Distance & Radar

Sometimes it is overwhelming knowing how much of culture people can consume. I'm a slow person and can't cram things much into a day, every moment is a progression; I like to savour. I don't listen to a whole heap of music as I feel a kind of betrayal if I am not listening to the song properly or if it doesn't align to my mood. Of course some days songs will play as background but if music is just there playing on and on just for the sake of being there then something feels out of place - I turn off the sound. Mostly, I find music through recommendations, or by hearing them in random spaces - jot down a few lines and Google does the rest. Of Australian things, I think one of the things I appreciate the most is the music and the most recent I ran into both happen to be from Perth.

I can't remember where this played. I think was browsing a shop somewhere. I found it in my notes on my phone just last night.

Under the Radar - Stillwater Giants

Who would have thought one could find nice music during the cinema ads. I'm noticing that Australian city ads these days have some magic to them. This Perth one fooled us into thinking it was for some festival. It's also nice to know they used a song by a Perth band to promote Perth.

Here's the commercial:

Distance - Grey Joy

For me it feels bittersweet like leaving something behind and going somewhere far far away but moving on for the better. It's dawn, the sun is setting and running into the darkness it feels uncertain but if we look back we can never move as far

Adrian Tomine

I've been eyeing this book since the holidays began. Called 'New York Drawings', it is a collection of illustrations by Adrian Tomine for the New Yorker (but he also illustrates his own graphic novels). I'm not too familiar with comic culture but there's something about Tomine's work that really draws me in. These days I can't leave Kinokuniya without at least touching the book. What I really love is the subtleties and hints of everyday life he brings to his work:

"Two strangers, both reading the same novel, share a fleeting glance between passing subway cars. A bookstore owner locks eyes with a neighbor as she receives an Amazon package. Strangers are united by circumstance as they wait on the subway stairs for a summer storm to pass."

That's from the blurb of the book via Amazon but from reading that I found it so beautiful. The book is also wonderfully designed - simple & subtle typography but it really brings out his illustrations.

I always love seeing the work leading up to the final product. Tomine's process for the first cover he did for The New Yorker can be seen here. The following are a small glimpse into his magic and you can read Tomine's entry here:

    

More of his work:

    

    

Storytelling is powerful. When I think about design and creativity, the institutions (and by that I mean universities) will always stress on a "strong concept".  I don't have much of a story to tell. Maybe I do but they come in little fragments, so it doesn't really make much sense, not in the real world at least. I've never been strong in clarity and cohesion. At this moment I think I lack much of a life experience to be able to build anything with such wow factor in the thought behind it. Soon though, very soon... I think life will suddenly hit me with a gush of an icy cold wind... and perhaps quite literally so.

Deutsch Doodles

So you might know by now that I'm currently studying Deutsch (german) and that I am also studying visual communications design. A friend linked me to a series of illustrations by Carla Hackett (who does really lovely illustrations and lettering) called 'Deutsch doodles' which perfectly marries my love for both Deutsch and design. It was instant love or as one would say auf Deutsch 'Liebe auf den ersten Blick':

Yummy!

Merry Christmas!

Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice

Prince & Pi

My head has been in a confuzzled state. These days I feel so surreal and for some reason I can't seem to comprehend my surroundings.

I keep telling myself to sleep early and wake up early but I get so caught up with thinking, planning, and using up minutes which don't really take me anywhere. You can write extensive lists but they are nothing without action.

My friend has started a goal to read a book a week. I think I will join in and see how it goes. So I'm a week behind but I just finished my first book of 2013 yesterday! It's a short one but definitely thought provoking. It's the classic 'The Little Prince'. I always thought it was some sort of fairy tale but it's not really. A young friend recommended it to me actually and she is only 16. I think what really pulled at me was how the book pretty much explored the absurdity of adulthood: how they forget to live and waste it over things like power, praise, guilt and money.

I was left in a brooding mood especially after having watched Life of Pi - there is a lot to comprehend I dare not write them down for fear of a waste of words. And I realised it paralleled with the little prince's story. People believe only in the things they know that they can grasped. There is a reversal in what is logical and what is irrational. I hope to read the book to comprehend it further. In the movie there was this quote that reminded me of the businessman in chapter 13:

"Words and patterns that went on and on just like my irrational nickname" - Pi

I found this line so clever and meaningful in its play on the mathematic symbol. It tells us something about the way some live, constantly caught up in this ongoing routine, life gets lost in the way and I suppose the original cause doesn't seem very logical anymore; it is the one that is irrational. Logic of man is strange. Maybe it makes sense but it doesn't make meaning.

01

Everyday is another chance to bury our regret. Everyday is another chance to make it...  

It's not true - William Fitzsimmons

It's a little mellow to start a blank page with these words. But they somehow remind me that we don't only have New Year's resolution to start afresh. 365 days can be a long wait. Every month, every week, every day we are given the chance to start again. Even at this second we have the power to change something - to take a different direction. With spontaneity may come the unexpected; they are born in the most strangest of places.

Above, a friend and I once walked through a local neighbourhood, taking a random turn my friend pointed out this nest that was amongst the piping on the ceiling of a small carpark. Even in such dull spaces something can be found. 'You just have to look'

This year I throw myself into the deep end.

I admit the song continues with but I can't, but I can't, but I can't...
But I think the phase before the first step is always the hardest.