christmas cards!

Aloha folks! Today is Christmas Eve, and i've just about finished all my deliveries andcard drop offs! I'm so excited to be opening the gifts I have (tomorrow!)

I've created some Christmas Cards for my friends that I mailed out and here are all 3 of the designs!

This one was give out to my friends here. My logo is used as ornaments :P

This one was mailed out mostly to the mainland friends. While it might've been sensible to mail the other one - how often are you gonna hear "Mele Kalikimaka" in the mainland? I also had a lot of these printed out, so I gave some to people here! My logo is used a Surfin' Snowmans face here.

this last one was made only for a few people - by few i mean the people I know that like Animal Crossing :] i LOVE that game and thought it would be fun to have Tom Nook ringing a bell like the people in the salvation army do for christmas time. He also has a Santa Hat on for more enjoyment.
On the back of the cards (cause people DO check the back..thanks HALLMARK!) was this message - on all of them.


SO HOPEFULLY 2010 WILL be a good one! thanks for following some of the few escapades i've had. Here's wishing you well!

Christmas is my favorite holiday.

and as such, i've made some christmas cards. won't post them 'til the time comes near...so anticipate some awesome-ness :]

for everyone

so a lots actually been happening - and im not very good at constantly updating a blog...i wish i could post some cool 'trojan bandfest' stuff here - but i've already put some pix on my facebook. i'll update more on that when time comes around...so while this is almost a couple days late, you can enjoy this too!

octobers festivities!

have a great one everybody! be safe and double check your candy - send me your gummi bears!

new graphic!...to deal with the pain!!

For those that may not know, I don't really follow Major League Baseball too much...but I do have love for one team in particular above the rest. Yes, Chicago's "Lovable Losers", the Chicago Cubs.

Last year was a pretty great year to be a Cubs fan, as we were SO CLOSE to making it into the world series...but alas, it wasn't meant to be...and again the same follows this year (well, not the making it close part...but the 'not meant to be' part). If there's anything I learned, its that a true fan never gives up on their team because they don't win everything! Rather, a true fan sticks to their team...and the same goes with the Cubs.

Besides! if I know one thing for sure, they'll at least win in 2015 against Miami! (everyone knows that!) ;] well, here's to next year Chicago!...but for now, i'm just gonna follow....DA BEARS!

anything new? :]

i made a small (but important...and needed) update to the blog..do you see it? haha..anyway, i guess its sort of a birthday present to the blog. sure wish i posted more..but then again maybe it's indirectly saying I need to do more design wise! (this is the design blog of my life). but we'll see what develops too :] other than that, aloha! for now of course!

lego store HI grand opening

so it's been a while since i've updated - bare...bear? with me! i suffer from chronic laziness! and this "update" is near a month delay from when it occured! BUT! it's a nice little read with photos to boot so not all's lost! Anyway, for those that don't know..(who wouldn't that can read a blog) Lego's are a toy used to construct things only limited to your imagination. The iconic brick and lego dudes you might have had the pleasure of playing if you were a kid - whether you're a fan or not you have to admit that they're a very intriguing little dynamo!

the lego store opened up around the first week of august, but had their grand opening on Aug.15/2009. and i found out entirely by a whim on a trip to Ala Moana Mall! so without further adieu, a bunch of photos to record the day are followed below! enjoy!

this is inside the store

this was the only shot of the stage i got where the lego master wasn't mooning the camera!

yes. i got the humuhumunukunukuapua'a set. and yes...that was honestly the only reason i wanted to go! until next blog! aloha!

back again!

have been away for a while. nothing new to post design wise - but will get to it. had a turbulent time! i had a trojan on the laptop so i had to restore factory settings! lost a few files, but most of them were backed up on the external! have a serious ants problem w/ my electronics. i saw some ants going in and out of the vents for the external so im pretty frenzied!

We bought an iMac just a week ago! haven't set it up yet because we're still trying to clear up work space and have to wait to get our copy of microsoft office back...ANDDD i have cs3 i wanna install in that so im pretty anxious! don't fret though - im no fanboy of either platform. im cross platform proficient! not Mac vs. PC!

soooo anyway, on to the reason for this update! last week thursday I went to a graphic design portfolio show @ the UH art building! it was certainly something i had to blog about as it pertains to why THIS blog exists! below are a few pics i took, pardon the resolution size, (it's just easier to blog with :p)! I was just excited to meet new people/local designers to befriend! The show was definitely a nice dose of inspiration and clean/cute styles.

the venuethe lady thought i was taking a pic of her. haha

free swag i got from 3 designers! shweet!

well, i guess for now, see ya next update!

Target! comes to Hawaii!

So before I begin, I must sincerely apologize for the delay in this 'news'. I honestly lost track of time and have been keeping busy trying to update design-wise, and attend to other things that i'm confident you could care less about.

Regradless, I have composed a myriad of images to showcase and celebrate Targets arrival to Hawai'i!
For those that don't know, I have this uncanny fascination with Target! The way the interior is DESIGNED, the atmosphere, the variety, even their target brand stuff is worth a purchase. Target to me since i've first stepped into one in 2005 has always been my alternative to the evil that is Wal*Mart, (in terms of 'huge department store competition', for something small I always go with Longs). and with the arrival of its Hawai'i store, I just went Bananas.

As depicted on the pictures, you will notice that some things remain unchanged - (the interior and exterior of course) but when you explore, you'll notice that Target Hawai'i has its own exclusive flavor.

Something I noticed when I first went into our Targets were our Shopping Carts. They appear to be almost 100% Plastic (save for the wheels) and this is the first time I've seen them! In my opinion it looks very playful, almost like a big toy.

Another thing to note (which should be a no-brainer) is that Target Hawai'i carries aloha shirts, and its employees are even outfitted in them (with the iconic Target Red of course). These shirts were designed by Tori Richard and Target Hawai'i carries an exclusive line by Tori Richard called "Pau Hana" (which translates 'to done with work') which suggests that you can wear these shirts leisurely!

The last suprise is that the Target Hawai'i menu in their food area carries (aside from their own menu) 3 local favorites! Spam Musubi (with is like a spam sushi), Fried Saimin, and California Rolls!

All in all, Target's arrival (in my opinion) was very welcome and was also populated on the days of its Soft Opening (March 4th) and Grand Opening (March 8th).. I think if i posted this earlier, when the story was relevant, this would've made for a great article. (:p sorry to toot my own horn there) but as always, I'll do my best to update! thanks for reading!

free dr.pepper!

okay, so this is a day late...or two months it really depends on how you wanna look at it.
So for those that may not know, Dr. Pepper held a promotion that entitled everyone in America to get free Dr. Pepper! the only catch was, that it required Guns-n-Roses to release their long delayed album 'Chinese Democracy' in that year (2008) sort of as a joke, because Chinese Democracy was delayed for like...800 years. but it turns out that Guns-n-Roses decided to release the album that year! So everyone that got to go on Dr. Peppers website to redeem a voucher for Free Dr. Pepper! however, it was only open for a short while, and Dr. Pepper was criticized for this.
some articles for more details can be found here:

http://www.contentious.com/2008/11/24/new-guns-n-roses-free-dr-pepper-but-wait-theres-less/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2008/11/guns-n-roses-la.html

Nonetheless, I managed to score myself a coupon. and what's better than Dr. Pepper? free dr. pepper!
all in all, a good way to end feburary (im just glad i made the expiration date)!
thank you guns-n-roses!

fun logo analysis

Hello Internets.

So it occurs to me that i haven't visited my blog in a while (not that i have too many followers anyway) but for those that do, i'd like to begin with a fun logo analysis. I will also start creating a new segment titled 'logos i like' and justification on why I think they are fun logos. Well, without further delay, here is the start of my fun logo analysis.

So as I booted up my computer today, (today is valentines day btw so happy v0day there to ya'll) an apple update promoted me to install a mobile me app and bonjour...i declined both but wondered, what the heck was bonjour?

Taken from Apples website: "Bonjour uses industry standard IP protocols to allow devices to automatically discover each other without the need to enter IP addresses or configure DNS servers."

As I looked at their logo, I just thought it reminded me of something...
for those that don't know, (taken from the Ubuntu Website) Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need - a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more.


With each of these descriptions taken directly from the respective sources, it appears that each of these software/programs mission or rather message, revolves around the word 'community'. these logos surely capture this message. What startles me is that the Ubuntu logo came out (or at least, I had seen it) first!

Surely the resemblance isn't coincidental as they both share close to the same message. (I personally love the Ubuntu logo, as soon as i first saw it). I just wonder if Apple knew something similar had already been done..but then again, there are a lot of logos out that share similarites..but I thought that maybe this might've required some additional 'analysis'. Thanks for Reading.