Posts Tagged ‘art’

Dear friends,

Have I ever told you ? That once upon a time, long time before I was banker, and sometimes in between my role as a chef, I was a graphic designer ? Well, not the best one out there but certainly a decent one. At the very least,  it paid for my living cost for quite sometime.

Anyhow, couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon this website called fudgegraphics, and I thought, wow this blog is pretty ! And the best thing of all, the guy by the name Franz Jeitz design it himself. And then I thought, why don’t I redesign my own blog me self ? Well, I know it’s not going to be easy, but it’s worth trying.

And so I started the process by designed the blog starting by creating my own brand. Now quite frankly, it’s not that difficult, because already have something in my mind, I didn’t go through the usual process of logo design that I used to went through for my customer. Oh well, may be I did it, but in a very subconscious way.

The name simplenotch, comes from idea that once upon a time in your life, you stumbled upon incident that changes your life, or how you lived your life ? My blog exactly represent several  things that changed after these “incidents” (the long story will follow sometimes). This incidents represented as a notch, a mark that tainted your life hopefully in a good way. This notch, is more then just a mark, it’s also a stepping place for us to climb up the otherwise step and slippery wall of life.

So what ever thing that comes it should a have a notch, a chip on it, triangular empty space where it looked that someone has just whacked it with axe or something like that. I came out with various media where I could put the notch in (as you can see), before I finally set with a simple[n]otch. It was derived for [s]implenotch, but after a consult with my dear friend Mira of Shopaholic (who thought that the notched squared is to corporeity), we agreed that it make a lot more sense to put the [ ] in the [n] instead.

The evolution of design

I considered several typeface, including the almighty Helvetica. But considering that not many all pc’s have Helvetica in it, and not many people can differentiate the difference between Helvetica and Arial anyway, and even those Helvetica lover and Arial hater are still using Arial as a content typeface, I settled with Arial instead. As for the color ? Well, I simply love blue, but to put it straight, I intend the color to change over time, adjusting to the mood and seasons we are in.

The final logo, and its variation

Once the logo ready and I’m happy and satisfied with, designing the blog was not an issue. I used Artisteer to generate the majority of back script for the WP blog, but toning and customizing each design components quite manually me self. Including adding some script in the header and footer.

This is my first own designed WP template, so it’s a working progress. And yes, I’m pretty nervous when I uploaded to server. But hey, it turned out to be just fine !!! Sure, I did some tweak again here and there, and will continuously do so. So expect some changed in time to come.

So, how do you like my new brand and blog design ?

And so its on.

As I’ve mentioned during my first visit to Mario Minardi, I  have intended to commission my first bespoke shoes at Mario Minardi. So after a week of delay get caught up in the busy office, I managed to get an appointment for measurement  yesterday.

The process was swift, after ushered to Handiman’s room, he laid down two piece of A4 size paper. He asked me to put my right food first on top of a sheet. Then he draw my foot shape with thin marker, follows every side of contour. Next, Marco pulls out a measurement tape, and he measured three things, the ball and instep circumference, and finally, the foot length. These were applied for both foot.

My foot print, notice that the right foot is slightly larger then the left ?

As it turned out to be, my right foot is slightly larger then my left foot. They explained, that most if not all people will always have different size of foot between the right and the left, this is due to different size of foot muscle. The right handed men, like me, will naturally have larger right foot, and vice versa.

And so I asked, so when you put you shoes on the store, will they actually have different size ? “Of course not,” he added, “the shoes that you find at the store will have similar size between left, or right.” But yet, oddly enough when we buy the shoes off the rack we fill that both side are just perfect fit. Thinking about it, I guess its pretty much self suggestion of convincing our self that the the shoes are good fit.

Now to be completely honest, and fair to all master shoe makers in the world, the shoes that Mario Minardi will commissioned for me, is not of bespoke breeding. Bespoke, required individual last to be made based on the customers food, this last will then be used as a template to ensure that the shoes skin and surface will perfectly draped by foot. Bespoke will also means that all process of the shoe manufacturing will be worked by hands. My shoes to be, will go slightly different way, instead of building a new last for me, Mario Minardi will try to find a last that closest to my measurement and use this last as template before making the necessary adjustment. Hence we agreed the correct term for that should be made to measure.

John Lobb Oxfords (courtesy of www.johnlobb.com)

Surely, by now you are curious on what shoes that I intend to make. In my words, its nothing fancy nor difficult, it’s a simple black capped to oxford, in calfskin. With the incoming holiday season, I might have to wait a little longer than I would have expected, but 2 weeks is nothing compared to months of time required for bespoke. Still, I can’t wait to get it done and ready.

By the way, this article will be the first of  the My First Bespoke Made to Order Shoes series. Wait for the update soon !

One of my bad (or good, depends on your perspective) habit, is to give random kiss, unplanned surprised kiss on my girl friend’s hand, especially her palm and upper fingers.

So one day, when she sat next to me, in my car, driving for our usual weekend lunch, I swiftly hold her hand and bring them to my lips for quick endearing light kiss that I used to gave. What I saw that day, makes me scream a little and spontaneously yelled, ” Babe…what the hell is happening on your finger ?”

The reason for that untimely jolt was her usual porcelain clean nails were turning into mischievous face of little grinning frog (I’m not even 100% sure that there were frogs).

Little smiling frogs, or birds, or penguin on my girl's fingers. Heck, I'm not even sure.

Now, I could understand if she paint her nail to some other monotone colors that might suit her feeling or preference of the day. Red if you feeling on fire, blue if you feeling creative, or yellow if you want to splash some cheers and fun to others. But I’m not sure what kind of emotion that is represented by mischievously grinning frogs.

Its sure make her fingers funnier, but I’m thoroughly uncertain on what these little frogs contributed on adding value to her beauty or cuteness.

Girls out there…help me to understand.

The Boat that Rocked Poster

That does it, it’s official, I love British movie more that I love American, French or even Indonesian (excepting the Naga Bonar which I still think is one of the best masterpiece ever !!! ).

The latest establishment is of course The Boat that Rocked, which is not only uproariously fun and hilarious, but also heart warming and crowd pleaser in a real sense.

Written and directed by Richard Curtis, a name you’ve probably heard from a like such as Mr. Bean’s Holiday and Love Actually, the movie which is loosely based on the real Radio Caroline, tells a story of a Radio Rocks, a pirate radio that transmit from an old merchant vessel off the northern coast of the United Kingdom during the age of rock and roll.

The story started as Young Carl (Tom Sturridge) who was sent by his mother to stay with his Godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy) to straighten up after he got himself expelled from his school for smoking, something that Quentin not surprisingly claimed as a spectacular mistake.

Soon on board the ship, Young Carl get acquainted with the rest of the ship crew, who are no other than the Dj’s and operators who run the Radio Rock 24 hour a day, non stop. Characters who were played by a like such as Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Darby, Nick Frost, Chris O’Dowd and many more, promised nothing less than excellent acting play as well as smart yet funny dialogue, complete with a mixed British  accent.

It was the age of the hippies, hence Young Carl adventure on board the ship will ultimately evolve around booze, drug and sex, especially sex. But make no mistake, if you think this is just another happy go lucky movie, who presents stupidity, like most Hollywood comedies do, as it main attraction you are catastrophically wrong.

This movie is not for the faint hearted. There are plenty of heart break moments, emotional scenes and some element of surprise here and there, that were embedded as a part of the story. There were the antagonists too, suitably played by Kenneth Branagh and Jack Davenport who posed as a government suits, aimed to close down the Radio Rock.

What complete this movie more than anything else (i.e. pretty girls, festive environment and nudity) is of course an excellent sound tracks from the names of the decades such as Beach Boys, Smokey Robinson, Skeeter Davies and many others. What makes them special, is that the music are more than just running at the back, but instead complement the story and helps incite the emotion, relating the scene with our own experience (which only happens only if you are either coming exactly from that decade, or well verse with the rock n roll music).

All in all The Boat that Rocked will make an excellent weekend movie, one that you can watch many times over.  The story line is light, yet meaningful, well balanced by smart dialog, catch quotes and convincing play from its casts. Now, I’m not so much inclined to quantify my judgment by passing score, but if I must, I will gladly gives this movie 8.5 out of 10. And yes, its that good.

My photography instructor, as old man in his mid fifty once said to his class, “Always and only put your best picture in your portfolio.”

 This was some ten years back, at the age of manual photography, in which what he meant with portfolio is a large book of your best taken picture bounded and displayed protected with plastic  sheet.

 Today, such practice is indeed very rare. And in the age of facebook and twitter where people can  easily and conveniently log into rgeir account and upload dozens if not hundreds of picture to the virtual portfolio book, and literally gave to friends, family and even in many case, total strangers, access to this wealth of art collection.

 But as the ease improve and more and more people are drawn to this new hobby of photography, it’s noticeable that we’ve have become looser in terms of guarding the quality – not just in terms of the picture self- but also in showing it to the people showcase perspective.

 It has been more often that not, as I witnessed, collection of pictures, some goof, some very good and some are plain rubbish, grouped together. And while this practice is understandable, it would be much much more pleasant experience, for anyone, and I said anyone, who observed the album, if only to looked at the best taken pictures that have been carefully selected, by the photographer.

 This bring the discussion back to the first point mentioned early, that the reason why my elderly instructor so stringently recommend such discipline is not just to ensure that the readers perceived you as a versatile photographer, but also to ensure that anyone that has the opportunity to look at the portfolio book, will look at the eye spoiling experience instead of some amateur scratch book.

 More importantly perhaps, the well sorted portfolio will send the message that you want ti be received by the audience, whatever the messages are. And these are something that people tend to forget,

 As for me, ever since I heard the advice I’ve been a constant if not fanatics in its implementation. As in Indonesian proverbs “Nila setetes rusak susu sebelanga” don’t let a small drop of bad things ruin a pile of good stuffs.