Posted: March 21st, 2011 | Author: Fei | Filed under: oic interview | Tags: Hafi, oic interview, singa, singapore illustration | Comments Off
Hafi (Hafizah Jainal) is a girl whose day job is being a graphic designer. She does illustration during her spare time and is working towards just doing illustration alone, forever and ever. She is 22 years old in real life but 12 years old in her imagined life.
OIC: How long have you been drawing and how did you get started?
I started taking drawing seriously when I was a freshman in the Creative Media Design Course in Singapore Polytechnic. (That was, almost 4 years ago *GASP*) My drawing studio lecturer invited a few local illustrators to our class to give a talk. One of them was Kristal Melson. I was swept off my feet when I saw her drawings. I thought that they were BEYOND awesome plus she was super cool also. (Then I immediately became a fan girl 10 secs into her presentation) So that triggered off my interest in illustration. This might sound corny but Kristal’s talk really ignited my passion! I wanted to draw as well as her too and may I say again, she was uber cool and all with her cloth totebag which she drew some stuff on it. I’ve always liked people who has an aura of coolness about them 
On the same day, I bought myself a sketchbook and I began drawing everyday until I became confident with my illustration skills.
OIC: I like your style of quirky characters. Who/Where do you get your inspirations from?
Usually I get my inspirations from my childhood, which is the best period of my life so far. The cartoons/shows that I watched and the books that I read when I was a kid does inspire me a lot. Characters like Madeline, the french orphan girl, Babar the elephant and Miffy (always had a thing for animals behaving like humans) were my favourites. I also do get inspired by random things like, conjoined twins, giant marine creatures (catfish, whale sharks, squids, crustaceans) and strangers whom I keep bumping into on my way to work or on my way home. They would leave an impression on me and I would start to wonder how it would be like if we began talking to each other.
OIC: Tell us about your collaboration with alldressedup.
I was lucky that I got a chance to collaborate with alldressedup. It was very exciting to see how they came up with a collection from just a single concept. I got to see the A/W 2011 collection which I contributed my illustrations to, even before it hit the runway. So I felt really privileged that I’ve seen stuff even before the public sees it. alldressedup liked my drawing style so the working process that I had with them wasn’t very tedious as they already had a firm idea on what they wanted. On my part, my illustrations had to reflect the collection which main inspiration comes from tribal tattoos. I was exposed to the materials and fabric that they used so that the illustrations I came up with would seamlessly work with the other stuff they had in their collection. Seeing the models walk down the runway, wearing the shirts with prints of my drawings on them during the Audi Fashion Week was surreal. Seeing the bags and shirts on sale at alldressedup shops were even more surreal! I would really love to get to work on projects like this more often. Fabric prints and patterns would be something I could venture in the future.
OIC: What’s your next project?
*It’s a secret personal project* Hehehehe but I can reveal to you that there will be a lot of fashionable men and other things. I draw girls almost all the time so it’s a nice change to just draw boys/guys/men, with awesome hair and facial hair!
OIC: Lastly, which famous illustrator would you like to meet? What would you ask?
This is hard but, my choice would be Miss
Olimpia Zagnoli. I truly adore all her works. She uses simple and clean lines yet its very captivating. Her blog entries are very amusing too and I love how she portrays the daily happenings in her life. *SO CUTE~*. I have a lot of respect for people who are so very good at what they are doing that they make me think that my illustrations are dust compared to theirs. But, yes I do that all the time as that is one of the ways I could improve myself. Question I will ask her: Y U SO AWESOME GIRL?!?!?
See more of Hafi’s work here:
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