Welcome, everybody.
Thank you for joining us at today's program featuring
designer and artist Thomas Hamdani, presented
as part of the Wignall Museum's Home Edition.
Home Edition is a series of curated artists talks,
workshops, and discussions featuring
artists and cultural workers.
My name is Rebecca Trawick, and I
serve as the director and curator of the Wignall Museum.
The Wignall Museum is a teaching museum,
an interdisciplinary art space that introduces Chaffey College
students, faculty, staff, and community members
to innovative contemporary art objects and ideas.
By fostering critical thinking, visual literacy, discourse,
and empathy, the Museum seeks to enhance
the intellectual and cultural life of our community.
Today's episode is brought to you in part
by the Chaffey College student AIGA chapter.
The chapter are a group of dedicated designers
that provide a space to create, connect, and inspire.
AIGA offers aspiring professionals
the opportunity to get involved, create community, and build
leadership skills.
While the academic year is almost complete,
the chapter is always seeking designers, photographers,
and illustrators.
So a big thanks to the club, and shout out to all of you
who are here this evening.
We want to take a moment to recognize that we are situated
on the Rancho Cucamonga Campus of Chaffey College, which
resides on the traditional and unceded lands of the Tongva
people.
We offer our recognition and respect
to the elders, both past, present, and future.
And hello.
My name is Roman Stollenwerk.
I'm Assistant Curator at the Wignall Museum.
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Thank you.
And hello, everyone.
My name is Andy Hadle.
I'm the Preparator at the Museum.
In a few moments, Thomas Hamdani will
present for about 30 minutes or so,
with the remaining time being available for Q&A.
Thanks, Roman.
Thanks, Andy.
So I have the pleasure of introducing our guest
artist Thomas Hamdani.
Born in Indonesia, Thomas Hamdani
completed a Bachelor's degree in graphic design
at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
I should also mention Hamdani is an alumni of Chaffey College.
Yay.
So glad to have him back here.
Hamdani is a motion designer with 10-plus years
of motion design and 3D experience in the industry.
He's always been fascinated by technology, especially
growing up with sci-fi movies.
Currently, he works remotely on different motions
and virtual reality projects around the US.
So please join me in giving Thomas a warm virtual welcome.
My name is Thomas Hamdani.
I'm a motion vision artist for 10-plus years.
I've been in the industry for from--
mostly in technology field.
And I graduated in Art Center around about 15 years ago.
It's been a while.
And it's been a long journey to learn
to be an artist, to learn, to create stuff, to not be boring,
to be always in the cutting-edge of design.
It's a long process, a lot of things
you need to keep learning.
It is a very fun, fun journey of 15 years.
And I was born in Indonesia, so this is what my culture is.
It's a mixture between the West and the East.
We have many, many different influences
from many different cultures because Indonesia
is a port city that are in--
It's very important for the trading in West between Europe
and in China.
So Indonesia has become [INAUDIBLE] a hub
of many different culture.
So we have many different influences
from many different huge culture,
like Hinduism and Buddhism.
And now they are the biggest Islamic country
outside the Middle East.
So it's many, many very, very diverse.
Growing up in Indonesia, it's somewhat
tough because being an ethnic Chinese we are kind of always
looked down and--
But we learn how to fight it.
We learn how to be strong and prosper
in the long run in Indonesia, too.
And my family is from a business family that always think
about revenues and transaction.
So growing up as an artistic person
is very hard because nobody understand
you and they think art is just a business
to advertise or to create stuff, but not really just a career.
So this is me when I was a baby with my dad's brand new Vespa.
Beautiful stuff.
And it's a beautiful country.
It's a lot of different technology development
and nature.
So my biggest inspiration when I was growing up--
this is what shaped me as a designer, the early version
of just human wearing masks but showing the future,
like how robot is looking, how the world can
be different in the future.
So this is from the Japanese side, the Japanese influences.
This is what I mostly watch when I was a kid.
And superheros, magical cat from the future, or just
robots transforming and Dragon Ball Z, if you guys know.
And Indonesian TV, too-- there's a lot of American movies.
That's where I learned my English, where I learned
my slang like, what's up, man?
And I learned about space.
I learned about the future.
I learned about time travel, talking robot car,
and how a ghost is captured in this modern world.
This is what influenced me the most while--
because being an ethnic Chinese, it's even hard for me
to go outside because sometimes other kids will pick on me
because I'm different.
So mostly I just stay indoors, watching TV,
reading comic books, just surrounded by this new ideas
constantly what the world is going to be
or going to be like in an interesting way.
In the '90s, we moved to America because my uncle
live in [INAUDIBLE].
So my mom decided to move to Rancho Cucamonga
because we love Mount Baldy, our beautiful mountain.
Yeah.
We just fell in love with the landscape.
We fell in love with the nature of it.
Because we grow up from the city,
we don't see any mountains.
We don't see anything-- everything is flat
land tropical world.
But Mount Baldy opened up my eyes to such beauty.
I went to Alta Loma High School.
It's pretty weird in the beginning
because only few Asian there and a couple Indonesian, actually.
So I grew up with many different friends,
learning different cultures.
And the most interesting tool in Alta Loma High School
is meeting exchange students, especially people from Russia
or Europe, and then become friends
and learning about the local culture,
really like a melting pot of cultures how America is.
And I learned a lot just being myself,
being accepting, my Chinese side,
and then actually trying to embrace it because before, it's
not OK being Chinese in Indonesia
because the government tried to integrate all the Chinese.
So we learned, just stay quiet, in our culture, not
really saying anything, or try to just become like Indonesian.
But in America, I learned to be more embracing my Chinese side,
learning about more Chinese, actually,
about Chinese philosophy.
Because I'm going to Alta Loma [INAUDIBLE],,
reading books from the public library
really opened up my world growing up
in America and Rancho Cucamonga especially.
I went to Art Center because my good teacher
from Chaffey College, Ian White--
he told me, man, you're good.
You should go Art Center College of Design.
I'm like, I never heard it.
What is that?
And then, oh, yeah.
It's a famous school in design, because you are pretty good.
So I went, applied, and I got accepted in the Art Center
College of design in early--
in .com era.
My journey in Art Center is very interesting.
And it's a lot of learning experience
because what I learned primarily in Art Center is discipline
yourself how to become an artist, and discipline yourself
to be a hard worker in your craft
because design ain't easy.
Design is a lot of things.
You need to know a lot of things you
need to learn because design is a language that you learn a--
language that you learn to mix.
You need to understand many different facets of the world
to understand what the design.
I hope you guys understand what I mean.
It's just design is kind of like being a chef.
So if they do want you to, for example, cook Middle Eastern
cooking, you need to know everything
about Middle Eastern culture, Middle Eastern spices,
and try to mix it up together, and to find
the essence of design.
After Art Center, my first job in Nokia design.
I set a lot of design work, by the way, guys.
In Nokia design, I was learning to mix technology and just fun.
Before, I don't know anything about the cell phone industry.
But Nokia really pushed me to learn
to design for human interface, UI design,
and how humans interact with UI or interact with technology.
So we are the bridge that really connecting people
between technology and people.
So in Nokia design, what I do is designing
wallpaper, UI design, some advertising.
It's many different hats I had to wear just to create
what the client wants.
So this is some example of some of the wallpaper
I designed for Nokia.
OK.
That is some of the overall work, the best
work that I captured when I was there for about seven years
before Nokia move on to a different company.
This is some of the advertising that I
created for Nokia Extend.
This is where I learned most to do 3D
and how integrating with motion design
to create all this interface and the special effects.
All right.
After Nokia, I started to be a full time freelancer.
And I worked in many different studios,
mostly doing this 3D program for Maya doing 3D animation
and doing After Effects stuff, creating special effects,
and creating infographics for different companies.
This is a couple of my work.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right.
That's my early work a couple years ago
before I moved work for San Manuel Casino
because San Manuel is developing,
growing super fast during the last four years.
So I got an opportunity to work with San Manuel
Casino for a couple of years.
And it's a different experience because it's more not
just doing TV work or web work.
It's doing how designing the whole Casino,
designing the whole interface, the whole-- it's
not only one screen anymore.
I learned how to design with the space, for example
some of the design in the hallway,
or some of the designs around the casino, the screens,
how really now I'm working on different scale.
Before, I was working on just the phone scale.
You can see it, just this tiny screen and Nokia screen.
And then after Nokia, I worked in the agency.
So mostly I'm just doing just advertising for TV.
But in the casino, it's a very different scale.
So I worked just to see how engaged people
around the environment.
This is one of the work with some San Manuel
Casino for Chinese New Year.
Yeah.
After I made this, they implemented it
around the casino.
They implemented it around when Chinese New Year happens,
they start playing all over the casino.
So this is just--
the way I create the story is how we always
transcended that journey.
It's like how the dragon travels.
So you moving from the ground, from this tunnel,
from the landscape.
And then you move up to the sky.
And it's creating new opportunity for the New Year.
That's my idea.
All right.
This is some of the work that I did for a rock and roll
restaurant inside San Manuel Casino.
My idea of the concept of this piece
is how music evolves and is progressing
in many different eras and is changing
and always in the constant, always moving, always changing,
or sometimes move back, sometimes forward.
So I think this is the idea of what I'm trying to convey.
[INAUDIBLE] the Beatles.
And then it's moving to evolve into this rock
music and that group, and then evolving to hip hop.
This is a piece that I created for the promotion
of this machine around the casino, Dollar Storm.
All right.
This is one of the examples me and my co-worker, David--
we created this for our Las Vegas promo [INAUDIBLE]..
This is the display that we created on the elevator
while the people [INAUDIBLE] up from the second floor
to the first floor.
So it's this journey again.
And this is one of the screens that are around the casino.
So in this, the bear is representing
just the local animals around San Bernardino.
Now, in San Manuel Casino, they elect
me to explore many different mediums.
So I choose virtual reality because you
can see the whole world inside your head.
That's why I use this medium.
Yeah.
This I created for The Vault. It's the idea of steampunk,
how old technology and the new technology
merged in this team restaurant.
So we do a lot of gears, a lot of shutter opening
and metals and dimensional elements
to create this world of gears and moving.
So this project took me around three months
to finish it because we need to start experimenting
with how the screen works around the casino, how the artwork--
and we model everything and grabbed some of the screenshot
from the concept design way before the restaurant
is done to create this look.
It's a fun project.
Let me try this one again.
OK.
This is my reel.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
for mostly the work that I did in--
so if you guys--
in your own time, check it out.
You can see all the 3D space, all the detail
that we worked on.
And so we need to build around this camera.
So everything need to be built to be created.
And then we animated in different layers and then just
trying to experiment--
merge it with the gears with the flaps.
And the bear's back.
And this is for the Chinese New Year for the Year of the Pig.
So we created this world and some of the more [INAUDIBLE]
casino elements again.
Now, for my own personal project,
this project was an idea that I got from my kids
how we want to create this world and colony if animals
have evolved and live in space.
So it's just a fun project that I--
during COVID, when I got more free time
to create my own work.
So this is the first idea.
We just sketched some ideas how--
this is my daughter drawings.
She said she wanted to create cats and dogs,
how they live in space.
So I started with monkeys and then rabbits and some kittens,
how they wearing suits.
So this is my first design just creating the suits
using Fusion 360 CAD software to create this helmet.
And then this is from my idea of the monkey in space.
[INAUDIBLE] I guess he just started moving
from a different spaceport.
So I began to-- after that, I got
an idea, just maybe create the whole space colony,
how they look.
So I incorporated maybe a coconut tree
to generate all this power to create all the power to power
the whole space station.
And after I go big, after I go visual the whole space station,
I go to just doing more fun switches and dials, how
the animal is going to interact with the controlling the space
station.
And then I also create this device if they--
exploring many different planets,
so if they take samples or measuring
the other alien worlds.
So this is some of the animation I did.
Just walking, exploring other alien worlds.
I think that's my presentation.
Thank you for listening.
Wow.
Thanks, Thomas.
That was so fun.
And you probably haven't had a chance to see,
but you should know the chat has been blowing up, so.
Oh, wow.
We'll have to send you the transcript
so you can check it out.
You've been getting lots of kudos and compliments.
So we'd love to open it up to questions.
So how does the rule--
sorry.
How does the rule of thirds apply
to backgrounds or characters?
Oh, wow.
That's very, very, very technical question.
I need to dig up my design book.
what's the question again?
Could you repeat it?
How does the rule of thirds apply
to backgrounds or characters?
I think it depends to how the design is.
It's really tough what you're asking for.
It just came with experience and how you see it, you design.
I think it's just very, very dynamic.
Yeah.
I need to think about that.
We have another question from Trevan here.
Besides Dragon Ball, what other Eastern shows inspired you?
My big, big inspiration of course it's Akira.
That is one of the biggest game changer in the movie industry,
the way it's--
the way it's tell the story, the way it's animated,
and the way it's the character design.
I think it's that movie--
Akira really moved the design forward.
It inspired The Matrix, inspired even Cyberpunk 2077.
So Akira is one of my big, big inspiration.
You had mentioned in the beginning of your presentation
that being a working artist and designer,
education is ongoing, that you have to--
as you move through your career, you're
always learning new things.
What does that education for you look like?
Is it experience-based?
Are you continuing education formally?
Or is it more of an informal?
Mostly, it's an education in how the technology always moving
forward so fast.
And technically, you need to keep
learning because the software evolving so fast
and how the social media platform is just moving fast.
You need to really keep learning and keep
try to learn different new things because if not, they're
just going to pass you by.
It's a fast moving world now, guys.
Here's one from Cabrina.
With Manuel Casino giving you freedom
to explore different outlets, is VR your preferred type
of execution now?
And is it hard to execute, or similar to learning
a new software?
It's a very new platform.
And then a lot of things you need
to know, not just only the software side or the technology
side, is just how you engage the viewer, how you--
because it's not just one view.
It's the whole view, the whole 360.
You need to point, or you need to know where the action is at.
It's very complex.
I'm still learning, too.
And I hope I will be learning more complex using gaming
engine so it's real time.
Thomas, can I ask a follow up, too?
So doing that scale of projects that you're
doing for the casino, are those often--
are those usually team projects?
Or are you working individually for the most part?
Mostly two or three people--
me, my other motion designer, David, or Ed.
We just three people.
Sometimes we just go to the site,
check it out how it's going to look.
Or we can sometime-- because we got access
straight to the casino, all the monitors, all the displays
so we test it during the night.
We can see how--
is the image too big?
The action is not enough.
Or is it need more the type information?
So it's more hands on because we got straight access
to the technology and we got straight access to the screens.
So it makes our lives more easier
than if you're working for other companies
you just wait for them.
Oh, is it going to look good?
It's very hands on.
I have question.
At the beginning, you--
I'm also from Chaffey.
And I'm from Russia originally.
So having my cultural background,
sometimes it's difficult to live in US
and be culturally engaged with US because I also
feel like I have to be culturally engaged with Russia.
Do you have any advice in terms of for people
who have a multiple cultural identities how to stay engaged
with more than one thing?
That's a good question.
Yes.
You need to embrace it.
You need to embrace both culture.
You need to embrace especially your own culture.
I think once you live outside your own culture,
you become knowledgeable.
You want to know what is the essence your own culture.
Before, when I was living in Indonesia, I don't really care.
It's just boring Indonesian stuff,
like what old people see.
But once you live outside, you really appreciate it.
You really see what make your own culture very beautiful.
From looking from the outside far away
like an astronaut looking back at Earth, how beautiful is it?
It's that phrase about the fish in the water.
As closer you are to something, as less you see.
So me going away from Russia, I learned more about Russia
being in the US, which is kind of [INAUDIBLE]..
That's the reality I experience, too.
By going away, I see a bigger picture.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Thank you.
Yeah, no problem.
Thomas, we have another question in the chat from Cabrina.
What is advice you could give to students at Chaffey
that you wish you knew when you went to community college?
Learn how to communicate really well because in my career,
I've been struggling a lot.
Especially, I have a second language.
I have an accent.
And with design, you will learn with experience.
But communication, I think, is a different level
of realizing for yourself.
You need to really learn how to present yourself, how--
especially presenting your idea.
But mostly stuff for many designers
because we are more visual, we are more just
pictures-- we try to paint pictures.
And we sometimes don't understand words, so.
Yeah.
Presenting is number one.
You've sort of touched on this a little bit,
but can you talk about what it's like to freelance?
What are the challenges--
I'm sure there's a lot of advantages,
but what are the unique challenges to working
independently and remotely?
I know the whole world has been experiencing
this, or much of the world, for some recent past.
But in terms of your career, you're often working remotely.
So what are some challenges that you've found
and some great things about it?
Let's start with the great things.
So I don't want to--
all right.
The great things is you've got many different fresh projects.
So you are not doing just only one thing.
You not only doing one thing, repeating the same thing
over and over again.
Freelancing is always learning--
you've got new exciting stuff to do, to learn.
That's the fun part of being a freelancer,
just creating new fun projects, and sometimes boring,
sometimes not interesting.
But what you learn is more you learn in freelancing.
Sometime the bad side is just when it's the downturn.
It's really hard to find new projects
because usually some companies close or you just
need to get ready.
You need to prepare when and usually downturn
happen, especially when it happened to be in 2012,
2010 to 2012.
It's pretty tough to find a project
because everything is just closed.
Opportunity shifts.
They're not looking.
So learn how just to survive.
Try to learn how to save more money.
It's sometimes tough.
But most of the time it's pretty fun.
It's pretty challenging too, sometimes,
especially with tough clients.
Good advice about saving your money when you're
working on a project basis.
You don't know when the next paycheck might be coming.
at some point.
Yeah.
Don't buy stuff, guys.
Just don't buy stuff you don't need, like that I guess.
Good advice for the future.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I feel like we could chat for another hour,
but I want to be conscious of time--
your time and everyone's time.
And sadly, we're nearing the end of our time together.
But Thomas, I really want to thank you
for your generosity today.
It was wonderful to spend time with you this afternoon.
Huge thanks to all of you who attended today.
And huge thanks to the AIGA chapter.
So again, if you're interested in learning more about them,
check out those links in the chat.
I know Roman's putting a few other links in the chat
right now, including a very short survey that we'd
appreciate if you take two minutes to complete.
But thanks, everybody.
Please take care.
And again, thanks, Thomas.
Thank you, guys.
Check out Thomas's website.
[MUSIC PLAYING]