I woke up this morning and learn from the heavens that small in design usually is cute (That explains the larger text and the change of look for this blog)
I once again reminded that I still have a lot to learn and don’t know how to design well
I still suck at 7.9/9.4 Helvetica Nue 55 Roman (I know that’s too much but..)
I’m obsessed with working too hard (overworking unnecessarily) on simple things (I could spent 2 hours building a graph), but I can’t get rid of the habit
I notice how observations have an impact on the work that we do.
Malaysian Designers* cannot live without Photoshop (is king)
Zen has become a design icon. Many people associate it with Minimalism. I thought that it was some religious teachings right
Objects labeled ‘designer’ are cheats (My Levi’s doesn’t have any designer label & my ‘designer’ t-shirt ran out of style when I wore it yesterday)
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I’m uninspired at the moment. This rain and moody weather is taking the happy sunshine away. (My clothes start to smell after trying to dry em’ after rinsing)
I have this intuitive sense that tells me that my posts here look like they were letter-pressed.
* I am referring to designers who judge and praise and apply irrelevant highly edited visuals in photoshop to deal with visual problems, mostly I know of are Malaysians (Because, thats where I am closely connected with)
Stefan Sagmeister is coming to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on August 13th. Speaking at the Securities Commission at Sri Hartamas. Grab the tickets for the event quick! Only 300 seats available. A preview of the ticket is as shown below:
*Well, if you are here in hope of looking for tickets, all of them are sold out I guess. I don’t have anymore left.
*Edited: 6th Aug 2007
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You always start off with your vacation by booking a room in a hotel. However, this booking task should be performed on time as the hotel reservations are normally not available due to the rising tourism industry. For example, it is really difficult to get a room in miami hotel. So in order to avoid any problem during the trip you must choice hotels in time. Usually people like to select more adventure hotels to add fun to their holidays. The best america hotels excel in their quality and comfort. However some people still like to stay in cruise port hotels.
1) My brother, namely Heman Ling, yes, HEMAN is going for a 3 day cruise to Langkawi. Hope he finds inner peace during the cruise.
2) Younger brother Ezra, 6 years old, which has been attending Mental Mathematic classes, finds it hard to cope up. Classes are conducted in Chinese. Sometimes, I feel a little bit guilty for teaching him how to be a boy; Heman’s way and my way.
3) Sharlene shifted into her new room near her old house in Sea Park, with an attached washroom with heater and a superb hilltop view; overseeing Genting Highlands, The Petronas Twin Towers, KL Tower, etc. There’s this signboard screaming out loud: “Lisa De Inn”, at the lower left corner of the view.
4) Me? I did spring cleaning last weekend and need to wash my car.. Oh, I went to the Herman Li guitar clinic last Sunday.
5) And finally for all ye faithful ones who ever bother reading my blog entries, there’s something really special for you:
( I think this will keep a lot of people talking about it.. I actually am thinking twice whether to put this up or not, took me a while to put this up)
1 Freddie Mercury (Queen) — I definitely have to put him first for his level of musicianship, showmanship, charisma, energy, etc. The music of Queen spans widely from baroque classical up to probably one of the heaviest sounds in the history of rock. Band members of Queen including Brain May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor all have written no. 1 hits and have deep respect for Freddie. He wrote my all time favorite song, Bohemian Rhapsody. Freddie Mercury, like what John Deacon told the press when Robbie Williams was scheduled to record a special version of the classic hit We Are The Champion, “Freddie can never be replaced.”
2 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) — Why? Because he is in the world’s best band. Creating an entire generation of head bangers and devoted followers. The voice and tone of Plant definitely cannot be denied.
3 Syd Barret, Roger Waters & David Gilmour (Pink Flyod) — Eventough Pink Floyd doesn’t have much to do with the history of hard rock, they sure do influence bands around town. The madness of Syd, the experiments of Roger Waters and the melodious David adds up to one of the best bands up to today. Comfortably Numb remains a top listed song in my list. I have a photographic image of the guitar solo in my mind.
4 Ian Gillian (Deep Purple) — When you listen closely to Child in Time, you will know why I love his screaming so much.
5 Brain Johnson (AC/DC) — If you can have the dynamics to run up and down the stage during a live stadium concert in front of 20′000 people and still have a stiff upper lip, you must be Johnson. He is not singing on stage, he is actually shouting as if someone’s choking him hard.
6 Ozzy Osbourne (Solo,Black Sabbath) — No need any explanation. I don’t promote darkness but good music.
7 James Hetfield (Metallica) — I’m a fan of Hetfield. How does he play those amazing riffs and brutal chords?! He has probably the most technically in-tune right arm. Fast, bold and precise. Oh, brutal too.
8 Bono (U2) — Being the biggest band in the world, you have to give credit to Bono’s superb vocals and song writing. Not only that, but his interest in humanity and his honesty in the lyrics he writes. U2 is one band I really want to watch live. Everntough you can’t really classify the band as purely hard rock but they introduced another side of rock and prepared the path for many to dig into other other rock genres. Besides from that, a very strong stage presence and also catchy melodious tunes.
9 David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo) — He worked with two of the worlds greatest guitarists, Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai. There are rumors spreading around that there will be a Van Halen tour this coming September. Lets just wait and see what happens, but, being loud and hairy, you have the advantage of being bad while stand at the spotlight. I don’t really want to see him live but it will be acceptable to listen to some of his albums, Eat em’ and smile, skyscraper, and the early Van Halen albums from 1975 to 1985.
10 Glen Hughes( Deep Purple, Solo) — He’s got the screaming evil laugh when he sings. Bad. Bad enough for me.
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Sometimes it’s quite emberessing to mention a list of your favourites. When Stairway to Heaven was played across the radio more than a hundred times a day in the early 1970’s, back then, some even didn’t wanted to be known as a Led Zeppelin fan.
I wanted to list down my favourite hard rock lead vocalists. I mistakenly, due to unproper file organizations edited in wrong info for a live website that resulted in two hours plus of reworking on a certain project. Believe me, its really frustrating to know that you could have save some time doing something else.:(
Neutralization of things, or, situations like these, best recommendation would be to listen to some hard rock. I compiled this list for those who are listening to too much of Nu Metal, Pop Rock, Emo Rock and Girl Rock (personified term for Avril). Hard is the way to go.
I think I’m going to be very busy for the next two months.. My brains tell me to cover my ’sleeping costs’ for the next few weeks with plenty of sleep this week. I think only God knows how busy I am going to be. Seems like all the projects and deadlines are around this time.
I have been doing interviews for a certain client for their upcoming magazine. My big boss took the job and started all from a simple proposal. We got the privilege to not only revamp it but help shape the content of the magazine as well. Nothing fancy to boast about in this magazine frankly. A whole load of work really. Interviews, rough data, sourcing of information, arranging timing for meetings, setting up the magazine, images, text, graphs, exploiting technical terms into ABC, and finally moving on to the design before production comes in.
Up to today, I have attended almost 6 interviews, sitting through the entire session, attentively trying to keep myself in touch with the subject and to show them that I did have a good night’s rest. I still have about another 5 sessions maybe.. And a photography session to attend later in the month.
Most of the newsletters or magazines that we’ve done usually require us to work sorely on the layout and design of the magazine. Trying to tie all the articles together, creating a surprise ‘big bang page’, arranging pagination, requesting images for a readily written article, nice typography, etc. With very minimal chance to get involved in the articles itself. Yes, we are designers and a big part of our manifesto is only to design. But, what would happen if the designer gets involvement in the entire process—from the scheduling to the photography input? This is where it actually gets interesting.
This is actually the first time I’m doing such a thing. Excited for this issue to be completed. The deadline for this magazine is about a month from now. Lets just see what happens anyway.
Oh, by the way, our printer delivered in a magazine that I scheduled the printer to sent over by this Saturday, and, he has already sent it over today! Four days earlier than expected. Amazing. Always treat your suppliers nice.
@ FiFFteen in Goa, 2006 
