I finished The Umbrella Academy in one sitting, versus Blackest Night which I just got in the middle of. Maybe because I was looking for a different kind of story that didn’t involve typical superheroes. The Umbrella Academy is about 7 “heroes” with extraordinary powers who were adopted by one “father.” They save the world from Apocalypse. Although the story seems typical, it actually sounds like the tv series “Heroes”, it is told in a fresh way. The 7 heroes each have their own history and challenges. I really like how the story is paced. The writer, Gerard Way, is also the front man of the band “My Chemical Romance.” Which probably why the rhythm is very deliberate… almost like a song. By the end of one chapter, I kept longing for more. Possibly also similar to the pace of TV series. The art too is unique. Gabriel Ba is a Brazilian who does comic book illustration for realist series rather than superhero comics. The art adds more to the words, things that were just implied, were spelled out in the art, which in turn completed the story.

Although the series was published in 2007 and this review is 2 years late, I still think it was worth every penny.

But this wasn’t the one that got me hooked. If you go in deeper and look at the other ways they present information, you’ll find 2 other views: using your camera or using your mic. With the camera view, you can flash colors into your camera and the website reacts by showing you the same color on screen with the news inside it. Or with the audio input, you speak into the mic and it blasts out the boxes as your audio gets louder. Excellent! “I gots to hav them killa flash skillz.”

Instead of simply putting a generic name like “acetaminophen”, it says “help, I have a headache.” Or instead of “ibuprofen”, “help, I have an aching body.” More packaging images can be found in this blog lovelypackage.com and at coolhunting.com

I looked at their website and found that they are really approaching the world of medicine with a quirky point of view. For example, I played around with the images in their website to make it all the same color. Once that was complete, the site opened a new tab to Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation, hilarious.

The general tone of their site is really loose and casual, At one of their product pages, there is a link that says – our sincerest apologies, clicking on it popped up a new window with the following text:

“Dear sneeze fetishist,
Sorry. Help remedies does not intend to deprive anyone of the things that they love in life. In order to counterbalance the impact of “help I have allergies,” help remedies hereby provides www.helpihaveasneezingfetish.com. We hope this will make up for some of the sadness we have caused you.”

lights on from thesystemis on Vimeo.

“Lights On” audio visual performance by ‘thesystemis’ created for the Ars Electronica museum in Linz, Austria

Watch it… so hypnotic… how I wish I could make something at this scale… This is sorta what I tried to do with my MMDA entry. Makes me cry when I think of the possibilities.. and how the judges missed the chance!

Pretty awesome view of the future according to microsoft.  I’d love to be a part of the team that will make that real.

Pattie Maes of MIT Media Lab Fluid interfaces presented a demo of their Sixth Sense project at TED recently.  The project is about bringing more information about anything at your fingertips, literary.  

‘SixthSense’ is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

Pranav Mistry, who is spearheding this project, is shown during the demo with a camera/projector necklace which captures images that your fingers point to then projects more information about that image.  For example, when you are at a grocery, while deciding which product to buy, you hold up that detergent then your necklace gets information from the web and projects it into the box.  Now you know if the detergent is really as environment friendly as they say it is.  Although it is slightly clunky (you wouldn’t catch me wearing colored rings at the ends of my fingetips) the concept is very solid and very likely to succeed.  I hope to see this in the market in a couple of years.

Cue sound 
http://www.moviemusic.com/audio/gattaca_1.mp3

I spent about 2 hours this late evening/early morning looking at CSS and HTML code, tweaking colors and fine tuning little elements that make the page.  After 2 hours and countless debugging, I gave up.  I looked at what I had finished and just saw something so plain that I can’t believe I spent so much time in it.  I just wasted time and effort to come up with a so-so design.  Back to the drawing board… but at this late a stage, where do I get inspiration?

I rummage through my files, looking for that spark.  I stumble upon the opening credits for the movie GATTACA.  This hits the spot.  Aside from being one of the more well made visual motion graphics out there, it reminds me of the movie.  The sound is so haunting and moving that it brings me back to the first time I saw it.  I am inspired.  GATTACA is a move about the triumph of the human spirit.  Even when all odds are against you, with passion you succeed.  It touches me.  I get inspired… but not to go back and code.  But to think about bigger things, things that I am passionate about.

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.

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