Some Chinese went to Neil French’s website, ripped off every single piece of work, produced and printed a book.
All done without Neil’s permission.
Neil’s damn pissed that "the book is now on sale in ‘law-abiding’ Singapore!"
(No prize for guessing which bookseller brought that into Singapore)
Read this here.
Questions from an impromptu test conducted.
* Comment on two designers covered in lecture 7:
Answers:
TOMATO: His works are brilliant and he has the special food name "tomato" that can attract public’s attention.
PIET ZWART: Piet Zwart did a good job redefining David Carson.
From wikipedia, Piet Zwart died at the age of 92 in 1977. David Carson started designing in 1991.
What have I done wrong?
Saturday will be my last day in The One Academy.
Many reasons helped me come to that decision.
For the past three years, I have had my share of satisfactions and disappointments with lecturing. It is rewarding to see FF Meta, Bello, Dolly, Monotype Grotesk, Akzidenz Grotesk and Avenir making their way into students’ magazine and corporate identity works, replacing the standard mix of myriad, helvetica and garamond. It excites me whenever students show me complex and unusual grid systems. It thrills me (secretly) when students start rebelling against thoughtless briefs and work outside the norms. All these made teaching meaningful.
I shall not vent my frustrations - that would be taking aimless shots at the whole education and cultural systems that shaped the psyche of so-called creative students. I may have to start cursing all the spoons that fed the souls.
What matters most to me: I’m glad I have got to know many students well enough to consider them personal friends. Gaining new friendship - this alone - made the whole experience memorable. As much as they are learning from my obsessions about grids, kernings and bodoni, I am learning to see things from their life, and in the process, enables me to rethink and reshape who I am.
I am not sure whether I will ever return to teaching.
Maybe someday.
Meanwhile if Piet Zwart has redefined Carson, I am led to think that I might have failed.
Unless I can see dead people.
Attended a talk by renowned apologist Ravi Zacharias on 16 Aug 2006.
This is what his mom told him:
"Once you cut off a person’s nose
there’s no point giving him a rose to smell."
Once you have humiliated someone, the spirit is fractured.
Point to ponder upon.
(AFP)
As per captioned on BBC’s website: "Tensions remain high in Israel as Palestinians, prevented from reaching Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, pray on the street."
I have been reading about the war.
Lebanon + Israel + Palestine + Syria + Jordan + Iran + Egypt.
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) + South Lebanon Army + Hizbullah.
US + UK + United Nations.
Watchdogs have termed this a proxy war. Hizbullah’s attack on Israel was Iran’s way to divert attention from its nuclear controversy. The real war is not of Israel vs Lebanon, but Iran and Syria versus Bush Administration.
The religious minded again see this as the clash of beliefs. Hizbullah sees this as another zionist intrusion into Muslim land. Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida expectedly took the opportunity to rally support from Muslims around the world. In a recorded statement by its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, "O Muslims everywhere, I call on you to fight and become martyrs in the war against the Zionists and the crusaders."
Israel believes it is a war against terrorism. Many Christians, fiercely guarding the belief of Israel being God’s promised land to Abram, use that to justify the reasons for the agression against Lebanon - that is has been prophesized, that it is God’s will, that it is inevitable. Many church leaders, though generally acknowledging the need for Israel to protect itself, criticize her for "using a disproportionate force that is totally destructive."
To the many displaced Shia Muslims from southern Lebanon Israel/USA are the terrorists. To the famous son-in-law of Pak Lah, it became another media circus with plenty of photo-op. The UMNO Youth Deputy Chief, supposingly "representing the youth of Malaysia" said "The United States is abetting the violence by Israel
against Lebanon and is part and parcel of what is happening to the
Lebanese and Palestinian people". (When did I allow that joker to represent me?)
I wanted to understand the reasons behind the war.
What would one do to uphold his freedom of religion?
To preserve the sovereignty of his nation?
To legitimize the prevention of terror?
To leave behind a legacy of power?
To live strictly as according to religious beliefs without pausing to think about its relevance?
What prices freedom? Leaving aside all the ideologies and justifications for war, maybe we forgot that we are dealing with real humans. Lives are lost. Homes are destructed. Families are destroyed. Soldiers are being held captives. Children are killed.
Real humans, real souls.
The politics of war is appalling and disgusting.
If you want to bark, bark with a reason. I doubt how many of the 2000 anti-USA anti-Israel Umno youths actually understood what they were protesting about. It will only take a minute to understand the roots of Israel-Arabian conflicts by viewing this.
Other useful links:
Wikipedia entry
BBC
The Guardian
The Daily Star Lebanon
Watching an old clip of David Letterman doing his shift as a part-timer at McD’s drive thru.
Customer: "What’s in the happy meal?"
David Letterman: "You have to prove to me you’re happy or you’re not getting anything."
And this:
David Letterman: "Is it alright if we touch your food before giving it to you?"
Classic.
More David Letterman’s links here:
Link 1 - David at Taco bell.
Link 2 - David visits GE.
The hilarious David Letterman Top Ten list is stored here, archived all the way to 1993.
The recent entry was titled Top Ten Dumb Guy Ideas For Lowering Gas Prices and this is how it went -
10. Make all roads downhill
9. Cheaper self-service price if you pump the oil and refine it yourself
8. Gas comes from dinosaurs, so all we need are more dinosaurs
7. Invade Iraq
Read the rest here.
Some random snips.
"Not everything Bono does I would necessarily agree with, but you’ve got to acknowledge that everyone’s got their own particular opinion. We don’t like all that others do but it’s the compromise that makes it work." - The Edge, interviewed by Mark Ellen in Word Dec 2005.
"If anything, I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library - everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right." - Bob Dylan, Chronicles Vol 1.
"There’s a school of poetry that believes ‘first thought, best thought’. That would have condemned me to a really inauspicious superficiality, because I don’t have any ideas. I don’t have an idea, and I don’t trust my opinions. I consider my thought-stream extremely uninteresting, and it’s only when I can discard it that I can say something that I can get behind." - Leonard Cohen, interviewed by Andy Gill in Word June 2006.
Leonard Cohen’s movie soundtrack is officially released on July 25, 2006. (See previous post). Allmusic.com gave it an excellent review, except for slamming down U2 and Bono’s "seemingly inauthentic over emotional ache". Featuring an impressive lineup which includes the Wainwrights (both Rufus and Martha), Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Jarvis Cocker, Teddy Thompson, Antony, Perla Batalla, The Handsome Family and U2.
I doubt if there will ever be a Malaysian release for this album.
Songs from the soundtrack for your downloading pleasure:
Download Beth Orton Sisters of Mercy.mp3
Download The Handsome Family famous blue raincoat.mp3
Download Rufus Wainwright everybody knows.mp3
Incidentally, I first heard Teddy Thompson from Brokeback Mountain soundtrack. Since then I have become a fan. Here’s a song from his Separate Ways album:
Download sorry to see me go.mp3
This is Erik Spiekermann talking about typomania.
From the 80s, made for BBC, when Erik is still (relatively) young.
I am a proud owner of FF Meta (not pirated!).
It was shipped to me from USA, in 2 3.5 inch diskettes.
Just thought you may be interested.
Typofreak’s postings:
For consideration (When you have a strong identity, don’t change it - refresh it).
I have never spoken to a paper designer.
When Antalis Malaysia said they were flying in Emeric Thibierge to do a paper presentation, I went "who is that?"
Then they named the papers he created under the Thibierge and Comar brand:
Chromatico, Evanescent, Mineralis, Canevas…
I didn’t know they came from the same designer. I just know these are beautiful and expensive papers. Chromatico probably started the trend of nice colored translucent papers. Evanescent, with its shimmering surface, speaks of much elegance than the rest of the metalics/shiny paper in town.
Papers which I am always hoping to find a willing client as each piece of these papers cost around RM10.00.
I actually realise in paper trade no one cares much about the designer behind the paper. Unlike typefaces.
So I guess he will be the first paper designer whom I will meet.
A Frenchman. Interesting.
(If you are interested in meeting a French paper designer and want to know what goes through their head - come to this event. Don’t worry. Entry free-lah).
On headbutting:
"You hear those things once and you try to walk away. That’s what
I wanted to do because I am retiring. You hear it a second time and
then a third time …""Do you imagine that in a World Cup final like that with just 10 minutes to go to the end of my career, I am going to do something like that because it gives me pleasure?"
- Zidane
Takes a whole lot for a man to smile at insults and walk away silently.
