outwardly

Berserk

Recently I got into this new shounen style manga called, Berserk. Quite similar to Claymore in that it takes place during the Medieval period time (not necessarily Earth), in a magical period where human and monsters coexist. These monsters are known as Apostles who gave their soul and most precious thing(s) in their life to the “Gods Hands”, whom in turn gives them extreme powers. Our “hero” in the manga is, Gats, whom happens to be a sacrifice that managed to live and main objective is the kill all these monsters and the avenge the death of his comrades through the sacrifices they endured from Griffith.

The manga is extremely dark with a lot of graphical gore, so not for the fainted heart. This is a very long manga that began in 1988 and is still going, however, it comes out about once every 3 months so its relatively long waiting period.

I find it incredibly daunting and depression to shop for men’s clothing in North America because a lot of the clothings here are ill fitting and non stylish. The clothing here in North America are all generic and I don’t get any sense of much creativity or individuality in the style.

North Americans prefer to look alike from each other and not to be away from the norm. Maybe its because if a man were to dress differently or out of the norms in this society, he will be look upon and even judge by others around him, so to “fit in” he tries not to stray too far from the standards. Which all leads to a very boring and uninspiring ensemble. For instance, for a man to be carrying a purse or even wearing a fur coat (not that I endorse the wearing of fur) is unthinkable, he would immediately receive strange looks from those around him. Like for instance, I was on a bus yesterday morning and this gentleman came up wearing this fur coat from top to bottom. I notice he got a lot of stares from people around him, I notice this because as they were staring at him, I was actually staring at them to see how many would look at him. For a man to have a fur coat or carry a purse in Asia or Europe is relatively normal. In fact in Asian fashion, there are many men that carries purse for men.

Although, you might be able to go to some boutique or specialty stores that do carry styles from Europe or Asia that are much more edgy and stylish. I think in general all the major shopping stores carry the same generic brands and styles. To me, fashion is not just only something use to keep us warm or hide our nakedness, but should be something that expresses our personality, individuality and is an extension to our bodies. Because of this they should fit properly and should contain different styles that help the wearer to express himself.

The clothing in Asia are a better cut much more stylish (most coming out of Japan, Korea and Taiwan). Granted, there are some styles that may seem too much and too exaggerated, but thats great, because people are given that opportunity to be as creative as he wants to be. I have a list of some websites dedicated to fashion in Asia before to explore.

http://www.fashioninjapan.com

http://seoulawesome.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/korean-fashion-inspiration-for-men/

http://bntnews.hankyung.com/ (Korean site)

http://www.musinsa.com/ (Korean site)

http://www.syoff.com/ (Korean site)

http://www.freshnessmag.com/

http://www.japanesestreets.com/category/guys/

So the next time your on a bus and you seen a man wearing something that might not fit the norms of what he should be wearing in society. Instead of looking at him strangely or judging him, maybe you should get inspired by him and his style. It might not be your taste or style, but you can appreciate his self expression.

I got interested in a manga called Claymore through a friend. At that time he introduce me to the TV series. I liked the series so much that I decided to read the actual manga, I can actually say, this is one of, if not the best manga I have read EVER!

The basic synopsis of the Claymore is that they are female warriors (half monster and half human) created by an organization to battle with other monsters called, Yomas. They continuously battle and kill off these Yomas until eventually near the end of their life they would request a comrade to end their life or risk transforming into monsters themselves to be killed by other Claymore. Its a dark fantasy manga.

The storyline is riveting and intense and the drawings are beautiful. The story starts off a bit slow, but it takes you away soon and gets your addicted. Each chapter comes out each month. The manga begin in 2001 and still going strong. Currently, its in its 123 chapter.

Claymore

Below is a painting that I had a local Vancouver painter, Jose Rivas, painted for me. It was a photo taken during the 2010 Winter Olympic games in English Bay. The figure on the right is me. It was my lasting memory of the good times I had during my brief stay in Vancouver.

First of all let me explain that I have been in hiatus for a while….in fact, for over a year and more or less abandon this blog. Well, a lot of things has happened over the past year and preoccupied my time such as having a major surgery on my jaws and have them to be totally shut for 6 weeks, for which during that period of time I wasn’t able to eat anything solid…not even things that were even grain size, it was all liquids. I started a love affair with Ensure during those times…needless to say, I lost over 35-40lbs during that period.
Also I moved back to Toronto from Vancouver. I will miss the beautiful snow cap mountains, the oceans and the marvelous fresh air. But, Toronto is my home and as Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home”.

And so it was unfortunate that I was unable to be more active in my postings. Well, I promise that I will post more from now on.

Keep an eye out for raving and rantings…

Cheers!

S7N.

I have been living in Vancouver now for 3 years (today October 31) would be my 3rd anniversary here. I have grown to love this city since moving here from Toronto, which was quite a change between the two cities.

I have grown to love the hiking and running in and around Vancouver, the lovely mountain and water landscapes, the beautiful architectures, promotion of sustainability, the lovely weather and many great restaurants and small boutique shops that sells a myriad of things.

However, I feel that the city are not supporting their local artists/designers enough. The high cost of living and sky rocketing real estate market are pushing them away. I don’t think the city understand how important these individuals are to the community, a lost of these people in the community will lead to a dreary and boring city. Vancouver used to have a great artistic community ranging from painters, artists, dancers, actors, fashion designers, etc… However, I found that it is quickly driving them away – many move to other cities or out into the suburbs. How unfortunate.

Please…please Vancouver do more to support your local artists and artisans because if they leave, it won’t be long before everyone else leaves too because who wants to live in a uncultured city?

Title: RGD Creative Business Summit
Location: Toronto, Canada
Link out: Click here
Start Time: 9h
Date: september, 29, 2010
End Time: 17h

Europe
Many of today’s graphic design styles has it roots from Swiss-style, now more commonly known today as “modern design” or “international style.”
The style is recognized for its unique and rather groundbreaking attention to typography. Needless to say, Switzerland’s design culture has taken the world by storm.

Of course, the style has grown beyond the graphic industry and made its way into interior design, fashion and web design.

However, this Swiss-style is very common, mainly in Europe. Europe has always had innovative design, some countries more than others. And advances in technology have brought huge advances in design.
Much of what we see in European graphic design after 1950 is, again, Swiss-style: emphasis on typography, geometric shapes, clean lines, legibility and new color palettes. Overall, we find much more simplicity, too.

Many designers follow this style closely to achieve a vintage look, while others take lessons from its structural balance. An article over on Smashing Magazine, “Lessons from Swiss Style Graphic Design,” discusses just how this modern style reflects in web design, with many great examples of both.

Asia
Asia’s main cultures seem to incorporate a more historical sensibility into their modern graphic design. Japan in particular is renowned for mixing historical culture and modernism quite well, whether for graphic design, Web design, architecture or other structural designs.
Japan is known for its seamlessly integrated innovative and traditional architecture and use traditional architecture to inspire shapes, textures and structures into modern design.

This is also evident on the Japanese art scene. Japanese art seems to swing between two extremes: traditional and modern. Sometimes, though, those extremes are harmonized.

Asia style also seem to have a lot of movement and flow into their design, something that might be a related to Asian writings. Unlike European and North American words, Asian words are actually symbols, with each one representing something. Asian calligraphy dates back to many thousands of years and I feel is carry into the design. Of course when typing Asian words on a computer, one loses this movement and flow and many of them become very static and bulky.

North America
Much of North American design is rooted in modernism, but still quite a bit of non-modernist tradition and culture exerts influence on graphic designers in this area.
As in Europe and most modernized Asian countries such as Japan, the Swiss style is popular here. But dig deeper and you’ll find design styles specific to this continent’s culture.

This is a very large continent with a large multicultural influence and very rooted in its short but deep history.

If any of the images on your site are licensed to Getty Images, it may cost you thousands of dollars. Since Flickr has joined forces with Getty Images allowing Getty to sell some of their images.  Therefore if you ever go to photography sharing web sites such as Flickr, Fotki, Photobucket, Panoramio, MyPhotoAlbum, etc…

I knew a company that was using some images taken from Getty Images for their web site. They were asked by Getty Images to either pay the full amount of the images or immediate remove them from the site and pay for the period of time it was use online (which amounts to a few hundred dollars). They opted to remove the images from the site and pay the royalty amount for the period of time it was on the web site. The company said they didn’t know what they did was illegal, that the images were taken from some photo sharing site from an individual who was sharing this photos to friends and family. The felt the images were nice, but not extraordinary enough for them to pay a couple of thousand dollars for.

So, how does Getty find the infringing images? One way is picscout.com, a company that advertises the ability to find images without watermarks. The system “easily detects the image even if it has been cropped, colorized or altered significantly.”

http://www.picscout.com

So, check your images carefully. Have you used anything from Flickr? Do you know exactly where all your images (and the elements within them) came from? Is it even possible to be sure?
I like to use Adobe Bridge which can provide me with detail information of the image files. Open your Bridge program, select your images and look at your File Properties.

A note to also know that there are different types of royalties and rights to images, when purchasing an image, read carefully about your rights to the purchased image. Some royalties only allow the usage of the image for a period of time, others are only for a certain project, geographical location, etc… If you are not sure, contact the company in which you are purchasing the images from.

If however, you don’t want to pay for the photo or you are on a limited budget, why not consider taking the images yourself? Thus you can be assure that you have full rights and royalties to those image. And if you want to sell the brilliant images that you have taken yourself, make sure you put all the necessary information into the files so that others cannot use them and make a profit from them.

Many people are complaining how awful and ugly the new sochi 2014 logo looks. In my opinion I really liked it, its quite modern and fresh because it uses only typography (except for the Olympic Rings logo).

I understood that the designer used the “2014″ under the “sochi” to show reflection, symbolizing mountain and water. Which Sochi is known for since its a very popular resort destination. However, I do understand some people feeling that the new logo is a bit too much with the “sochi.ru” (which is the actual website address). I agree, I don’t think the “.ru” was necessary and in fact having it as outline produces even more distraction. I also feel the olympic rings logo was a distraction as well, especially with its 5 different colours. However, I guess that is a requirement for the Olympic event. But I feel that maybe the rings can be all the same blue as the “sochi” text, so that would seem to work with the rest of the logo, rather than feeling like it was the olympic rings logo just slap into it in the last minute because it needed to have the Olympic emblem on it.

Overall, I liked the new Sochi 2014 logo, I think its much better than the London 2012 which is a hideous fusia coloured shapes in a seizure. I do feel the Sochi logo do have a lot of elements which makes it a bit distracting – sometimes in design… less is more.

Sochi 2014 site