Inspiration

Logo inspiration sites you should’t miss

Everything needs identity. For human, we have name as our basic identity. In medieval era, heraldry was used as identity, which now is still visible in modern world. For companies, brands, society etc, they need a logo as identification. Logo is important because it represents the company to the world. So logo has to be eye catchy, unique yet easy to remember.

Designing logo can be fun, but actually it can be a painful process too. I can struggled easily during the logo design development. You need to do some research, or look into other logos to get design inspiration. So here I compiled some sites that will help you to get inspiration.

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Crop Circles goes 3D?

Recently I read the newspapers about a new crop circles appeared at Wiltshire, UK. Report said that this circles was unique because it has 3D elements in it. Because the pics at newspapers does not clearly shown how 3D it was, so I go to Internet to check and “wow”! It was really 3D! It depicts a corridor-like graphic, and the vanishing point is at the center of the circle. More angles here.

I had been fascinated about crop circles since small. It was something like mystery mix with inspiration, mind-boggling creation. The mysteries of crop circles was still remained unsolved, although I watch several documentary about crop circles are actually made by human. But, from the old circles, now actually some of them is very huge and mathematically precised superb beauty circles! I wonder human actually can do that? Some more is have to do it overnight (prevent being catched)? Who knows.

Below are some collections of crop circles. If you ask me which I like the most? Yes. It’s the first one below: the great Milk Hill crop circle.

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Trash the Wedding Gown!

Let me ask you, what normally a brides do with her wedding gown after wedding ceremony? Keep it nicely in a box or as treasure that pass from generation to generation? Well let me tell you the latest trend: TRASH IT. This trend was started by a Las Vegas photographer John Michael Cooper, and then it started to get more and more popular.

He was freaking bored with the cliche wedding photography, so he started to convince his clients to get wild and extraordinary. According to him, the fashion photography often put “pretty people into ugly scene”, so he wants to apply that into wedding photography too.

There is even a website dedicated to it: TrashtheDress.com, created by Mark Eric to highlight his dress trashing experience & became a place for other photographers to share their trashing too. Here is the manifesto of the site:

Go ahead, you know you want to. Trash it. Get it dirty. Get it wet. Roll around in the mud. Drench it in the ocean. Totally trash it.

Why? … Why not? You’ve made a commitment to your husband. He’s your one and only true love, right? Then you’ll never need the dress again. And no, your daughter won’t wear it in 20-30 years. So you have two choices:

1) Suffocate it in plastic and throw it in a closet
2) Show your husband how committed you are by trashing the dress, and get some great fun pictures while you do it!

According to Associated Content, Trash the Dress phenomenon has been touted as a way for women to celebrate their wedding without becoming obsessed by it. For some, the images are a cathartic release of wedding-related stress. Maybe they want to keep their memory through photography only, the wedding gown symbolizes their past and has no meaning to them anymore.

Although it gets a lot of criticism, but it actually attracted the alternative crowd that is seeking for individuality expression. For me, I think the trash the dress phenomenon is creative and make sense. Why make sense? Wedding gown is a dress that you wore once in lifetime, so what for keeping it and it actually lose its functionality after the wedding ceremony.

So, instead of keeping, why not seeking out a way to “get rid” of it by doing something creative, like what the manifesto mentioned above? I just run through those photography showcase, and it actually not bad and more meaningful, like “Oh yeah, by this photography, I’m become mind-free and cherish the rest of my life with my love one”.

I absolutely support this. But not sure in Malaysia will have this trend or not. More pictures below, credits to NYTimes and trashthedress.com.

25 Websites We/I Can’t Live Without

Today I came across this link about 25 Sites We Can’t Live Without, presented by TIME. Well, I actually quite curious what website will be in the list so I go and read it. Read it if you are curious too. Well actually there is some sites in that list is I really can’t live without. So, I also want to make a list of websites that I rely the most and visit almost everyday. There you go.

Websites I Can’t Live Without.

Daily Visit / Web Application
1. Lowyat.net – I can’t live without it. Joined this forum and visit this site almost everyday.
2. Del.icio.us – Discover nice sites and useful articles through here.
3. Wikipedia – One stop knowledge center.
4. Last.fm – To check my music taste-o-meter and various charts.
5. Google – Probably the website that I visit and rely the most.
6. Gmail – The email client that I trust.
7. Photobucket – Use this website to upload my pictures.

Graphic, Design and Images
8. DeviantArt – My daily design inspiration.
9. Stock Exchange – Think of royalty free images, think Stock Exchange.
10. Flickr – Another great site to search for photo inspiration.
11. SmashingMagazine – Inspiration, resources etc, great info on web design is here.
12. TheBestDesigns – Gallery of great websites
13. CSSBeauty – There is so much CSS sites, but I rely this the most.

Japan!
14. Jpopsuki – A great site to get latest J-pop goodies.
15. myTVBT – Get latest J-dramas from here! Chinese Sub!
16. Imagegarden – Great site for J-Idol pictures.
17. Tokyograph – Japan Entertainment news in english.

Games
18. NFSunlimited – I’m NFS fan. So I go to this site regularly to get latest buzz of NFS.
19. PCGameWorld – Sites that I visit to get games related stuffs.

Languages
19. Wordlingo Translator – Need this site to translate some foreign languages.
20. Kanji Converter – Need this site to convert kanji to romaji.
21. Dictionary.com – Rely this website more than dictionary now!

NBA
22. Yahoo NBA – Get the latest NBA news, match results here.

Site Management
23. Feedburner – Obviously, I have to check how is my site going.
24. WordPress – & WordPress related websites like themes and plugins library.
25. Jay-han.com – Last and not least, my own precious personal websites.

Ok lah, here is the lists of websites that plays important role in my daily surfing activity. I do visit a lot of other website and RSS it. Probably I will post them in the future. Thanks! 😀

My favorite Art & Brand Collaborations

Since the beginning of millennium, the word collaboration is very popular in the industry, particularly collaborations between artists and popular brands. Many big brands start to incorporating arts into their products, normally will come out very surprising outstanding outcomes. Actually these collaboration is a win-win situation, because artists can get more exposure while big brands can reach further more audiences. Below are some collaborations that I would like to share.

Shu by Ai

In constant pursuit of combining art with beauty, Shu Uemura has collaborated with emerging talent Ai Yamaguchi to produce this limited edition collection. Her traditional-yet-modern edge complements Shu Uemura products. The first collaboration is done in 2004 and due to its popularity, they collaborated again next year. Her illustration makes the products more friendly and soothing.

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Where to get free patterns?

Because of Web 2.0 trend, patterns is kinda gaining back its popularity. But indeed, patterns will really enhance the beauty of a website. Besides to used as web design, patterns also can use as desktop wallpapers! I’m not saying those Windows ugly wallpaper patterns, but here, I compiled a list of 4 websites that provides free and nice patterns.

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15 Graffiti Style Logo

I bought this book back in few years ago. The book is Street Brand Bible vol. 4 2004 version. Inside there listed out some street brands from Japan and International. It is a very sourceful books if you want to get to know those brands. I found out some really nice graffiti style logos that I want to share with you guys, plus with some other popular brands that not included in this book. The logos I selected is more to graffiti scribbling, tagging style originated by Taki183. Hope you guys like it! 😀

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Where to get quality free vectors?

Vectors are cool. Unlike bitmap, vectors are lightweight and won’t losing its quality even you enlarge it or shrink it. Here I compiled a list of websites where you can get free, open source vectors for collection! Yoroshiku!

VectorVault free downloads

Everyweek, Vector Vault will have new free vectors available for download. Join their mailing list to get notified!

Go Media’s Arsenal sample vector

Go Media has awesome vector packs. They give out sample for free testing too.

Vecteezy

A great compilation site of free vectors

Briar Press Cuts

An extensive vector collection site. More on flourish ornaments.

Extras

Besides that, TutorialBlog here has created a great list of free vector resources, be sure to check out some awesome freebies there! Other honorable mentioned great vector sites are DeviantArt and BittBox. Thanks 😀