Bodonation

If you are lonely and depressed, you pay for a session with a psychologist.
If you are single, severely lonely and depressed, you pay for prozac.
If you are sick and bed-ridden, you pay for a door-to-door laundry service.
If you want to work out with companions, you pay for Fitness First membership.
If your car won’t start in the morning and you simply have to go, you pay a cab driver to ferry you.

Actually, all you need is to call a friend, or sometimes, your neighbour.
The modern culture encloses us in a fast paced lifestyle that disconnects us from meaningful human relationships.

Robert Putnam made a few sharp observations in his book titled Bowling Alone:

• From 1980 to 1993, participation in bowling (in America) was up 10%, but the number of bowling leagues decreased 40%, as more people bowled alone.
• In the past 25 years, fast-food outlets has increased 100%, while full-service restaurants decreased 25%. More people are eating alone or eating take-aways in their cars.
• From 1992 to 1999, the amount of time spent caring for a pet increased 15%.

Putnam’s study concluded that for America, people are increasingly detached from human interaction. Money and energy are channeled into technology and gadgets, pets, beauty care and self-entertainment. More and more people are spending lonely nights at home with take-away food and their well-groomed pets, watching reality TV (amazing race? survivor?) or sitcoms (Desperate housewives? Lost?) which ironically built their popularity for tackling the subject of human relationships.

I hope this pervading American culture won’t invade our communities and eradicate our mamak stalls. That will be so sad.

Go hug someone today.

"The first thing that has to go is any form of self-expression that’s dear to you. Art is unimportant next to life, and you have no choice. I had no hunger for it anymore, anyway. Creativity has much to do with experience, observation and imagination, and if any one of those key elements is missing, it doesn’t work." - Bob Dylan, Chronicles Vol 1.

Ever since playing a dual role of being both a designer and a bookseller who happens to meet many "peers", my cynicism towards the advertising and design industry has been on an ever increasing path.

It’s depressing to see how people form their purchasing decisions.

Customer A wanted to buy a book on brochure design - but specifically looked for a book that has furniture catalogs.

Customer B walked in to look for an advertising book that featured direct selling companies’ advertising campaigns. More specifically, from his mouth "anything that shows something like cookware but must also show the direct selling company behind."

Customer C looked for a "card design book". I thought he meant business cards, when he really wanted loyalty card/ membership card designs.

Customer D looked at Phaidon’s Area, and said "this book is lousy. There’s nothing in here which we can refer to because our clients will never be able to accept."

Mentioned above were people with their own companies, dealing with some huge clients. It is a similar situation in the advertising industry where some art directors (should I add - award winning) read nothing else but advertising annuals and Lurzer’s Archive. The same situation with students. It is almost a norm to see students walking in to look for "a book on packaging - most preferably with chinese design, and if possible, mooncake boxes".

I supposed that is one sure thing about meeting immediate deadlines by cleverly referring to works done by others. I supposed in a wise business sense I should continue selling titles such as 1,000 labels, 1,000 logos, 1,000 magazines, 1,000 brochures, etc etc. The books which are of mass appeal and high commercial values.

But I also know I am helping to promote the culture of dead creativity. A bookshop like mine encourages the substitution of creativity with appropriation. Take the whole package - observation, experiences, imagination, analysis and strategic planning, intuition, logic and reasoning, professional training in skills and crafting -  bundle these up and trade it for a page in the Big Book of Layout. There, here’s the look and feel, that kind of images, that kind of color scheme, that kind of layout, that typeface. 

Idealism vs. commercialism.

My inner struggle.

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Received my Amazon shipment. (Yes, I do shop on Amazon).
If you are curious, here’s what I bought:
(1) A Short History of Nearly Everything: Special Illustrated Edition
(2) I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist
(3) Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
(4) The Radical Reformission, Reaching Out without Selling Out
(5) A
Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant,
Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical,
Charismatic/Contemplative,
(6) Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church (The Leadership Network Innovation)

"There are no murders, only regrettable deaths."

Beautiful cinematography on Africa, sad movie about humanity.

We do not know enough of the world out there.

King of Bollywood, ShahRukh Khan walked into how&why and actually bought stuff with his Visa card.

Speechless.

Cleaning up my hd and I found this photo taken on my Mumbai trip.
Reminds me of how fortunate we are.

Stop complaining.

Is the above typesetting pleasant to the eyes? It better be - as it is set according to the "divine proportion", ie: the PHI, as according to Professor Langdon.

Many years back I first read about setting type sizes as according to Fibonacci series. I didn’t really think much about that until the Dan Brown phenomena kicked in. Now that everyone is into cracking codes, it is time for me to revisit Robert Bringhurst’s insightful writings on the golden proportions.

That mysterious divine proportion of 1:1.61803. In layman english: the smaller part is roughly 38.2% and the larger part is 61.8%.

What you see above is the little experiment as typographic hierarchy expressed via type sizes chosen as according to the golden section, via a Fibonacci series:

5 . 8 . 13 . 21. 34 . 55 . 89

These type sizes whould be sufficient for most works.

Other scales could be created via the same series:

6 . 10 . 16 . 26 . 42 . 68 . 110
4. 7 . 11 . 18 . 29 . 47 . 76

Page sizes could also be determined as according to this relation. For many centuries Penguin books had been manufactured as according to 111 X 180 mm.

111 x 1.61803 = 179.6 (!)

Which also means a better height to accomodate the standard A4 width of 210mm is

210 x 1.61803 = 339.8

That’s something to think about.
And Da Vinci has nothing to do with this. Sorry for the misleading title.

(I am actually getting sick of hearing any mention of the Da Vinci code)

Welcome to the new McDonald’s.

My early childhood memory consists of my aunt bringing me to McD for quarterpounders and Big Macs whenever I visited KL. For a Penang boy who grew up with Koay Teows and Mee Hoons, McD was a nice treat. McD was posh, glamorous and ang moh to the max. Later McD started its first branch in Penang Komtar - it became the meeting place for many teenagers.

My craving for McD died as I grew older. Let’s be honest. Ramly made the best burgers (otherwise known as "burger special") - tasty, juicy, yummy and oily. In comparison, quarterpounders and big macs were expensively bland.

But the power of this global megabrand has had its tremendous impact. Whenever I am in an unfamiliar country - whether it is Frankfurt, London, Holborn, Arkansas or New Orleans - McDonald’s is the symbol which I recognise. I have known it from young that the Golden Arches promised me the same Big Mac to fill my stomach at an inexpensive price. I have been caught in situations where I am standing in front of some foreign restaurant, hesitant to step in as I don’t know how much my meal would cost (in Euros!) I know I wouldn’t pause to think about entering McD. My foreign friends had said the same - in an unfamiliar territory and if they have no tour guide with them - to play safe, they would rather settle for Big Mac than say, Pangkor Curry Fishhead.

Despite its brand power, McD is facing huge problems. The share prices has plummeted 60% over the past 3 years. The movie Super Size Me highlighted the horror of surviving on McD. Health issues aside, McD is an aging 55-year-old brand. Young kids who used to love french fries and Ronald McDonald had grown into old farts like me. We just don’t find it fun or interesting or "lovin’ it" to meet people and friends at McD. Even the burgers and fries had become our "we don’t really know what to eat today hence…" food.

Let’s face it. I rather be meeting someone at Starbucks or San Francisco coffee. If I needed a place to talk crap, maybe the mamak at the corner would be a better place. "Let’s meet at McDonald’s" sounds awfully awkward.

So how does a slumping giant do to wake itself up? Reinvent itself via a new branding programme titled Forever Young.

Out goes the familiar McDonald’s kiddies playgrund and birthday party areas. McDonalds is going upscale. The new target audience: young adults/ young professionals/ businesspeople - people with higher disposible income. Snobbish people who probably nitpick on health, ambience and the beans that make their coffee.

The new features:

• Wi-Fi service
• Flat screen TVs
• Music Zone - with music domes spinning new songs, all downloadable at 99 cents
• Meeting rooms for business gatherings
• Cafes serving espresso, latte and cappuccino, as well as a whole range of pastries

This ambitious rebranding programme involves renovating many outlets with fancier interiors, much like the photo above. By year end, about 2500 outlets worldwide will be renovated.

Very interesting approach, but would this really bring young people back to McD?

There can only be one Starbucks. Would I be convinced to go to McD to experience "something like Starbucks"? Didn’t Blue Ocean Strategy propose that modern businesses should develop uncontested market space, instead of competing in existing space and trying to steal rival’s customers?

Somehow, I am betting that this new McD strategy will not work. Not in Malaysia.

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For further reading:

1) Fancier Franchises: The Orange County Register

2) Brand Avenue

3) Burgers and CD Burners: USA Today

4) McMakeover: Sign on San Diego

If you see a chair and you really need to sit, you will just sit.

You will not stop to do a thorough analyse of the chair before sitting.
You will not scrutinise the screws or the legs. You will not check whether it could support your weight. You will not do a survey form to find out from past users whether this chair is reliable. You will not google search for related information about the chair, before making an informed decision to sit on that chair.

You do not know the consequences.
The chair may crumble under your weight. Hidden nails may seriously hurt your bum.
Or you may just get a good rest.

You don’t know. You just don’t. But you will sit. Just sit. No questions. No second thoughts.

Someone told me that is called faith.

Today I was provoked and was very tempted to engage in a battle of words over The Da Vinci Code. I could have. Maybe that impulsive opinionated me would love to do so.

But what for? To prove facts intellectually or to justify faith? I can’t find that reason, hence I backed off.

Just sit on that chair. Don’t ask. Don’t question.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1