Stanley Lau

Stanley Lau

Stanley Lau (también conocido como Artgerm en la comunidad de Devianart) es una apasionado de los cómics los videjuegos y el diseño gráfico. Junto a otros artistas ha creado la empresa Imaginary Friends dedicada especialmente al diseño gráfico en videojuegos. Es espectacular ver las fotos del interior de la empresa donde se ve una mesa de billar y varias máquinas de videojuegos.

Información de Devian Art

"Hi everyone. I’m Stanley Lau, aka Artgerm in the art community. I was born and bred in Hong Kong, and migrated to Singapore 15 years ago when I was 17. My native language is Chinese and I speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English. I love games of all platforms (pc, ps2, psp, xbox, arcade), and I am currently playing DOTA and Ghost Recon III. My favorite games are Bubble Bobble and Katamari Detamacy. I also play basketball, tennis, and occasionally karaoke. I am a Christian.

I've loved drawing since I was a kid. My mum used to buy me stacks of coloring books and sketch pads. I could spend the whole day drawing and coloring and soon, that became my favorite hobby during my childhood. My interest in art developed further in Primary and Secondary school days. I was known as the “drawing guy” in class. My text books (as well as my classmates’) were filled with doodles and flip book animations. That was fun! Gradually, I made a name among the classmates and teachers and was recommended to handle some publication designs for my school, as well as putting up my first personal art exhibition in the school library. That really got me started thinking about being an artist as a profession.

Like the rest of the Singaporean guys, I have to fulfill 2 years of National Service in the Army. In the 2 years, I was appointed as the lead designer for my camp to produce publicity materials like banners, T-shirts, wall murals, posters etc. It was fun and kept me in tune with who I am; at the same time, this earned me extra off days. After my NS days, I was even more determined to pursue Art & Design as my career. Although I faced resistance from my dad, I was able to convince him with my determination and confidence in success in this industry.

After NS days, I took up a diploma course in Visual Communication in a local polytechnic – Temasek Polytechnic. Honestly, the course did not help much in improving my technical skill. However, it built up my discipline in design and expanded my network with potential clients. Also, I got to know a bunch of good friends who also became my team mates upon graduation. Those 3 years in a design environment, with no distractions of boring subjects like Physics & Mathematics, helped me to focus on improving my design knowledge. Most importantly, I spent most of my free time in the school library reading up all kind of publications beside Design books. I believed and still believe that ideas come from everywhere.

In general, 80% of my design knowledge and skills are acquired through self-learning via books and Internet. I like to challenge norms and general perceptions, which help me to find out theories behind things.

Being curious by nature, I question about everything. For example, I can spend time to check out every command in Photoshop, to find out its very function… Think about the exact color of a tree’s shadow under a clear sky compared to a stormy one, in different times of the day."