Places To Go (on foot or keyboard)

Have to declare, most physical shops which held print makers, printing services and productions were first shrunk and now almost totally boot out of existence. Only a week ago myself and a colleague took our students to an exhibition at a place known as PMQ, and around that area there used to be 2 paper shops and a print shop where I used to get everything done…only to find all of them have gone out of business. So the following is how we source for our stuff in the year 2019.

E-Print HK (e-print.com.hk)

Since they were established in 2001, the name E-print has brought a dozen local old timer print shops to their knees and out of business, and totally changed the printing and output industry in Hong Kong. 

Every company and designer I’ve worked with go: E-print loh, E-print loh ( “loh”囉 in Cantonese kinda mean “of course”). E-print of course, they are quick, basically nothing can delay them from delivering a printout within 5 days, and if you’re in a hurry theres’ an additional express charge for 3 days. 

They provide a limited choice of paper or material selection, but their customizable product list is HUGE: business cards, envelopes, stickers and labels, booklets, calendars, tickets (die-cut provided),  t-shirts and other souvenirs, posters, banners and signs of all sizes etc. 

With this kind of speed and the lowest price possible, the quality of their productions are “not-bad”, i’ve had more than a few occasions I see a card, or a framed artboard and went “oh this is nice, where did you get this made?”, I get the reply “E-print loh”.  

Sham Shui Po 深水埗

I was done talking about E-print and I am sitting here thinking about the significant “places” for a designer, then I knew I had to side-track and talk about not a company, but a district not but 20 minutes of a subway ride away from Central Hong Kong. 

Sham Shui Po is statistically the least expensive area to live and to rent a shop at, a rough part of town and is actually one of the oldest districts in HK. But no designer, having started as an assistant or junior could avoid the days treading around this maze of narrow streets with bags of fabric samples in hand and a sweaty shirt sticking to their back. 

I first set foot in Sham Shui Po as a kid when my dad took me to Golden Computer Arcade, back in the 90s it was the go to place for bootleg Nintendo Gameboy cartridges, Playstation 1 CD-ROMS,  PC games on floppy and software of all sorts: Windows 95, Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, AutoCAD, Word, Excel and bootleg porno. 

In my school days, more than one lecturer would tell us “the large percentage of Hong Kong citizens that work office jobs or is now a designer owe a big thank you to the bootleg industry.”. The 90’s boom of pirated software was the direct reason why even the average citizens’ software knowledge and computer application here in Hong Kong is high. Thank you Golden Computer Arcade!

The crack down on pirating was met with the almighty internet, but Sham Shui Po has still remained a hub for cheap electronics, computer parts, mobile phone repair, parts and accessories, lights of all sorts, audio equipment, photography accessories. 

The garment industry/ suppliers takes up an area of around 5 blocks with shops selling reams of cloth and fabrics, zippers and buttons, some being 3rd generation family businesses, and also tailors and shops with connections to factories in China that can handle big amounts of production for screen, electronic printing, sampling and customized clothing. 

Also worth mentioning are the other small shops in Sham Shui Po: wood and plank cutting, print shops, construction materials, acrylic cutters, toy shops and a hell lot of cheap local restaurants and eateries. 

Due to having a University campus that is quite known for their media and design courses nearby, a chunk of this relatively big district is populated  with small cafes, mini-gallery spaces and bars targeting a teenage population, and wherever “hip” happens, the real estate hounds follow in pursuit in an attempt to capitalize off of what they consider as “cultural”, and bumping up the rent year by year in this once cheap district.

Tao Bao (https://world.taobao.com/)

This site was established in 2011 and is a C2C (customer to customer) goods trading site that belongs to Alibaba. Before Tao Bao, Hong Kongers used to travel up to China by train or by bus to source for better deals on production or materials. But since Tao Bao became popular in Hong Kong around a decade ago, not only did this change the creative industry in China, but is an atom bomb of impact on trading, production and shopping in many Asian countries. 

There is honestly no limit to this colossal site of self hosted shops and services. To list a few crazies I have heard: Full cracked Adobe CC for no more than $20 HKD (less than 3 pounds), and with an extra charge the host (I personally don’t trust this at all) using some hacker software, could remotely install whatever you need for ya’ on your computer if you happen to be clueless with a computer. Ready for more? In Chinese medicine, there is a way of identifying sickness or parts of you body that might be in need of supplementing by reading your tongue! So snap a picture of your tongue, send it over and a Chinese medicine doctor will send over the suitable medicine tea.

To put this in a nutshell: Individual sellers, established Chinese brands, independent brands, factories and producers of big and small, photographers, graphic designers, website builders…you name it, can be sourced in this humongous platform which have gone SO BIG, Alibaba has established its’ credit system which has already become one of the major paying methods in all of China, and on Tao Bao there are even loans that allow shoppers to get what they want now and pay later. Along with its’ immense popularity it has boosted the business of delivery services big and small all across China. Also worth mentioning are the reports of boxes and packaging discarded during their major promotional events, “cardboard boxes lined up being able to reach the moon and back a couple times” kind of statistics, and this is not a joke. 

“Tao Bao Loh!”( again, “loh”囉 in Cantonese kinda mean “of course”), has become one of the most common phrases I have heard amongst friends, relatives and designers. Need to source for plastic bottles for a beauty product? Tin boxes? A cheap sofa for a photoshoot? iPhone parts? Bulk of snack foods? Once only known for its’ cheap goods, there are now shops that do deliver high quality products as well. This orange search bar opens up a universe. Like honesty if you can’t find it here, good luck finding it elsewhere.

ANDY was here