by the Bonifacio Arts Foundation which is on track to open in 2010. A fairly detailed description of the science museum can be found at the Inquirer website.

Below are my three contributions:

1. The Moon & Gravity for the Universe Gallery

2. Mobius Strip for the Math Park Exhibits

3. Indigenous Drums for the Music Park Exhibits

Betonit & Bison Tile Adhesive

2008-12-01T05:27:00.000-08:00

Betonit had me upgrade the packaging of Betonit Tile Adhesive, their banner product, to go with the theme rest of the tiling line. Its entry-level variant under the Bison brand also received an overhaul of its own.

Altamira Flyer Update

2008-12-01T05:05:00.000-08:00

Two years after the first set of Altamira Flyers were released to promote Betonit's latest products, they've completed enough projects to be featured in their marketing materials. These new flyers include updated copy plus photos from actual Altamira project sites.

Logo Design 3

2008-11-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

1. Creativitree

Design Studio

2. Songyi White

Lightening Soap

with mushrooms as

its active ingredient

3. Fairy White (logo study)

Lightening Soap,

mass-market variant

of Songyi White

4. ICDP (logo study)

International

Couturier & Designers

of the Philippines

Blues Fest Poster

2008-02-02T04:33:00.000-08:00

Poster design for The 1st Hobbit House Blues Festival on February 9, 2008.

The image on top is a burning vacuum tube. In lieu of a shot glass below, I used a Coricidin bottle (remember Coricidin-D tablets?) popular with blues slide guitar players.

The Impact of Packaging

2008-02-02T03:48:00.001-08:00

After visiting their website and reading about my favorite Lolo & Lola client again, I knew I had to have a special Lety's Buko Pie post here.

This was one of the first projects I handled when I joined DOST's Packaging R&D Center in 2001. When I was assigned the project, a list of requirements were ready: I was supplied with their logo, the colors had to be yellow, green & orange, there should be an image of a man relaxing under a coconut tree... and so on.

After days of trying to throw all their requests in, I figured that I just couldn't! I dropped all of them except one -- I decided to keep the crazy colors and just have fun with it. Surprisingly, Aling Lety and Mang Isagani loved it immediately and soon had it produced.

They currently produce up to 800 pies a day, servicing both the local and export markets. Read the article below to see how history was made by this humble buko pie.

Lights on White 2

2008-02-02T03:10:00.000-08:00

Here's my latest lighting installation, a permanent fixture at The Chocolate Kiss Cafe in UP. Two sets of dimmers control alternate sections of the light box, allowing you to control the contrast between them.

Below is a shot of the bar right before installation, followed by another bar photo 10 hours after.

Lights on White 1

2007-12-04T05:53:00.001-08:00

With a scheduled group exhibit last September and having no work to show for, I was forced to resurrect an old project of mine. Turned off, it's just an unassuming white box on a wall. Tug on the dimmer-switch and opposing lights start bleeding into each other.

Logo Design 2

2007-11-02T08:02:00.001-07:00

Here's a newer set of logo designs.

Daanton Water Refilling Station.
Daanton is the owner's family name. I just wanted a clean logo which could easily be printed on large fromat printers (or even hand-painted by your friendly neighborhood sign maker).

Cities Development Initiative for Asia.
An ADB-supported project. Key imagery required were for infrastructure development, the environment, planning...etc. I tied the sun, a city skyline and a curved road together to form a nautilus profile.

Carbon Market Initiative.
Another ADB project. The five bands represent 5 target regions in Asia.

Snapbox, photography studio.
This was commissioned by Tom Epperson for his studio. I initially tried to avoid using a box for this project, but enjoyed having the letters P and B interact. I ended up splitting the name and putting 'snap' and 'box' on two separate faces of a cube.

Miscellaneous works

2007-08-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some more I'd like to share.

The first is a flyer for Apres Golf, a direct-seller of women's golf shoes & apparel. The logos laid-out are the brands carried by the importer.

The Shimano ad appeared on the back cover of Siklista Magazine. Didn't have high resolution product shots (and no budget to have them photographed) so I just displayed the complete product line of Shimano using images from there website.

The last is a collection of materials we used for our ill-fated bike shop. Making all these lay-outs may have been the better part of running that business. Clockwise from top: store banner, bike-building checklist, calling card, desktop wallpaper, "Know Your Bike" flyer and trail map.

Betonit Tiling Product Portfolio

2007-08-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is one content-heavy flyer. I was initially supplied with all existing flyers (some old and some new, depending on the age of the product) and began my work from there.

My main objectives in this layout were (1) to introduce the new packaging theme of the tiling line and (2) to make it easy to differentiate as well as co-relate the applications of the products.

The most tedious part of the project was the preparation of all the information in order for me to lay them out in identical-sized areas. Accomplishing that involved thorough discussions with the client to establish a short general description for each product, specific applications, basic advantages over existing products/methods and standard product specifications. The development of product tag lines happened later, when the independent lay-outs seemed to ask for headlines.

Betonit Product Packaging

2007-08-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

Betonit has a number of tiling products which were rolled out to the market as they were developed. Having to unify the look of the product line was a good branding exercise for me. I decided to stick with 3 colors for each product: black & maroon (Betonit logo color) plus a third color to identify the product. There are still revisions scheduled to be made, but here's the general look of the labels.

Here are two more Betonit products which aren't part of the tiling series. The Sealcrete (waterproofing membrane) label was developed independently, before the tiling products were commissioned. The stone & concrete sealer on-the-other-hand will later be joined by other masonry products. It has the same 3-color treatment but has different graphic cues.

Altamira

2007-08-19T12:09:00.001-07:00

Altamira is being positioned as a premium concrete finishing line, and I did my best to give it an upscale feel. After being given all the basic product specifications, I mapped the presentation of information, sourced/made the images & illustrations, and came up with these flyers.

This also includes a color swatch/flyer folder.

Logo Design 1

2007-08-18T23:37:00.001-07:00

Some past logo design jobs, a mix of approved designs and working studies.

From top to bottom:
1. 24 Hours of Mountainbike Madness, mountainbike race
2. Faren Enterprises, bicycle importer/distributor
3. Full Throttle, bicycle/moto outlet store
4. Pandango Logo Study, clothing line

Conservation International

2007-08-18T23:23:00.001-07:00

Here's a one-off project I did with Conservation International. I was asked to design a folder for their project launch materials and was handed a bunch of wildlife photos. I came up with this photo collage with matching "teaser" die-cut treatment on the outside cover.

I placed the cave opening on the upper-left corner to make it look like a light source for all the other images. From there it was just a matter of flipping the other images and making some enhancements on the shadows to make the lighting more-or-less agree for all the elements.

Event Posters

2007-08-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

Got involved in event organizing, and we were able to pull off (at times, barely) a number of mountain bike races and sportclimbing competitions. Of course, dressing up the events was always fun for me. Working with crazy event titles is always helpful, too.

Packaging R&D Center

2007-08-18T21:19:00.002-07:00

My first full-time job was as an in-house designer for DOST's (that's the Philippines' Department of Science & Technology) Packaging Research & Development Center. We had a small & tight team there, composed mainly of food technologists and engineers. We catered primarily to SME's and dealt directly with the company owners.

Turnover was relatively quick, and as a designer it was a good way to rack up samples for my portfolio. Below are some of my works from PRDC, done from 2001 to 2003.

2007-08-18T21:12:00.000-07:00