Salam Syawal from Ugly Malaysiana

Ramadhan dah nak berakhir...

 Upin (or Ipin?) floating on a strange fetus-head shaped cloud of kurma...

 Packets of ? from a Ramadhan Bazaar in TTDI. Takut mak....

LOVELY LACE: sentimental fairy-lights-lit book covers with cool-white simili paper. 

Aduhai sayang... marilah beramai-ramai menantikan long weekend Rayadeka 2011 ni... 

Tak payah jugak menunggu hujan ya beb, skarong ni selalunya basah pun... suka mak, malam2 boleh tidur lena sebab cuaca cool macam ada airkon...

SPECIAL REPORT: 1Malaysia x Klang Valley MRT Logo Competition with an Ugly Serious Rant

This is not a ‘design competition’. It is a popularity contest.

You put some text and visual elements together, creating a sort of ‘image’ that adheres to the website’s guidelines (a certain tagline, size etc) and you upload it. Then the creator will ask all his friends to vote for his logo. The more Facebook friends he has, the better, perhaps.

Who cares about the logo’s design qualities? “Vote for me! If I win, I will belanja you makan!” Spam your friends, bribe them, hack into the system and vote forever until you get 1000 votes — who really cares about design?

Thus this competition should be renamed: “WIN MONEY FOR BEING THE MOST VOTED IMAGE-UPLOAD CONTEST”.

This competition is a disgrace to Malaysian design/designers. If they were serious about it, the organisers should really sift through the 5000+ logos for work that might actually have substance. I’ve browsed through the entries before and out of the hundreds I’ve skimmed through, there were 1-2 that were a lot better than the juvenile crap that you see in the winning selections.

The ‘winning entries’ are very misleading now too! These are ‘winners’ — to the public, they ‘are great winning designs’ — Malaysians should emulate this style — it’s unique, it’s modern, it’s the new century of design, of new transport… etc. What a farce it has become to the many local graphic designers that are serious about their work!

So to the commenters here that say “stop complaining and do something!” — even if you have a international standard logo uploaded there, it will never win unless if you DESPERATELY call for votes… become a super kiasu “VOTE 4 ME” political party candidate.

Sadly, most probably, your work, however great it would be, would be sunken into the less popular pool and be left unnoticed if you do not go and 'sell-out’ yourself. It would be useless to ‘compete’ in this sort of thing when Design after all is not the main precedence, but rather ‘the number of votes’. Ridiculous… How can they be serious about that shit winning Consolation 3rd? Sad sad times we live in…

GUEST POST by Ms Shieko Reto

Kind comment from UGLY MALAYSIANA:

Background macam Vietkong punya komunist propaganda poster... 

eh keRAJAan, kenapa tak ban benda macam ni? Ingatkan kamu tak suka perkara seks ataupun komunis? Seks songsang x suka ajer ko? Cis... diskriminasi ni...

AREA FOCUS: Damansara Perdana

Welcome to Damansara Perdana, developed by a certain "Datuk MK".

Datuk MK lives on top of a hill situated on the ex-orang asli village compound... (look on Google Maps to see his place of residence surrounded by green with a little private road winding up to it). His mansion with a pool overlooks the gargantuan new condo/office developments, with some half-decade-old shoplots and office buildings running businesses very smoothly. The author of UGLY MALAYSIANA specifically enjoys a restaurant there called SOON SOON, featuring the best bittergourd and fish paste noodles in Selangor.   

A selection of pictorial references could be found below, taken by UGLY MALAYSIANA one bright evening across a little stretch of street from a parking spot to a mixed rice restaurant near Jaya Grocers.

Warily, they border on the obnoxious, as if the reader is approached by very adamant Ah Longs, marking their presence, hypnotising you with random pattern making via money-lending stickers, until you cannot take it anymore and wish the whole town could be drowned with a flash coat of off-white paint, a fresh canvas to start a new life here in this risingly expensive township...

At least the landscaping on the road leading into this mess is pretty... 

Prevalent 'massage' centres with lots of curvy 'wrought iron' floral flourishes on their grilles (obviously to match the flourishes on their Orang Puteh signage!)...

Nobody bothers reading these parking regulations, therefore jom cover it with Ah Long Art. Cars are double, triple parked during lunch hours. When MPPJ appears like feared uniformed black and white parasites everyone just moves their vehicle further away or scrambles to pay for a ticket on these machines that might or might not take your 20sen coin in time of emergency. 

Who'd bother taking public transport to work here anyway! RapidKL cannot live up to their name... InconsistentKL boleh?

More Ah Long collage-work...

Rubbish dump in the middle of the stamped-concrete walkway. Unappealingly bad feng shui!

These Ah Long Sticker Interns really hate the MPPJ Parking Regulation Fine Print kot!

LOOK FORWARD TO MORE AREA FOCUSES SOON.

Yo bro, chekkit.........

ANOTHER GUEST POST BY DILL MALIK

A collection of images by the beautiful Ms Dill Malik for your consideration.

Taken in the states of Wilayah Perseketuan, Sarawak, dan lain-lain...

UPDATED with captions by UGLY MALAYSIANA.

Amateur Fatalist Centre with a row of scary Mat Salleh smiling girls that resemble a more cheerfully dressed hantu of a certain kind (the kind that doesnt have legs — only a severed torso — flying around kampungs or highways with innards waving around like bloody jellyfish tendrils! (The author of UGLY MALAYSIANA read about this type in TRUE SINGAPOREAN GHOST STORIES once when he was a teen...)

A true Malaysian sight of cheeky rebellion:

Literally rubbish below a 'DILARANG MEMBUANG SAMPAH' sign!

Be Online, Not In Line. Photoshop blurry edges and lots of ARIAL is conducive for government related produce.

Peppery seduction with badly adjusted font ligatures!

No comment. 

No comment. 

Anonymous SMS horny short form language.

Fesyen polis hot V shaped torso and mat salleh nose towering above the smaller Asian copz.

"Why do you think I'm hiding? I'm not hiding, I'm dead..." :(

An occassional respite: Pretty Malaysiana (PM)

As a weekend break and as an occasional respite, UGLY MALAYSIANA is happy to announce a new category of posts that will hopefully instill some peace into the disappointed and jaded hearts of some of its readers that need deliverance from aesthetic evil:  

PRETTY MALAYSIANA. 

This above image fits into the category rather well, looking as if it was taken from a Geoffrey Bawa-designed garden plot. SO LOVELY! Please come back to the website often to look for more PRETTY MALAYSIANA posts. In the meantime, keep your eyes open big big when you drive along your Jalan for interesting, 'farnee' elements that will heighten your experience of living in this annoyingly difficult but potentially charming country.

1Malaysia water heater - boleh ke tak boleh?

While you shower in the morning aided by this locally designed water heater, may you get an energetic rush from seeing that familiar phallic 1Malaysia logo embedded on the body of this humidity-friendly appliance. Notice that the logo serves as a flagpole to our Jalur Gemilang (the national flag ya beb).

Right below this, there are the words "Malaysia Boleh !"

But apparently these days, Malaysia Banyak Tak Boleh kan? Wearing yellow tshirt tak boleh, transsexuals cannot change names, Sodomy case also cannot lay to rest... Banyak lagi...

That "X" symbol next to the floral flourishes is thus mis-spelt. For a more authentic xperience, I propose a change of letters. Instead of the current brand "XMA", a more appropriate spelling could be:

"X Bolehland"...

[More notes: Tribal-ish tattoo element on a water heater bearing the 1Malaysia emblem. Shouldn't that floral motif be assembled on the skin of a 20-something girl's right thigh (tan from being exposed to the tropical sun and magic rivers) ala a localised version of Suicide Girls (sensual tattooed American goth-hipster girls) instead of being ridiculously printed on a bathroom appliance? Tak kena-mengena....]

Never give up: drive-through museum

 Seen during a traffic jam in Subang Jaya (next to SJMC). Highway flyover columns that have been severely vandalised, painted over with a grey 'cement tone' cover-up one shade too dark, and revandalised again. 

Some people may find the persistence very inspiring. Others will be persistently frustrated at the unstoppable amount of aesthetic damage. And Cy Twombly fans will rejoice at the uncanny similarities...

At least ada konon-kononnya 'seni moden' pabila lalu trafik jam kan? ;) Macam museum pandu-lalu... (Drive-through museum).