The Beijing Olympic 2008 has begun and I feel very excited about it! The best athletes from all around the world gathers in Beijing to compete for the best and at the same time, promoting friendship and harmony. “One World, One Dream” is the slogan for this edition of Olympic, I think is very meaningful and beautiful. Besides that, you can too celebrate the Olympic fever at home by set the Olympic 2008 wallpapers on your desktop!
By accessing this download page, you can download a sets of beautiful wallpapers as well as screensavers. I think the wallpapers and screensavers are really nicely done and beautiful. So, head on the page to download! 😀 Plus, if you are interested in Beijing Olympic Image and Look, like the emblem, mascots, pictogram and so on you can go to this page to view too.
Do you know that the image above was made out of Japanese characters? Recently I stumbled upon a very interesting flash site FONTPARK 2.0 by font foundry Morisawa. In FONTPARK 2.0, you can create interesting artwork by using only typography. It’s absolutely freedom on the creation and the only limit is your creativity and imagination!
The interface is totally intuitive and easy to use. You can start creating your artwork by dragging out the characters you want to use at the character selection at bottom of the page. You can have a selections of different beautiful Japanese fonts, and you can even use romaji too. Below shows the basic controls to manipulate the fonts.
I can say it’s a deconstruction and appreciation of the beauty of typography. No doubt you can create really interesting graphic images with type. The fun part is after you finish creating your image, you can save it and FONTPARK 2.0 will give you a permanent link so that you can see the animation process of your masterpiece creation.
The site is truly amazing and beautiful. The site is majorly in black and white color which can give more attention to the aesthetic of type. There’s a gallery shown below where you can see the artworks in thumbnail, and rate them or click it to see the artwork creation process. Some works are really well done.
I’m absolutely have fun when creating the artwork. I’m so amazed by the Japanese characters because it can create so many interesting artwork! The picture below shows my attempts: Butterfly and Carrot, Sports Shoe, Walking Man and Superman. Not bad right? I’m strongly recommend to everyone to try out this site. It’s fun! 😀
Certainly water plays a vital role in our normal daily life, we simply can’t live without it. Water keeps us fresh and healthy. Plus, water also giving a sense of serenity and symbols of live. Recently, I saw some site designs also incorporating the water elements into the design, which I think is really unique and refreshing.
This marks the fourth edition of the Inspired By Nature series in this blog. Well, I found this water series is very interesting and it’s quite hard to find too. Many sites using water element as background, sidebar elements or simply the whole site was full with water. As you might had guess, the websites with water are majority based on blue color scheme, maybe because of the sea. End of talking, so please have a look the 10 beautiful sites with plenty of water!
Design Disease
The latest site refresh by the pro design team Design Disease. All I can say is the design is just WOW. Daring color scheme and the wavy shapes are really breaking the boxy feels of web design. Brilliant design!
Stylized Web
From the previous black and white, Stylized Web now also featuring water inspired design like Design Disease but softer color scheme. Notice that the layers of colors of the sky, sea, and ground to separate out the contents. Brilliant idea!
Luke Larsen
This is an online portfolio of Luke Larsen, and it looks like a huge aquarium tank! This fishes are really making this site to live. Clean and nice, I like it. Notice the page navigation too.
Iceberg
Ice is also consider as water too. So this site is utilizing the sea surface and the natural iceberg which giving a sense of chilling cold!
Icebrrg
Certainly don’t mix up this one with the one above. Unlike Iceberg, Icebrrg’s design was beneath the sea with the sun lights shines through the water.
Adit Shukla
This is a really unique website design. The designer using the river to depict the sidebar.
Kulturbanause
Probably the most extraordinary blog design I ever seen. Kulturbanause also featuring water element like the waterfall, which falls from the top of the page to the bottom. Really awesome!
SPA Vilnius
I am very fascinating about this site intro flash movie. The dancing color in the water is very special and worth a look!
Honda – Edit Screen
It’s summer time! What a cheerful site design. In this site you can make your own screensaver with a self customized bubble character (cute!) and download for own use. It’s a full flash site and the color is really bright and cheerful!
Anessa
Finally Anessa! Well when think of summer, I will think of sea… and Ebi-chan :P. Recently Oricon conducted a survey also shows that when Japanese people think of summer beauty, they will think of Yuri Ebihara.
Japanese certainly are expert in good looking and cute handwriting style fonts. So, since I wrote about this post a while back, I think it’s time to go hunt for more free Japanese fonts, and the finding was good. I found these 12 really nice handwriting style fonts that are free to use! Banzai!
All these 12 Japanese handwriting fonts here are able to write in Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, as well as Romaji characters and Numbers. There is one even can perform emoji too. So, the font files are quite huge. As usual, I will give you a screenshot of the fonts, as well as the link to the original page and a download link. Many of the fonts are zipped and some of them are zipped in .lzh format. I recommend to use WinRAR to extract it. Here we go.
It’s been a while a movie that can make me become so excited. Last week, I watched a Japan 2007 hit movie called “Crows ZERO“. Crows ZERO is a film based on the comic book Crows by Hiroshi Takahashi, and was directed by Takashi Miike. The story involves around a bunch of bad students in a graffiti-scribbled bad high school. This movie was dominated by the high school bad boy image and there are many fight scenes too. I watched many bad high school student related shows but I never see to a such extreme. It’s a cool movie!
The story is about the Genji Takaya, a character played by Oguri Shun, who transferred to Suzuran High School who aims to conquer Suzuran in order to takeover his father who is a leader of a big Yakuza group. But to be rule in Suzuran is no easy job. He has to face the biggest rival, Serizawa Tamao who acted by Yamada Takayuki. The climax of the movie is the final war between Genji and Serizawa, in order to determine who is the top of Suzuran.
Actually huge group fighting is no fresh stuff in movie as you can see many movie have huge fighting scene too. But in this movie, the fight is between bad high school students and the fighting scene was chaotic! However it was really fun to watch the fighting because they are using raw punches and kicks, and kind of last man standing style of fighting. The fighting scenes were well choreographed in my opinion.
Another interesting point of this movie is their wearing style. Basically it’s all black high school uniforms or gakuran. i always thought that jap hish school uniforms are cool so everyone is just looks cool with gakuran in there, plus with nicely combed hair style. It has similar feeling to The Matrix where everyone was dressed nicely and has a pair of cool looking sunglasses. Well recently I sense that the high school bad boy image is in trend? Because not only this movie, a recent drama ROOKIES also having the bad boys as well. Actually some actors in Crows ZERO also stars in ROOKIES too.
This movie was dominated by males, and actresses lead by Kuroki Meisa are having very less exposure in the movie! However the pretty and sweet Kuroki Meisa somehow adds up the flavor to the movie.
Overall the movie was fun, enjoyable and great! Definitely worth to watch, and Oguri Shun was just looks good! So kakkoi! This movie was grossed about 2.5 billion yen and a sequel will be make. Expect the coolness to be continue heating!
Well, I was rarely to share my own story in this blog, eventhough this blog is mine. But today is an odd day, i’m going to talk about my Japanese Pop heroes. These artists brought me to the world of Japanese Pop music and since then, got addicted and never turn back. They influenced and played a big role in my life, and the artists are SPEED, Ayumi Hamasaki and W-inds.
SPEED
SPEED is the first Japan music group I know and can be say that is SPEED that introduced me to the Japanese pop music. I bumped into them in year 1999 when watching an Asian MTV related music show. Actually is a little late to know them, but during that time, Japan influence started to blow in Malaysia. The show was showing “White Love”, probably their most popular song. The first thing that floated in my mind is that they are so pretty in there, and the song was great too. Since this, I start to listen to their music and they become my idol.
Among the four members, I like Takako Uehara the most. Well, a year later they decided to split and I was a little sad that time. I bought their graduation album CD “Carry On My Way” which is the first ever CD I bought. After SPEED disbanded, three of the members are going solo and one continue for studies. But none of them are become popular as compared to SPEED era. I wonder what they are doing now.
Ayumi Hamasaki
After SPEED disbanded, I found Ayumi Hamasaki. During that time, she already quite popular in Japan so in Malaysia, I can read some news about her. The first song I listened was “SEASONS”. The song was so nice and immediately she became my second idol. In my high school days, I always listen to her songs, buy her new album CD and so on. I spent quite some money on her CDs (although is not really that much). But since I was exposed to the MP3 thing, I start to collect her music in digital format instead.
Her songs are marvellous, although now I start to decline in listening her songs recently. Plus, her current music was least nice than her older day songs. But, in the end I still praise her as my idol and respect her hardwork and contribution to the J-pop scene. Recently, there is a news said that to celebrate the tenth year debuted as singer, Ayumi will release a complete single best album in mid September. This is a great news for fans including me. I will definitely purchase this best album when it is available.
W-inds.
W-inds. can consider as my high school heroes. W-inds. consists of three male teenagers and have a very youthful and clean image. Well this has to thank a local radio show that aired their song. When I first listen to their song “Feel the Fate”, I was stunned: the song is very nice and their voice is like girls voice! Besides that, they also dance really well which make me also start to learn how they dance through their song’s PV.
I can say that W-inds. songs are well fitted into my high school music taste, as well as life style. The songs, the shirts they wear, the dance move.. everything just cool. Actually one funny thing about them is when first debut, three of them was almost same height. But after that, the lead singer Keita suddenly grew so tall, almost half a head taller than the other two member. So I can see their pictures, Keita’s posing was adjusted in order not to look too tall.
End note
When writing this, I feel so nostalgic! What a nice memory of my early J-pop era. Although now I’m not like them as much as before, but never a doubt SPEED, Ayumi and W-inds. is my J-pop Heroes! About the radio show I mentioned earlier, is called “Simon san no Rakuen” of FM98.8. I rely on this show a lot when the Internet is not that convenient as today. So big thanks to the host too. The show is still going until today and I will seldom tune in too.
I wrote too much. And I want to ask fellow J-pop fans, who is your J-pop heroes?
It’s been a while again, Hirano Aya is back with the latest sets of pictures! I really love these sets of pictures because she looks cute and pretty as always. Just find the link below and grab the download! 😀
Hirano Aya is a popular seiyuu (voice actress) in Japan, many popular anime characters was getting voice alive by her for example Haruhi Suzumiya from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Konata Izumi of Lucky Star and many more! Although I’m not into anime world, but I get to know her because of her popularity and influence from friends.
Besides voice acting, Hirano Aya was also an artist and release some singles and albums under her name and anime character name. Besides, she also released some photobooks too. Well, I spotted one of them at a local book store in Kuala Lumpur and almost bought it.
Ok, enough with the story, below is the download link. Enjoy!
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