Aman Alavitabar
Creative Visual Artist, 2016
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Professional Design (Visual Communication)
Trust yourself, trust your talent, always take a look at your past while you’re moving forward, and don’t hesitate in taking pride of walking up the hills of life.
12 August 2016
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Aman Alavitabar: Dexterous Visual Artist
Aman Alavitabar works as a creative visual artist for two of Malaysia’s unparalleled entertainment hubs; Zouk Club and TREC. He graduated from Limkokwing University with a Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Professional Design (Visual Communication).
Zouk club is ranked 26 th in the world by DJ Mag’s Top 100 Clubs global poll. TREC was endorsed by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia as a designated entertainment zone under the National Key Economic Area programme, TREC is also part of Kuala Lumpur's Master Tourism Plan 2015-2025.
Aman was born and raised in Tehran with a great passion for music and basketball. It was in his early teenage years when he was drawn to visual arts.
“I studied at the visual art school of Tehran. Right after my first year of Graphic Design programme, at the age fifteen; I entered a talent competition. I designed a poster of the great Iranian Poet: ‘Forough Farrokhzad.’ The jury showed great pleasure towards my piece. The same company that organised competition named ‘Seerang Rasaneh’ hired me for their head of website design position. It was around that time when I started my professional career.”
After graduating from high school, Aman enrolled at the University of Visual Arts and during his studies he was hired by ‘Ciba Vision’ where he was tasked to design a catalogue for ‘Fresh Look’ contact lenses.
“For the project in hand, we intended to use original photographs by the company, but we were soon troubled by the government. It was then, that I decided to get my hands on photography and take my original photographs for the catalogue.”
“The project was in need of a substantial team, but I decided to work solo, from A to Z. After seeing the photos, I was moved by the camera and the power behind the lens. I was very much motivated to do all my own photography, to ensure quality of the result in hand,” said Aman.
On who inspires him, he mentioned Milton Glaser. “The man behind this name was a man of unique ideas. I saw his posters of important people, and I was instantly moved by his vision ‘The Psychedelic Bob Dylan’ for instance. At the time I wanted to be able to make such moving and yet simple posters of the important people of his ancestry. All of this was until I found my hands behind the camera. Once the camera became a key role in my career, Karl Lagerfeld was an Artist to be inspired by.”
“As time went on I got curious about Asian culture, I wanted to be able to explore many cultures in one location. Limkokwing University was a great opportunity to land those goals for me. My brother was the key reason that I moved to Malaysia and enrolled in Limkokwing University as well.”
Aman mentioned that it was always a dream for him and his brother to build a company together, but to be able to follow that path he acknowledged he had to have a stronger academic resume, and Limkokwing University provided a great home for that to happen.
“Due to the University’s diverse community my vision widened. I was able to gather different accents, different colours and diverse visions into my work. It helped me to have a brighter and more open minded vision towards my projects. I also made a lot of connections and networking in a great academic community.”
“The University is reputable for its unparalleled methods of teaching. If you have talent to back it up, you’ll be able to attract clients for yourself. I was able to gather a clientele, and those clients trusted my abilities due to the University’s reputation.
“At Limkokwing, one has the floor to explore their creative abilities. It doesn’t force your process, and it gives you a great deal of freedom. This freedom gives you the push to have variety of concepts to work with. In the very early stages of my studies at Limkokwing, I met a very reputable director: Henry Ooi, at a Fashion T.V event where I was a photographer. Henry Ooi played a major role on my switch from graphic design to the visual arts industry.”
“It was at the time when Henry Ooi, gave me bigger projects and hired me to work on sets of Celcom commercials, Digi cellphone provider commercials, Infinity Car Manufactures, Nestle commercials, Hotlink commercials, Samsung commercials etc. I was even given the opportunity to work with names like Jackie Chan.”
Aman faced the biggest challenge of his career in 2013 when all the equipments that he worked hard to earn were stolen.
However Aman did not let the challenges dampen his spirits as he mentioned it helped to bring him back as a stronger artist. “I consider the most significant phase of my career was when I earned back all my losses.”
“My advice to students who are aspiring to achieve their career goals is this: Trust yourself, trust your talent, always take a look at your past while you’re moving forward, and don’t hesitate in taking pride of walking up the hills of life. Success is when you look back at you career and take pride in your achievements. Failure is when you quit, when you give up.”
