all-in-one

Lots of pictures taken using instagram apps for the past few months.

i’m back to taking food pictures again. Everything looks so yummy with this app!

Our beautiful skies.

Friends, sis, niece & myself :-)

Never tired of walks.

Indulge in reminiscence.

Night time favourite drink. It’s almost an addiction!

Ran into my mum and niece (last picture) this afternoon, and they were wearing matching

tops lol!

bookbinding

Reading Notabilia’s latest post has set me into a nostalgic memory of a basic bookbinding course that i took up during college. The workshop itself was a gem! It had all kinds of (paper) materials and machines. We were lucky to have the chance to use quite a few while learning to make our very first book of perfect binding then.

The ones shown here are all handmade and if i remember correctly, they were french bookbinding... but don’t take my words for it... each page was folded, and put together by stitching the raw edges. We did a set of four different styles and i gave one away which i kind of regret now because i will never remember what the last binding stitching looked like again.

Then there was this book that i designed for my final year typography project which was inspired from the above book binding method – since each page was folded into half, i can make use of the ‘underside’, which was usually left unused and hidden, to further illustrate the book idea. It was perfect for the story that i was working on – The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – a famous story relating about the good and bad split (double-side!) in people.

The cover was a mirror-like paper, the reader sees his own reflection (when holding the book), as if looking into his other self, the evil side, as suggested with a printed skeleton (not shown here). Inside pages had a few variations – an extremely long page to illustrate a long walk, text was printed reverse, on the underside of the paper (faint printing showing through the paper suggested the hidden self) etc...

i still love the book idea today even though it is rather embarrassing when looking at the typography design – the kerning was unbelievably bad, the typeface was badly chosen etc. i wish i will be motivated enough to redesign the typography for this book one day.

Don’t forget to leave notabilia a note if you’re interested in knowing more about bookbinding :-)

happy valentine’s day!

Can you spot the hidden message? It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it :-)

Full image here.

♡♡♡ Have a lovely Valentine’s Day! ♡♡♡

trans-cool tokyo

On Chinese New Year day two, i had a bit of time during the bazaar and went off to see the exhibitions at 8Q. These are some of the works that i really like.

Star Dust of One Hundred of Million Light-Years by Yayoi Kusama

This reminds me the pretty colours of orchid flowers.

PixCell-Deer#17 by Kohei Nawa

“Fascinated with how we interact and mediate the world of virtual reality and the internet, Nawa sources taxidermic objects from online auction sites and layers these surfaces with transparent glass beads. This mediated layer of glass beads reference the pixel of the computer screen that we so often come in contact with today, but also reduces our visualisation of the object to tiny particles of light.

The veil of differing sizes of glass beads on the surface of the taxidermied animal magnifies it in some areas and distorts it in others. This plays on the perception of reality and questioning how we encounter our daily environment and how we comprehend what we are seeing.”

Gush #20 & #19 by Kohei Nawa

i can feel the freedom in these painting ♥

White Night & Sayon by Yoshitomo Nara

♥♥♥

AND THEN White, AND THEN White & Black, AND THEN Black by Takashi Murakami

Kansei Platinum by Takashi Murakami

LV lovers will find this familiar.

Criticism and the Lover C by Yasumasa Morimura

“Morimura uses techniques of appropriation to reconstruct the familiar into something odd an unsettling. In doing so, he pays homage to these Western icons, but explores and questions the consumption of these iconic images and culture, as well as issues of cultural identity. Placing images of himself and facial features in these recognisable paintings for example, he turns the gaze of the viewer and the subject around and analyses how people consume these masterpieces. If his works make the viewer uncomfortable, it is not just the oddness, it is because the artist himself is facing the viewer.

Paul Cezanne’s Still Life with Apples and Oranges (1895–1900) is part of a series of explorations based on iconic art historical works that Morimura appropriated to portray his ‘self’ in these famous painting which includes also Edouard Manet’s Olympia and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Here, he again inserts his self-portrait onto the apples and oranges originally painted by Cezanne.”

Trans-Cool Tokyo

Singapore Art Museum at 8Q

19 Nov 2010 – 13 Feb 2011

having a great time

Club 21 Chinese New Year Windows, 2011

The last couple of weeks had been truly crazy, am so glad that the rush hours are finally over. i find myself still on recovery mode though, had been sleeping a lot for the past few days and yet still feeling very tired. My work desk (in fact the whole room) is beyond recognition and i need to put everything back in place real quick before work starts coming in again.

How’s your holiday so far? Mine is just starting and i’m really enjoying it :-)

photos from the bazaar

These bunny candies were a hit with the kids... well, i guess all kinds of candies work but since it’s the bunny year, i’ll give it some credit :-) Some kids were really excited while others (well, ok i spotted just one) sneaked back quietly a few times to get more. Cuteness to the max!

More photos in my facebook album.

thank you :-)

A big thank you for those who came down to SAM to show your support. It’s really great

to meet friends of same interest and love for design. Hope to see all of you again in the

near future!

Will sort out some of the bazaar photos and post them soon when i can. i am on a really

tight schedule now for another project... only 4 days left to translate the ideas into visual

and there are tons to do. So my actual CNY holidays will only start 4 days from now.

Hope your holidays has been great so far :-)

Happy Bunny Year!

missing long walks and museums

A few things:

– empty inspiration wall waiting to be filled again

– lovely lippy colours from a friend

– pack of postcards to share during the bazaar, also available in my etsy shop

– lovely blog post that showered compliment for one little journey breaks from notabilia (thank you!)

How was your 2011 so far? Mine has been really really busy (and sleepy)... but fulfilling :-)

Starting on a new project today and already, i can’t wait to finish everything. i’m missing long walks and museums.