obsessions & anything inbetween
I’m very very busy with the Kancil Awards website now. Work for the Kancil Annuals have not started yet.
Just click on the link below to listen to a song that expresses my current feelings:
It’s all guitars.
Edit: I realized I forgot about the bass guitar for the song.
Meet Dave Weiner, my guitar tutor for the past few months. Dave has been touring with Steve Vai for the past 8 years upon Steve’s request and has been making wonderful music since.
After realizing that I couldn’t really commit myself to attend lessons, I realize I needed to do something before my hobby goes down the drain. I turned to Dave’s Riff of the Week using ITunes to download these weekly Podcasts. They have been of great help in refreshing on the basics and kerning beats and notes on the fretboard. I don’t really follow every lessons thought directly but they do keep my mind fresh about how things should be approached in music.
Upon getting an old nice and sweet sounding Yamaha F-20 guitar amp last week, for only RM180, I’m recharged after not having an amplifier for the past 4 years.
Last week, Riff of the Week saw it’s 100th episode on-air.
P.s: Other that Riff of the Week, I also subscribe to Typeradio and have discontinued some other subscriptions due to limited space on my Mac. 
Below are images taken from some of the spam mail I get once in a while:
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Doing jobs for corporate clients sometimes can result in different emotions. All jumble up in the pool of trying to come up with things that are workable, following strict corporate identity guidelines, seeking approval in a different language (Eg. designer thinks green is nice while client wants gold to signify wealth) and trying to make the end product/result look good. Most of the time, it involves walking between the fine line of making things of which the creative industry will recognize while also trying to impress and make your corporate clients happy. Which is a very tough job.
Recent jobs on my list include a very interesting list of things. All done for corporate clients:
And so we were sitting down, brainstorming and chatting about all this corporate stuff and suddenly, we had this sudden thought; Are we missing something in life because we happen to be designers?
I have seen with my own eyes how excited clients are about things that we as designers (or ‘creative people’) will consider gimmick and boring. How the excitement in the faces of the employees at a certain meeting brighten up when cliques are used extensively. The thrill and sharing of ideas from clients that we have even dumped into the trash before starting on the job.
It gets even more exciting when a certain ‘interactive’ ‘element’ is added; magnets, badges, plastic, velcro, key-chains, strings, etc. Just a little of a certain element added up to make the initiative look good. I’ve even heard of USB driven thumb-drive attached into an internal circulation magazine, just to contain some images, unseen footages from the magazine.
I don’t really feel comfortable to put in much input in things like these because I believe things like this sometimes are not really contradicting the ideas and core reasons behind each project. Its also very risky as things like this might take away the main message that we are trying really hard to convey. Sometimes, it might even turn out to be a real visual pollution or wastage of resources.
Do I get excited over things like this?
In the midst of all doing all this, I begin to feel a sense of lost at times. Am I missing out the little funny things that design, regardless of gimmick or recycled ideas, can create a certain amusing and provocative thought in us?
I’m not sure if magnets will work as a solution for me.
I really like this site. Not only the beautiful visualization but also how things are being interpreted and seen from different perspectives. Of course, what technology is capable of today as well.
Some teasers taken from the blog:
“an electronic ring that shows the number of Google hits when searching for the name of the person who wears it. every night, when the ring is inserted into its docking station, the ring is reloaded & updated to the objective popularity & importance measure of one’s personality”
“a physical representation of IPv6 addresses per meter square of the Earth’s surface. the sheet of paper is folded into approximatively 2000 points, conceptually similar to a network of IPv6 addresses”
Even the statistics module looks cool.
Andrew Vande Moere authors the blog and I sure do look forward on things I get from subscribing via email almost every other day. Yes, it is a very provocative site!
For the past week, I heard of and witnessed tragedies that moved me and changed a little on my perspective of life.
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I was involved in an accident near the Rothmans’ roundabout in Section 13. Story was, I was in the middle lane wanting to move round the roundabout while a car from the right wanted to do a left turn to exit the roundabout into an upcoming junction. My signal lights came about but by that time, the other party assumed that I was making the left turn too, heroically steering from the fast lane into my lane and bang.
The young chap, same age as me, Chinese educated, thick oval glasses with orange rims from the inside came out and pointed a finger at me, “It’s your fault, no signal light”. Cut the long story short, dealing with him was in someways, further informed my thoughts of basically, people.
I told him that I didn’t wanted to make a police report because I would rather use cash from my insurance account to pay in that case, which will make me loose my premium. He didn’t seemed to care, thus still putting the blame on me. After all the negotiation and talking, with his continuous finger pointing at me, I managed to settle the deal with him. With money. There was a glitter, glimpse of relief in his eyes when I offered to pay full. Am I on the winning side?
After talking to him, a 22 year old, I noticed a father of a boy, which was in Seremban, working in a hand-phone shop, trying to fight aimlessly without purpose of solving the problem with no direction. Somebody just fighting to get what he can. Seeking things that common knowledge sees as security and pleasure. In this case money.
I have heard comments, opinions, views from many parties and friends about who is wrong and who is right. Some commented that I can even make his insurance agency pay for my damages. Nobody asked if I did what was right and needed.
Basically, I did everything, from looking for a good mechanic, arranging the timing for the pick-ups, negotiating, etc. A hole in my pocket and a damaged hand was what I physically recovered from the accident without him knowing. But, in the big picture of life and humanity, beyond the selfishness of people, I do hope I did in some ways, be of help to myself and to him. It was not easy, mentally, physically and financially but I hope I did it.
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The second issue was when I was informed about the suicide of the son a teacher of mine back in secondary school. I was disturbed. Saddened by the fact that a 21 year old would take his own life away for the cause of fear and rejection. Accumulative thoughts of failing and loosing hope in studies together with rejection from a girl is truly an issue but of which can be solved. Where was hope when he needed it most—a question that lingered through my mind the past few days.
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The brutal death of a doctor back in my hometown was the talk of the town recently. A nice 37 year old, honest and caring towards his patients, died when his jeep fell deep into a 70 meters valley. Early this year, he was robbed of his Mercedes Benz and later on, a few months later I believe, he was robbed of his cash.
He was a man of honesty, very informative and doesn’t overcharge his patients. My mum and bro would pay him a visit whenever they were not feeling well and he would give them advice and hope with guidance on how to get well faster. The world needs more people like that. People who care and can be of help. The passing away of him makes me feel that the world lost somebody important.
I never met the two. It brings weight to my heart thinking of the two other tragedies compared to what I went through.
Currently, the whole studio is busy with things concerning the Kancil Awards Festival which is scheduled to be held from the 1st to 2nd of November 2007. Lets just basically say that every event collateral is our responsibility in this case. Mr. Bodoni did the event identity and Kay & myself were basically just sitting around attending meetings. Ah Chuan was busy helping out in the website stuff. Pui Kam was busy handling the souvenir booklet which is to be given out during the Kancil Awards Night.
The one thing that Mr. Ling is actually paying a little extra attention to is the Kancil Annual. Compared to last year, this time round we only have about less than a month to complete the entire book. Which is tough due to the hassle of getting all the artworks into soft-copy format either via original files or screen-shots or photographed. Jen Ling will busy with another project at that time but we are all hoping that it will be done then and that she can lend us a hand in the annual as well.
By the way, check out these quirky illustrations drawn by Thang Wei and Jelli, designed by Jiad Li:
If you get it, it’s pretty funny.