When comes to free fonts resources, dafont normally will be the first sites that comes to mind becasue of it’s great font library and easy to use interface. However, there are also other alternative font resources sites that showcases top quality free fonts in the world too, they are Font Squirrel and Font^ex.

Both sites tend to make the quality free font searching easier and present in clean and simple way. According the Font Squirrel “Free fonts have met their match. We know how hard it is to find quality freeware that is licensed for commercial work. We’ve done the hard work, hand-selecting these typefaces and presenting them in an easy-to-use format.” Indeed Font Squirrel site is clean and easy to use. The fonts are listed in a list format and categorized in style. It also previews the font and its family too.

While on the other hand Fontex spent plenty of hours to compile this list of hand-picked fonts for you. This is an amazing resource for everyone who would like to be presented with amazing free fonts to Download. Fonts are categorized in alphabetical order as well as font styles. This site also powered by javascript to enhance the site navigation. One thing I like about Fontex is that it also explains about the font styles and displays font information. Very educational and informative.

More fonts resources

If above is not enough, below is a list of articles that related to free fonts which compiled by the site author:

• 40 Fresh Free Fonts To Enhance Your Designs
• 40 Free High Quality Hand-drawn Fonts
• 30 high-quality free fonts for great designs
• 75+ Excellent Free Fonts For Professional Design

I had been watching Japanese dramas for a while and definitely I won’t miss out the current season dramas. The current season is Spring season and it actually going to enter the 2nd half of the season. I watched a couple of shows and would like to share which drama I quite enjoy watching it.

First is Shiroi Haru. The story involves around Haruo, a former yakuza member who is just released from prison after completing his sentence. With nine years worth of prison gratuities in hand, he stops at a restaurant to enjoy a good meal, but all of his money ends up being stolen. With nothing left, he spends the night at a net cafe, and he manages to look up his old friend from his yakuza days.

When Haruo visits the next day, he learns that his old girlfriend Mariko was living with another man, but later died of illness. Haruo, who had committed murder 9 years earlier to earn the money for Mariko’s medical treatment, is shocked and angered. He decides to track down that other man, who runs a bakery with his wife and daughter Sachi. Haruo later runs into Sachi at the park, but he has yet to find out the truth about her.

Shiroi Haru is mainly acted by Abe Hiroshi as Haruo and Sachi by Ohashi Nozomi who is also sings the theme song of Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea. Abe Hiroshi has great acting in this drama.

Second is BOSS. This series revolves around a group of peculiar detectives in a new division created to fight against an increase in atrocious crimes. Osawa Eriko is a beautiful career woman who has just returned from training in the U.S. and is appointed as the “boss” of this division. But despite her intelligence and capabilities, she can never understand a man’s heart, so she remains unable to find a husband.

In fact, her assignment in the U.S. was really a demotion after she ruined her career track over a man. So why was she chosen as the boss of the new division? Even though the detectives are talented, they all have some kind of issue or flaw, and they are considered to be the “problem children” of the police force. In the end, the division’s true purpose is just to isolate these problematic detectives.

BOSS is quite a tense drama and pretty enjoyable to watch. Toda Erika is pretty in there.

The third one is SMILE, acted by ARASHI’s Matsumoto Jun and Yui Aragaki. This drama talks about a guy call Hayakawa Vito has a Filipino father and a Japanese mother, but he was born and raised in Japan and has never visited the Philippines. The ever-smiling Vito works at Machimura Foods during the day, and at night, he works a part-time job trying to make his dreams come true. One day during an incident at a bookstore, he meets a girl named Mishima Hana, who lost her ability to speak due to an accident. But even though she can’t speak, Vito is drawn to her beautiful smile. However, Vito becomes wrongly suspected by the police for a crime, and after meeting the lawyer Kazuma, the issue begins to grow… Together, Vito, Hana, and Kazuma will go through challenging times and have to overcome many obstacles.

SMILE is quite a touching and courage drama because the main character has a dream but he has a lot of obstacles and bad stuff to overcome, but he never give up. Because of all of this experience, his smile are really nice. So do Yui Aragaki’s :D.

Above are the recommended dramas that I think are pretty good. Besides that, I also watch The Quiz Show, Konkatsu! and Godhand Teru, they aren’t bad too. What this season’s drama you recommend too which is not included here?

Unconventional drawing materials sometimes also can be a useful drawing tool, for example the correction rollers. And in this ad embedded above, famous UK graphic designer Michael C. Place demonstrates us that correction rollers can create stunning piece of artwork too. It’s pretty amazing on his skill on controlling the rollers navigating the paths without making any errors. Brilliant!

Credits: IDN Vol. 15 Num. 6

When I was still in college studying Graphic Design, I met a lot of lecturers and guest teachers that taught me the problem solving skills and design theories, which are very useful and guided me to create a better design. Many thanks to them. There is one tip that have the most impact on me and actually been influencing me the way I work until now: Pick the most interesting idea, concentrate on it and start develop from there.

This tip actually given by a creative director of a television broadcast company three years ago, when he came to the school as guest lecturer. But before that, I already met him once when I went for interview to get my internship job in that broadcast company. When I show my humble portfolio, he was able to identify the weakness of my work the moment I showed to him. He is very experienced and able to point the weakness immediately as well as giving out idea on how to do it better. I was speechless during the interview and quite impressed with the capability of this creative director.

Then, few months later he came to my school as guest lecturer as mentioned earlier. He showed us about a poster advertisement project and listed out a few ideas that can be used for final outcome. Well as student, we tend to mix some of the ideas and make it a grand outcome, the more the better as we thought. But he said just concentrate on one the most eye capturing idea and you are good to go. Because by just focusing on one idea, the message can be delivered clearly and can be easily remembered by people.

I think this is a very effective way of thinking and I start to remember what he said and try to use it in every project after on. Indeed it helps. And how about you? What design thoughts that you think is very useful and influenced you?

Recently one big news that happened in Japan entertainment industry is the suspicion on public indecency by one of the member of popular music group SMAP, Kusanagi Tsuyoshi. Actually I was shocked when reading the news because his image has been positive, and I really like him. He already made his apology statement the day after being arrested and he said that he was dead drunk and deeply embarrassed on what he had done.

His action was being criticized by many people including Minister Kunio Hatoyama. On the other hand, people with quick business mind starts to produce tee shirt with “What’s wrong being naked” typography printed to put on sale, because he was reported that he said that to a police officer. Well I think he was quite pitiful and hopefully this thing won’t happen again. He has to know, he is a well known celebrity and things like this will sure being made huge by the medias and the chain reactions will appear.

My support to him. FIGHT!

Credits:
Tsuyoshi_Kusanagi - Wikipedia
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi apologizes for alleged indecency - Youtube
Hadaka ni natte nani ga warui - ClubT

Click the picture link above to have a look to the pictures I took when visiting Japan. Well, I was just hanging around Tokyo and the cities around like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara, Yokohama, Mount Fuji etc. To be honest, a week in Tokyo is so not enough time to explore, but indeed it was a enjoyable trip.

I am really amazed with the train system in Japan because the network is massive and you can just go anywhere in Tokyo by train and foot. It is so convenient and fast. Really like their trains. Not forget about sakura! It was beautiful and unfortunately the time I came to Japan, many of the trees are still not in full bloom yet but well it’s still great.

It is really a nice trip and I met a few Malaysians too and really nice meeting them. Hopefully we will be gathered again some time in future and I shall explore more places besides Tokyo.

Yay! My first post after came back from vacation. During the trip to Japan I went to two big art event in Tokyo, one is 101Tokyo at Akiba Square and Art Fair Tokyo at Tokyo International Forum. Both art fairs are astonishing and I’m really impressed about the quality of the art works displayed and the atmosphere and activeness in art community. Well there is one artist that gave me the most visual impact is Kazuki Takamatsu and his style “Distanfeerism”.

Mr. Kazuki was born in 1978 and was graduated in Tohoku University of Art and Design. When I visiting his booth, I was stunned with the uniqueness of his artwork. From far I thought it was a digital painting, but actually it was hand painted! His works are mainly monochrome based too, and normally featuring a young female character, table lamp, buildings and plants etc.

Actually his painting giving me sense of surrealism and ambiguous depth. The term “Distanfeerism” until now I still don’t really catch the meaning. But indeed his work is one of a kind and cool! More of his information and artworks can be found at Gallery Tomura Page and his own personal site.

All pictures are property of Kazuki Takamatsu.

Yes, finally I’m able to go to Japan for vacation and sakura viewing! I had to say thank you for all the supports from you, and my parents and relatives, without you all, I don’t think I will make it. Finally is my dream comes true! Sorry I have to make this post short because I don’t have the full Internet access. Maybe I will post further report when I come back :D.

See you and thank you again.

Jayhan posting from Tokyo

I’m a fan of Sakura (cherry blossom) flower, I even make it as my blog’s favicon. As some of you guys already know, around March and April where spring season is coming, cherry blossom flowers blossom beautifully in Japan. Besides this, many Japanese artists also appreciate the beauty of their national flower by singing and composing Sakura related songs.

Sakura gives a lot of feeling to us, mainly are positive, happy together and love. Different artists describe this feeling uniquely in their own way. So today I present you the year 2009 edition of Sakura songs, a playlist that consists of this year’s new Sakura songs with some old one :D. Please enjoy. You can also go here for the Sakura songs that I compiled last year.

Picture credit: From the album “Sakura Songs”

In my opinion, Japanese websites are nice, clean and functional. I think it’s good to study how they construct the website, dealing with white spaces and typography treatment. Although we can see that there is certain cliches in them but I think perhaps for Japanese, those format are the most functional to them? Below are the 5 web design galleries that I want to introduce today.

S5-Style

Web Selection

Website color index

Web Mihon

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