Renovations
My home office…no my entire home for that matter which once served as my sanctuary, will be chaotic for the next few months as we’re doing a home renovation. Look how beautiful I once had my office. Now my once glorious desk has been moved down to be used in my office in KCC and our room will be once again converted into a master bedroom so that Kingston can have his own room. Now the room is storage and looks like a typhoon hit it. It’s a whole mess of factors that necessitated a full renovation…everything from...
read moreNano Bass
Besides one shirt, the only thing I picked up from HK was a set of these (Japanese) nano building sets…basically miniature Lego knockoffs. I grabbed a full set of instruments. I completed my first one during break today. I thought I needed tweezers to handle all the pieces. Some of the pieces were so tiny I was afraid I could barely hold them. As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad to just use my fingers. Although I discovered it was safer to do these sets on non-carpet environments because at least twice I had a piece come flying...
read more2nd impressions of Hong Kong
My adjustment back to local time is still taking a while. It’s been a week now and my appetite and digestive schedule is still a little wacky. I’m starving in the morning and at night I can barely choke down a bite or two. Funny how the body sometimes works in a different schedule from your mind. I gave my initial thoughts about my recent trip to Hong Kong. What I wanted to do to follow that was a post to document what I thought were the bad impressions I got from the city in case I ever forget and decide we want to move there for...
read moreWhatFont Tool
If you’re trying to find out what type is being used on a website, tools like this WhatFont is super convenient. It can be installed both as a Bookmarklet or as a browser extension. Works like a charm saving you countless minutes trying to look it up in the source code. Great way to just collect ideas and thoughts about what to use in your own projects.
read moreBob Dylan Subterranean Homesick Blues
[vimeo id=49556689] Beautiful hand-drawn typography in homage to Bob Dylan by Leandro Senna. From what I understand everything was done by hand and in one-take. /bow down
read moreBack to reality
What an adventure…my two weeks up in Hong Kong was a good break away from the day to day experiences I’ve had back home. But by normal vacation standards, it kinda sucked. There wasn’t really any sight seeing done, most of my time was either spent sleeping or babysitting my child at my inlaws house, and any chance we had at shopping turned out empty handed. Well, I DID get 1 shirt. But that’s ok. We knew that these pilgrimages back to Hong Kong were just opportunities for my child to get some face time with my...
read moreOn vacation
I will be on vacation from Sept 3rd through Sept 17th. My ability to respond to any requests or inquiries will be limited during this period. For my existing clients I have backup assistance to monitor for emergencies during my absence. I will email you those details shortly. Otherwise I will be sure to respond to my emails and calls when I return.
read moreBand websites
As I was trying to find sites to inspire my students this morning I came across two websites I quite liked. This interactive HTML5 site for Abby is pretty cool. The only part I dislike it’s the horribly slow load time, but it’s worth the wait and you can begin to see why it takes so long once it plays. Cool concept. Simple idea but probably wasn’t quick to pull off. And then there’s this Hendrix site which is I think is gorgeously colored and illustrated. I liked how their slider has transparency worked into it I never...
read moreReward Success. Celebrate Failure.
Here’s another tip I would give my own child much less any of the young business people out there. It may seem obvious, but it’s hard to keep this in mind when you’re hip deep in it. I’ve learned the tough way that in order to be successful in whatever I did, I had to fail a bunch of times to get there. It really IS true. My first attempt at a freelance business was fresh out of college. I knew I had some skills that I could market…I somehow taught myself HTML during the early 2400 baud modem days. But I knew...
read moreAlmost…almost…almost
We made the mistake of telling my 3 year old that we were hopping on a plane next week. We should have waited. Now every waking minute of every conversation begins with “I want to go on the plane now.” This is going to be a long week. I’m just as excited to go as he is. If only he knew. Now the plan for this last remaining week is to just stay healthy. Mom and child caught a little cold today and I was already practically force-feeding them vitamin C and cold medicine. I’ll probably drown myself in the stuff before...
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LoweStudio Inc was founded by me, Raphael Lowe, a Honolulu based illustrator and web designer. I presently design and manage a few dozen commercial websites, but my main focus these days is acting as the head developer for Kapiolani Community College and teaching