Archive for February, 2008
Filed Under graphic design
I remember when I was a teenager, I would spend hours in front of the computer creating art. My program of choice was Aldus Freehand 3, back when AOL 
charged by the hour and the Internet wasn’t cool yet. I spent many evenings after football practice using lines and Bézier curves to transform the movie poster for Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story into a vector graphic. (I’m pretty sure I only finished Bruce’s pants, but I won’t know for sure until I can find a Mac that can handle a 14-year old floppy disk, pictured at right). As my high school yearbook’s graphic artist, I created sport-equipment icons - like baseball bats, lacrosse sticks, and tennis rackets - and curved text logos with gray scale blends.
Anything the editors wanted, I felt that I could create in Freehand. I felt impressed enough to photograph some of my work for a portfolio (pictured on left). Yes, photographed. That’s how new digital art felt at my school.
That was thirteen years ago.
I haven’t made a vector graphic since leaving high school and going off to college, where I traded in my keyboard for a shovel in pursuit of a degree in archeology.
Skip ahead a few chapters in my life and here I am, aspiring to become a better graphic designer. Since 2000, when I was introduced to Photoshop 5, I’ve become more comfortable creating raster graphics, or graphics created with pixels. I’d like to expand my horizons and get back into creating vector graphics, but I’ve learned that it isn’t like riding a bike: my skills are rusty. At first glance, you’d think that vector artwork can be limiting - but you’d be surprised.
The smart kids over at Stanford University have recently created a logarithm that will transform any image (photo, artwork, etc.) into a vector graphic. The results are amazing. Check it out:
It might take a closer look to tell that one of these images is a photo and the other is a vector graphic. Vector Magic allows you to upload any image and they’re super-duper computers will crunch it and spit it back out as an image made completely with lines, Bézier curves and polygons. Until last week, the service was free, but these guys added some business smarts to their computer smarts and are now selling their processor services at an average of $2 bucks for each download. Each new account will get you two free downloads (sign up before March 5th and receive four downloads for free). The bitmap (PNG) versions are still free and you can upload, vectorize, and preview the results for free.
Filed Under international travel
It’s been a few months now since I’ve returned from Morocco, so now seems like as good of time as any to start sharing some of the stories of my trip here on the web. I’ll start with a passage from my journal after the jump.
December 10th, 2007 – Marrakesh, Morocco - Day 11
9:30am – Sitting at cafe in the Place Djemaa el Fna. About fifteen men sit quietly at tables (can sit about 40-50). Most sit by themselves, watching the busy square come alive in the morning sun. Most are dressed in western clothing with traditional Fez hats. One older bearded man is dressed in a jellaba – a robe with a hood - over his plain white dress shirt.
In the large square, many of the dozens of orange juice carts open. A few pairs of tourists wander casually while locals are more determined in their pace. Where are they going? School. Work. Home. I don’t know. Some pass on motorized scooters, bicycles, and from time-to-time, private cars or beige taxis. Women who walk, walk alone or with a female companion.
There are many sellers walk though the cafe, making it hard to find solitude in my journal. Men selling cigarettes does not speak, but rattle a fist full of coins twice to signal to those around him that he is here. Children and women make their rounds with a platter of cookies strapped around their necks like a hot dog vendor at a baseball game. Shoe shiners and their shoeshine boxes also make appearances at this café every 20 minutes or so.
Bicycles and motorcycles line up haphazardly in front of the cafe, their owners apparently sitting or working at the cafe. The waiters dress in a white three-piece uniform with a little red jacket and walk at a quicker pace while helping their guests. They are polite and do not disturb the reflecting men at their tables unless the men motion for them.
An old man with a hunched back begs for money. A few minutes later, a teenage boy leads a blind man around to the tables asking for change. I pull out some change to give to them.
A horse and carriage are not just for tourists. Locals use them as well. Mules are rarely seen as vehicles for humans. They pull carts of produce or have bails of goods trapped to their backs.
As I sit here at the cafe, I find Saharan sand in my jacket pocket. Riding a camel seems so long ago, but it was just yesterday morning…
The journal I kept in Morocco is one of my favorites of recent years. I was able to capture so much of my experiences with the pages whereas in the past, I wouldn’t make the time to do so. Here are a few scanned pages from the journal:
Let me know what you think by leaving a comment!
Filed Under local travel, photography
Today was The Huntington Library’s exclusive opening of the Garden of Flowering Fragrance. Being a member, I couldn’t pass the opportunity to see this new area of the Huntington.
From their website:
Some 10 years in the making, The Garden of Flowing Fragrance, or Liu Fang Yuan, is now slated to open to the public Feb. 23, 2008, at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. A remarkable and ambitious undertaking for the Los Angeles-area institution, the garden reflects traditional Suzhou-style scholar gardens and features a 1.5-acre lake, a complex of pavilions, a tea house and tea shop, and five stone bridges, set against a wooded backdrop of mature oaks and pines. This initial phase of the garden covers about 3.5 acres of a planned 12-acre site. Development of future phases of the Chinese Garden will proceed over a period of years.
A dedication ceremony for donors and dignitaries is planned for Feb. 16, followed by a week of previews for Huntington members. As the opening approaches, the garden’s look and feel continue to evolve as several dozen Chinese artisans spend the summer and fall assembling the “cloud wall,” pavilions, and other structures. The garden’s formal name, Liu Fang Yuan, was announced in June. more…
Here’s some pics I took:
More photos of this event on flickr.
Filed Under kahunna.net
If I was stranded on a desert island and there was only one thing I could have, it would be a Moleskine journal. They’re sturdy, easy to write and draw in, and fit comfortably in my pocket. Plus, if I was to be stranded on an island, I could use the paper to write my message in a bottle. And I’m fairly sure that, with practice, the thick leather covers could be used as weapons to hunt prey or defend myself from the natives. But for the most part, I’d use the books to keep details of my time on the island. It wouldn’t be the first time. (The writing-in-moleskines-while-traveling part, not the stranded-on-an-island-with-a-journal part.)
I have dedicated a portion of kahunna.net to my travel journals, all of them being Moleskine since 2004. Moleskine has been rewarding to use, but how cool is it that the company who makes the journals decided to reward me, literally?
From Moleskinerie.com:
We’re excited to celebrate the fourth birthday of Moleskinerie with a retrospective of selected works from our friends and supporters around the world. We would like to recognize this group of writers, artists, bloggers and thinkers who have been featured on the blog in the last year and have consistently used Moleskine in their professional or private pursuits.
The works will be displayed in a permanent gallery on Moleskinerie, updated monthly, starting January 12th, 2008. To honor the participants, Moleskine has created for the artists a limited edition of notebooks and diaries.
This is only the first of what we hope will be many editions of the Exhibit. We hope that you will enjoy the gallery and that it will inspire creative dialogue and foster deeper understanding between cultures.
See the gallery
They chose my work! I received the set of limited edition Moleskines in the mail not too long ago. Here’s a pic:
Here’s some more pics.
Thanks, guys!
Filed Under graphic design
Do you remember the date that you told your parents what you wanted to be when you grew up? You know, like an astronaut or a cowboy? Although my aspirations weren’t as unrealistic, I do remember when I wanted to grow up to be an artist. For Christmas in 1985, I received Trouble for Trumpets. This wonderfully illustrated book has been read countless times since and has survived in one piece (including the tattered dust jacket) after a dozen or so moves. Even today as an adult and a graphic designer, the 32-pages of artwork by Peter Cross is mesmerizing and still an inspiration. I wish I could tell you to rush out and pick up this masterpiece from your local bookstore, but it has been out of print since the time my Aunt purchased it in 1985. It is possible to find it on used book websites, but they run for anywhere from $80 to $200 USD. I saw mint condition copy with its dust jacket go for over $500 on eBay!
Equally as rare is the follow-up book, Trumpets in Grumpetland. First published in 1984 in England (1985 in the US), it has been on my wishlist for many years. Again though, like Trouble, it is out-of-print and in a price range out-of-touch for many. A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to find a copy online for $25. The seller didn’t seem to know that the book goes for $50-475, or maybe they were and I just purchased a book torn to shreds and colored with crayon by up to 23 years of children.
This was not the case!
Today I the Postman dropped off a beautiful copy of Trumpets in Grumpetland! Being Saturday, I spent an hour to “read” the 32-page book. Although it doesn’t have the same depth and detail as Trouble does, the artwork by Peter Cross is still beautiful and meets my high expectations. (I had been waiting 22 years, mind you!)
This ends my collection of Peter Cross books, sadly. He has moved into the greeting card industry and has done some equally-exceptional work. But no more Trumpets. No more Grumpets. If you search for reviews of these books, most will end by asking some important questions: Why hasn’t these two books been reprinted? Why didn’t they release a third title, which Trumpets in Grumpetland hints at? I think these books should be shared with children for generations, but without parents having to shell out a ton of money! A campaign should be started to bring these books back into print, but those who have seen the artwork most likely own the books, thus a Catch 22 is created.
So what to do? My answer is to post some of the artwork here on my website. I hope I don’t end up like a Trumpet and get in trouble for doing this, but the art must continue to be shared!
Trumpets in Grumpetland:
This one can be zoomed in on to see the richness of the artwork and the hidden “easter eggs” (it takes a while to load):
Filed Under local travel, photography
While taking photos of my beautiful niece Siena, my Canon 30d camera went haywire and died. I sent it in to the Canon Factory Service Center in Irvine, CA only to hear that the damage was caused by “corrosion” and isn’t covered under warranty! I was really upset to hear this because I took care of my camera like it was my child. I can’t think of how it could have became corroded and the repair specialists couldn’t tell me what sort of liquid could have damaged it.
Worst of all, they said they wanted about $540 USD to repair the camera. There is no way in hell I’m paying that much to fix a camera that cost me about $350 more than that. I did some research and discovered a few people online that had the same problem, but they thought it was possible that it could have gotten wet sometime during their use of the camera. I’m certain mine hadn’t. While researching, I discovered that the western regional branch of the Canon Factory Service Center (where I sent my camera) has an F RATING through the Better Business Bureau! If there’s one thing I know about companies with low BBB scores, it’s that they don’t care one bit about arguments from their customers, so I’ll save an hour of my life and not write a letter to them.
Good news is that now I have an even better camera: the Canon EOS 40D! Here’s a few pictures taken on the weekend I purchased the camera:
Taken at the Griffith Observatory:
Taken at the Huntington Library:
