Envy and Admiration

As artists or designers, we always strive for perfection, for originality. Thus, we are never satisfied with our work. There will always be too many flaws; too many imperfections; too many things “wrong”; too may things to improve on. There will be artists and desingers we admire. We strive to be like them. We strive to be just as good, but we can never quite get there. After all that is said and done, all we could do is step back and look up with envy and despair.At least, that’s how it is for me. No matter how “good” I am or people say I am. I never quite see it.

It’s not that I have low self-esteem or no confidence in my work. I can’t be that bad if there are people complememting on my work, telling me that they like my work, and hiring me to work. To me, though, I will never be good enough. I am always overshadowed by people who are more talented than me. I surround myself with smart, intelligent people who are overflowed with talents compared to me. The work that I produce, whether they be pieces of art, design works, or writing pieces, will never be as good as Andrew’s, Michael’s, Yasi’s, Pierre’s, David’s, Raphael’s, or Greg’s, or whoever. I admire them as much as I envy them.

Those are just my peers. My competition. Those are the people I can supposedly compare myself to. I won’t even begin to describe how I feel when I read something from Terry Pratchet or Kurt Vonegut, or see something of Paul Rand, Eiko Ishioka, or staring at something Alex Tuan or Keith Haring had created. The caliber of their works are so far above mine. I feel lost between admiration and desolation.

The words I write are never as good. The lines I draw are never as good. The designs I come up with are nothing, meaningless, unoriginal, crap. That’s why I never really pursue an art career or a writing career. Design was suppose to be my fall back, something I can work at while trying to hone my skills. The plan backfired. I feel in love with design. I call myself more of a designer than an artist. Design is stimulating, fascinating, and most of all rewarding.

Design is everywhere I see. Everywhere I look, I’m green with envy. It’s almost like I’m surrounded by talents I will never have. The friends I’m with. The guy I’m with. The magazines and books I look at.

There are times I just want to push it all away and give up. Lately, that’s all I’ve been wanting to do. It’s funny how when you decide to give up something that you realized how much you need it. It got me thinking to why I draw or why I write. I pretty much know why I write. It’s an innate desire. I never give much thought to why I draw or why I want to draw. I always tell myself that I can’t draw, that my drawings are bad. Even when people say that I can draw and I draw well, I just wave it off and say that they don’t know what I’m talking about.

Lately, I’ve been drawing more and more. I want to be better. I want to draw better. But living with someone who can do that much better than you is despairing. Whatever I draw, it never seems like it’s good enough. So, I decide to just stop drawing. Drawing wasn’t something I want to pursue anyway, right?

…but since when do I care if what I draw is good or not? I’m always envious that people can draw better than me: friends, classmates, boyfriends. That’s what inspire me to draw more and draw better. My jealousy is what drives me. But living with this constance jealousy is something else. I never realized how much I like to draw or need to draw. All my life, I just draw never questioning why or realizing how much I like it.

I guess I’m just cursed with the passion and love for the trade and the envy of everyone around. I can’t not write or not draw. That’s not possible. I’ll just keep doing it despite what I think of myself. Because no matter what you say, whatever you do, first and foremost you always do it for yourself.

Something of my own…

Walking down memory lane, I remember what I wanted most my whole life was a pet. I’ve had a few.

 There was this puppy that I owned for a few days, maybe a few weeks. It had been too long to recall anymore. I loved that puppy for the short time I owned him. He made too much of a ruckus, and my family was too poor to afford him. Feeding, clothing, and sending us to a decent school was a task of its own already. The puppy was sent to one of my dad’s friend daughter. How lucky was she? 

As I grew older, I got a fish. My neighbor moved. She found out that there was a tiny little fish that was hatched probably not too long ago. It was tiny. She gave me enough food to last the fish whole lifetime. All I got to do was to remember to change its water once in a while. The fishy wasn’t a dog, but he/she was something. I got a chance to watch this little fish grew into a bigger fish. He was a beautiful fish. Its little tail fin grew different color as he grew. Then, one day, my dad got a few pebbles and rearrange its rocks around. Somehow one of the rock fell on him…and bye, bye Fishy.

I don’t have luck with pets.

About the same that I got my fish, I also got a little baby turtle. He was one of the oddest pet. When I got Turtley (not much imagination in names, I know), I didn’t have turtle food. Therefore, I fed him little lettuce leaves, the baby ones from the center.  By the time I got around to buy Turtley turtle food, he refused to eat it. He also refused to eat any other veggie or lettuce, except the tiny ones from the center. My turtle died.

 I love animals. I love kitties, puppies, bunnies. All my life, I had only the pleasure of playing with other people’s pets. Sometimes, they let me hold them and pet them. Most of the time, they all ran back to their own to be held, and petted, and cuddled. All my life, I wished nothing more than to have a furry little friend of my own.

About three months ago, I rescued a little kitten with the help of my friend, Pete, and my fiance. We named her Halley (we found her in the hall-Halley- you know hall-ie). Everything was great. Halley made herself at home. As far as she was concerned, everything was hers. She knocked over stuffs, hid stuff, sat wherever she pleased, even if it was a copy of a drawing a client gave me.

I love her more than anything in this world. She’s the oddest, prettiest, and most affection-starved cat in the world. She’s so spoiled it’s not even funny.

Now that I have a kitty. I have a full time job that take me away for most of the day. By the time I get home, it’s dinner time and then bed time. I barely get to see her. And I feel, maybe it’s just me, but she’s a little more detached from me everyday.

My fiance, who works at home, is with her at all time. Am I jealous? Yes. He has a cat in CA, who’s more attached to him than any other living thing can be…and there’s a cat here, that is just as attached…Am I jealous? Yes. He has, always has, something I’ve wanted my whole life. That warrants something…right?

Even when I have a pet, she’s not mine…

…an old friend

Đôi khi tôi nghĩ tuyết rơi chỉ cho mình tôi…tôi biết đó là ý nghĩ rất trẽ con. Nhưng đôi khi đó là điều tốt. Vui chơi trên bờ tuyết… có thế chạy nhảy quên đi những gì ác tối trên đời…đưỢc trở về lúc ngây thơ …chưa biết tơi những điều đen tối của đời … tôi nghĩ đó là một phước lành trời ban

…lâu lắm rồi không gặp được bạn cũ…những hạt tuyết trắng…cảm giác này xinh đưng bỏ đi…

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To deviate from my usual artsy/design-sy talk, I want to have a heart to  heart. It may seems childish but I feel that when the snow falls it is God’s present to me. To be brutually honest, that thought even seems selfish. Snow to me brings back a more miraculous memory.I remember living in Southeast Asia. There were no snow. California was the same. It seems like there was always something tugging at my heart…I want to see snow. I want to know what’s it’s like to walk in the snow, to play in the snow, and so much more. I prayed to God, My God, this little child of yours wishes more than anything to see snow. Is it childish to think that God made all occurences that followed to take me to see snow?My family moved to Massaschusetts a few months later. The events that led to the move was unfortunate, but I got my wish.

 I remember my first snow fall. My family spent hours in the park white with snow. We took quite a few pictures. The feeling was unforgettable.

Imagine that you just wake up from a pleasant slumber. The blanket is warm but there is a frosty feeling somewhere. You venture out to the window and below you is a world covered in a blanket of white. The small crystal flakes shimmer reflecting whatever source of light.

 I can never forget the feeling it gives me.

 I had a chance to feel it again. It snowed quite a lot just earlier this week. The road was unfit to drive my fiance’s old 1985 Volvo stationwagon. We walked. We walked down the street into a little center to get  dinner. That dreamy feeling returned. Feeling each snowflake hit my face was like a frosty welcome of a friend.

No matter where I go or what I experience, that feeling, that certain floaty, dreamy feeling that I get from seeing and being amid a snow fall is incomparable. Nothing, save maybe a walk in the rain, gives me that feeling. Even then, the two feeling is a little different. It’s inviting, almost sirenous.

I come to Denver to see snow again and to experience that feeling again. Still, I’m robbed of my white Christmas. It is my decision to fly back to California to see my family for the holidays, but somehow I still feel cheated, like someone is play a twisted joke on me. We can’t have everything in life…I know that all too well. I am still happy to be able to see my dear old friend.

Art vs. Design

Between finding my half written artist statement and reading my fiances’ blog entry about ‘art vs. craft’, I am doing some “soul-searching” -for the lack of a better word- for my artistic side. What is art? What is design? What’s the difference? What makes an artist an artist and a designer a designer? Some can’t tell the difference. Only those of whom are in the particular trade and profession really know. I, being a graphic designer by trade and a doodler by hobby/semi profession, will try to share my two cents worth.

Ok, let’s start with: what is art? Art in my definition is an expression of an individual. It’s how an individual see things and then that individual expressed it through some means like a painting, a drawing, an giant sculpture, a shovel hung on a wall, etc. When we look at a piece of art, we are looking through the artist eyes; we are seeing what the artist saw and shared with us through that peice of art. Every artist has a style that pertain to his own flair and personality. Example,

Here, the artist may feel sadness, loneliness, or seen sadness, loneliness, or was inspire by something that has to do with this sad scene. Whatever way, we are seeing the artist expression of something. What I get from it and what you get from it may be completely different. That is the beauty of art.

Alright, so what’s design? Design is an individual’s expression of something with a message, a purpose. The individual creates something to express a specific idea, using images and other tools to manipulate our minds into seeing what the designer wants us to see or hearing what that individual is saying. Unlike art where we make up what we think the artist is trying to say, design is saying something specificly. A shovel hung on a wall may indicate to us that winter is over or something to that effect. True, a piece of art may do the same thing. It may evoke an emotion or a desire, but that could depend on the people. Different people may see different things in a piece of art. Design, on the other hand, has to achieve its original and maybe only purpose. Everyone has to see what it’s trying to portray. Example,

Here, it’s the same drawing, but with a very specific message in mind. The designer wants us to feel the sadness or be aware of the sadness and depression. The ultimate goal is for us to call the telephone number. Designers know their audience and target that specific audience. Designers have to know and consider everything before they create. Artists may not be able to fail, but designers definitely can. That, my friend, is the beauty of design.

So, what’s the conclusion? Art is expression without restraints. Design is manipulative expression. Designers can be artists, and artists can be designer. The two, however, are two completely different breeds.

I like both. Art gives me the freedom to express all my ideals. Design challenges me to be more creative with little freedom. Just like my now completed artist statement, right now, I’m just trying to find my style, my edge, my niche, my thing.

“Artisticly, right now, I am exploring different fields of the art world, fields in which I can see myself heading down and dedicating my life to in the future. I am trying new things and rediscovering old ones. I look to that which had inspired me in the past and is inspiring me now to guide me. In all my work, an emotion, a feeling, an idea, or something is being convey or expressed. Most of my works are reflective of my experiences and ideals. I try to add a little flair, a little style, and a part of myself. One day, maybe I will be able to utilize my talents and knowledge to something that will make my life worthwhile and finally can call myself an artist, in the truest sense of the word.”

Resume Blunders no one should make…

We’ve all made them: spelling mistakes, grammar errors, silly tidbits on our resumes. They stay there until one employer is kind enough to tell us, “Don’t do that! It’s what holding you back.” It’s understandable if one made a small spelling errors here and there, but how is it a professional thing to do to put that one is a single mother with six kids on our resume? Not only is that unprofessional, employers are not suppose to know that kind of information. Also, it makes us too desperate to get the job and that we are not confident in our qualification for the job. True, extra information like our hobbies of photography and mountain climbing might give us an edge, but know when it is too much unneccessary information. The only things that need to be in our resumes are things that pertain to the job applying for or have to do with our professional experiences.

 I hope none of you out there are dense enough to make these resume blunders:

Job site CareerBuilder.com recently asked pollsters Harris Interactive to survey hiring managers and find out the wackiest resume items they’ve seen lately. Out of 2,627 responses, here are the top ten resume blunders made by job candidates:

1. Attached a letter from her mother.
2. Used pale blue paper with teddy bears printed around the border.
3. Explained a three-month gap in employment by saying that he was getting over the death of his cat.
4. Specified that his availability to work Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays is limited because the weekends are “drinking time.”
5. Included a picture of herself in a cheerleading uniform.
6. Drew a picture of a car on the outside of the envelope and said the car would be a gift to the hiring manager.
7. Listed hobbies that included sitting on a levee at night watching alligators.
8. Mentioned the fact that her sister had once won a strawberry-eating contest.
9. Stated that he works well in the nude.
10. Explained an arrest record by stating, “We stole a pig, but it was a really small pig.”

I wish you all luck on your job hunt.

Forget Apple iPhone! Helio Ocean beats you all!

I was never into media hype and mainstream “stuffs”. I do not like having things that everybody has. I do not want something that everyone is wanting. So, when the Apple iPhone came out, I was not one of the people flocking to see it. John, one of the editor I am working for as a freelance writer, even offered me one. I refused becuase the iPhone might be the hottest thing to get right, it was certainly not the best or the coolest. The Blackberry Pearl seemed like a better choice to me than the iPhone. It was cheaper and smaller and has more function that I like in a phone more than the iPhone.

 Don’t get me wrong! The iPhone is a pretty cool phone with awesome features: QWERTY keyboard, 2MP camera, OS X, emails, faster internet browser, not to mention the touchscreen, which is a pretty cool touch. Yay iPhone!

 However, there’s even a cooler and cheaper phone out there: Helio Ocean. Not only is it cheaper than the iPhone ($3oo vs. $400 - $600), it has dual slider, intergrated gps system, satellite technology, and the fastest internet surfing speed of all the phones. What I love most about the Helio Ocean is that it works anywhere in the world because it operates with the satellite system. You can enter a phone number and it’ll tell you exactly where it is using Google Maps or Mapquest or the likes.

See for yourself. I don’t want to sound like a salesman ( I was one, a very well-trained one too) trying to sell you the phone.Stop by a Helio dealer and test the phone out. Like me, you will be mezmerized by it. It beats out the Apple iPhone on design, I think, and functionality. Beat that Apple!

 See here for more: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/smaller-is-better/sizemodo-helio-ocean-vs-everything-including-iphone-259027.php

 Comparision chart: http://compare.helio.com/

You Know You’re a Graphic Designer When…

You have bags under your eyes so big you’d have to check them in at Heathrow Airport

You watch the superbowl just for the commercials

You can spot bad typography from 100 yds away

You are pro-facebook because 95% of the myspace accounts burn your retinas

You can name more than 200 fonts in under five minutes

You are completely immune to subliminal advertising

You look upon a well-designed project with either:
sympathy OR extreme jealousy

Your hand is permanently stuck in the shape of a mouse

You tell stories of exacto-knife inflicted wounds with grizzled sort of pride

You practically take caffeine intravenously

You have an appreciation for everything unique

You’ve been spending three days non-stop on a project and it still looks like shit. You find yourself overcome by Deathlust.

“You find your pulse increase at the sight of a lovely ligature, glasses steam up when an unusually elegant arm, leg, or tail comes in view, and a well-kerned paragraph is apt to make you break into a sweat with excitement.”

“You know you’re a Graphic Designer when… you buy a CD or DVD for the artwork, even if you have no idea what the actual music or film is like”.
(even worse, you don’t actually watch or listen to it, just stare at it for hours and hug it in adoration)

“You know you’re a Graphic Designer when… you look at the clock and see it’s about midnight and think ‘I’ll go to bed now’… and you actually go to bed about 2-3am”.

“You know you’re a Graphic Designer when… you need someone else to point out that you’re sitting in a room in front of the computer with all the lights off, and haven’t noticed”

“…when you know what “kerning” is and you really, really like it.”

“… when you wear two [ke] [rn] pins on your bag, and only you know what the mean. To others its probably a band of sorts..”

Forget the boy-wonder and the man of steel; your heroes have names like ‘Tibor Kalman’, ‘Stefan Sagmeister’, ‘Paul Rand’, and ‘Paula Scher’.

You don’t wear black to look cool, you wear it to hide the gauche.

You have a thing for chairs. You don’t know why.

You giggle whenever you use the colors F0CCED, EFF0FF and 44DDDD

You’re in the sun and you look around for a Drop Shadow to sit under.

You give your relatives a lecture about color spaces and profiles when you email them your vacation photos.

Seeing someone use Lens Flare or Comic Sans adversely affects your blood-pressure

You maintain a grid system for your refrigerator magnets.

You organize your CD collection according to the Pantone chart.

You sit at work for eight hours straight just looking at your monitor, waiting for a spark of inspiration that doesn’t come.

You’re up ’til 5am because you came up with the best idea ever while brushing your teeth.

The hottest dream you ever had was “Trace contour… Find Edges… Pinch… Extrude… Smudge Stick… Motion Blur…. Sprayed Strokes…”

You know Lorem Ipsum by heart.

Your kid knows Lorem Ipsum by heart.

The preschool teacher complains your child won’t color inside or outside the lines – only indicate colors on a separate sheet.

Activating your entire font collection makes your computer crash

You deliberately butcher your perfectly cross browser compatible site in IE by placing a “Too Cool for IE” banner on it.

You prefer a Layer Style of 50% Opacity (or less) on your wife’s Satin.

You spend $200 on a font for your personal website because “it’s the only one where the lower-case g is just right…”

Looking at a menu make you go “hmmm, ITC Baskerville italic” rather than “mmmm, lunch!”

And when you finally order, you go for Layer Based Slices with Grain Texture…

You use words about fonts you dislike that other normal people reserve for fascist dictators and serial killers.

Apple+Z is the first thing that goes through your mind if you drop and break something.

You refer to colleagues as Strict, Transitional, Loose and the Future Unemployed.

You refer to your privates as “the Magic Wand”.

You know that rivers are more than just water.

Your best friends are all employees at the local print shop

The only people who seem to know what you do for a living are other Graphic Designers (ex: Graphic Design? What’s that? You’ll never be able to make a living being an
artist!)

Kerning and leading on your shopping list actually matters to you, and you don’t see a problem with that.

Several South American economies suffer noticeably any time you try to give up coffee, or even cut your consumption of it by half.

You know that “bleeding” doesn’t hurt.

when your significant other/ friends have threatened to never speak to you again if you point out one more font to them.

when you know the difference between fuchsia, magenta, and maroon.

If you could go back in time you wouldn’t go back to see the rise and fall of civilizations, you’d go back in time to destroy comic sans and papyrus.

You Know You’re a Graphic Designer When deciding on the right crop doesn’t involve a choice between corn or wheat.

You’ve considered naming your children things like ‘Kern’, ‘Pica’, ‘Bézier’, and ‘Serif’.

You can understand everything on this list.

Share this with another Graphic Designer. We all love our craft and always work way too hard. The rewards, though, is always worth it. We are a unique breed.

Share your knowledge and laugh at yourself. Don’t point and laugh at people who are still learning. We all have room for improvement. Design is never finished, because it can always be better.

We can always be better.

 

A New Inspiration

I’m a big Manga (japanese comic) fan. I’m also a big comic fan-American, French, Chinese, Vietnamese, or whatever. Even bigger though, I’m a fan of the unique minority. If something is different, far from the norm, un-mainstream, one would say, I’m all for it. This might not be too un-mainstream, because I’m sure it will blow up pretty soon, but this is something different. I love it.

This has got to be the coolest comic I’ve ever seen. They consist of pencil sketches that made to look like old photographs. The “photographs” are sequenced and tell a story of a man leaving his home to go to another country to seek prosperity. There are no words, just drawings. Glancing at these pictures, I don’t just have the wow this is neat factor, but I also get the feeling of being pulled into the book. I seldom get that feeling unless it’s from a book, with just words. The mood, the settings, and just the book itself just seems so amazing to me. I random get this feeling. That’s why I love reading so much, but this is totally different. These are drawings.

It inspires me. 

Just like how reading makes me want to write, looking at this book makes me want to draw. I want to put together something like this. Pictures, just pictures, that tell a story. Pictures that say so much more than words can, so much more than just merely pictures. Pictures that can evoke feelings and mood. Pictures that will inspire, like Shaun Tan’s book inspired me.

I’m no artist. I don’t think I can draw that well. I think my drawing abilities maybe above the average. People tell me that I draw well. They call me and artist. They ask me to draw for them. 

I don’t listen to people too well.

 People tell me that I write well too. They call me a writer, a poet.

I’m not so sure about that.

My talent and abilities maybe limited. I will try though. I will brush up on my drawing skills. I went to the art store today and bought $70 worth of art supplies. I will practice. I may not draw well like how I may not write well. I will still draw and I will still write. Someday, I hope I am worth of the titles people bestowed on me too prematurely.

Someday, I hope I can call myself an artist, a writer.

For now, I can only keep doing what I’m doing.

Ok, Explanation time

For those of you who visited this page a few times and wonder why are all my post in some alien language that you don’t understand (unless you’re vietnamese and recognized that it’s vietnamese). Well, it’s because (duh!) I’m Vietnamese. I’m trying to brush up on my Vietnamese. It’s pretty bad. I want to write for a Vietnamese publication, maybe something like Lang Van or just Bao Tre is good too.

Right I’m a freelance graphic designer looking for work. Also, I’m trying to work on my demo reel. I don’t have a good enough computer to do that though. I’m a multimedia artist. That means, for those of you who don’t know, I quite versatile. I can do anything from video like video editing and motion graphic to web applications to 3D animation and such. My specialty, or what I really want to get into is 3D.  

I just moved to Colorado from California. So, I’m sort of unemployed and broke. Well, I got a part time job at Dairy Queen right now that doesn’t pay nearly enough. The amount of freelance work that I got only help me with the rent, bills, and my eating out habits. In another word, I don’t have the money to get myself a decent computer for 3D work.

Right now I’m trying to put together what I little I have into a decent presentation so that I can actually show people. I lost all the files that I put together in school. Well, not completely. I do have a little, but it doesn’t really want to work with me right now. Plus, I don’t have Premiere on my poor laptop.

I have a pretty decent laptop. I can do quite a lot, but I’m expecting too much out of it. Poor thing. This is the computer I want. According to 3D World Mag, it’s the best there is Cadstation.