I think the article’s got a point about the issue that as a purist you might have a tendency to “spoil pleasant moments” Kinda like how my dad can’t enjoy 9 out of 10 of the restaurants we go to because he’s such a good cook himself?

I stumbled across these beautiful playing cards designed by Michelle Lam. Apparently it’s intended to inspire other designers with the use of typography and iconology. I think it’s quite nice, it’s inspired me thank you Michelle!

I’ve had a couple of people approach me to design playing decks for them before. Unfortunately in both cases they fizzled out for me as soon as they heard how much it might need in budget to design and print these things. Come on folks….54 cards in a deck?  That’s like 54 individual designs plus a package design to match?  It’s not easy I’ll tell you that.

But if I ever had a card deck project…I’d love to do something as nice as these…  (via Lovely Package)

I don’t know where this week went. It’s already Friday? I spent Monday with my wife who stayed home for “vacation”. Only her idea of vacation is cleaning every spot of the house in every way possible. So that day was kinda shot.

And then Kingston ended up hitting a fever this week and spent two days at home with daddy. As much as I know that’s a normal part of childhood, I can now relate to other parents when they feel aweful when they see their little guy in bad health. That little guy had me on a leash, he’d whine a little bit and I’d be jumping up to wait on him.

Yup, daddy’s whipped from both sides.  Hmmm…that sounds kinda wrong.

So we came back from our small weekend getaway to the West side of the island over at KoOlina Beach Resort. None the worse for wear…no sunburns to report and for the most part it was a nice needed mini vacation. The weather was beautiful as you can see and there was a lot to do on the grounds of the resort.

Kingston had his first real experience spending time in ocean water, playing in the sand and grass, and wading in the resort kiddy pools and warm jacuzzis (sp?)  I think he probably enjoyed it more then we did since much of the trip was spent around making sure he was well fed and comfortable. Oh well, such is life with a toddler around.

Has the trip helped my design block any?  Nope, still frustrated with that, but I won’t bore you fellow readers with that again. You know…somehow, SOMEthing will trigger some inspiration in me and get all these projects rolling.

So daddy took me to the beach yesterday when it raining. Daddy thought he needed to bring me here because he’s been coming to this Ala Moana beach place since he was as old as I am.

Daddy had homework this week in his photo class where the teacher said to take an assigned color and evoke the emotion of the color. I think Daddy had “blue”.

Daddy said he had a hard time with me because I didn’t like the feeling of sand on my hands so I was feeling like I wanted to cry. And then the sky was crying on my head as well.

I kind of like this photo dad took of me at the beach. But daddy can’t use this one because he was too retarded to notice his flash lights weren’t firing. He’s trying to learn how to use flash!  DUH!

Part of the problem is just accepting family life. While 9 month old Kingston can be inspirational at times when I stare at him, there’s only so many weekends I can handle staring at him play, eat and nap before I have started going crazy from the routine. All my old ways of recuperating and letting my mind relax have all but disappeared. As a new parent, I’ve given up watching the TV programs or video games I used to love watching. I can’t just pick up my wife and go watch a movie anymore. I can’t even go to the beach because of fear the sun will burn him or he’ll eat handfuls of sand. Instead, I’m caught watching the same kid TV show in perpetual repeat mode.

Yup. I can almost hear what my parents would say, “See what we went through?”.  You get that “You guys have it easy….back in our days when you were a baby we yadda yadda yadda” You know, it’s all good and dandy to hear that what we’re experiencing is normal to every new parent, but it still doesn’t help my current dilemma for my business. It’s scary enough time as it is during this slow economy…I can’t afford to be having a designer’s block at the same time too.

So somehow, my challenge these days is trying to find inspiration just sitting here week after week behind my desk. Here’s a couple of sites I’ve found that list ways for designers to get inspiration. I gotta look through these and force my mind into action:

10 Unusual Places to Get Design Inspiration

34 Places to Get Design Inspiration

Any other new parents out there have found ways to keep life thrilling, please let me know!

This website “Today and Tomorrow” is seems to be a pretty good collection of unusual artwork found by this guy in Berlin. Great browsing through there for inspiration.  I found these 2 things that caught my attention:

While it’s a bit like living in a giant Tupperware box, I like the fact that it’s almost 360 degrees of open window space in some areas. Yeah, I could live in a place like this. Only problem is that it looks like a siren call to every graffiti tagger in town. (Plastic Moon)

And then I goofed around on the site a bit and my eye landed on Claudia Schiffer with a broom up her ass.  “Uhhhhhhhh….ok” Can you imagine the balls on a photographer who could go up to a supermodel like Claudia Schiffer and say “Um, excuse me Ms. Schiffer…you see this broomstick?  Work with me on this one I have an idea….” (photographer: Erwin Wurm)

I think I’ve had recent days where I can relate to this to some degree.

I guess if I’m slow to respond to your emails today, you’ll know why. I guess if you see this post I’ve managed to slip this in during one of the “up” times.

This might be a sign for me to take some break time today. My wife is home sick with a slight cold today. We ended up having breakfast this morning with a very non-traditional chinese menu of rice juk, tripe, chicken feet, egg tart, and shrimp dumpling.

When I reflect on my life it’s so bizarre how things have gone. Growing up I almost hated anything Chinese. Now I’m sitting in a restaurant this morning staring at a dish of chicken feet.

Whatever happened to a good old fashioned breakfast of Frosted Flakes and milk?

I’m trying to learn how to use my flash better in my photography. I can’t seem to make it work the way I want it to. Here’s some of my results using my favorite model test subject.

The photo on the left is with flash, the one on the right is without it. Personally I like the look of the one without flash as it retains more shadow and depth. ARRRGH. I need to learn how to control my lighting better.

Apparently this Illustrator, Wendy Macnaughton, spends 20 minutes each day on your commute to-and-from work to sketch some of her fellow passengers. Beautiful collection on her blog