Bottled Sky

I use the Pantone system to choose what color to paint my toenails and color coordinate my accessories with the precision of an eyedropper tool. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that I have perfect color vision.

Well, at least according to the FM100 Hue Test by X-Rite. I didn’t even attempt to cheat or anything. Go, me! Did you know that one in 255 women and one in 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency? That’s one new thing I learned today.

In other riveting news, I recently made my first Tumblr theme, which you can preview and install by clicking on the screenshot above. I’m kind of in love with Tumblr right now (probably because of gems like this), so I’m quite sure I’ll be designing another one soon.

I love owls, cats, tin lunch boxes, storybook illustrations, and biscuits on their own. Put them all together and I start hyperventillating with joy. Literally. Oh, it was quite the scene when I first laid eyes on Artisan’s limited edition Two by Two biscuits, 16 owl- and cat-shaped organic butter biscuits stored in a tin lunch box covered in illustrations inspired by the classic Edward Lear poem, The Owl and the Pussycat. I went stupid — there’s just no other way to put it. For two whole minutes afterward all I could say was “WAAAANT”.

I bought mine from Jones the Grocer at Mandarin Gallery in case anyone’s interested. I must admit though that, as wonderfully presented as they were, the biscuits tasted average.

I was at the supermarket with some friends the other week, when we came across these handy reusable shopping bags shaped like various produce. We oohed at the chubby little carrots and aahed at the squish-worthy watermelons. Then we saw the cherries.

That, my friends, is what happens when designers get lazy. I can almost picture it:

Hey, how do you feel about using PANTONE 12-0643 for the color of the lemon? Or should we just stick with 13-0752? — Monday

I checked with the bag supplier, and we’re good to go on the irregular shape for the carrot. — Tuesday

I just e-mailed you the revisions for the dragonfruit design. The seed spacing wasn’t quite right on the first version. — Wednesday

Make sure that the seeds are not too evenly sized. We want the watermelon to look somewhat realistic. — Thursday

Ah, fuck it. Just slap some damn cherries on it and call it a day. Anyone up for a drink later? — Friday

Last December my parents flew in for a two-week visit, and I got to spend Christmas with them for the first time since I moved to Singapore. We did the tourist thing for a couple of days, which is just another way of saying that we barely managed to squeeze in a couple of museum visits in between marathon shopping sessions.

You guys, my folks are adorable! I snapped this photo on our way to the MINT Museum of Toys, a thin slice of a building that houses thousands of — you guessed it — vintage toys. The admission price was on the steep side at S$15, but I thought it was worth it to see all the quirky childhood memorabilia. Toys were so much more charming in decades past. Now it’s all factory-perfect plastic and high-tech gadgetry.

Continue reading MINT Museum of Toys »

The average office desk can hold all kinds of strange and awesome things. Unfortunately for those reading this post, mine is of the tamer variety. Considering that these are the more interesting items on my desk, just imagine how mundane the rest of its contents are.

Oh, Crap. I stuck a random cow-shaped clip on top of my computer, and one of my brilliant coworkers took time out of his busy schedule to complete the scene with a heaping pile of poo that he fashioned out of Blu-Tack. He even used a marker to give it a surprisingly realistic greenish brown tint. Nice.

Continue reading Stuff on My Desk »