the pursuit of happiness

It's Stefan Sagmeister again! Learned a new word today:
Sabbatical (n) - a period of paid leave granted to college teacher for study or travel, traditionally every seventh year. 休假年

This is almost my 5th years in the industry after graduated (although 1 and half year in between I worked as a freelancer together with Chris, and was doing my robonut stuff as well). There are officially 2 more years to go for me to have a good reason not working for anyone. Should plan ahead for this and we shall never give up on our personal projects =)

血要沸腾

心要冻

lovely malaysian designer / part2

Since I've already started the thread, and also added a new tag called 'Malaysia'. Let's talk about some more talented designers from Malaysia. (It's only up to my personal taste and knowledge, it'll be nice if you have any names to suggest, drop me a line.)


Kawakong / www.kawakong.com


"like the others, we have mission too. for us, design is categorized into two sections, 1.‘design for client’ and 2.‘design for us’; and our mission is to make the gap closer each everyday."

Kawakong just have their new site up! This lovely and incredible friendly couple really inspired me a lot few years ago. While I was just a fresh grad who only draw illustration/characters, and thought those were cool design! I got to know Chung and Ming around 2005, they commissioned me to put up their website by my very limited knowledge in flash... yes, I'm the one who did their v1 website years ago, haha... I was so impressed by their works, how can these people make those boring graphic design looks so good... and their personal illustrations too, which were so amazing.

I have to admit because of them, I started appreciate graphic design as it is. And slowly realize that Nice graphic ≠ Good design.

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Alvin Chan / www.alvinchan.nl


This is a very mysterious man for me. I never heard about his name, only stumble upon his website via some design portals quite recently. Flipping through his works and his bio really gave me a shocked. He worked for Studio Dumbar, Koeweiden Postma before, and currently is a Design Director for Nike Europe in Netherlands. Impressive!

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Tattfoo Tan / www.tattfoo.com

He called himself a social sculpture artist. Tattfoo is one of a kind that blurring the border between Art and Design. From what I know he used to lectured in Dasein long times ago even before I enrolled. He is currently based in New York, did a lot of conceptual projects and write a lots @.@ It takes time to understand the concepts behind each projects, but it's worth to look at all the interesting projects that he has produced.

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to be continue...

潜

回来不到一个月，
感觉好像已经回来两年。
住的地方，上班的路，
搭什么巴士，吃什么饭，
过回两年前天天过的生活，
身体跟着潜意识运行，
不必用到大脑。

上个月人还在上海，
现在已经觉得那地方很遥远，
到底有没有发生过呢？
必须靠照片来堆砌上海的回忆，
突然觉得相片里的人亦很陌生了，
还是我实在太熟悉这里？

回到老公司，住在老地方，
见回老同事，和老朋友喝茶，
一切自然而然到一种恐怖的地步，
我讨厌这种感觉⋯
所有都变得过度平静，
好像我从来没有离开过，
好像一切都没有发生过，
但是其实一切都已经改变，
我讨厌这种感觉⋯

现在一个人在这个过度熟悉的地方，
身体不需要灵魂也可以继续生活，
从来没有像现在这样怀疑过自己的生活，
或者这就是我所向往一个人的自由自在⋯
听回很久没听但是以前经常听的歌，
正好让思绪静一静，
思考一下接下来应该怎么走

。

。

。

lovely malaysian designer

"Sueh Li is a graphic and type designer from Penang, Malaysia. She stay and study in The Netherlands since 2007. She is a graduate from the Type and Media Master program in Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. She is currently based in London."

Real good designer from Malaysia, wow... she makes me want to pack my stuff now and go study Typography again! Check it out. www.suehlitan.com

life is like roasting a chicken

突然想起麦兜，其实当年看第一部麦兜已经非常喜欢里面的简单朴素，幽默，亲情，伤感，还有那些生活上的一点点小哲学。尤其喜欢结尾林海峰旁白的那段话，原句不记得了，大概是这个意思:

" 烧鸡，材料是鸡，做法，拿只鸡去烧⋯⋯ 但是，如果你想只鸡好味D, 食完吾会夭心夭肺，甘咪拍烂挡⋯ 烧好D咯。"

其实做人都很简单，材料就是人，同埋得过做字。但是如果你想你的人生精彩一点，值得回味一点，甘咪拍烂挡⋯ 俾D心机咯。

This is a line that I kinda like long ago from the ending of My life as McDull. I can't recall the whole sentence but it sounds something like this:

Roasted Chicken. Ingredient: chicken. Method: roast..... but, if you want your chicken to taste better, and doesn't spoil your mood after the meal, please... roast it better.

榴莲飘飘

These was done few months back then while I was still in Shanghai.
Just to compile my folios into a box set, including a cotton box, a book, booklet, poster and a CD. It took me few months and spent hours after work everyday to made all these happened. It can be troublesome and tedious to do personal portfolio. Beside the idea and design, I still have to shoot the works, touch up the pics, test print on different papers, and send it to binding, a lot of trials and errors going on too.

Although it's not really a mind-blowing job, and looks a bit like student's works in the end... But I do feel glad that finally had it done. It was always my dream to go to Fabrica, a creative lab that gather young designers who are 25 or below. Well, at least I managed to send my portfolio before my twenty-five ended, the rest have to leave it to fate...

And now I'm already 26. It is time to figure out my next target, my post-Fabrica dream. Anyway, check out more pictures of the work Here.

green green grass

- by grass studio

Grass Studio, is where I first started my career as a graphic designer right after my graduation. Working with the talented lecturer Herbie and colleague at that time, Lian Siah, is definitely one of the greatest experience in my life, I've learned a lot from them. No Grass no me.

Grass has the spirit of being alternative, has guts, and seems like getting better and better all these years. I'm so proud that I used to be one of the team, 各位老细大恩大德细佬实在是感激不尽。

Recently Herbie is putting up all Grass's works online, it's suppose to function as an open report from Grass to Dasein Academy Of Art, it'll be good if you can post your thoughts and comments on the blog, coz they are gathering some feedbacks from public. Go Here.

And also I re-uploaded the old Grass site as well, Have fun~

random images from random occasions II

时囧火锅

当兰州遇上既白

i love panda, but she loves bamboos.

real spiderman, fake spiderman.

你看你后面

i know where the meats come from...

男女混合秤

黎耀辉，不如我地由头来过

回来了，

上海的一年零三个月，不短不长，
庆幸脱离了中国的网络管制，
值得令人回味的当然还是有不少⋯

还会怀念人，怀念冬天，怀念小巷，
怀念朋友，怀念那里的生活，
但是我知道那里不是我的终点。

既将又要回去原点，突然觉得很郁闷，
很累，很累，很累，不如就这样吧，
人生不过就是这样吧， 我的设计是不是就只能这样。

我一直都不是个颓废的人，从来不允许自己停下来，

一直都在追求一些东西，虽然我不懂那到底是什么。
朋友对我说顺风都顺了无数次⋯ 梦想到底是什么？
难道心中团火真的会随着年龄幻灭？

就像是对面那座迷一般的山，其实山后面还是另一座山，
到底我是不是一定要跨过去？
到底我是谁？到底我以后会在那里？

当然新加坡不会是我最后要去的地方，
26岁了，总是觉得应该是时候干点什么大事⋯

又由头来过了。

Zeitgeist: Addendum

watch it or download the film here.

an email from Mr.Jay

A Violinist in the Metro

Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 mins a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 mins later the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes, a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 mins: a 3 year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly, as the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced them to move on.

45 minutes; the musician played. Only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.
He collected $32.

1 hour; he finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments .... how many other things are we missing?