Went down to Melbourne for a break over the weekend with Haline. Lots of relaxation and inspiration was had with good friends Hong and Vy and a surprise visit to Tin & Ed in their funky studio space. There was a surprise stay at the Peninsula Hot Springs, a trip through the Ashcombe Maze, some wine tasting at the Red Hill Estates and a bunch of exhibitions that included Pixar at ACMI, Guggenheim at the National Gallery of Victoria and Karin Catt FAMOUS at the State Library of Victoria. There was also a little shopping done too, hehe.

I liked the old Qantas logo, but it seems the jury is out on this new redesign Qantas Logo from the design professionals.

After reading about how it will be applied and seeing the intro movie on the website of the firm that redesigned the new logo, I think it works really well and is suitable to the thinner tail fins. The kangaroo’s legs aren’t cut off anymore by the lower side fins. But on its own, the legs are too long.

Haline got selected to attend a pre Cut & Paste battle. Play, the Sydney company running the Sydney leg of this event shares the same studio space as Frost* so it was awkward walking in there and disturbing Vince Frost while he was in a meeting haha.

Haline was up against another guy, and being the first ones to go, made it a bit nerve wracking. They were given the theme “childhood” beforehand, so they could prepare. They could bring anything to photograph or stuff to draw with plus and computer related gear but nothing else. Time limit was 15 minutes.

Haline opted to draw first and take a photo of the drawing to get it into the computer, she ran out of time so didn’t quite finish. The other guy did a typographic piece with a floral treatment. It was weird, because everybody who used the iMac drew something first, while the laptop users drew straight into the computer. There were 6 people there for this round.

I wouldn’t mind going to see the finals, I like seeing people create stuff on the fly.

I half expected to see people I know there from the “design community”, but the pre competition is spread over 4 days so not likely, but, we did run into Matt and Morten, Matt is a good friend of Haline’s and Morten is Haline’s brother childhood friend, very freaky. Matt was up against Morten and we stuck around to watch. Both are super talented artists in their own right. It was cool seeing them draw. Matt drew straight onto the computer via his Wacom tablet, Morten sketched then took a photo of his work. We all went out for thai food after.

Some pics here.

 
Nice campaign for Cervical Cancer Vaccination. Good B&W photography, simple type treatment and colour.

I’m not a skeptic of The Secret, but i don’t fully agree with the message of the power of attraction either. I tried thinking of a good parking spot in Cabramatta last weekend and managed a parking spot two blocks away from where I wanted to park. Thats a bad example, but thinkingof something until it materialise is just dumb. Thinking of wanting something like a nice pair of shoes and bugging your brother everyday until he buys them for your birthday however works!

I always try to be a positive thinker, and fully believe in the benefit of mental visualisation. I utilised both these techniques through high school to overcome a small stutter which made me shy about opening my mouth in class discussions during late primary and early high school. Being positive about yourself and giving yourself affirmations to overcome mental hurdles works. I used visualisation while playing competition basketball for the under 18’s Liverpool youth team, going through free throws and picturing them swishing, picturing myself dribbling with both hands etc… I still use visualisation today with tae kwon do, going through patterns in my head, rehearsing them before performing.

Positive thinking only goes so far, I believe positive thinking helps to motivate, prepare and gives you confidence, but it is the positive doing that really gets you anywhere.

Conceive, Believe, Achieve?

“Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.”
Thomas Edison

Ticket machine tin man.

Jessica must’ve put him up to this when they were together! How could a Mac geek do this over the iPhone…

Jeff Han’s touch wall, via this old article. Also from the article, Touchlight. This all reminded me of Sony’s Virtual Desktop.

Universe

Smart and handy, LastLine bookmarks. If you’re like me and leave a book for a few days or a few weeks between reads and have to re read the entire page, then this is for you. I picked up a few at a bookstore in Tokyo. I’m sure bookstores in Oz would stock them.

Back in my high school dayz, Posca’s were the bees knees for all things art and graf tagging. I’ve got a full pencil case full of old dried out ones, I found them for sale at Office Works the other day, white on black is so nice. Not sure how long they’ve been available, but thats the first I’ve seen them at Office Works. I’m so out of touch.

We saw Transformers on Friday, the first surprising thing was that there was a long line waiting to enter the cinema and that it was packed! The last time this happened at the cinemas was at Fantastic Four 1, every other time we’ve gone in-between have been to empty cinemas. Might have been because it was the second day after the premier. The other surprise was that it was good, I can’t say that is was better than my childhood memories of the cartoon Transformers, but this was a different better, its such a boys movie, action, cars, babes, funnies and more action courtesy of Michael Bay. The CG was well done and seamless. Overall, it was a good direction to head in with the new designs, I think it would’ve been boring had they kept the same look from the cartoon. If there is a sequel, please don’t include the Insectacons or Dinobots, cos they sucked.