What does it mean to work hard?
I stumbled across an interesting article, “What does it mean to work hard” this evening. Pretty interesting read and especially poignant to my own situation. I’m running my own business, spending some of my week playing Mr Mom, teaching classes twice a week, etc. It makes me feel very burnt out all the time even though there are times where it might seem like there are observable downtimes to my day. With creative work…sometimes people don’t understand that every minute of the day feels like work. I can be...
read moreBattle scars
So Kingston is at an age now where he’s into climbing everything, but hasn’t yet built any healthy respect for heights or impending danger. He’d climb up on our bed and stand up teetering dangerously over the edge. It doesn’t help that my son has a HUGE noggin…it’s like he’s all head with just some extra parts so he can move that head around. (It’s adorably cute now, but I don’t want him to be the brunt of any big head jokes one day…. it’s just ok if dad jokes about it now) So...
read moreStar Wars in Type
I don’t know why I have a fixation with artwork done in type? Perhaps because I don’t have the patience to do something like this. (via I Believe in Advertising)
read moreSophie Henson
Stumbled across some beautiful typography and illustration work by a London artist, Sophie Henson. The above infographic/chart is sort of fun. It hits home a bit for me given I met my wife online. Our experience wasn’t quite this convoluted though…. I think our chart would be like DATING SITE > EMAIL > SKYPE > EXPENSIVE PLANE TICKETS. As luck has it, now 6 years or so later, she hasn’t turned out to be a serial killer yet. (via CreativeBite)
read morePhotocopy Romance
Short video shot via a Photocopier, 325 pages per minute. Can you get photocopy burnt from those things? Inspiration for my ART 112 students who SHOULD be working on their Flash animations over this break?
read more25 Chrome Extensions for Web Developers
These are 25 more reasons to phase out Firefox as a browser-of-choice on my own system. Firefox has gotten to be a clunky slow browser over the years…which is a shame. It was once simple, fast, and light…just like Chrome is today. I guess that’s the lifecycle of a typical browser. They come out in the field looking oh so fresh and so clean, and then each year after that the developers are expected to add more to application till the point where the new features bog the program down rather than help. Over the 16 years...
read moreCreative Business Cards
I’ve heard it said that business cards are on their way out…soon to be (or already) replaced by the digital age. I suppose these folks bump iPhone contacts regularly? These folks clearly have not spent a day in the shoes of a marketing or sales person who has to attend an evening at a networking function. But even if this were so, I think it would be a shame to lose this little element of business marketing. When you get a card from someone you’ve just met, it’s like a little first-taste of what’s to come. My own...
read morePirate treasure! Haaaar
We brought Kingston to his first Trick-or-Treat event at the local mall today. He got a big bag full of candy…which will likely be consumed by dad. It turned out ok…I’m not sure who really had any fun. Kingston had no idea what was going on and wanted nothing but to run full steam into the throngs of costumed people the whole time. So dad ended up carrying this bundle of sweaty joy pretty much the entire loop of the Mall. My arms felt like red vine candy by the end of the trip. /sigh. Well, we DID manage to keep his hat on...
read moreWall-to-Wall sunflowers
I saw this Tate exhibit mentioned on a few sites a couple weeks back. Originally my gut reaction was to roll my eyes “another stupid exhibit pitched as art”. But it wasn’t until seeing the video that I kind of see the point of this. Apparently each one of these one hundred million seeds were hand crafted by 1600 artisans in a small chinese town that once designed pieces for royalty. Today many of them are out of work. I especially admired some of the old-school Chinese techniques they demonstrated in the video. Being Chinese...
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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