03-29-2007: Living a Childhood Fantasy

Seeing this picture, I sure wouldn't mind being Steve Jurvetson. He is living my childhood Red Rackham's Treasure dream. Now that's as close to a childhood fantasy coming true. The Deep Flight submersibles makes this possible.

03-28-2007: The Power of Scribbles (Part II)

I have propagated about the power of scribbles earlier. Once again, I am drawn into it's power by John Maeda's entry about capturing words and wisdom, wherever you are, using whatever is at hand. Here he has scribbled some wisdom from Descartes which goes:

"To live is to learn to forget."

Photo is here.

03-27-2007: For the Love of the Sea

This is an interesting installation from the Gulf Art Fair that is attempting to drive some art and cultural frenzy in the Middle East fiefdoms, but is not delivering the desired results. This one is called 'The Sea Remembers' and it is by Indian artist Subodh Kerkar.

I have been a child of the sea and love the ocean. I grew up on a coastal town and the beach has always been a friend and consoler when in need. Likewise this artist is inspired by the ocean and produces these wonderful installations as an ode to the ocean. Something that the vast and mighty ocean can embrace more than the opulence of the Burj Al Arab.

03-26-2007: The Unusual Suspects

Have always wanted to collect vintage Japanese robots, the tin ones are the best ones, they say. But these days they cost an arm and a leg. The price of falling into the category of retro ultra cool. So instead of my non existent tin robot collection, here is an excellent lineup of some unusual robot suspects from the artistically creative memory of Eric Joyner. Via Tak Tak.

03-25-2007: Birthday Sunset

Recently I discovered a daily snapshot archive of astronomical proportions. It collects one photograph a day from various sources. The theme is all things related to astronomy - of the sun, the earth, the moon, the stars. Some absolutely stunning imagery is the result.

Makes my daily snapshots archive pale in comparison. So here is without further adieu, the spectacle of a Manhattan sunset that made the cut on my brithday last year. Discover the cosmos one picture a day.

03-24-2007: Beauty From Above

Yann Arthus Bertrand has captured the beauty of Earth from above. As a photographer pushing the boundaries of his craft to capture the beauty of our mother Earth, he has taken the effort to clock in thousands of miles on aircrafts in dangerous conditions to give us the pristine glory of land from above.

In the picture above he brings out the beauty in the otherwise identically planned and organized housing estates of suburban Singapore.

03-23-2007: We Get Fictionalized

Finally, we advertising folks get fictionalized. Joshua Ferris has taken the pain to write a book on the triumphs and tribulations of an industry in ideas flux. The last fictional story about the advertising industry was the Hollywood version of Nancy Myers' 'What Women Want'. A nightmare we always try to forget.

This time around, the effort seems promising and funny. Nick Hornby claims it as "A terrific first novel... Actually funny." And ad blogger Russell Davies gives it some good remarks here.

03-22-2007: Open Source Fun Innovation

Another example of open source innovations making our computer interface experience more fun. Puts the smile on your face where the Microsoft smiley faces fail to do. Poky is free to download and has a clean visual design that makes it simply iconic. Stumbled on Poky via the cool folks at TakTak.

03-21-2007: Power Breakfast Wisdom

Some breakfast spreads are more powerful than others. This one on wednesday morning fell in the former category. Tim Broadbent of Ogilvy (He holds the double title of Regional Planning Director and Regional Effectiveness Director of Asia-Pacific) imparted with us some of his wisdom of building brands through effective advertising. He was charming in his own old-school way. A man who also holds the distinctive title of being the only person to win the British Effie grand prix prize twice.

The most thought provoking point, however, was raised by a guy in the audience, from M&C Saatchi, who questioned the feasibility of effective ad communication measurement when the so-called creative ads that sweep the Asia-Pacific awards shows are scam work. What's the point in measuring them anyway. The bigger question that popped up was are clients to blame for the lack of creativity in the real ads. Is the great creative ideas being axed at the client's editing table? If so, how can we stop it and raise the bar in real creativity seeing the light of day through effective advertising? Great thoughts to ponder if you are, like me, embarked on a hopefully long career in the advertising ideas business in the region.

03-20-2007: Visual Individual Identity

The fingerprint may be the most reliable and trusted form of individual identity. But the face is the universal common denominator in visual recognition. This New York Times article decodes some research into our perception of faces. Interesting finding of a study in the article suggests that like the computer, the human brain processes faces holistically, like coherent landscapes, rather than one feature at a time.

I am fascinated by the different faces I get to see in all sorts of places in our daily life. I photograph a lot of them. Above one is a mosaic of that habit.

03-19-2007: Geo-Position

Geography used to be my favorite subject. Had I been more informed and less naive back when I was getting out of high school, I would have gladly chosen to pursue an undergraduate degree in applied geography or even architecture. But alas, that's a story that didn't unfold in hindsight.

We live in the age of geo-tagging. My love for maps and all things geographic continues and the picture above is a graphical representation of my current whereabouts pertaining to my residence in Singapore.

03-18-2007: Hope Springs Eternal!

One of my favorite movies of all-time from one of my favorite short story (novella in this case) of all time. Have seen it many times and was once again overjoyed to watch it again on saturday night. It is my first anniversary of landing in Singapore.

The main protagonist in the movie Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) tells Red (played by Morgan Freeman) that hope is essentially a good thing. It is what drives life in the throngs of all adversities. And it is hope that saves innocent Andy in the end, even though he had to wait for 19 odd years.

It is essentially this same trait that keeps most of us moving. When I moved back to Asia, the most important thing that I took with me from America was 'hope'. The original Stephen King novella starts with the phrase 'Hope Springs Eternal'. When I graduated and was applying for jobs, I used to sign off my mails to potential employers with the same phrase. That's how much I am influenced by the power of hope.

So here's to hoping for a fantastic future ahead.

Hope Springs Eternal!

03-17-2007: Bridges of Memory Lane

Sometimes when you are bidding farewell to a place you have lived for a long time, a certain last image or snapshot is etched in your memory. I had lived in the United States for the last couple of years. And finally when I did move back to Asia (exactly a year back to this date), that final image that is etched in my memory is that of the spectacular Verrazano Bridge. When my brother-in-law was driving me across from New Jersey to JFK airport in Queens, we crossed this bridge and it for me eventually sums up the largess of my experience in America.

Similarly, the guy who took this spectacular photograph has a different sort of memory attached to it, as he humbly expresses here.

03-16-2007: Smile! It's Only A Space Invader

Some things that make you smile always. That are always a delight. Memories of those school days back in the 80s with analog gaming consoles. More special in my case because I have never played a Playstation, Xbox or Nintento console game. Like the analogs, my short gaming life became non-existent in the grungy 1990s.

Space Invader was a top favorite along with Pac-Man. Now the street graffiti meme is the incarnation of the invader's former analog self. May he live as long as we live. Tom Cullen captures the invader on the loose in Melbourne.

03-15-2007: TED Wisdom

TED 2007 just wrapped two weeks back. This year it was a celebration of icons, geniuses and mavericks with inspiring TED presentations and speeches from an eclectic group of people who can be considered closest to living icons, geniuses or mavericks.

Lorna Heff captures the 4-day event from an illustrators perspective. Seeing Lorna's sketches, I wish I had an ounce of her simple sketching skills. If I were to choose only one of the sketches and take it as advice or wisdom for life, I would choose the Karim Abdul Jabbar sketching. Because it is about positivity and possibilities.

03-14-2007: The Power of Scribbles

Ideas spring up in our mind at the most unusual of situations and places. Some of the most fantastic ideas have happened to their inventors in the oddest of places. The idea scribbled down on a napkin in a coffee shop or at a local bar table which became a ground breaking branding commercial is already part of advertising industry lore.

This one above is no such pathbreaking scribble. It is some original account planning advice from my friend Rob while we were chatting up at the Fullerton Hotel sometime back. Found it again in the back pockets of my pants. Just the fact that I had scribbled it enabled me to stumble on it unexpectedly later. Guess the same goes for blogs, Flickr et al. Tagging makes archiving a wonder.

03-13-2007: Vrrooooooom!!!

Another classic cover from The Economist. By the time I stumbled on to this article this week, we had lost our vroom and were out of the Audi creative pitch. Information that came a tad too late, but could be useful for who-knows-what-for in the future. The cover remains a classic either ways, today or 10 years from now.

03-12-2007: Livelihood

This is what I do for a living. Most of the time we get lost in the maze. But it is no ordinary maze. You discover new routes that never existed before. The picture (courtesy of the folks who act stupid) is chaotic, but thankfully that is essentially why I love my job. Because no day is the same.

03-11-2007: The Unmarried American Male

Another funny portrayal of American male dystopia with regards to matrimony. A cartoon that captures the gamut of the male species of a nation. The whole is the sum of the parts. All courtesy of this New York Times article (subscription required).

03-10-2007: Human Density

A morning walk up Telok Blangah Hill Park turns into an opportunity to capture the reality called urban living, especially in Asia. The sheer need to accommodate human density results in matchbox size habitats in monotonous structures. Of course, the idea for the photograph itself was with a little inspiration from Michael Wolf.

03-09-2007: Cultural Associations

This picture turned my curious thought antenna towards the idea of cultural identity expressed through color codes. What do we as nationals, ethnic races etc identify with. In the case of the picture above, the person who took this is Dutch and explains the visual as typically Dutch - The combination of orange (the official color of the Royal House and the Dutch soccer team) and water(because it always rains in the Netherlands).

03-08-2007: DARE

They say motivation can spring at you from anywhere. Ironically, this popped out from the cutout of a movie poster for this movie, placed in the lobby of a corporate client, where I was attending a morning meeting.

03-07-2007: Magically Realistic

I read Salman Rushdie. Why?

Because I relate to him as an Indian.

Because I relate to him as an Indian living abroad who has had a chance to get an outside-in view of the great subcontinent.

Because I like the way he has changed the contemporary English literature landscape with blending in Hindi and Urdu into the so-called Western man's idiom.

Because I like Sufi mysticism and borderless story-telling.

Because 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories' captured my heart and imagination more vividly than anything else.

Because his non-fiction essays are full of life, rebellion, originality, imagination and reality.

Because we all need some magic in the reality called life.

03-06-2007: Focus

In life, I'm short sighted (for real!) and strive to be far sighted every now and then. Guess most of us are not really visionaries. But the idea is not to lose focus (even if you go blind!!). Now that alone has somehow taken me this far in life.

03-05-2007: Arunachal Pradesh

India is a fascinating subcontinent. Sometimes I am more curious to explore the Eastern most states of India. Arunachal Pradesh looks pretty tempting after seeing this picture and more in Dhaval Momaya's photostream.

03-04-2007: Blank Art

Sometimes art becomes way too abstract, or as they say, it is left open-ended for you to draw your own conclusions. David Lynch movies are what used to come to my mind. Until I stumbled on to these comic abstractions in this New York Times article. The one above, titled 'Ze Carioca No 4' by Rivane Neuenschwander, is my favorite for no apparent reason. Maybe because I'm a huge comic book fan and also like the works of Roy Lichtenstein.

03-03-2007: Sugar High

The donut journey continues...

03-02-2007: Aurora Borealis

A childhood fascination with a natural phenomenon is once again revoked by this New York Times article. Photo courtesy of Stuart Isett of New York Times.

03-01-2007: Harmony

I am engrossed in Richard E. Nisbett's book 'The Geography of Thought: Why We Think The Way We Do' to deepen my understanding of the nuances and differences between Western and Eastern thought formations. Harmony and balance and thinking in terms of the environment or the whole picture are the mainstay of Eastern thought; symbolically captured in this picture I stumbled on Gisela Giardino's Flickr photostream. The image is a visual nutshell of the philosophy that:

"The Law of Time is the union of art, science, and spirituality."

02-28-2007: Cacophony

Nothing better to capture the cacophony of a long client meeting than this Alan Fletcher sketching.

02-27-2007: Choice

This blog is essentially about capturing one inspiring snapshot or captivating image a day. And this Nikon ad essentially is a snapshot of the range of choices available to capture that one inspiring snapshot.

02-26-2007: \/\/ () \/\/!!!

Milton Glaser puts the wow in e-business with a stunned smiley face!!

02-25-2007: Doughnalisa

After living the Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts classic glazed donut & coffee dream in the US for the last couple of years, I finally found the donut dream again at a small donut shop in VivoCity mall called 'Vinco - The Doughnut Parlour'. And they very well live up to their claim of being the "Doughnalisa".

02-24-2007: Coincidental Vision

Time magazine does some fantastic cover concepts. This Asian edition cover is a classic. I was reading it while commuting for saturday shopping and eye test. Could say I had two eye tests on the same day. One from Time and one from the laboratory.