Digital Detritus - A Graphic Blog

Tapestry and Porcelain: Post-poesis

2012-01-19T21:30:00.000+08:00

Thanks to the great Wikipedia SOPA protest, I had to click the Google search results beyond the first fold, as I was trying to find out what came after praxis and theoria:

From: It Was John Adams

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. "

The blog author was searching for "some bloke who had to do something praxis-y so his sons could do something theoria-y so their kids could do something poesis-y"

... so that their progeny can study pop culture and surf the Interwebs?

It's a reminder of what the Liberal Arts is 'sposed to be about, slacker jokes aside.
The opportunity and right to pursue the study of the humanities, as a free person.
Education here in Singapore, at all levels, seems to be about "module selection" or choosing a package of subjects - education for certification. Who does Mathematics AND Philosophy? Students are channeled into Left and Right Brain tracks, engineers and the "Arts" people.

It's more than just being "inter-, cross-disciplinary" or tossing in a Humanities module in the Engineering program... it's led to dearth of people who are able to think and function as truly free citizens.
I mean "citizen" in the broadest sense... a citizen at large, since we, as citizens of Singapore, largely don't know what it means to be a citizen, aside from the bureaucratic sense (CPF, housing, passport and other documents).
Pftttt!

PalimPEST

2011-12-29T12:48:00.001+08:00

Serendipity

2011-12-26T00:39:00.001+08:00

I was trudging up to the NAFA campus to buy yet another copy of my transcripts; this application is turning out to be a Quest of sorts and this is the final goal in the Credentials Evaluation Quest, and by pure chance, they had a little showcase of Mexican ritual masks in the Nafa gallery!
My kind of thing: Day of the Dead, shaman masks, masks that incorporated images of Christ with local gods... It was just a little show, one security guard, Spanish audio loop but the masks were amazing.

I guess it's the experience of turning a corner and chancing upon these objects .. Plus I was intently going through the final season of True Blood...

Design is different from Art

2011-12-24T16:59:00.000+08:00

The best explanation I've encountered for this difference is by Chris Pullman, which I will paraphrase and commit to memory:

Artists solve problems that come from inside themselves; designers solve other people's problems.

As a jobbing designer, it's all too easy to be cynical about the latter but thinking beyond the bread-and-butter, quotidian problems such as how do I fit all this onto 4pp on a $200 budget, 4000 copies and can we have 6 color printing and spot lamination on the chairman's face, in 3 working days sort of way (which really requires a mix of communications, production and budgetary ingenuity), Problems with a capital P... financial literacy, social ideology, grassroots action and all sorts of interesting things.

Anyway, without having to go into details, it's still a pithy description of the difference between Design and Art.

Geospatial Ghosts

2011-12-17T11:50:00.001+08:00

Cafe Domus was a cool hangout quite literally around the corner from my place. It was situated in a pre-war shophouse but the owners turned the front into a pretty tableau with Pop-Victorian floral wallpaper and a huge chandelier. The best thing about the cafe was out of sight to the casual passer-by: a bamboo garden at the back! It was always a great place to meet friends and clients, a secret nook conveniently located round the corner.

Cafe Domus closed down in 2009 and the physical space was taken over by a HTML chopshop and grocery supplier and the bamboo garden is probably used to store sacks of rice. :(

My Town
But Cafe Domus' presence lingers on in the GML (Geography Markup Language) file. When playing MyTown2, Cafe Domus appears as one of the options and I promptly selected it. I haven't googled where this particular app gets its GML information - Google Places, Foursquare, but someone or some agency had created a node for the defunct Domus and it'll exist in some GML file, turning up in outdated maps and listings.

Off the GPS grid

Pin Guan Hotel taken in 2006

Right across where Cafe Domus was, is the Pin Guan hotel, an example of the Nanyang pre-war hotel. I stayed at the Cathay Hotel in Penang which was still in its original condition, untouched by hipster architects, including the staff, which was great...

Unlike the infamous Mitre Hotel, which saw hordes of artists and creatives flocking for a last photoshoot, the Pin Guan is relatively obscure, just me taking photos before they erect the hoardings.

The Pin Guan has been replaced by a block of service apartments. BUT to the chargin of travelers arriving at the nearby Farrer Park MRT station, Pin Guan is listed as hotel on the glossy station map, even though it's not been open for the past 20 years!

Urban Redevelopment
These days, it seems that the only way for these places and buildings to escape the developer's bulldozer is to get a makeover by hipsters e.g. the Kam Leng Hotel, a decrepit old dame along Jalan Besar. They are going to put funky graphics in the rooms and turn her into "cool" backpacker's inn. How unimaginative! Like styling an 80-year old lady in Lady GaGa (or whoever is on the pop radar) clothes... what about the building's history? Wong Kar Wai would be aghast. I prefer rose-tinted nostalgia to a cheesy update.
(For years, I've walked by the Kam Leng, and every time, it seems as if Tony Leung would stroll out to order some wanton noodles)

Which is a better fate? Pin Guan, existing as digital detritus, meta-data (I've tagged and uploaded some photos, doubtless other people might have too), outdated land surveys ... or continue to exist after a soul-stripping makeover?

Force-feed : A little formatting

2011-11-13T21:22:00.000+08:00

It takes a human reader to interpret the unintended hilarity (Ok, it's not really LOL but it is a bit amusing) of this update that appeared on my Facebook ticker. They could've done some formatting to remedy this... but with so much data being manipulated and pushed into the Facebook page, it could be a case of too much information that needs formatting. I think our social graphs probably look like a huge tangle of yarn right now. Maybe I'm reading too much into things or maybe I just can't get over the fact that my GRE essay will be partially marked by a computer - the question is: which parts will the computer mark?

I am just a Dataset

2011-11-09T19:25:00.001+08:00

Contextual ad using data gleaned from my Facebook profile

A screengrab of machine-generated content on Facebook occasionally produces tragic or as in the image above, comic results like the ad above. OK, I found it LOL - rent out a room to "other Knitting enthusiasts"? At least lower-case all the letters!

What's wrong with this ad? It's hilarious when you realize the potential combinations for this contextual ad and its [insert hobby] + "enthusiasts" = text.

Fishing
Diving
Taxidermy
Dwarf-tossing
Chainsaw

... and the list goes on.

To be with Art is all we ask

2011-10-17T21:30:00.001+08:00

Having studied and worked with the Arts and Art Education, I've encountered innumerable courses and variations of the question - What is Art...?

In September, I visited the MoMA in NYC and it was like walking through the pages of an art textbook - I was literally encountering seminal works that I had seen, dimly projected in a dark lecture room or reproduced in books (pre-Internet days).

This piece by Gilbert and George is what I'd use for my answer to the question of what is art/Art/ART?

Someone has reproduced the text here

Art wears a Curious Tie
I love the wistful tone of this ... ode to Art. A half-remembered glimpse of a fey young chap with dusty-blonde hair, dressed in a light brown suit and "curious blue tie", lost in a crowd.

"We really do love you and we really do hate you. Why do you have so many faces and voices? You make us thirst for you and then to run from you - escaping completely into a normal life - getting up, having breakfast, going to the work-shop and being sure of putting our mind and energy into the making of a door or maybe a simple table and chair."

The context of this (which I wiki-ed) is the artists' time at art college and their reaction to the predominance of sculpture. Still, all artists would relate to this bit: Art is the annoying thing that keeps us from being satisfied with making a simple Thing - why must every Thing be a piece of Art?

Feverish new moon and Vintage Internet

2011-09-03T00:28:00.000+08:00

Owl Girl - work in progress

I've been a devout follower of Susan Miller's Astrologyzone.com for more than a decade now and the site looks the same as when I was browsing with my 56kbp/s modem (?) and gruel-grey PowerMac.

Well, the site still looks the same but who cares and being more than a decade old, it's vintage internet.

Apparently the crushing inertia I faced last month will lift in September with certain planets going in orbit and a New Moon...

Look what I found

2011-09-03T00:05:00.000+08:00

After spending weeks getting back in touch with art and "finding myself", this is what I found!

So all I really want to do is create emo doodles and yes I love stitches as a motif. Actually, I need to re-animate some Sculpey that's been sitting around for more than a year and re-work them into baby heads.

Significant Objects: Why do they make this stuff?

2011-08-15T11:55:00.001+08:00

That noticeboard along the Outram MRT - Pearl's Centre walkway

Singapore is not part of China because there's a Chinatown in Singapore.

And like Chinatowns, it contains shops that sell all manner of strange euphemera. Downstream from the touristy centre of Chinatown, is Pearl's Centre which houses the infamous YangTze Cinema, a parallel universe where Pamela Anderson stars in American History X.

The stores in this shopping centre are mostly bargain-outlets, selling stuff that looks like they fell off a lorry...

Too much stuff - a perfect miniature carry-all for Blythe at $2.

Neurotica - Dali at the ArtScience Museum

2011-08-09T15:14:00.000+08:00

Dalean branches and twigs growing out of a thumb, neurotica!

THE Mae West sofa

The ArtScience museum finally came to its senses and changed its admission charges to that of individual exhibitions. That was why I made the visit to the Dali sculpture show, without paying for stuff that I don't want to see and the permanent ArtScience exhibit isn't even worth mentioning: it's literally a few interactive screens, like something from a forgotten corner of the Science Centre,

Anyway, this museum is an obligatory nod to art and culture amidst the consumerism of the whole Marina Bay Sands area. The REAL reason for the existence of the entire Marina Bay Sands multiplex is hidden away in the basement - the casino and gaming floor. The ArtScience museum is for the schoolkids and the patronizing tone of the exhibition write-ups doesn't let you forget this. The garish blue stickers, written in a textbook tone, asks you to do "fun" things like look out for the hidden lobsters in the sculptures...?

Getting really close to the black and white sketches and seeing the artist's marks up close is probably more interesting than the cast bronze sculptures.

The viscous trickle of blood in this phallic interpretation of the Unicorn and the Maiden. Not for the schoolkids then? There was no textbook caption for this piece.


I love the skulls in the lithographs, the strokes are so neurotic anxiotic, makes me feel twitchy.

Still, I got to press my nose against the lithographs and peer at the pen marks in the lithographs: he seemed to enjoy drawing the women's curly locks.

Burn Burn

2011-08-03T01:24:00.000+08:00

Workhouse for designers... a reminder why I'm not a mouse operator anymore.

I used to spend precious pay and allowances on expensive, 'rare' magazines. All of them have been trashed - mildewed in this humidity.

More tangible reminders of things I should clear out.

I dropped by the ihavearoomwitheverything exhibition, hoping to re-ignite, re-kindle my graphic design work. The location was in good old Selegie Road, where I was educated in the design. My grades were dismal, by the way. Got a D in Commercial Design. Commercial Design! How quaint and archaic... it involved manual paste-up, line by line with a X-acto knife and Cow Gum. Pasting text onto artboard so it can be photographed and converted to film. It wasn't tinged with nostalgia at that time, just frustration.

Print Must Die
Anyway, the collection of 'zines and other paper objects ignited a different sort of feeling. That and the sight of designers literally locked in a room, chained to their Macs! I'm in a highly-flammable room (it's paneled with wooden boards) with what looks like a room from 1996 (Concave Scream?!).

Teach yourself to code, stop pushing text boxes around. Get out more... tele-presence, locative media, mobility, social design - that's design that's alive and not trapped in ink on paper.

A Bird Without Wings

2011-08-01T22:40:00.000+08:00

"Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings" said Salvador Dali... that's probably why I like to make strange little kiwi-like birds such as the one on the left - Mavis, with her straggly hair.

Care Bears Prancing

2011-07-13T18:24:00.000+08:00

In this current age of vector art and Dunnies, it's nice to look to see that the original Care Bears are still alive! In the Care Bears mook, the artists are pictured painting the Bears, with real brushes and watercolour! It would be really sad if Care Bears went the way of vinyl toys and Dunnies.

Looking at the artwork in the mook, it brings back memories of water-soluble colour pencils! I don't think you can re-create the effect or satisfying experience of Caran d'Ache water-soluble pencils gently blending into damp ink using Photoshop and a Wacom tablet.

Vector characters, defined by mathematical coordinates can't quite PRANCE like these analog bears...

Stepping Up

2011-06-30T23:52:00.000+08:00

Vicky Blythe

After six semesters, I realize that hey, I achieved my dream of being an educator and an academic! I have six intense semesters of classroom experience, working with design students and got my wish to write extensively on design.

It was also 3 years of working with mostly MS Word and Office... It's sometimes difficult to stop and realize that hey, that's a goal achieved, take stock and a breather before the next step.
I've got my excuse to pursue a Masters, am now considering my options - sisulla.wordpress.com
is where I blog about this next phase.

The pictures are the two great gifts I got from my co-workers. BLYTHE - OMFG I clearly remember the receptionist at the dingy night class place (it's really the epitome of the pits of night classes, including the vomit-green carpet) talking about not being able to afford a Blythe and now I've been given one!! It's different from buying one, it's a gift and it means a lot to me. Blythes demand to be taken out and dressed - right now, Vicky has only the dress she came with so I've got a lot of work to do. Sugarpunk.etsy.com will soon have a Blythe corner... Shoes are the tricky part - I guess it's time to get dirty with resin moulds!

Original caricature by eeshaun

Fretting

2011-04-19T12:26:00.001+08:00

I love the quote @despairbot Patience is a minor form of Despair, disguised as a Virtue. Well, patience is about waiting and generally waiting is done in quiet despair, not quite sure if one has been placed in the "No Further Consideration" pile.
Quiet despair, crippling despair - what are the other flavours and levels of Despair?

Work in Progress - White Rabbit

2011-03-21T14:21:00.000+08:00

After a long hiatus and procrastination, I finally got started with the Intuos 3 which I bought off a friend.

Unexpected Memories

2011-03-11T13:08:00.000+08:00

Facebook's "Photo memories from [year]" could really trigger unexpected emotional responses especially when it shows pulls up friends who are no longer friends for various reasons. Friends who have passed on still continue to appear in birthday reminders, existing in a database for... as long as databases

Momento Mori

I clicked on this photo set because hey, I looked kinda fresh and funky in it. I remember how we tried to squeeze our faces into the frame. The colors are off, big smiles and big eyes, you couldn't tell that we were both going through some intense times, so it was really about hope - the hope that things would get better and they did, for a time.

Beyond visualizing relationships, these social network features are public traces of our lives and interactions. Imagine reading a dead person's diary - that's the feeling you get when you look at the final few posts, tweets or actions of a friend who now exists only as a dataset somewhere. But hang on, depending on the dataset, it could be much more than the traces that many of us would leave, pre-Internet and pre-Facebook.

The Last Check-in
If you died right now, what traces would you leave on the servers? My blogs, my Etsy store, my Facebook profile, my final check-in on Foursquare, a few thousand twee ts...

Well, if I ever do write and publish a paper on digital (dis)embodiment, I'll dedicate my work to Julie "Clever" Yeung 1988 - 2008

The Blue Room: Shrine to 1997

2011-02-23T22:43:00.000+08:00

My computer corner! That is a monitor circa 1997 that no one ever got round to tossing out. Yeah that's the desk where I had my Supra dial-up modem. And my own phone line...

I took this photos over the Chinese New Year holidays. It's not that I haven't been home for 14 years but it never really dawned on me that my parents had kept my old room the way it was since I lived at home. Like those rooms you see on TV crime shows where the parents keep the murdered/kidnapped child's room the way it was...
There is a pair of plush Hello Kitty from that McDonald's craze, still in their plastic wrappers, my enormous old 1000 pc tangka jigsaw, some old clothes in the wardrobe, it's just so bizarre - I would've razed the whole place.

Yes, I chose the lurid blue color, painted the furniture myself (Still can't believe I actually did that). Maybe I should think about moving the Baker's Shelf, it is quite nice.

The girl in the blue room
Anyway, that's me in the corner (REM), facing a 15" CRT monitor, surfing Shift.jp.org and dreaming graphic designer dreams. It seems that I have traveled very far and gotten no where at all.

I wish I could upload what I just saw onto YouTube

2011-02-16T16:00:00.001+08:00

Everyone's probably had a moment when they wished they had a camera or these days, wished they could've taken an Instagram and uploaded it to their stream. I just saw a YouTubable sequence: nothing spectacular but could be a viral hit in a YouTube-sort of way,

Whilst in the canteen, I saw a mynah bird grab a chicken nugget off a plate that was on a table at the other end. The bird dragged the chunk of processed meat to the other end of the table. A guy came over with his lunch tray, gave the classic quizzical comedy look - at the plate and then at the errant nugget. You could see his mind working as he made the connection...
His friend, the owner of the nugget came up, drink in hand and a conversation ensued... yeah, the friend did eat the rest of the nuggets...

I feel compelled to blog about this because it's exactly the sort of thing I see on 'hit' YouTube videos, except that I feel weird 'cos A) I'm seeing it in real life B) I immediately associated this real life sequence with YouTube

... Why do I wish so badly that I could post it onto social media?

Aerodynamic Jesus

2011-01-31T11:46:00.000+08:00


Screen-grab of sponsored links on Thesaurus.com

I am interested in machine-learning, even for prosaic purposes such as serving up better related advertisements. I happened to notice these three that got spat out with the search results for the term "aerodynamic" on Thesaurus.com

Machine Hunch
I guess it's the incongruity of these three results that set me rambling and pause in my paperwork to post this.

What's the formula that the Machine uses to make best guesses on the links that me, the unpredictable human would most likely click? Which bucket did the Jesus link come from??

Messages to no one in particular
The current search term, my IP address, recent search terms, Facebook profile cookie? I suppose it can be traced to some cookie-cutter code to churn out Adwords in response to server requests but I like to imagine how random (yup, there's no such thing as a true randomness in programming, kind of philosophical) results from a machine-brain could be linked only by the human mind.
What strange scenario or story can we make from: Flight school + Jesus + article spinner?

I got into design because of record covers | We need to de-construct the web!

2011-01-09T20:41:00.002+08:00

That was how Stefan Sagmeister said he got interested in graphic design, because of music album covers. Sagmeister is the epitome of graphic design success - a studio in the heart of New York City but works from Bali, fame in the pop and fashion industry... Anyway, I also developed an interest in graphic design and eventually Design design through CD album covers - a particular CD cover which I re-created with tin foil and I think it featured Sagmeister graffiti typography. This got me thinking: do young people get interested in graphic design because of a particular album cover* when music now is a file name on a playlist, accompanied by a glimpse of the original music video on Youtube.

I had finally gotten round to watching Helvetica, the graphic design documentary and it was kind of nostalgic to see people like Neville Brody, David Carson (!) and of course, Sagmeister, pontificating on the eponymous typeface. Carson of course brought back huge memories of Raygun magazine and how we as design students in the early Nineties, poured reverently over each spread. I suppose I should cringe at my work from those days, badly de-constructed layouts using dot-com and grunge typefaces... the often mis-used Template Gothic from Emigre fonts:

From Emigre fonts

But post post-experimental and post-grunge, it doesn't feel so bad after all.

Post-Experimental and Post-Usability, Semantic Web
I feel a need to make a comment on what I feel is the Post-Usable web... for lack of a better phrase, after almost a decade of making lite, semantic, CSS-driven (content and layout neatly separated), machine- and human-readable websites, it's time for designers to get experimental once more.
I've been wondering how I would de-construct such a website, create a design that is not human-readable, yet makes sense to machines and search engines, readers etc., but the front-end would still be intriguing to the human viewer - intriguing enough for one to navigate this deliberately un-navigable site.

I miss the experimental days of shes.aflightrisk.com and Yugop... I think we've been too caught up in social media and tools with their defaults and pre-sets. We need to deconstruct the web!

* It was titled "Decade", with lettering by Sagmeister and here I am writing this at the start of yet another decade.

A photo of the original CD and the cover which I re-created with a bit of tin foil and fluorescent paper. The graffiti text was by Steven Sprouse and looking at the collage, I thought to myself, "I could do something like that, all I need is a marker and some tin foil."

The Business of Education

2010-12-20T21:14:00.003+08:00

I've never been to a 'proper' university (Ok, let's leave out all that University of Life and School of Hard Knocks BS... ) and I can't say I've experienced a 'proper' undergrad life. My memories are of working in various places, aspiring to work in the designer enclave of Chinatown. I did, eventually and I have great memories of Telok Ayer Street although I never made it to Neil Road or Ann Siang Hill which is where all the coolest and most boutique of boutique agencies are. Working in a walk-up shophouse is definitely an experience for all designers, even just to get it out of your system but I digress.

I do have a proper degree (accreditation and everyfing), although the experience can be likened to being part of the dirty conspiracy that is Adult Education. Anyway, it was something to get out of the way, like removing your wisdom teeth or an appendectomy - a pre-emptive decision.

Design isn't a career that encourages or permits scholarly aspirations (I like reading AND writing) and reflection on the industry and actual work often makes a designer (me) feel that the amount of stress and effort that goes into a project isn't proportionate - no one really dies because the Pantone colour-matching is off by 20% but we act like someone's gonna...

More digression. But really I want to be able to experience undergrad life as a post-graduate, to be in an institution of learning without the cynicism, tiredness, ~~and disappointment~~ that comes along after sixteen years of working experience*. Fresh-faced, eager to learn and face the world, let's bring on the lattes, flip-flops, unicorns and rainbows...

I hope I'd eventually be able to think for a living.

*Bartering one's time and skills for money.

I spend my weekends looking at pictures of unicorns

2010-12-19T18:38:00.000+08:00

... I like this one although it isn't in the classic style (psychedelic, 80's poster artwork) and the unicorn appears to be a Clydesdale mix.
More unicorns at Cornify

Clandestine

2010-11-07T23:46:00.000+08:00

...is a wonderful name for my next doll. I watched the shirt film of the same name, by AFI which they made during the transitional Sing The Sorrow album. Transition from youthful to quarter-life angst and now, ummmm what's between quarter and mid-life? The Jesus years I like to call this period of 30-33 years.
Angst that changes as one grows older, eventually turning into the dreaded mid-life crisis.
I've always guessed that Davey Havok is exactly the same age as me, and fangirl triva aside, I feel that AFI's music was a mirror to my so-called life, it always makes me restless wishing for the melodrama and indulgence of too much eyeliner and noir... There's way too much banality! Gotta start acting my age!

The Compleat Guide To Design Thinking

2010-11-03T23:47:00.000+08:00

Many of these Design Thinking Guides and Kits begin with the rhetorical question: Why Design?
And the response, I fear, is fast becoming... "cos management wants us to?"
Well, it's about introducing Design Thinking to non-designers... management, executives, other nodes, er...people in the Organisational Behaviour chart.

Design Thinking as it moves into the realm of organisational behaviour and other people, project management, is turning into yet another process. I totally agree with DesignSojourn's observation that Design Thinking is killing creativity. In the process of turning what designers do into a process, for everyone and everything else, from climate change to world peace and coming across like a newly-crowned Miss World, I feel that the spontaneity, creative tension and messiness of the design process, as done by designers will surely be transformed into a neat deck of matrices, diagrams and flowcharts.

Well, it's time to head back to GuiGalaxy, open up the Designer's Lunchbox and design a website that would give Jakob Nielsen an apoleptic fit (or at least crash his IE6 browser).

Toy Catcher

2010-10-17T01:15:00.001+08:00

"Toy Catching" game machines originate from Japan, but as with most things, they have it over the top in Japan.... I was delighted to see huge Namco, Taito halls crammed full of OOT Toy Catcher machines with rare toys. Fortunately, I'm not into the scene, so I only took some pics, but who can resist trying to nab this cuddlesome bear?

Design Think in Real Life

2010-10-11T23:27:00.001+08:00

I have a premonition that Design Thinking will be hijacked by the business people and designers (What were the origins of this hot phrase anyway?) will remain "simple cogs in the wheel of technology" and mere tools in the organisation. This disturbing realization came when I found Tim Brown's (ye of IDEO) Change By Design filed under Organizational Behaviour. There are similarities between OrgBe and Design Thinking, so it's the differences we designers (and former designers) should be concerned about. I've also encountered more books in the Org Be section with "Design Thinking" in the title, rattling off service design, user experience, co-design and other DT concepts.

As someone who formerly relied on design for a living, I'm concerned about the differences in Design Think (am liking this new verb!) as practised by a designer and Design Thinking used as a process. On one hand, I feel grateful to those who formalized the steps and processes we designers have learnt to do through the practise of design and on the other hand, I feel skeptical towards those who only use design thinking as a process, a series of prescribed tests.

No Affinity with Affinity Diagrams
I've never drawn an affinity diagram (wasn't that in Maths???) but I have used what I now know is affinity diagramming to help plan, visualize, synthesize ideas and work out design problems. Have you tried "co-design" or rather done a project that was "co-designed" by the client's girlfriend? Pffft!

I don't think any designer would say they learnt to do what they do from a textbook, but...

... my long-standing rant about design is that we designers need to be able to justify the value of what we do, not only to the bean counters but also to everyone else, in order to move from being tools.

Marginalized by Choice
It's great to see design grassroots and outreach that new thinkers like DesignSaysHello are inspiring but I also hope these new design thinkers won't become cynical after a few years of being sandblasted in the design industry - a vicious circle in the industry's current state.

The Black Turtleneck priesthood.
Thus, leading to designers turning inwards because nobody understands why and how you do what you do, and an insular design community that thrives on being "misunderstood", doing "real work" outside of their day jobs.

Do you have to take that second degree in Business to be a part of the decision-makers?
Will Interaction Design save the day?

The People On the Other Side of the Screen
I think Interaction Design is the liberal design discipline - the liberator of designers. Interaction Design is most visible in screen User Interface which was in great demand in the roaring early 2000s and of course, the Internets never went away. Those who went beyond UI as visual design (shiny buttons and shimmering bars), Interaction Designers became the link between engineers and the people on the other side of the screen.

Dreams

2010-10-10T01:14:00.000+08:00

Think not that dreams

appear to the dreamer

only at night;

The dream of this world of pain

appears to us

even by day

This Japanese verse was translated by Lafcadio Hearn, found in a charming collection of "Oriental Ghost Stories". Hearn was an Irish-Greek writer who moved to Japan in the early 1900s. I'm partial to bleak bleak prose and although these lines are from Buddhist concepts, I'm going to take them out of context and use them as a bitter response to the question: What are your dreams?

Happy Cogs

2010-09-13T18:35:00.001+08:00

The introduction to Jon Kolko's Thoughts on Interaction Design begins with this disclaimer - "The author is fully aware that practicing Interaction Designers may find the contents of this text to be "high-level" or seemingly void of pragmatic or applicable use..."
Whilst I'm not particular whether it's Interaction Design (initial caps) or all lower case, I do agree that it's difficult to declare that one's product appears to have no immediate application, especially in this pragmatic (i.e dogmatic) industry. Industry and people want to see shiny surfaces and nifty animations.

Kolko also says that Interaction Designers are in the danger of becoming "simply tools" in a project. This implies that designers are used and directed by others - something to reflect on: Have we let ourselves become tools used by marketing, product development, producers to render a product?

The introduction ends with "A final goal of this text is to provide Interaction Designers with the vocabulary necessary to justify their existence to other team members: to engineers, marketers, and ultimately, to management, Without this justification, these advocates for the humane manifestation of technology may end up as simple cogs in the wheel of technological progression."

That is quite a lofty paragraph but why shouldn't we hold to higher ideals? It's quite sad to have to continually justify one's existence (!) but hey, loads of other disciplines have to - it's evolution in a world where everyone "knows Photoshop". To add on to the bit about being an advocate for humanity, I'd say Interaction Designers are also the engineers that help the above marketers and people navigate and make sense of an increasingly complex, networked society.

Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board.

Kiddy rides

2010-09-12T22:17:00.000+08:00

I'm fascinated by kiddy rides - the kind you find in malls. I love the kitschy-ness and plain bizarre designs. I used to take photographs of them whenever I was out and about with ye olde dSLR but now that my life has been augmented with the Constant Companion, my iPhone, it's much easier to take a pic of these strange relics of our childhood.
How much does a ride cost these days?
Who makes these things anyway?
Where do they go to when they die?
Is there a kiddie ride graveyard
Why do kids still like to be tilted and rocked on a funny pink fish in this time and age?
Where's my favorite Zebra?

Women of Design, Under Consideration

2010-09-05T01:34:00.001+08:00

Carrying on in the retrospective theme that began with "Where is Clement Mok?"* I looked up an old, old blog I used to follow, Under Consideration by Armin Vit. It was a place for discussing not only graphic design issues, but the practice of design, and many of the threads and posts made me restless....
I was surprise to learn that 8 years later, Under Consideration is now an LLC offering design consultancy and design studio services. I guess I missed the final farewell...
BUT
another good thing that came about from this rooting through historical bookmarks, is my discovery of a book that answered a question I had: Where are the women in design?

This book by the founders of Under Consideration addresses an issue that needs examining in design anthropology - the issue of gender: can you name some of the women in design? (Deanna Cheuk's not in the book!)

*These days he's at Clement Mok designs. Can't find him on any of the social networks though...

The world from my desktop

2010-08-31T17:46:00.001+08:00

It seems that I am once again looking at the world from my desktop. Been doing a lot of paperwork and writing at the computer, albeit augmented by quite literally the world being pushed into my browser window.
Three years ago, it was RSS feeds, aggregators and widgets, today it's Twitter. I get fed mainly by Twitbin, a discreet sub-window on Firefox, as well as the pop-ups from Digsby. (Yeah I leave the pop-ups on 'cos I like the visual ambience created by the dissolving pop-ups, makes me feel busy and productive*.)

So I saw the latest iteration of Twitter's email notification. Check out the connections spelt out in this email:

So are these the parameters that led @TedNguyen to follow me? I mean if he was running a bot that uses these connections - erm, I follow 2 users who follow him and he follows 3 of my followers. And I do not follow him. Do you follow me?

In what way are we similar?

Think about it. (The least you could do is put me on a list)

* On the iPhone, I actually switch all notifications on for most apps. I like the constant pop-ups for the same reason :P But then again, why check-in on Foursquare or let out a tweet? Isn't it so it will register on someone's retina somewhere??

Hammering round nails into square holes

2010-08-25T17:35:00.002+08:00

Apparently, Maslow did say "If every tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

Yes, the oft misquoted Maslow and his oft maligned Hierarchy of Needs. It is unfortunate that his words been reduced to soundbites and pithy quotes for decorating pages and not to mention inspirational placemats. But it's a reflection of the way people consume content and even in educational systems where students consume textbooks. It's disturbing that even at university level, some even compile and condense readings into convenient... textbooks. I guess it's easier to refer to a textbook than a whole library of compleat texts.

Well, Lifehack has some <a href=" http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/advice-for-students-how-to-read-like-a-scholar.html">handy tips</a>. Not really bite-sized, more like a Quarter Pounder.

The cloud-gazing must come to an end

2010-08-20T21:43:00.002+08:00

"Of course, such a carefree, detached style of life cannot go on forever... this only remains possible during one short--and possibly happy--stage of life. Eventually, like it or not, one must bear the burdens of responsibility, and once that happens, the cloud-gazing must come to an end."

Haruki Murakami in his introduction to Natsume Sōseki's Sanshirō

Guys who rock eyeliner - a retrospective

2010-08-09T00:55:00.000+08:00

I'm so out of it that I didnt realize Jared Leto and his band was in town playing at SingFest. I guess I tuned out when I heard that Billy Corgan was representing Smashing Pumpkins (what? No James Iha?)
I don't think De Caprio was the first choice to play the lead in Inception. Maybe Leto but he's not exactly a headliner, although there would be a problem sharing the screen with Marion Cotillard... 2 pairs of immense eyes. Plus Cillian Murphy's peepers?
Anyway, once more I declare Leto as The Guy Who Rocks Eyeliner. (Adam Lambert? Tsk)
Whether showing Colin Farrell manly love in Alexander, shooting crack into an absessed arm, or pumped action dude in Prince of Persia (it's Persia - they invented eyeliner), Mr Leto sure has a steady hand.

Wall

2010-08-08T14:07:00.001+08:00

"Invisible walls are the hardest to break"

The individual in the crowd


Photographs from artist Cai Guo Qiang's installation

Elimination of emotional activity

2010-08-08T13:54:00.000+08:00

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: I've always been curious about this book, but I suppose it's timely that I read it now. I have not met a Classical mind (or even know what it meant) until lately. A Classical thinker driven to mania in a mechanistic world.

"The illusion of separation of subject is best removed by the elimination of physical activity, mental activity and emotional activity."

Zen, meditation, catatonia?
The Liberal Arts are meant to liberate (from drudgery I presume) the learner. Even the science and engineering subjects, which most here choose for 'pragmatic' reasons, are taken in a mechanistic way ( mechanistic engineering). Do this, take that. Programming is a Classical subject and Romantic too, if one looks at it in a... Classical manner?

Well, I would say that in order to avoid being sent for a bout of ECT to forcibly reduce mental activity, one should practice Zen. Elimination of physical activity - even prescribed ones.

Inheritance

2010-08-01T00:46:00.000+08:00

I received a small inheritance from my uncle recently. It was the first anniversary of his death and they had sorted out his things. He didn't have much - he lived at home, did lots of pro bono acupuncture treatment at the free clinics.
My only contact with him was when I was his patient a few years ago, so we progressed to nods and short sentences on my condition. He was laconic, to say the least. I like to think I inherited some of that dislike for small talk and unnecessary contact from him. I loathe 'social' and all forms of organized 'fun' and team-bonding. It's a loathing that is probably unreasonable but unless they let me come dressed as Kurt Cobain's remains or something, I'm sitting this one out. And the next...

Design Idealism

2010-06-25T18:29:00.000+08:00

Co-design, consultative design... these concepts are bandied around in the realm of Design Thinking.
Sometimes I feel that designers are the left out of the whole process of co-design. It may appear to be a paradox or a given, but are designers themselves, also stakeholders in a design project?

Essays and commentary on design thinking often talk about getting designers to get out from behind the Mac and experience things, empathize with the user., etc., but is it really the designers' choice to be sequestered in the studio, removed from the design process?

The archetypal mouse jockey, pixel pusher, webmonkey, mouse operator. I've often felt that designers are the LAST person in the project to be consulted.

One wonders if IDEO, the industrial design firm synonymous with design thinking, is really wishful thinking and a non-existent ideal in our neck of the woods. One could say that IDEO is who they are because they have always maintained a consultative relationship with their clients and not the designer-as-vendor situation that most local design firms face, or perhaps because they are in the field of industrial design.

If design thinking is to be applied to other design fields such as graphic design, web designer and user interface (virtual and tangible) design, then project and account managers should consider letting their designers out of the studio - meet the client (well, that could have some implications on production protocols), empathize and gain empathy from the all-important USER.

Learning to love servitude

2010-06-24T18:11:00.000+08:00

"A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of laves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers."

Aldous Huxley, Foreword, Brave New World

I wonder why I haven't read this book until now. What's worse: being in servitude or loving servitude? Or learning to love servitude?

McDonald's does community a service during World Cup 2010

2010-06-12T22:24:00.000+08:00

Photographs of the crowds in and outside of a neighbourhood McDonald's. This year's subscription to the World Cup costs about US$50, one of the highest rates in the world, if the World Cup on pay-TV. Which is completely ridiculous and quite a sad situation because the 2 major pay-TV companies here have been regularly out-bidding each other for FIFA rights to air the beautiful game (especially the lucrative Premier League), thus FIFA figured they could make a killing from selling World Cup rights to Singapore. It would have been amusing if we'd ended up as possibly the only nation in the world NOT screening this event.

Anyway, as subscriptions are so expensive, most neighbourhood, working-class coffee shops and eateries where people would normally watch the matches require a minimum order for customers to stay and watch the match. Nope, nursing a cup of tea doesn't cut it anymore - I think you need to order a full course meal and a crate of beer at least. Note the lack of food on the tables in the photos... At least McDonald's is doing the community a service in this neck of the woods.

It's Chronic: Sullen and Lethargic, I Rant.

2010-06-09T10:02:00.000+08:00

A marker for pain
Chronic pain does not have any measurable manifestations - there are no observable symptoms apart from the patient's testimony. No markers in the blood (unlike inflammation), no structural anomalies. I used to wish there was a corresponding bruise or mark on my skin to signify the pain. Probably why I have tattoos and yes, will be extending them.

Chronic fatigue is an even iffier, elusive condition that may even appear like a strange pseudo-condition for malingers. Huh, you mean you have a condition that makes you tired all the time?!

Jocks
I am prejudiced against physiotherapists and sports science people in general - unless they also have a chronic pain condition! Yes, my body is misshapened from bad posture and sitting in front of the computer but it is overly-simplistic to say that I need to stretch, exercise more... it's like in Legally Blonde when Elle Woods says that "exercise gives you endorphins and endorphins make you happy".

Duh. How does that sound to someone who has been told that the pain is going to be with you, probably for the rest of your life and there's no known cure. And you have to give up working with computers, to be a jock, presumably?

Misshapen Cubicle Worker
I'm trying out a new therapy which involves deep tissue and "structural re-alignment" . I like it because the therapist loosens and releases my misshapened, gnarled tendons and tissue whilst I just lay there. Of course the process is 'painful' as it involves a lot of pressure to grind out ropey tissue but hey, for the chronics, the fact that the pain is finite makes it irrelevant.

The best part is that the therapist was not judgemental about my choice of lifestyle that led me to this sorry state, nor did he prescribe the usual breaks and stretches (platitudes, platitudes....)

Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters || Where Will Your Zhu Zhu Zhu-oom?

2010-06-08T00:23:00.000+08:00

What's the deal with these Zhu Zhu hamster toys?
I saw some at the neighbourhood 7-11 along with Zamuki, the World Cup 2010 mascot who is an unfortunate green colour.

Although I must say, these toys are A LOT BETTER than giving kids real life hamsters.

Agalloch - songs of depression and doom

2010-06-03T17:40:00.000+08:00

This blog post describes the band quite well:
"Agalloch deliver the coldest type of music your ears would ever hear, with influences of the following genres:
folk/neo folk, gothic doom, rock , avant-garde, dark ambient, atmospheric and black metal music…
What makes them so different is the fact that they use the most simple structures and melodies followed by emotion stimulating effects that take you on a trip through the darkest Scandinavian forest..."

The band uses sonic effects like the arctic wind, howling wolves to evoke that medieval Scandinavian aesthetic of utter despair and desolation.

The Misshapen Steed
When I listen to Agalloch, I feel I ought to be cutting off the boots from a wounded warrior who has traversed through the tundra to die in the halls of his thane, or something like that.
But as the reviewer has mentioned, the band really does use simple chords to great effect, juxtaposing the plucking of a harpsichord with harsh noise. They must have Finnish blood despite being from Portland, Oregon.

Handmade Nation, Suicide Factories and materialism

2010-05-31T10:11:00.000+08:00

I watched this documentary over the weekend, at the screening organized by Pauseability

It was indie Americana, complete with kazoo background music. At times, it was like watching a bunch of Etsy users being interviewed, but it was nice and low-key and gets you thinking, especially in light of the current events at Foxconn, a contract manufacturer for the big A.

Suicide Factory:

After news broke on the huge spate of suicides in Foxconn's ShenZhen factory city, this PR spiel on the company's website seems terribly ironic.

"Foxconn was founded decades ago on the dream of making the comfort of 3C products usage an affordable luxury to all mankind..." Link

What is an "affordable luxury"? Seems like an oxymoron. It does offer a brief glimpse in the Factory of the World, China - the new industrial workhouse. This time, the item they are churning out is probably the iPhone/iPad.

So... what if I dressed my iPhone in a handmade iPhone cosy?

Swamp Kitchen, Singapore

2010-04-18T21:20:00.000+08:00

I sure was Angry after eating Burger King's so-called Angry Whopper, which as the article in the link describes, is just a Whopper with local cut chillies - not even hot sauce! It's a total rip-off and ugh, these local chillies don't go with burgers...

Anyway, it got me craving for some hot Mexican chillies I made chili with a bottle of Amazon Peppers. I guess they are found at Mustafa Centre because they would make for an interesting chutney. I tried a couple on baked snapper and as a proper pepper, they don't taste spicy on the palate but produce a slow, steady burn in one's stomach. Great for diets...

Continuing with the red food theme, I'll be attempting gumbo with chorizo, crawfish, okra and Parmesan. I reckon Chia at Tekka Market might have some sassafras!

Swamp food

Our beloved kangkong aka water convolvulus is a kind of swamp weed in the USA and the expensive Snakehead fish is a pest.

Pretty, Desirable and Useful Things

2010-04-01T21:37:00.000+08:00

"These are very pretty, desirable and useful things to hold in the Mouth, to alleviate Thirst, and take away an ill taste in Fevers"
From "The recipe for Wafers of Tamarinds",
The Remedy by Michelle Lovric

The archaic English used in the recipes for various concoctions .... are so very odd and interesting now. The language has become so "flat" and mundane.

When was the last time, a lozenge was described in such a manner? We need more comfits in our daily use of the language? When was the last time you had a comfit?http://sugarpunk.etsy.com

Making doll extremities

2010-03-21T19:12:00.000+08:00

I've finally gotten round to using my stash of clays and have found that making doll extremities is really quite satisfying. Fingers are a lot easier than turning out cloth finger. And feet are really quick and fun...

The eerie precise perfection pursued by doll artists - those who make those creepy life-like baby dolls, made me think of this disturbing short story by JS Le Fanu - an account of an attempt to make the most realistic crucifixion sculpture.

From The Secret of the Two Plaster Casts by JS Le Fanu

The two moulds were thus taken. It is difficult to conceive more ghastly appearances than they presented. For sculptor’s work they were utterly useless; for no artist except the most daring of realists would have ventured to indicate the horrors which they presented.

Hmmm, make you think about those baby dolls...

Mindless Chocolate Tart

2010-03-16T16:30:00.000+08:00

A slice of chocolate tart with marshmallow filling, topped with pecans, nuts and cherries

Sugar Paint

2010-03-15T19:29:00.000+08:00

A meringue.

My first illustration in ... I can't remember when. Of course I do sketch with a pencil but it's always tedious to digitize them and my attention span for "crayon time" is measured in 30 second chunks. I never get round to painting 'cos I hate cleaning brushes, bringing out the paints, priming stuff...
That's so analog. And painting is something you can't really do whilst watching TV or pick up whenever (unlike the fiber crafts), because it leads to dried-up tubes of expensive paint and crusty brushes.

I've recently replaced my Bluetooth mouse with a Wacom Bamboo tablet. I use the Bamboo primarily as a navigational device, never really doodled with it, so this meringue was the first time I really painted with it, along with swatches created from photos using Adobe Kuler.

Digital painting, the stuff of cream puffs?

Hard Times for Hard Candy

2010-03-13T23:49:00.001+08:00

I remember when Hard Candy was a cult brand in the 90's - when buttercup yellow nail polish and names like "Gunk" and "Oil Slick" were the order of the day. Hard Candy and Urban Decay. So it was that UB was resurrected recently, at the Sephora stores. As the branded goods hungry consumers stormed the Sephora stores and carted off the new-look UB stuff, I can't help but recall the days of make-up products named "Bruise" and "Gangrene". UB is quite the girly brand now.

What about HC? Through the Internets, I discovered they are now exclusive to Wal-Mart! Yes, the infamous blue vests (which Sheng Shiong has adopted. No wonder they looked familiar). Anyway, Hard Candy may be priced to sell but I'm gonna order some of their products since I missed out, being too skint in the 90's.

Hard Candy may not be in the hallowed, expensive aisles of the Seph, but Candy is Candy.

Oh and their new logo is kinda girly-punk like SugarPunk's....

Follow HardCandy >>http://twitter.com/HeresHardCandy

Modern Life Online is Rubbish

2010-03-05T21:32:00.000+08:00

From Art ... Contemporary of Itself (Baudrillard, 2003)
"... Each subject interacts with him - or herself, destined to express him - or herself without having the time to listen to others.

The Net and networks obviously increase this possibility of utterances for oneself, in a close circuit, with each person engaging in his or her virtual performance and contributing to the general suffocation."

Seven years of the 'Net' and hey doesn't that sound eerily similar to the scenario we are in now? The endless performances for an audience of one. Who was LJ-ing in 2003? Each tweet a micro-performance, non-event? I think it's fabulous.

Modern Art is Rubbish

2010-03-05T21:22:00.000+08:00

It's would appear to be quite simple to express such an opinion, but the subject being Art one can't quite get away with a statement like this.

The Conspiracy of Art by Jean Baudrillard was a title I had been looking forward to reading and after procrastinating for a few years, I finally did. I think M. Baudrillard's work is quite accessible, despite the translations and yeah, everyone knows him from The Matrix.

I think it's a reaction to the artists who were making bundles from ready-made 'art' and the entire circle of conspirators - the art galleries, dealers, buyers, marketers and perhaps even the art schools! And the audience, who attended these esoteric performances and were complicit to the entire... conspiracy because they/we didn't want to be though of as peasants. The argument continues and I'm still parsing the book and I do love a good conspiracy theory.

So what then, should Art be?
Strange, anxious...and "monstrously unfamiliar" (p. 101) even.

Strange Anxiety. "Whoa."

A.F.I Crash Love

2010-02-26T13:35:00.001+08:00

This album was released in September 2009 and I didn't realize this January. Guess I've been too reliant on being fed by Twitter and not really keeping the up with the Fire Inside. "Veronica Sawyer" is reference to Winona Ryder's (whatever happened to her?) character in the 90's movie "Heathers" - it's nice to think that we're all children of the 90's.

Back to the album: The cover caused some consternation amongst fans, probably because it looked like something from Aerosmith, but it does go with the music which is ... stuff you'd listen too whilst speeding down a midnight freeway: out of place, restless and desperate.

Singapore Tattoo Show 2010

2010-01-13T21:02:00.001+08:00

Nonchalant client getting a classic Oriental tattoo, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

My favourite photo from the show. A lot of photos were blurry as I was trying to sneak shots (although most people didn't care and stuck their lenses into the customers' faces - I guess this is part of getting a tat at a con). The massive Oriental dragon and the hard-core looking artist... and his nonchalant client. Probably getting a little something on his knuckle,

Ishi Mura and Arrowroot

2010-01-13T14:50:00.001+08:00

As part of the wayfiinding scheme in my neighbourhood eco-mall City Square, each floor is labeled by different rainforest strata - this level being ... um ... edible stuff in the rainforest.

But why nibble on arrowroot when you can feast at Ishi Mura Japan Food Street! It's amazing this place is right at my doorstep. In case you get lost, it's on L5, near Best Denki.

Out of Context

2010-01-11T23:45:00.001+08:00

I was checking out this Liz Claiborne doctor's bag and was kinda amused at the related links displayed - "Customers who bought this also bought..." reflex hammers, eye charts and stethoscopes. Hey the stethoscopes are really cheap on Amazon. An example of the AI being confused by the ambiguity of the context. I guess human intervention is needed (but it would be fun to get the matching red reflex hammer, only $4!)

Unborrowed Books

2009-12-30T16:48:00.000+08:00

This is like the shelves near the checkout counters where people would abandon stuff like frozen meat, sweaters, cookies... impulse buys. It bugs the OCD in me to see frozen meat on the candy rack.

Anyway, wouldn't it be sad to see a solitary 'unborrowed' book at the borrowing station? A user had picked up and brought it to the station only to decide at the last moment, nah I'd better not borrow this.

As the calendar year winds down to its end, this phrase - "unborrowed books" deserves to be blogged and tossed into the slipstream of Internet detritus. It came from this rather silly sign at the library and it is a rather poetic phrase which deserves some contemplation. At this time of the year, we are asked to be introspective and reflective, after being excessive and it's nice to have the time to simply contemplate.

Resolutions for 2010

2009-12-25T12:59:00.001+08:00

The Christmas presents have been put away and before the credit card bills arrive, it's time for some introspection and reflection. Making up resolutions for the New Year!

Put on weight
Eat more chocolate
Move less
Play more Facebook games
Spend more time on Facebook
Shop more, especially online

I'm not sure if it's possible to do all that ... but it can't hurt to try.
But really, what I want to do is be a Maker

Corner-dwellers

2009-12-23T12:09:00.000+08:00

Another inspirational phrase from Poetics of Space - corners and those that dwell in them.
Who lives in corners? Spiders, dust-bunnies, soot devils and bone-white children.
Dust, cobwebs, pins and other homely detritus.

Sitting in a corner
Corners are considered negative in feng shui (because of the angles?). One usually puts a plant or an object to defuse the bad qi. And never sit with your back to a corner.

Muju X Momiji

2009-12-23T00:28:00.001+08:00

, originally uploaded by mr muju.

Now that's what I call a felt toy...

The Unicorn that Lost Its Horn

2009-12-21T17:36:00.001+08:00

This is the unicorn in question - part of the City Square Mall Christmas decorations. Someone wrenched off its horn! For its magical properties? As a weapon?
Anyway, the missing horn has since been replaced (albeit with a less pointy tip). I rather like living near this mall, it's a huge glittery, glassy affair, unlike your typical suburban mall but then again we are technically in the city. I guess it's worth putting up with the dust for 2 years.

It's odd how the crowds seem fascinated with these mythical creatures - all day, people are snapping away with their cameras and mobiles. Newly-bought from Mustafa Center, probably.

Update:
Someone's placed a crystal bracelet around its horn! Very shamanistic worship...

Garment-house

2009-12-18T10:43:00.001+08:00

No it's not the name of a clothing store, but a concept in Poetics of Space: The "garment-house", clothing as a house.

Couture doesn't mean haute couture, expensive labels (ironically, that's not..) but clothes made just for you. Could be a dress your mum sewed, but it fits you and only you. (OK, that's a skilled couturist).
They do say that once you've worn couture, you won't wear ready-made - not to be snobbish but I guess it could also be interpreted that once you've experienced wearing a garment made for you or by you... A case for hand-made: Imagine a garment as a collection of the one's experiences, a collage of momentos.

Of Nests - Bird Architecture

The metaphor from Jules Michelet, quoted in this book, describes the bird as using its own breast to shape the roundness of the nest because birds have no other tools, except their beaks and breasts (and their little feet of course).
And the daydreaming continues...

Of wardrobes, chests and frawers

2009-12-18T10:20:00.000+08:00

"... like a heart that confides in no one, the key is not on the door."
- "The Poetics of Space" by Gaston Bachelard

I'm liking this book, it is a lyrical, poetic read and very charming. It seems to me that the French often muse about space, e.g Marc Auge's Non-places, Baudrillaud and the hypermarts, towns...

I like the quote about the wardrobe as a space for keeping secrets. An inspiration for a new SugarPunk piece, keys and locks.

Universal icon - reading too much into things...

2009-12-18T10:14:00.000+08:00

I've always found this icon rather disturbing. At a glance, we all know it's the 'universal' symbol for the handicapped, but on closer examination and to be rather pedantic about it - hey isn't the guy sitting in some strange arc-shaped thing and there's a stake through his chest! This icon appears below a lift button. There is only one button. Ok, so it's at a slightly lower height so someone in a wheelchair can reach it, so they've proudly stuck on this accessibility label. So the wheelie guy can push it with that protrusion from his chest??

The 69 Eyes - Back In Blood. Dead Girls are Easy

2009-11-28T15:02:00.001+08:00

Helsinki is a logical place for a vampire coven.
The original Helsinki Vampires are Back (In Blood) Back in Blood, The 69 Eyes with their vampiric goth rock.
In this age of Twilight and preppy vampires, it's a relief to go back to 90's classic pairing of rawk and vampires - The Lost Boys.
No sappy teenagers, just ageless (well, it's usually too dark to tell anyway) scary goth rockers.

Songs to twirl to dressed in a velvet gown - "Into the grave/We waltz from the light/... We dacce to the dark delight..." etc
My fave is the tinkly goth Some Kind of Magick and the intriguing Suspiria Snow White. and of course, the fantastically titled Dead Girls are Easy .
Trashy goth vampire rock.

Update:
Been listening to this album for a few weeks now, definitely worth the postage from Helsinki (and Spinefarm takes PayPal too). I think a lot of the tracks sound like ... what you'd get if you left a group of Finnish goth rockers in a Los Angeles dive bar for a decade. The music is goth-LA rock with a touch of Eurotrash and Vegas Elvii. Great stuff.

When the computer says NO, the computer means NO

2009-09-25T12:34:00.002+08:00

Inhumanist Computing - a response to annoying meat puppetry....
Inhumanist Computing...
- punishes error
- requires EXACT syntax
- single model
- perfectly formed requests
- constancy and accuracy

Having had the experience of handling requests from humans, and indecision etc etc. Call it anti-social, dysfunctional totalitarianism, but I like to think of it as Inhumanist Computing.
Perhaps artificial intelligence may not be capable of satire, irony but wouldn't that exclude sarcasm, back-pedaling, as well?

The Inhumanist

2009-09-25T10:03:00.002+08:00

In researching the topic of Humanist Computing, I've discovered and actualized the 'inhumanist' in me. I'm on the side of the machines! Comparing human-centered and machine-centered behavior, I find myself drawn to the list of machine attributes - logical, precise, structured...

Yeah yeah, usability experts go on about 'user-centric' design; designers and engineers are exhorted to cater for error-prone humans... don't make them feel bad, give 'em intuitive interfaces...

On the other extreme and possibly off-tangent, I was watching the HOME project on YouTube and wondering, if we applied a purely machinist view to the situation, isn't it completely illogical? If society was one big AI, wouldn't the calculations have triggered off self-preservation systems way before things got to this state?

It's the human traits of emotion, adaptivity, resourcefulness, creativity and perception... we see what we want to see, depending on how the data is visualized or the 'spin' - that led us to the usual messes. The choice is binary - A or B - but humans always insist on a C.

"I always used to wonder, do machines ever feel lonely? You and I talked about machines once, and I never really said everything I had to say. I remember I used to get so mad when I read about car factories in Japan where they turned out the lights to allow the robots to work in darkness."

Douglas Coupland, Microserfs

iStockphoto logo-selling ruffles design community

2009-09-23T18:05:00.002+08:00

I feel compelled to comment on the online furor caused by iStockphoto and its offer to designers to sell original logos on its site. A quick scan: $5 per approved logo.
Well, previous attempts at crowdsourcing design, be it a bidding system like eLance or downloadable website templates... This would attract the sort of clients who'd probably DIY a logo in Word anyway. So, designers take heart!

Love the fringed umbrella - Tim Burton styles Harper's Bazaar photoshoot

2009-09-23T14:33:00.004+08:00

http://worldofwonder.net/2009/09/21/eb913a6e.jpg
And the malicious bunny girl....

"Why Designers Can't Think" by Michael Bierut

2009-09-02T18:07:00.001+08:00

The title pretty much sums it up doesn't it? I agree with the statement that designers are tradespeople. Despite the names and terms the Industry chooses to use ("cognitive illustrative sequence" is the latest I discovered), we designers are tradespeople, despite the roles we may create for ourselves. The lack of interest beyond that of the visual and the screen, results in a largely self-referential dialogue.

Part of the problem, as Bierut points out in his essay, is the pedagogy adopted by design schools.Schools place emphasis on mastering the tools of the trade (there it is again!) - this focus on learning the skills and producing slick portfolio pieces ...

Curiosity is a trait most designers possess. Perhaps we should extend our innate curiosity to other subjects, beyond the usual "how did they get that cool effect" - science, philosophy, literature, culture and maths.

From "Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design"

Gothic novels

2009-08-29T22:55:00.001+08:00

"....where he could forever indulge in the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul."

Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto

Signs - Comical English Stupid A*s

2009-08-19T13:24:00.001+08:00

Check out the creative sign on the left

The problem with being 2Advanced

2009-08-04T16:00:00.004+08:00

I haven't actively looked at what's going on in web design (having 'bowed' out of the pixel-pushing business to make tangible things like punk dolls and felt cakes) but happened across some glossy, shiny web pages ... which brought to mind this classic > 2Advanced. And yeah, they're still at it. 2Advanced has got to be the most pirated site ever...

Winking, blinking bleeps and random numbers - it's all very 1998... when I was looking at luminous Shockwave eye-candy at

I guess I never got round to making that superbad Flash animation. Too many trends came and went, and I never got round to setting up my own website. Ironically, with push-button publishing, UGC and arrival of social networking (why blog when you can micro-blog) - I reckoned I saved myself a lot of time.

Maybe its time I got round to registering a domain name... getting the itch to put together my own website. The question is... .what will I put on it? Aside from Blogger and Twitter feeds?

Corset Diaries: Crazy a** heatwave!

2009-06-12T11:34:00.001+08:00

The published temperature is 34 degrees Celcius or 90 Farenheit. It feels like being inside an enormous headache - the pressure and humidity... to avoid the risk of passing out on the MRT tracks, I've sent the corset to the cleaners and taking a break from waist-training. Wonder how the ladies of the British Raj managed?

Corset Diaries: Alice and the Pirates in Singapore

2009-06-08T13:16:00.007+08:00

Alice and the Pirates have landed in Singapore! Well they've been here for a while but I just discovered the store, round the corner of the cineplex and I watch movies at the theatre probably twice a year. Fabulous to learn that there's a Gothic Lolita group and being the pendant, I'm glad to learn they're pretty purist! The usual mistake people make is to confuse Loli with cosplay - ugh!

Was delighted to see other corset wearers, although no one's waist-training but its fun to talk about crinolines... It's otaku/fangirl stuff.
Drool at the dresses and gorgeous skirts: http://black-alice-sg.livejournal.com/

Love, Elmo - found on Flickr

2009-05-30T18:30:00.001+08:00

Love, Elmo, originally uploaded by Char-la-la.

Not a posed photo apparently... but an Elmo suit on an Ecuadorean street corner. Awwww.... creepy in a Charlie White way.

Corset Diaries: Sticky intestines, H1N1, post-colonialist Victorian neuroticism and Steampunk Perankan

2009-05-30T12:37:00.001+08:00

T'was a coincidence that I hit the doctor's office for medical leave (2 days!) on the very same day H1N1 Patient Zero arrived in SG. I had been nursing this bug for the past week until things got so bad I had to remove my waist-cincher, something which I haven't done yet. Felt sick and nauseous. Two days recovering at home, meds gave me gastric problems, decided to put waist-training on hiatus whilst dealing with intestinal gas.

BUT I just realized that the trio of dolls I was working on was commissioned by an author of Victorian fiction! Faye L Booth: http://www.fayelbooth.co.uk/

... and I feel so privileged!

Why I collect art dolls of my characters
http://fayelbooth.blogspot.com/2008/03/newcomers-guide-to-my-character-doll.html

Insane humidity and weather notwithstanding, I declare myself the only dedicated waist-trainer (waffles aside) in this part of the earth. Am proud that our Victorian-colonalist history has produced a neurotic descendant (me lah!). Grandad was a self-confessed Anglophile who was puzzled and disturbed by the disruption of Independence.

Let's see - we are a society with a fusion of Confucian-Victorian foibles, wrestling with globalization, an influx of Asian foreigners, nostalgic for an imagined past (in the form of "Little Nyona").

I suggest crinolines... and SteamPunk Perankan! Chinese-Baroque and Roccoco meets Asian technology, to be unveiled at the next IT Show.
Does that make you wanna regurgitate your Katong Laksa???

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit | Wake up call for the lazy, apatheticm, unmotivated.

2009-05-27T18:03:00.003+08:00

"Dear Citizen: You’ve no doubt noticed that the world is a troubled place. People are apathetic, lazy, unmotivated. You’ve probably asked yourself: Why isn’t anything being done to stop this systematic decline? Well, you’ll be happy to know measures are being taken. We, your government, have decided society needs a wake-up call. So beginning today, we will randomly select a different citizen who will be killed within 24 hours of notification. We believe this will help remind all people how precious life is, and how important it is to be productive, active members of society. Thank you for your attention and your cooperation and participation in this new program."

Was motivated to blog this. Would love to see this proliferate online, in an Orweillian manner.
The original post from T. Brown

Corset Diaries: Sticky intestines

2009-05-16T20:06:00.001+08:00

One of the hazards of waist-training is... the realignment of one's internal organs, as the body adjusts to the constriction. To avoid the intestines from sticking together, one should maintain a proper diet - carbs are good as they expand the intestines. Imagine, empty compacted guts...
Of late, I really haven't noticed the feeling of wearing a corset all day. Time to tighten up.

Me

2009-04-25T18:24:00.001+08:00

Me, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

Me - that's totally me!
Ring flashes rock. And Photoshop too.... thanks CT...

Corset Diaries: Brutal weather

2009-04-25T17:31:00.004+08:00

So I get my corset back from the dry cleaners (still don't quite get how dry cleaning works) but she's in good condition. I don't quite feel the corset during the day and I've been wearing it for pretty long hours. Need to figure out how to lace up tighter.
The weather here is insane - I avoid sunlight completely.
Hit the Underground and stay indoors all day.

The Toy Society: drop at the Cathay

2009-04-18T23:16:00.005+08:00

I did my first drop this afternoon at the stairs leading to Mount Sophia, I'm assuming that the folks who spot it will be willing to participate since they're probably coming down from the Old School and Mount Emily.

It's a quiet corner in a crowded area so I had to take a hasty snap 'cos someone was making their way down... we'll keep watching The Toy Society on Flickr

Teddy:n pieni ystävä

2009-04-13T00:23:00.003+08:00

Teddy kiteen! The little one on the left claps and sings.
Anyway, it's lovely to know he is now a Eurobear. (apologies if my grammar makes your eyes bleed)

Corset Diaries: Separation Anxiety

2009-04-11T10:26:00.001+08:00

I sent my corset in for dry-cleaning, with a slight sense of trepidation. The morose if not downright hostile lady at the cleaners seemed kinda annoyed that I kept reiterating that this item has metal in it. Well at least she correctly identified it as a corset on the receipt. It looked rather forlorn, tossed on the counter. I didn't mentioned that it cost a tidy sum. And it'll be a week before it's ready for collection...

How Stuff Works: Dry cleaning
http://science.howstuffworks.com/dry-cleaning.htm

Corset Diaries - Steel bones versus Lycra

2009-04-07T19:53:00.001+08:00

I could be a) getting used to the wearing the underbust corset or b) the lacings loosen over the course of the day, as I find myself having to re-lace.
I should probably tidy up the laces first and lace myself in properly.

Google "waist-training" and one discovers many followers of this form of body modification. OK, the men are a little weird (who knows, that guy could be wearing an 18" waist-cincher. I guess one has to experience being laced in to discover why ladies are always demanding to be laced in tighter! I'm used to wearing it all day but the next step would be to lace myself TIGHTER.

And yes, you need a proper steel-boned corset in order for it to be comfortable and a professional fitting. Imagine the pressure on the garment! Engineering genius. Compared to modern-day "control" garments, the corset is infinitely more elegant and charming.

Street art

2009-04-05T22:58:00.001+08:00

P1040189, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

Haight Street - and my Cookie's wallpaper.

Shinagami - Black Winged Doll

2009-04-05T22:57:00.002+08:00

Shinagami, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

He's been here for a while - Tristesse is gone.
http://sugarpunk.etsy.com

LA graffiti

2009-04-05T22:56:00.001+08:00

LA graffiti, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

David Choe maybe?
Don't know but I can't resist green coneheads.
There's a Korean touch to this LA graf - very cool.

Green hobo bag

2009-04-05T22:48:00.002+08:00

Green hobo bag, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

Massive chunky bag! Like a slab of turf on your lap!
Go green... there aren't quite enough green bags in the world... colourwise.

Rainbow Hippie Knitted Bag

2009-04-05T22:46:00.002+08:00

Rainbow Hippie, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

This was one of the first bags where I used contrasting colours.
The rest were kinda monochromatic...

Fawn

2009-04-05T22:44:00.002+08:00

Fawn, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

She's a dainty fawn dressed in white lawn - well, a snippet of lawn curtain material.

http://sugarpunk.etsy.com

Bohemian Circus Twins

2009-04-05T22:43:00.002+08:00

Bohemian Circus Twins, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

Yeah I just had to get conjoined twin dolls out of my system. I won't be making cloth dolls for a bit so these guys are the last of the Circus.

... and Tiny

2009-04-04T13:40:00.002+08:00

... and Tiny, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

Re-purposed cushion fabric plushie
@ sugarpunk.etsy.com

Harriet

2009-04-04T13:35:00.003+08:00

Harriet, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

Plushies @ http://sugarpunk.etsy.com

Blue-haired and green skinned....

Corset Diaries: Rashes

2009-03-30T11:38:00.002+08:00

I've done three 12-hour days of waist-training, contrary to advice on creating a sustainable regime. Work schedules and all that... but hey I'm pretty much a cube rat anyway. It's not as bad as people think, the body adapts really quickly and I would say it's only a notch above wearing stiletto heels.

I like to think of corsets in this day and age, as a form of body modification.

The modern brassiere and panty as undergarments is unflattering to the average female form and my theory is that they contribute to dimorphism and unhappiness. The midriff is not supported with the bra set, the alternative 'control garments' are unappealing and frankly, the lingerie industry hasn't developed a decent alternative. The structure of the corset is constructed to achieve that perfect silhouette. Mine is made of steel bones and poplin - why can't modern materials be applied? It's all where Marketing thinks the money is - sportswear and such. What about the rest of us who don't find 'hi-tech' gear appealing?

Over the weekend, I realized I had some red, itchy spots. I wonder if they'll go away?

Corset Diaries: Day 1

2009-03-25T17:03:00.002+08:00

Today was Day 1 of a full-day of waist-training. I couldn't quite get the 22" waist; it's a lot easier when someone else does it for you! Lacing up is addictive but you have to experience it for yourself. A mixture of guilt and masochism perhaps? That feeling when you squish your tummy...

Typical Singapore weather, muggy and swampy at 8am. Was a little breathless when I got into the office, but felt fine mostly.
Discussion with a couple of colleagues about splurging on the real thing. You have to appreciate the sturdy construction of this garment and boy are these nylon laces STRONG. This garment requires craftmanship.

I've a lot of thoughts on support garments in today's context... in the next entry.

Roscoe's House of Chicken 'n Waffles

2009-03-25T10:43:00.001+08:00

Roscoe's House of Chicken 'n Waffles, originally uploaded by sugarpunk.

Roscoe's was featured in an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, so I had to check in out. Ummmm - the fried chicken is OK ( it's ain't soul food, someone said) but the waffle was great.

It was also the first time I encountered the great American invention that is "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter". Ugh, it sure ain't butter - it's an unholy amalgamation of hydrogenated fatty matter ... scooped from a bucket onto your waffle. I thought it was ice-cream.