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GST In Malaysia Explained

Being the hottest topic in Malaysia’s Budget 2014, we thought we shed some light, with the help of our friends from Loanstreet, on the implementation of Goods and Service Tax (GST) come April 2015. Find out how will life be after GST.

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8 Ways To Customize Your SaltyCustoms Polo ShirtIt's all about the details.

Ever wondered how brands like Fred Perry and Ralph Lauren make their polo shirts feel a class above the rest? At SaltyCustoms, we have taken it upon ourselves to find ways to make your apparel become as retail-worthy as they can be and make them available to you! The secret to setting your polos apart from the rest lies in the detailing and we are choosing to make this a secret no more! Here are 8 ways on how you can customize your polo shirt at SaltyCustoms:

Box Placket

Inner Placket

Collar Twill Tape

Split Hem Twill Tape

Button + Thread

Collar Tipping

Arm Rib Tipping

Printing Methods

Get in touch with us NOW and join the rest of our clients such as Alliance Bank, Bloomberg, Club Med, the Monsoon Cup and many more who are passionate about seeing their corporate apparel rise up to the level of their business!

Please download our SaltyCustoms polo shirt PDF deck to take a closer look.

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Magic, America’s hottest startup, has a perfect business model for Asia

You may not have heard of Magic. After all, the American startup has been around just a few days. But it has already generated a ton of buzz (and a massive waiting list) for its impressively ambitious service: to deliver you anything you want (as long as it’s legal) on demand via text message. Want a sandwich? Text them and they’ll bring you one. Need an authentic Mexican wrestling mask in the next two hours? They can do that too. Here’s a video Wired writer Brent Rose put together as he put the new startup through its paces with a series of increasingly challenging requests:

Magic is, in essence, the ultimate O2O business: all you need is a phone to get anything you want very quickly. Needless to say, a service like this will be very difficult to scale. The company already has a massive waiting list, but whether it will ever get big enough to serve them is another question.

But imagine Magic in a major Asian city like Beijing or Jakarta. A deliver-everything-fast business model is ambitious anywhere, but in Asia there are some big reasons why it could work:

Cheaper labor: in most of Asia, hiring the people to run around dealing with logistics and making deliveries would be much cheaper than it is in the US. That would make scaling easier, since the service itself could still charge a significant markup thanks to the “luxury” and convenience factor.

Stronger demand: in many Asian cities, there are local logistical factors that would make something like Magic even more appealing. In China, for example, Magic could presumably do the haggling for you on any item you want to buy, saving you significant time and hassle. In Jakarta, Magic would allow you to stay at home (or work) and wait for the item you need, rather than having to brave the city’s brutal traffic jams yourself.

The personal touch: Magic takes and manages its orders via text message, not some slick app. That may seem low-tech, but it would actually be an advantage in many Asian cultures, where a personal connection is often a big part of the shopping experience. Being able to text directly with an actual human at a Magic-style startup would help assuage the trustworthiness concerns that keep many Asian ecommerce and O2O startups from taking off.

I wouldn’t count on Magic coming to Asia anytime soon, though, so if you want to feel the Magic this is one startup you might have to do yourself.

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Simple animation of a logo work.

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watch: malaysian artist creates teh tarik man with 20,000 tea bags

Red Hong Yi captivated the world last year with her unconventional ways of using everyday items like basketballs and coffee stains to create beautiful artwork and in her latest project that was commissioned to be displayed at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, Red uses tea bags– 20,000 to be exact, to illustrate a man preparing a teh tarik.

Article shared: Gumballmag

Weighing at 200kg, the tea bags were stained in 10 different shades of brown by steeping each bag in hot water at different lengths of time, then stapled and attached to a wiremesh and then, finally hung on a frame. Says Red, “Locals gather in kopitiams and mamaks, and here they talk about where to buy the best durians, the traffic, politics, weather, soccer… It is a drink that brings people together and I hope that I get to share a bit of my country through this piece!” Watch it for yourself, it’s incredible how she puts the entire piece together.  

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Illustration & Lettering by Petar Ivanov

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Smirnoff Ice’s Ongsome Music Video

With Chinese New Year vast approaching there has been a lot of hype growing around the nation. But, no one does it quite like Smirnoff Ice Malaysia. Keeping up with the Ongsome theme, Kuah Jenhan AKA “supa-fly lengchai” Choi San Zai teams up with Jin Hackman and Point Blanc in the brand new ‘Ongsome’ music video. They’ve got all gold everything and making ang pow rain. What’s not to like. Take a look at the vid below! It will knock your socks off.

Article shared: Masses

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fortomorrow clothing

We at GUMBALL are always excited when we come across a new local brand, so this week we are happy to introduce to you Malaysia’s newest menswear label, ForTomorrow Clothing. The debut collection tries to take an intellectual approach to menswear and makes use of Trompe L’oeil prints and unconventional materials for the “worldly, non-conformist” man for their debut.

Article shared: GumballMag

he brand embraces clean lines, modern cuts and a minimal aesthetic with a sporty edge– elements that will easily make ForTomorrow Clothing a definite a crowd favourite here. If you’re in taking a closer look, ForTomorrow Clothing is available at Isetan KLCC and Isetan The Gardens.

facebook.com/FORTOMORROW.CLOTHINGinstagram.com/fortomorrow.clothing/

Photos: ForTomorrow Clothing

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commercial screen printing

For those huge projects you have ahead, you can’t miss a beat.

Here at Real Thread, we have a team of experts and a facility built to craft the finest shirts in the world. With the ability to print up to tens of thousands of shirts weekly, our team can guide and craft your order from concept to completion.

See our stellar staff and space below.

REAL THREAD’S PRODUCTION SPACE

Three presses are used in our space.

Our presses can handle up to 30,000 pieces per week.

Read More

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Custom T-Shirt Blends: A Guide

What shirt are you going to print on?

Short question. Huge implications. Choosing a shirt can be difficult. To help you choose the best shirt for your project, we made a handy shirt guide. This thing is full of easy to understand information on different shirt blends. See the highlights below.

What in the world is a shirt blend?: Wonder why you love certain shirts and hate others? This has a lot to do with the fabric blends. Learn how these fabrics work together to make your shirt.

Read More

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Join the movement by Sergi Marot

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DASHAPE 2015 by Andrés Momó

Making off …

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Hold On by Laurens Vugts

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insider speak: amanda liu, men’s apparel buyer

It was one of those days where we at GUMBALL came to a realization that people had so many misconceptions about careers in the fashion industry and it was then that we decided to get to the basics of some of the careers in the fashion field here at Insider Speak. In this edition, GUMBALL reaches out to Amanda Liu, a men’s apparel buyer for Zalora. Born and bred in KL, this bubbly 22 year old got her head start in the industry as an intern in the marketing department before being offered a full time position as a buyer.

Article shared: GumballMag

We managed to catch a quick word with the lovely Amanda to learn more about her awesome job as a buyer.

What does your job as a menswear buyer for Zalora entail? As a menswear buyer in Zalora, we are basically just like any other buyers as well. We source for brands that we think has a potential to sell in the website, and after the sourcing process we look into a much in depth details in terms of what are the margins and what are the replenishment processes and many more.

What is the best thing about your job? The best thing is being able to select what designs and SKUs [Stock Keeping Unit] to bring in and to have a first-hand view on what are the new arrivals for a certain brand.

What are you working on right now? I’m currently working on some watches and a swimwear selection.

What’s a typical working day for you? A typical working day would be checking my emails, doing Purchasing orders and Replenishment for my brands and checking on the sales and performance of my brands.

How does your job as a menswear buyer impact your own wardrobe/what you wear? It doesn’t really impact my wardrobe or what I wear on a day to day basis though. I feel that I have my own style and that speaks out who I am but after being a menswear buyer I began to develop an interest on men’s fashion and trend.

It’s a brand new year! What do you think are the biggest menswear trends for 2015? For me, I personally think that the sleek and minimalist look will be a thing this year. Less prints, and more on simple, earthy and neutral colours.

What will your personal style be like in 2015? Minimalist and monochrome all the way.

Finally, fashion makes me feel… alive. I feel happy , I feel energized and I feel that it has become part of my life. My passion towards fashion really shocked me at one point because looking at the time that I devote to it, is pretty amazing. You know there’s a saying “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.” Yup, that’s me right there.

zalora.com.my

Photos: Miranda Yeoh

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Boss

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Motivation.

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h&m x coachella

Fashion retail giant H&M has been a major sponsor for Coachella the last six years and is now set to make its presence known even further through a special collaboration release with this epic annual music festival. A first of its kind for H&M, the collaboration even includes having a portion of Coachella’s official festival merch provided by the Swedish retail giant.

Article shared: GumballMag

Available in stores on 26 March 2015, the H&M x Coachella collection, offers men’s and women’s clothing as well as accessories and will retail between RM14.90 to RM149. If you love that music festival aesthetic that you often see in festival style snaps, then the collection’s romantic boho style graphic tops, fringe, lace, rompers, and crop tops for women is right up your alley. It’s a fail safe collection that will appeal to all of us music festival junkies. It’s a shame this collab wasn’t released in time for Laneway this year, but if you are attending Coachella this year, you can check out H&M’s first ever pop-up shop on site where you can buy the collection, take a breather indoors and enjoy some of their interactive games.

hm.com/my

Photos: H&M Malaysia

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interview: kenzy is #noyz134, illustrator

We were so impressed by the cover artwork for Dae Kim’s GUMBALL Radio Mixthis month that we had to find out more about the artist Zhou Jian Wei akaKenzy.is.NOYZ. The intricacy of his lines and subject matters plus his sense of humour and surrealism definitely caught our attention. We predict big things for this Malaysian artist. Now let’s find out more about Kenzy, who is also currently responsible for the Mutha Puaka visuals.

Articles shared: GumballMag

What does Kenzy.is.NOYZ mean? Kenzy is a nickname that my college buddies gave me because they couldn’t pronounce my Chinese name properly. And NOYZ is a tag name I came out with when I started with graffiti back when I was with Drewfunk which is currently based in Australia with SOE. From there, we formed a non-functional crew called Sonique Death Monkeys | SDM. We have gone out to tag electrical boxes and hit walls – sometimes we will end up buffing up the whole container on a lorry. There was a big ass Thundercats stencil cut by SOE which was sprayed all over Klang’s electrical boxes. The tag name NOYZ was picked up from a hip-hop magazine advertisement. It was a rapper’s puppet holding a sign saying “Make Sum Muthafucking Noyz!!!” I was drawn to that word from the moment I saw it and took it to the paper with a pen to flex the tag style so that I am able to tag it fast.

What are your earliest memories as an artist? Not much of a memory, but feeling of not knowing what will happen tomorrow if I wasn’t drawing today. That is why I am still drawing everyday with or without any idea. Just have to get that visual side out of me to get rid of the hyperactive side in me.

How did you come to a decision that you want to do this for a living? Thanks to tele-banking, I realised that I am not suited to work like a zombie in a cube, talk to people who are far away, helping them to make bill payments, transferring funds and purchasing stocks over the phone. I will always end up drawing on everyone’s whiteboard with my non-permanent black marker pen. I even remember drawing a banana stuck to a donut. I thought to myself, what if I no longer have any chemistry with my current job and what will I be doing? My passion for art took off from there and I never looked back. Come to think of it, it has been good solid four years of coming out from the system.

Do you remember some of your earliest projects as an artist? Yes I do, it was a friend restaurant called The Giraffe in Klang. He ordered a bunch of wooden carved giraffe tiki and commissioned Mono Evolve, a collective I formed with my other half Tehmojo was assigned to customise it. We took one week to complete the whole painting on the giraffes. Cannot forget about painting for MC Yogi B’s Manthrahood album launch at the KLPac hall. That is one of the biggest painting I have ever done and it was mad fun to be playing jigsaw puzzle with the canvases as I paint on them.

How would you say your style has progressed over the years? My style has evolved from being very stiff to a more softer and organic flow. From not giving two flying fucks to the society back then, and now minding my words because what is let out usually comes double hitting us back on that self built bubble.

Proudest achievement or work as an artist so far? Working on a GAP video with Tehmojo and KANGBLABLA. I was also featured on a few rap song with Balan Kashmir, Double Call, MCBGCW. Yes, I rap too and I do it in Hokkien and Bahasa Baku Peranakan.

How do you stay inspired? Listening, observing, living life like how it should be, take some time to talk to your loved ones and stay in touch with your friends because who are you without the people that surrounds you. I am inspired by a movement called ‘Moments of Truth’ or better known for exploring the depths of the creative process while encouraging cross-breeding of ideas across mediums, cultures, galaxies and spectrums on a daily basis as an individual. Yes you may have figured it out by now that it is a cult. Check out the ever-evolving and crazy fresh movement on projectmot.com.

What are your thoughts on the current art scene in Kuala Lumpur? It is definitely growing everyday. There are so many things to look. It’s getting interesting when everyone is looking for ways to present art differently and desperately too. It is that time when whatever you say doesn’t matter. It is more on what you are doing now.

Who is your favourite local artist and why? Bibichun #cipan because he has got verse on the style and versatility in presenting art to people. He practices a lot of interactive art that involves emotion. Don’t forget to check out his upcoming pieces.

If your work had a soundtrack, what song would it be? A boom bap rap track titled ‘Pendatang Halal’ on the legal immigrants. It is about how we can be comfortable with the issue presented to us by the Babylonians as we go through our chores daily as a “free man” wherever we are.

What else do you enjoy doing besides art? I like babbling in Bahasa Melayu Baba Peranakan. I like to freestyle and rap alone to improve my delivery and most importantly, to entertain my hyper boring self here.

What do you hope to achieve this year? Draw more each day and share more work on Instagram like a kiasu, get a couple song done and hopefully to push it out to the public. I got to live it up to my ah beng-ness. And most importantly to get a plane ticket out somewhere for a month and get lost.

facebook.com/Kenzy.is.NOYZ instagram.com/noyz134

Photos: KENZY is #NOYZ134