Stumbled across this beautiful wooden textile designer by the name of Elisa Strozyk today. That may look like a soft blanket but it’s actually pieces of wood. Neat!

Christmas was spent very well this year. I think as a new parent, my mission this year was to make sure that Kingston experienced some of the joys of the Holidays that I had growing up. Did he know what was going on?  Not a bit. But I’d like to think that somewhere in that developing mind of his he’ll retain some of the happy feelings he had these past few days around the Christmas tree.

As expected, Kingston reaped the biggest bounty this Christmas. Yes yes, Christmas is about more than just getting gifts….but for a kid, that’s about that matters really. I think he just got about every noisey toy imaginable. So now we’re now we’re not only waking up to the sounds of a boy experimenting with his vocal talents, we’re also hearing barn animals and Elmo.

What did Dad get?  Nada.  Santa is full of shit. Or at least it proves he doesn’t read my blog.

BUT all is forgiven. So long as the wife and child are happy it makes up for not having a new camera lens this year. There’s always NEXT year Santa you hear me?

Happy New Year everyone! Let’s ALL kick ass in 2010. I’m SO sick of all this bad economy bullshit.

Finished a website officially in time for Christmas. I’ve gotten to know the owner of Consumer Service Analysis enough that I’d call her a friend. She seems to be really taking off with this mystery shopping business which is fantastic. I’ve been thankful that she’s been letting me guide her a little bit with some of her logo and web branding.

Continue reading »

I like this guy’s site. Damjan Stankovic is a designer in Serbia who apparently thinks up new concepts for everyday objects. I like a couple of his ideas like the tea infuser or the traffic light concept above. He’s got some good photoshop/illustrator prototypes up on his site as well. Having done some prototyping for a couple clients in the past I know how hard it is to do some of that illustration work.

Here’s a pano shot I took off of one of my friend’s rooftop balcony a couple weeks ago. That’s starting towards the backside of Downtown Honolulu just as the sun was going down behind the buildings. I took nightshots of this scene as well but disappointingly I had too much camera shake with my long exposure. Either my hand was all jittery because of the excitement of the shot, or that rooftop had some vibrations I couldn’t detect at the time.

Anyway….Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Good Festivus for the restuvus!

Today I find a brief respite in my work. Enough to feel “ok” about just letting things calm down in my mind a bit and just recollect. A friend of mine recently posted “rest and stillness are endangered in our species”.  It definitely gave me food for thought today.

I did reasonably well this month in terms of work accomplished. Just like I said I would I pushed though and got most of my big agenda items done and I’ll hopefully recover from a painfully slow November month. I don’t know why…people just disappeared last month & I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to work either.

Continue reading »

I found this Chopspoon…err…Spoonstick…whatever online during my daily rounds this morning. I like the creativity of it all. On the other hand, speaking from an experienced Asian eater…I don’t think this would work. How am I going to eat my won ton noodles without using my spoon AND my chopstick at the same time?

And then I can just picture the spoon slipping off the chopsticks and then gliding down my bowl of soup so then I’d have to fish it out. And then there will be no napkins available to wipe down the spoon. And then I’d be all bummed because I can see my soup but I don’t have…  never mind, you guys get the picture. (Yanko via Gizmodo)

So here we are…middle of the month of December already and it’s just flying by like mad. It never fails to feel like a crush this time of year. In part because I always try to jam on projects before the 2 upcoming long weekends hits us, and then there’s all the Holiday shopping and craziness that comes along with it.

Have I done my shopping this year? Bwahahaha. No way. I mean I got my boy and my parents covered. But I still have my wife and my brother to take care of. These two family members are often the toughest for me…my wife never seems to want anything, yet anything practical I can think of getting her (like a Wii Fitness game or fancy kitchen appliance) will just come across the wrong way. (insert dog house here)

And my brother just about has everything cool that I’d want already. He’s often the guy that gets the vehicles, game consoles, toys, etc that I think is pretty cool and then he applies the pressure on me to get it as well. So buying things for my brother is a bit challenging.

So between the shopping and the projects, I’m always meaning to design fancy Xmas cards each year for my friends and clients. This year I swore to myself that I’d start early like in September…but here we are in December and that TO-DO items still sitting there in my list glaring at me. I don’t think I have time for Xmas. I just might do Chinese New Years cards this year…not too many people get cards around that time of year anyway perhaps it might help. I have a design colleague in Downtown that does annual Chinese New Years cards for his clients…perhaps now I see the reason why.

Well, enough of a break for me…

Bear with me, no I’m not going to just keep posting videos on my site from now on, but it’s just that lately I’ve seen more creative work in video form. Here’s this “Silent Monk” video (isn’t there a Chili Pepper’s song called that?) that I thought was very creative and appropriate for the Season. Hallelujah!

I’m kinda getting in the Xmas mood aren’t you?  Yes yes, I know the Holiday Season isn’t for everyone. But I’ve always had fond memories of this time of year ever since I can remember. Mom & Dad always made an effort to make this a fun time of year for me. Unlike my wife from Hong Kong who doesn’t really associate Xmas with much more than some fancier decorations at the mall.

Bitter? Nooo, it just means more of a challenge for me getting both my wife AND my child to get into the spirit of this time of year so they’ll enjoy it as much as I do. Maybe I’ll have to do the whole Santa getup every year? I’ll be the skinniest most Asian looking Santa around…

Anywhoo, I stumbled across this Japanese Xmas commercial for Solaria Plaza. I like it…it doesn’t take a whole lot too see how something like this is done, but it’s the simplicity that makes it creative to me.

Here’s a neat LCD (?) clock that features a looping video of a man drawing the hands of the clock in each passing minute. Pointless?  Yes, but nonetheless fun to watch. If it didn’t actually have a creepy man behind it, I wouldn’t mind having one…say…with a Italian supermodel on it?  It’ll be like she’s perpetually reminding me to “keep waiting because it’ll never happen”