virtue 1 | Lightness

When one encounters with “whoa” in creation of any kind, he or she just experienced lightness of design.

The lightness is accomplished by designers who carry the attitude which demands to create awes in any given project. Any creative piece that adheres intellectually is the one contains the lightness. Not only is the piece carefully processed with deep consideration, also often it is playful or humorous. Lightness is indeed an experience all designers of twenty-first century should aim to create.

Design a work lightly is not an easy task to accomplish. Periodically, a designer is required to arrive at his or her discomfort zone to create. Such is no simple job either. However, only then the very same composition results in lightness. Thus, when a creative manages to continuously woe his or her audiences, one is considered successful.

Kashiwa Sato, one of top contemporary Japanese graphic designers, once created a series of advertisement for Honda’s step wagon. Unlike his ordinary style, Sato decided on a contrary direction to produce an entirely unique campaign. Unexpectedly both Sato and the campaign succeeded and it earned him the present fame. Now Sato’s field of work ranges from full conceptual branding to space design. He has earned the lightness.

Acquiring lightness requires courage, also known as the “can-do” attitude. When a designer is certain of his or her capability in delivery, the lightness is within the reach.

the art of writing

It is so difficult to create a sentence that is beautifully composed and deliver what one exactly wants it.

When you start writing, the general thoughts that contains many extra words come out and form a sentence. Then you have what you want to say there thought it is not anywhere near beautiful or powerful. Look for the right word to fit in the open spot is like looking for a piece of puzzle. It is time consuming and frustrating at the same time.

Then you realize how little vocablary you have and kind of being ashamed of it. I want to write well. I need to read more. Learn more.

Writing is totally an art.

my new discovered LOVE

This might sound silly, but I’m so IN LOVE WITH the colorful POST-ITs!!!

The reason I emphasize it so much is that it is so wonderful and convenient. I can juggle down whatever I have at the moment in my head, (just about starting to count how many and often thoughts comes out of my head…). Just doing my morning shower, there was nearly 10 pages of post-it that was ripped out of the stuck.

I write my though down, I peel it off, and I paste it with same thoughts category in order of bottom to top. The process helps me to organize my undiscovered notions since my brain tend to go all over the place in a very short amount of time.

It also is fun to see the color and immediately you know what category of things you are looking at. I use different colors for personal, school, and work. It only has been 3 days, and I am already addicted to it.

I have to say… 3M—one great invention!

credit: to my friend James. H. His wall full of small post-it written new English words he wants to learn everyday was my inspiration.

I cannot stress this enough: this is the reason why, I LOVE my friends and people who are around me. You never know what you can learn from them every day.

being a multi-cultralist and a trilingual.

I find myself unaware. Had been having opportunities to be in three different countries and cultures for almost equally long period of time, you would think that I would be very well informed and wildly knowledgeable. However, the reality is not.

There are things one recognize as information and one don’t. I guess you could say that because the hierarchy of which the information priority changes.

When I was in China, during the first nine years of my life, I was a bookworm. I read, read and read. Simply because Chinese was my first language and I loved to read. I absorbed information as I was being given anyway possible. Couch and a book was my weekend ritual. It was natural.

After I moved to Japan with my parents until I finished high school I still read, just not as much or often as I used to. Japanese was my second language but I didn’t have problem communicating. I had perfect Japanese. However then, academic and social activities became more important. Blending into the society which you ‘belongs to’ was an important part of Japanese culture. Had have experienced bully in 3rd and 4th grades, I wasn’t going to let myself fail off of the ‘normal’ category for the second time. I paid more attention in fashion, trend, and current entertainment to be able to keep up the conversation at school. Occasionally I read at home for hours, however, the 15 minutes one way train commute to school was my majority of time for the books and homework sometimes.

In college, the readings I did were 95% text books, or articles used in the class. Spending hours starring back and forth at sentences and dictionary just to understand the content in the text books was exhausting. English as third language didn’t inspired me enough to keep reading. Reading in English was exhausting and boring. It was more fun using English to converse with friends or watch movies. Reading on my own was no longer something I was interested in. On the other hand, designing was a lot more interesting and fun. Creating non-literal communication was fun.

Then I realized; I wasn’t reading any more.

Now being at DMI, I have been forced to read since the last semester. I have to confess, that I hadn’t been reading in a very long time. Because of the heavy load of readings, I found myself eased while reading. My English improved tremendously and reading is not timely torture any more. Though if I want to read something thoroughly and understand it completely, I still need occasional dictionary help. Well, I’m not perfect trilingual after all.

I am though, very grateful for my situation despite there are more than enough publications for me to read from three different languages. It was extremely time and energy consuming to perfect each language. Especially in English where I couldn’t separate grammar that I learned in Japan from sentences I hear naturally. I was overly annoyed that I couldn’t just “memorize” it in my head and repeat and use it simply by the sounds I hear from native English speakers. I guess that is the result of getting older; one gets duller to the natural instinct every time the brain learns something technical. It’s just my observation.

So far, I am happy with who and what I am. And I am certainly glad to recognize this problem I had, and by that I am going to fix it by start read more. I am forever refuse to be an English-book-phobia.

Virtue 4 | Otherness

The 21st century—our society is more internationalized than ever; businesses happen at the different parts of the world, designers share ideas and thoughts across the globe, and students have wide options of foreign educations. Borders between countries are increasingly thinner. However, much appreciation including understanding of foreign cultures as well as education for younger generation in such subject is absent.

Though many historical conflicts still exist between countries, designers need to educate themselves about different cultures and affairs include customs and traditions meanwhile carry on respects to others’ design works. Others are people who do not have the same cultural background or the same value with yours and yet create amazing works. Cognitions and notions that were born from these differences should generate much contribution to individual’s work and give contrary dimensions to the same creative conundrums.

On the other hand, as Bonsiepe addresses, “the discussion about Self and Identity, about Presentation and Representation,” in my opinion, each of us needs to recognize what we could offer to others because of who we are with the values we have. The distinctive backgrounds between us are in fact the most valuable assets a designer has to be unique of his or her own. Our work is essentially a representation of our gathered ideations, which illustrates the best solution to a particular design problem. Regardless of what the mainstream culture is, preserve our “own-ness” would bring another delightful dimension to the cultural education we could offer to the others and ourselves.

some virtues of design — gui bonsiepe

Virtue 1. Lightness
Virtue 2. Intellectuality
Virtue 3. Public Domain
Virtue 4. Otherness—Respect for Otherness
Virtue 5. Visuality
Virtue 6. Interest in Theory

very interesting article. the more i read, the more i realize how little i know about design and art. sign… need more work on those area…

la jette

la jette 1962 french film by chris marker

very interesting, beautiful, confusing, sad film. though too bad it was not a greatest subtitle. white subtitle on black and white film… not the best design decision made. i don’t know if i want to watch 12 monkeys since it’s a kind of horror, but i’d be interested just out of curiosity.

the still shots were beautiful, especially couple of images of the woman under the sun bathing. her expression were just beautiful.

i’d love to see it one more time with a better subtitles.

emotional vs rational

Yesterday A mentioned that my work needs more emotion because I tend to be very logical and rational. After a night of sleep and some harsh reality check from bf, I realized that my work and my inner self is the total opposite.

I have a lot of emotions going on inside of myself. I can’t keep them. I have to let it out. Somtimes it’s too much for the boys to take. Though, I become much more practical and rational when it comes to creating artwork from my inner emotions; like my love map project. And it lacks of emotions.

So now I’m thinking… how do I bring more of outter rationality in my inner self and bring the emotional inside to my outside?

Bf also mentioned to not have makeup on myself and wants to see the ‘real me’. Quite honestly, I haven’t gone out of house without even a bit of eye brow attach since middle school. I’m totally serious. I went out with NONE makeup last couple of days and I feel completely naked. Self insecurity perhaps? I always tend to think I should look good and present myself in a good manner. I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing or how I was raised by the Japanese pop media. How to carry myself… I don’t know.

I was so inspired by a book Spilling Open by Sabrina He and Harrison that I borrowed from G last week. I love the ink and the free-style writing. I think I need a ink pen and some ink and start doing analog drawing/writing… I placed the collage I created yesterday with magazine cutouts on my wall above the mirror this morning. It’ll be a start point for me.

I was really sad and hurt about the reality check last night. But maybe it’s not so bad after all since I’m trying to face the really hard part of my inner self and trying to understand more of myself.

The song A gave me: I LOVE YOU by Joana Wang, composed by David Tao

Flashhhhhhhh!!

After the mid review, I can’t stop thinking about my love map. I started to writing XML in my head while I was sleeping and just picturing it how it will work in a finished form sort to speak.

The previous half of the semester, I had a hard time making sense in the real time how to assemble the information or chunk of code together to make things I want to make. The problem I ran into was not what I want to make, but HOW to make what I want to make. And I couldn’t find the answer anywhere. I think the love map will be able to give me a chance to work with ActionScript 3 and XML to really understand how it works together and make things happen as I intended them to.

It gets more and more exciting!! (>v<)

Micro -> Macro -> Micro

I had a good discussion with K and prof. J about the research paper last week. What I found was that we tend to narrow the topic really small and in fact, sometimes by discussing about it make things clearer and can view in a bigger picture. Once the relationships of each element had been drawn out, we can then pick the only relative portion of it to continue and deepen our discovery. I thought that was a good way to approach it. Also I have to remind myself to purchase the research book.

Much thanks to D, I have some good information regarding to my research and I have to organize myself for those contacts and events to see if I can attend any of them. Hmmm this is getting more and more interesting. Social networking — analog to digital– here I come!