Author Archive

Cute packaging: Tohato Caramel Corn

. Art & Design, Inspiration, Japan

cute packaging: Tohato Caramel Corn

Last tuesday after work, I head to one shopping center to look around for magazine and other stuff. Then when I walk pass Jusco supermarket, there held a small exhibition called “2007 Japan Autumn food festival” and I decided to take a look. Well, mostly were food packagings from some well known food maker like Meiji Seika, Lotte, Morinaga and much more. Then, I met this cute packaging, it’s Tohato’s Caramel Corn.

I already knew this packaging from MILK magazine as well as this website which I had covered it before during this “Creative packaging inspiration ~modern & vintage~“. But it’s my first time to see it in real life. The packaging is very cute and attractive! It has many variations of designs for different kinds of flavor. All of them will featured a character with cute expression, together with the food images either inside the character’s mouth or hanging somewhere in the packaging.

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Are your plastic bottles safe to use?

. General

Are your plastic bottle save to use?

Many people particular Asian countries like Malaysia uses plastic bottles as water container for drinking. Well, that’s including me when I was a student. I used bottles like mineral water bottle or soft drink bottles, because it is cheap and convenient. But did you know that those bottles could harm your health?

If you take a look under the plastic bottles, there will have a small triangle sign with numbers and characters shown in the picture below. That is SPI resin identification coding system which was developed by the NA Society of the Plastics Industry in 1988. Those numbers are to separate the different kinds of plastics when process for recycling.

But did you know that those codes can be used to identify a plastic that whether is save to use as water container or vice versa?

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Turn off your computer for a better tomorrow!

. General

Turn off your computer for a better tomorrow!

Admit it. Yes, global warming is the biggest and most discussed issue in the world this year, and it’s getting worst day to day. I can feel it, the temperature in Kuala Lumpur is getting hotter and hotter. Everyone should should not take it easy on global warming because, it is happening and everyone should play their own role to save the country and world.

For groups of people who works with desktop or laptops, there is a simple way to stop the global warming from getting worse, and that is to POWER DOWN your device when it is not in use or you are away for lunch for example. You can do this by turning off the monitor power or simply let your laptop in sleep mode. By this, you save 200 lbs of Carbon Dioxide, according to Stop Global Warming Organization.

Actually this is not just applied to computers, you can do this with other electrical appliances like televisions, radios etc. Turn them off when not in use. By this, you can also save your money from paying bigger sums of bills as well as saving the world. Two huge benefits in one action, why not doing this?

If you think this is not enough, you can check this Top 50 things to do to stop Global Warming ,Take Action!, and Easy ways to live greener to see what other steps to do to stop Global Warming.

This article is in conjunction with Blog Action Day campaign, hopefully is not a little too late to post this!

Create 3D extruded text in simple steps

. Art & Design, Tutorial

Create 3D extruded text in Illustrator

Actually I found this 3D extruded text effects on a trendy magazine, it looks interesting so I open the Adobe Illustrator CS2 to try it out. I found out that it’s simple to achieve this effect. You can use this technique to spruce up your logo designs so they really pop on your business cards and business promotional items etc. Because this involved 3D extrude effect, so you have to have at least version CS of Illustrator in order to proceed.

At first, type out the text with desired font. In here, I’m using rounded text. Then hit Ctrl+Shift+O to create the outline of the text.

Type out the text

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9 Japanese designers’ flash portfolio that you should see

. Inspiration, Japan, Web Design

Japan are one creative country with diverse culture and design movement. Some are going for cute, some are experimentalist and some are towards form and function. Here I present you 9 Japanese designers’ portfolio site which all are built by using flash that everyone should take a look and be inspired.

Masaki Hoshino – hybridworks.jp

A portfolio of a graphic designer Masaki Hoshino. He is very good in designing icons, wallpapers and pixel art. His work is fine and the detail is amazing. The layout is functional and note that you can switch the layout style too, which is very cool!

Masaki Hoshino - hybridworks.jp

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How to spot a Johnny’s Jimusho members?

. Japan

Johnny's members disguised!

Johnny’s Jimusho is a factory of talented good looking boys, and their influence in Japan are huge. There are many popular artists and groups produced in Johnny’s Jimusho crossing music, dramas, movies and performances. Their names featured in many websites but have you ever wonder why all the pictures of Johnny’s Entertainment are altered or replaced by other pictures?

It’s a great honor if a boy successfully entered the Johnny’s Jimusho. But Johnny’s is a company that have strict rules in portrait rights. Johnny’s members portrait images is strictly prohibited in the official websites of dramas, movies or magazines which they participated. Normally their portrait will be replaced by an object or by shadow or an altered portrait image.

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Idol 01: Sawajiri Erika

. Japan

Idol 01: Sawajiri Erika

I found that idol posts get quite a lot of clicks so I decided to make this Idol series. Every in a while, one Japanese Idol will be featured here, with some details and personal feeling on her, as well as her lovely pictures to share. And for the very first edition, Sawajiri Erika is in the spotlight!

Some of you guys might already knew, Erika created some bad impression with her “Erika-sama” attitude during the Close Note movie premiere. She was just out of situation and showing her bad mood clearly. And this created a huge reactions on the Japanese media, because this is something that they don’t want to see. Finally, she apologized but the bad impression on her can’t be forgotten in short time. You can read more about this in JapanSugoi post entry.

Well, everyone has bad mood sometime. But, for a popular young actress like Sawajiri Erika, this is very unprofessional. But I do hope that after this incident, she will learn the lesson and be more friendly next time! We want to see the good image like what she showed in “1 litre of tears” drama.

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Dohzi-T – ONE LOVE feat. Shota Shimizu

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Dohzi-T - ONE LOVE feat. Shota Shimizu

Actually I’m not really into Japan Hip Hop music, but recently I heard this song and think that it is nice to share with you all. The song called “ONE LOVE feat. Shota Shimizu (清水翔太)” by Dohzi-T (童子-T). Dohzi-T was born in May 13, 1969 and to my surprise, he also participated in Ayumi Hamasaki’s pre-debut single “Nothing From Nothing“!

This song was released as single in July 2007, but I heard this song in his album “ONE MIC” which released not long ago. The album is worth a listen and I think ONE LOVE is the best in the album. The lyric was presented in rap by Dohzi-T and Shota Shimizu who has great R&B voice sings the chorus. It has a nice piano intro that brings out the love feel. The song is more on soft type of hip hop.

Read on to listen to the song as well as kanji and romaji lyrics! This song’s lyric is very hard to get, I only found it on Yahoo!‘s page and it is embedded in flash player which the lyric can’t be copied. So, I had to manually type it. Thanks Yahoo!, that’s very kind of you. And for the first time, this song is available for download.

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Breast cancer awareness mouse pad

. Nice Ads

Breast cancer awareness mouse pad

This post is in conjunction with the Pink For October Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign. According to Wikipedia, breast cancer is the 5th most common cause of cancer death in the world. In 2005, breast cancer caused 502,000 deaths internationally and among women worldwide, breast cancer is the most common cancer and the most common cause of cancer death. This shows how serious breast cancer is.

Breast cancer happens when the breast cells grow uncontrolled, and breast cancer is not a women thing, because it could happen men too. So how to prevent it? Answer is pretty clear showed by the mouse pad above: by doing breast self-exams regularly.

For me, prevention is the best medicine. Get your lifestyle healthy, stop smoking, do exercise, keep yourself in shape and do self check up regularly like how frequently you hold the mouse (similar concept). Studies show that regular breast self-exams, combined with an annual exam by a doctor, improves the chances of detecting cancer early.

Click here to get the full detail and bigger view of the mouse pad. I think this is quite effective to aware people on breast cancer by going out of the regular TV and print media.

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