Chance is rare to have my guy friends dress up for any occasion aside from weddings. These friends I’m talking about are the ones whom with I’ve scaled mountains, drank shitless, and done pretty much everything crazy over the years. Fashion would be the least of their concern. (I know, being crazy and not being fashionable aren’t necessarily opposite terms, but trust me on this one. Especially when I’m talking about them mountaineers.)
Last weekend, though, we had celebrated my good friend Jason’s birthday over some cocktails and gourmet food care of our chef-in-training friend, Raf. (Who, by the way, lives along Milkyway Drive, so that explains the title a bit. And of course, it goes without saying I like The Church as well.)
Incidentally, birthday boy Jason and nostalgia nut Paco were wearing a total upgrade from t-shirts and tsinelas. While dancing to The Whitest Boy Alive, we thought, hey the lighting’s nice and we’re wearing pretty clothes so let’s take snaps! Forget our lousy poses and pardon the washcloths in the background. We won’t always be in our twenties and there won’t always be bright lights.
To hell with all you plagiarists!
Anyway, quick game too: guess whose artists’ body parts covered my face. Anybody who guesses at least two answers correctly gets a prize from me!
Ye beautiful machine
Obsessions. What are yours?
Mine include printing processes, and the printers themselves. I have talked about the cute Gocco a while back, and this time it’s about the “Cadillac of letterpress”–Vandercook! Apparently, it celebrates its 100th birthday this year, and people are making tributes to the grand beast!
Vandercook print via blackeiffel.blogspot.com
Digital printing is literally flat and often lifeless, but it’s the easiest and hassle-free way to make palpable visuals. But there’s something very regal about embossed prints and in the process in which they were born. With these lovely art prints, the eye is rewarded and the touch is titillated, in a non-sexual way. Maybe for some, it can be.
Haha. It is said that there are only a few of these monsters alive–2,000 to say the least. However, some would keep Vandercook alive, keeping it from dying by way of the lochness monster. Solution? Portable Vandercooks!
How cute is it?
Great invention by Baltimore Print Studios. Some of us may never get to work with the real thing, but at least its spirit will always be with us.
Make your own! Print it out! Download the pattern from here and have fun with your mini beasts!
Provident Village: rage, rage against the dying of light
Music and musings after almost losing one’s family to Ondoy
“Kiss me goodbye
Pushing out before I sleep
Can’t you see, I try
Swimming the same deep water as you is hard”
What apt words. I don’t know if I should call this a tragedy. Is it a tragedy? It is tragic, but not quite a tragedy. Is there a difference?
I may have not experienced the trauma of being 60 feet above flood water, but worrying about your family stuck there is another story. It is a story I claim.
read more…
On Aids/ Ho Chi Minh
Last Known Photos at S-21/Tuol Sleng Genocide Center, Phnom Penh
Skewed Perspectives/ Bangkok
These photos aren’t representative of my recent semi-Indochine backpacking trip. They’re not just the tourist photos I was planning to take. Though, somehow, they keep sparking the memory plug that by default, forgets.
At Vocas a.k.a Oh My Gulay
In my college mountaineering days, Baguio was the gateway to places further north, like Mt. Pulag, Sagada, etc. It served as our supplies central: food and emergency clothes for layer (ukay). Going back to the food: It’s always the food back in Baguio, after a three-day hike up the highest mountain in the region, that makes the whole travail rewarding!
Later on in life have I appreciated it being a hub of art and culture, with artists their works rooted in spirituality (which are not necessarily Christian.), deep sense of being Filipino, or both.
Anyway, I just miss being there now. More on this later.
Rubbercut art by Leonard Aguinaldo
Cafe By The Ruins. All alone for my rainy morning breakfast.
1. Your fonts will default to the worst possible font available on the machine you are showing your work on.
2. If you have two versions of a photo, the wrong one will make its way to the printer.
3. The less time you have the more useless your computer will become.
4. Promises made by the sales staff have no basis in reality.
5. The sales staff will promise anything.
6. If the text consists of two words, one will be misspelled.
7. Speed. Quality. Affordability. Pick any two.
8. If the run is wrong, it’s never the press operator’s fault.
9. Spell checkers don’t.
10. Grammar checkers don’t, either.
11. Proof raeders are useless.
12. Global search-and-replaces aren’t.
13. The index entry you leave out will be the first one the client looks under.
14. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is good comedy.
15. If three designs are shown to a client, your least favorite will be chosen or any combination of worst components of each.
16. If two designs are shown, a third will be requested. If provided, then one of the first two will be chosen.
17. If you ask for more copy it will be sent as a .jpg. If you ask for images they will send powerpoint presentations.
18. Clients don’t have their company logo in a usable print ready format so don’t bother asking.
19. Blue line proofs reveal previously invisible errors.
20. The best designs never survive contact with the client.
21. You will misspell the name of the client’s spouse.
22. Your best idea is already copyrighted.
23. The best way to find errors in your code is to show a client “a new feature”.
24. There is no stock photo ever made that matches the image you have in your head.
25. Creative inspiration flows in inverse proportion to the distance from the studio.
26. Time allowed to complete work is inversely proportional to time taken by client to work out what to complain about.
27. Doctors, astronauts, and plumbers need training to do their jobs, but anyone with a computer is a graphic designer.
28. No matter how detailed the tech support FAQ is, nobody has ever heard of your problem.
29. The number of colors in a client’s design will equal the number of colors in the original bid specs, plus two.
30. The client’s disk won’t run on your equipment & when it does will contain unusable copyrighted images.
31. If you purchase new equipment to read your client’s disk, it will be the last disk of that type you will ever receive.
32. Your client will often not like your design but not quite know why.
33. Computer crashes always happen exactly 30 seconds before saving.
34. A client who knows exactly what he wants is worse than one that has no idea.
35. Clients who do not provide content upfront will complain about the use of Lorem Ipsum.
36. Everything has to be done immediately, deadlines are incredibly important unless client has to provide materials or approve your work.
37. The customer is always right . And an idiot.
Thank you Adland.tv
Hurray! As promised, today we shall resume our type lessons. Much as I get to share these things, it’s also a learning process for myself. At the risk of sounding like a soliloquy, henceforth, my personal self shuts up and Lelelulu continues the Type Lesson#2. (There’s always a kick out of referring to oneself in the third person.)
Type History
Fonts do not surface from sheer, frigid air. Some surface out of a creative brief. Case in point, Gotham. According to idsgn.org, GQ Magazine commisioned type foundry Hoefler & Frere-Jones to create a typeface that’s masculine, fresh and new.
Something to look forward on my October trip to Japan. I will definitely get one of these:
Gocco Printing Machine!
I’d probably never gonna own a Heidelberg, but this Riso baby is begging to be mine! Imagine the crafts I can make with these, waaaah! I’d probably even craft my own zines. Come take a look at the lovely samples from the Gocco Flickr group. This one’s my favorite so far:
cutey craft!
My heart is bursting with joy! Isn’t this the best thing ever?
P.S. Heartbreaking news: Riso ceased production of Gocco on December 2008. But I’m decided to hunt for this now-elusive machine. You shall be mine, Gocco! There is no other way. We shall have a future.
