January 13th, 2010
Read Kenya Hara On Japanese Aesthetics on iA. I found the idea of craftman’s spirit very intriguing. And to recall from the Japanese drama that i’ve watched, the Japanese people seemed so driven by that spirit. ..which happens to also be the spirit of their excellence.
Graphic Japan, also quoted Kenya Hara, using the word “emptiness” to describe his form of abstraction. Empty spaces are used in order to leave the interpretation up to the audience. For example, the Japanese flag, a red circle against white (often interpreted as the sun) as an example of design that possesses the quality of “emptiness”. The symbol has no inherent meaning, but contains many possible meanings (land of the “rising sun” is, of course, the most popular interpretation), which develop in the dialog between the viewer and the image.
Continue reading »
January 9th, 2010
janaida draws album art for 羊毛とおはな(Youmoutoohana).
Youmoutoohana is a vocal and instrumental indie-music duo from Japan. They play folk/acoustic music. Since their first EP in 2004, they’ve become very popular among Japanese Indie. They’ve recently released their first Full album どっちにしようかな – relaxing, natural, and a bit of dreamy-land. ♥♥♥
Listen to them on last.fm or youmoutoohana.com
janaida’s illustrations – Lovely art goes with lovely music. Check out janaida website if you haven’t got enough – I sure didn’t.
To the couch now. Enjoy!
January 7th, 2010
Woorkup – Inspiring post on Beautiful Art of Japanese Web Design. Japanese design can go two extremes: vastly overloaded or elegant minimalistic. This collection is of the latter. My favourite – Mikihiko Kyobashi.
More on Japanese Web Design:
http://web-selection.com/
http://www.ubusuna.co.jp/
http://www.web-mihon.com/
http://bm.s5-style.com/
January 7th, 2010
I was looking for tweety stuff that allows multiple users to tweet to a single account and I found CoTweet. From the looks and sounds of it, its quite exciting to think about its possibilities. I just read in Socialnomics on successful stories of businesses using Twitter, to search for customers’ rants and did proactive customer service to improve satisfaction, as compared to asking the unhappy customer to sign up a forum account to lodge a support. It’s much easier to tweet than to write on forums. And I can see CoTweet being the tool that is here to help.
On the other hand, on a more personal level and for small businesses, I think it might be too elaborated for my use. Twitter’s beta-testing ‘Contributors’ might be a simpler extension I’m looking for.
Read also:
Twitter Lets Multiple Users Tweet To The Same Account
A feature test with businesses – on twitterblog
January 6th, 2010
I’ve been collecting labels for a while now and always have a special liking for the japanese ones. Love their simplicity and detailed packaging – attention to the seemingly insignificant label design.
Muji = product without a brand. Yet through its simplistic design and packing, highlighting products’ natural colour and shades, its able to grasp such strong identity. Bonus, using recycled materials, conserving resources and reducing waste.
December 31st, 2009
Watch video of Sydney Harbour fireworks display at smh.
May your 2010 be full of successful aspirations, happiness and excitement!
Happy New Year!!
xx Viv
December 28th, 2009
I, is defined by what I love.
Love is when I keep falling in love with the same thing/interest/object/person
.. over and over again.
December 27th, 2009
My first live soccer game. Enjoyable, and THANK GOD! for great weather. I honestly love those assistant referees, the way they hop left and right according to the position of the players. So cute to watch! What if a player keeps walking up and down the field for no reason at all? He’ll just keep hopping and hopping and hopping.. and hopping..
I was also amusingly distracted by the two commentators on both sides of me.
Continue reading »
December 27th, 2009
I resisted shopping on Boxing Day, but today’s the day-after-Boxing Day, so it doesn’t count. I thought I could single-mindedly walk into Borders at Bondi Junction, get those books that I wanted and go home. But the truth as it happened, every window in the mall was shouting SALE! at me. My self-deceiving plan failed, and I meant utterly because all I bought were non-sale items. Duh!
I also did not get any of those books that I had intended to buy. Instead, I got Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. My topic of interest and I think its probably worthwhile. We’ll find out, can’t wait to dig in!
