My concept was simple but I thought was solid: There were 2 landmark spots and I thought that they should work to support one another.  My concept was to make icons out of the Philippine flag.  The result was the 3 stars of the flag will be on the smaller landmark, while the Sun will occupy the bigger one.  I had submitted an elaborate essay on the materials, the idea, even the interaction of the landmark.Time passed and the promised date to announce the finalists have passed.  I thought, I didn’t get in the top 10 which is why they didn’t contact me.  Below is the model I submitted.  I used SketchUp to draw the model.
 

A month after the deadline, I got an email saying I was part of the top 10, but only on the bigger landmark part.  I guess this was the start of the breaking of my concept.  Alone, one landmark might look weak.  Still, I was happy to get in the top 10.  Now all I had to do was to come up with a scale model in 2 weeks! It was an exciting time, I worked with my uncle who is also an architect, he referred my to a scale model maker.  They said it would be hard to do, but it is possible.  Below was the result:

I was very happy with it.  I could already see its 8 storey granduer glowing from a distance as people drive to the airport.  I told myself, this is what great artists, designers, architects do.  This will immortalize my name.  I shall build my design empire with this iconic work.  I shall be the next great national artist.I was sure that I would win.  Family, friends and colleagues were also giving me confidence that I would.  But alas, I did not. Today, an awarding ceremony will be held in the airport.  I was invited, but I won’t attend, not because I am bitter but because I have to go back to little bites of work.   So it goes, I lose but live to fight another day.  I am still looking for that day… someday.

Has this ever happened to you? While driving down a busy highway at about 20km/hr, listening to your favorite radio station, you hear radio ads here and there. But this one radio ad you notice in particular because by some coincidence you pass by a big billboard showing the same advertisement. So the radio ad actually feels more like a TV ad: visual + aural.

Now this led me to think that, while a lot of technology companies are trying to get ads on your phone, internet, youtube, etc, someone should do something along this line. I think it is an unobtrusive way of delivering your ads. Although arguably the audience is quite small compared to the other media, I believe it is more effective.

But one thing that might hinder this is the technology. I imagine a small intelligent radio device installed in your cars and another one installed in the billboards. The two devices detect one another and when the car device knows that the radio is playing an ad, it will insert the right one based on the proximity of the car to the billboard. Below is a small illustration of what I mean.

There might be some technologies out there that is actually doing this such as satellite radio. And I’m not an expert in this area. But I think, specially in manila, this is an untapped market… anyone want to fund this idea of mine? :D

I’m one who usually keeps my desktop clean. Only the necessary files stay on the desktop. But there are times that I am too busy to really mind what’s there. I leave screenshots and downloads there.. leaving it too cluttered sometimes. Aside from the desktop, my dock is cluttered with applications. Most of which I really use.

But last night, I wanted to focus on writing code. The “dirt” on my desktop (image on the left) and the occasional IM message, plus the ring of email arriving every minute kept distracting me. I remembered a simple app I tried earlier this week. It’s called WriteRoom. Here is what their website says:

Walk into WriteRoom, and watch your distractions fade away. Now it’s just you and your text. WriteRoom is a place where your mind clears and your work gets done. When your writing is complete, exit WriteRoom and re-enter the busy world with your work in hand.

Excellent. That made me think of creating a new login, yes a fresh “personality.” No apps, no files on the desktop, just the necessary programs I need to code (image on the right). Even the dock is hidden. I realize that apple is trying to solve this problem in their next OS release called Leopard. They will be adding the Spaces functionality and a new “Downloads” folder on the desktop. But since they haven’t released it yet, my solution will do. Now, only if they could make a Processing IDE like WriteRoom.

Here are the 3 covers of time magazine as seen in the US, Europe, and Asia. I quickly browsed through our version and saw it wasn’t far from the spreads posted in Pentagram’s entries. I’ll have to get a copy to look at it more closely.

But somewhere along the way I’ve come to accept that it is better to have my ideas journaled than just being kept in a notebook somewhere. Then I thought hey what about: “open source idea generation” where people can contribute to my ideas and create something worthwhile.

Originally, I wanted it to be a tagline to this blog.. but then I realized that there is an organization already doing this. It’s called Creative Commons and its all about sharing creative ideas like it was open-source software. So I licenesed the contents of this site under the “Attribute and Share Alike 2.5” Here is what it means:

You are free:
to Share — to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
to Remix — to make derivative works

Under the following conditions:
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

This one reminded me of Levin and Reas’ old work Dakadaka