Barf
Sorry I’ve been out of commission and hard to reach for the past few days. I picked up some kind of nasty virus that kicked my ass this past weekend. My head felt like exploding, I couldn’t eat a bite in 3 days, and…um…let’s say I had a unlimited riding pass on the porcelain bus. One-way. Have you ever been so sick and miserable that suicide actually enters your mind as an option? Come-on…you’ve been very lucky if you haven’t. It was about the time I got up for the 2nd time one night for a...
read moreHappy Birthday
Happy Birthday my little guy. You’ve been the most amazing thing that has happened in my life. Hope you enjoyed this 1st year of your wondrous life and may the world offer you every opportunity you can imagine in your lifetime. Love – Dad
read moreDecorative Pillows
My wife has a fascination with pillows. Despite how many pillows we have on our bed and sofas, she’s always looking at getting more for some reason. I’m ok with that I suppose. If she see’s something that could add a little character and color in our living spaces, I can live with that. She has this quirky little habit of playing with pillow corners…which I would normally find pretty weird but I can’t say anything because I have a habit of peeling tissue paper into tiny bits. I figure if she can live with the...
read moreA New Leaf
I’m not the only one out there that collects beautiful work out there for our own inspiration. Here I landed on the work of Shaz Madani. In this case it was a campaign for Arctic Paper…using paper materials while expressing environmental thinking. Again with the pop-outs and cut-outs. (Hmm…I must find a project where my client will let me cut-out things like this!) Anyway, it’s inspirational work. Stumbled across this work on another French graphic designer’s blog at Graphic-Exchange. Great finds there...
read moreHelp for Haiti
I donated to Haiti the other day. I mean, it was really “nothing”, about as much as the cost of a big lunch I’m embarrassed to say. But I was struck with a tweet from someone that said something like, “Don’t make the mistake of wanting to do so much that you end up doing nothing”. So I pulled out the cell phone and donated to the Red Cross. You know, despite all the horrible devastation over there…the silver lining of encouragement I see is that the entire world has helped in some form or fashion. So...
read moreSleep Suit
I find this sleep suit utterly ridiculous and hilarious…if in any way you think you can get a restful nap sleeping in public in this thing, I wish you the best. Yet I’m drawn to it like a moth to a light. I think I want one of these if only for a funny Halloween costume or someday I might use it on stage to enact my best Lady Gaga impersonation. (via Blogitecture)
read more2010
2010 has turned out to be pretty normal so far. Nothing particularly noticeable about the turn of the decade so far aside from the fact that it’s actually “2010”. I distinctly recall one time when I was in 3rd grade once and the teacher had asked us to try think about what we’d be when we grew up. I can’t quite remember what profession I aspired to be at the time (sure wasn’t “designer”), but I DO recall thinking how neat it would be to write down “2000” as the year. “Would I...
read moreSan Fran people
San Francisco’s People. Canon 5DmkII 24p from Philip Bloom on Vimeo. I was chatting with a good friend yesterday about how much fun I’ve had with my camera over the past year when we started discussing how all these DSLRs are now coming packed with video shooting capabilities. Quite a few people had dismissed this as a gimmick, but I’ve been encountering more and more video professionals who are using DSLRs as viable tools for doing professional work. The ability to have a relatively small & low-cost method for filming...
read morePee Power
I don’t know if I could have done a better job, or kept a straight face for that matter, if I were commissioned to design an instructional sign for Swedish “pee-power” toilets like the one above. Makes you think if you had to design a sign to show a person pooping and peeing in a simple way, how would you do it without being too complicated or even offensive? It IS kind of an interesting concept although given the state of the typical men’s bathrooms here in the U.S., I doubt we’d ever manage to use a toilet like...
read moreThem Animals
I stumbled across this photographer’s website this morning while checking around for daily inspiration. His name is Jason Lee Parry. (via Tobacco and Leather) Caveat emptor on the video and website, there’s some nudity so it’s definitely NSFW. As always, I’ve had an interest of getting more into photography in recent years, albeit the only progress I’ve made so far in all this time is taking a few thousand shots of my toddler and some outdoor scenic shots. God I’d love to do some model editorial shots like...
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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