So far I’m loving the job. I get paid to do what I love to do and was trained to do. I’ve been working on things from sketching concepts, to storyboarding, to CAD modeling and mocking things up in foam core. Being part of a small studio means I get to approach a lot of different projects and feel that my work has real input. Of course, due to confidentiality I can’t post any of the work here, but I’ll be doing other personal projects in my spare time so I’ll be posting those!

 M0st 0f what I collect is design inspiration. These images here are inspiration for a DJ MIDI controller project I’m working on. I would love to print all these out and stick them on the wall, but it just isn’t happening right now with my living situation. Gimmebar to the rescue. My inspiration is available anywhere I have internet. Which is ironically, not at home (yet).

 If I see something I like, I press “g” on my keyboard, and drag it onto the Gimmebar and put it in an appropriate collection. Easy!

 I can even save videos and full pages. Not sure where they  find all that server space to keep all my saved crap, but its awesome!

 I’ve got a few collections going already. You can check some of them out if you’re bothered to go to those links under each one!

Oh I’ve got 2 invites to give out if anyone wants them!

 The front signage.

 This hotel claims to be a paperless hotel. So everything in the room is done with an iPhone.

 Nice colors. This is their most expensive room. Note the Eero Aarnio bubble chair. Must be great to twirl around in and enjoy the view at night.

 Their stationery is and brand identity is nicely done. Clean. Understated. I was told they went with a canvas stationery case to go with an “eco” feel.

 I think they said all the paneling was bamboo, again for the sustainability thing. Check out the supposed Tolomeo Lamp. Could have had you fooled right? I won’t go into a rant about intellectual property rights in China and such here.

 They made it a point not to use any text, only icons. Not sure why its on its side though.

 The text and labeling around the rooms was not an afterthought, but part of the branding design of the hotel. They want to come off as modern and slightly cheeky it seems.

 Some handsome products around the room.

 That green stuff is a funny kind of plant imported from somewhere in Europe. It adds a nice touch of brightness to the color palette of the room I think.

 Livin’ in style.

 This I really like. The floor markings are completely invisible until you press the button. The use of Chinese culturally grounds the design a bit, and the styling of the characters is very modern. Of course, on the other side the floor is marked in roman numerals.

 That crosshair is their logo. It represents a compass, with the direction of east highlighted. It shows up nicely at certain touch points throughout the customers journey, like swiping the keycard to enter the room here.

 Again, to culturally ground the design, photographs of Hong Kong are used to decorate the rooms. Although, if they were going to make the photos all old-timey, might as well use real old-timey photos right? The presence of the very modern Hong Kong Convention Center in that picture tells me it was not taken very long ago.

  The restaurant front desk. That lattice structure extends down to the lobby, to tie the two floors together.

 That green stuff again.

 Only Apple technology products here.

 This is pretty cool. They hired an australian painter couple to paint the rock face that the hotel is set against, so its not a drab grey.

 The painting extends along the entire side of the hotel.

 You can see that lattice structure going from ground to the first floor from the outside.  Those orange droplets are another art piece, representing fish dropping into a pond.

The hotel gives me the feeling that they’re trying a little too hard to be hip and design-y. But there are lots of nice touches that would make me want to stay in this hotel. On the whole, it is a very pleasant departure from the dark and gloomy hotels I’ve been to.

 An outlying island of Hong Kong called Cheung Chau. This was where my father was born, and we come here every so often to visit my grandparents grave. It’s really a huge contrast to the concrete jungle I showed in the last post.

 The only way to get there is by ferry.

 I think primarily this island still lives off fishing, so you can see an abundance of old fishing ships in the harbor and fresh fish being sold on the streets.

 Back in the city, on the subway.

 One of the less crowded times of day…Look how clean it is and compare it to the NYC subways. Just sayin.

 At the meat market. Many Hong Kong people still prefer to get their food fresh from the market, rather than from supermarkets. It supposedly is loads fresher and is definitely cheaper. These kinds of markets are dying out though..

 What would a day in Hong Kong be without some Engrish? I have no idea what that could possibly mean.

 Density.

 Now we’re out in the countryside! Not all of Hong Kong is urban jungle. Out in the new territories, away from the city, there are still unspoiled parts of nature.

 I was visiting a friend who’s parents bought a house in a rural village. We still aren’t that far from civilization though, comparatively speaking. It only takes about 20 mins to get back to urban areas.

My friend’s parent’s obviously have good taste in design. Don’t worry about Brian there. He’s just being silly.

 Back in the city. That’s kinda creepy.

I really enjoyed being back, even if just for a month. Hong Kong will always be home, and I probably won’t get to be back as much now that I’m working in the US, but I’ll take any chance I can get. Anyone who wants to see a truly unique and vibrant city should definitely do the same.

 An urban jungle of the densest kind.

 Strips of sky between the towering heights.

 Narrow streets packed with cars and public transport.

 A mix of the old and the new.

 Hong Kong is never done building..

 Street level at Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong’s premier nightlife district.

 Steep streets in Central district.

 Colonial architecture amongst the modern.

 Inside the International Finance Centre (IFC), one of the tallest buildings in Hong Kong with a large mall below.

 The IFC will soon be home to Hong Kong’s very first Apple Store.

 Hong Kong is not just dense streets but also a mix of overhead walkways…

 …and underground passages.

 Out at sea looking into Central district.  Playing with iPhoto effects..

 The docks.

 The city at night.

 Never done building…

Hong Kong is a most unique and vibrant place, and there will be more pictures to come soon!

 I also picked up a pair of Urbanears Bagis headphones since my Apple ones I’ve been using for ages crapped out on me and they didn’t sound that great to begin with.  These were only 30 bucks at Nordstroms and I heard decent things, and I like the minimalist design.

 Neat packaging.

 I like it when packaging speaks to me.

 Product is well presented, but package seems awfully wasteful.

 All the stuff inside.

 Also came with this pretty catalog full of vibrant colors.  Be warned though, after comparing the actual products to the package, there is considerable variation.  The colors look a lot ‘cheaper’ on the actual thing.

 Actually a little disappointed with the molding/assembly of these things.  Oh well, you won’t notice at a distance.

 I do like that they snap together neatly like this though.

 The headphones came with a ‘Neutral stereo plug’, which surely does something but I’m not clear on what it is yet.

I picked up an iPad case for the back of the device.  Matte black.  Only $6.  I love Asia.  I decided against the bulky leather folios/whatever cases because I don’t like how it makes the iPad look way less sleek.  This case leaves room for the smart cover, which I will probably invest in soon.

Anyway, I’m back home in Hong Kong for a few weeks right now, so there will probably be a lot of Asia pictures to come soon.

NASA: The home of horrendous graphic design.

The inside of the museum is a little confusing.  It’s a strange mixture of kids playground and space-related simulations and activities.  The serious museum part is hidden off to the side.  I’m told that it used to be more informative, but I guess now they’re trying to draw more of the younger kids in.

The Apollo Lunar Lander.  This thing had less computing power than your current cell phone.

Early US space suits.

The Russian Orlan space suit.  Notice the design seems more rugged and military.  The NASA ones definitely try to maintain a more civilian look.

The main attraction of the museum is a full size model of Skylab, America’s first space station (complete with creepy mannequins).  Designers may know this from Raymond Loewy’s work with NASA.  He worked on a lot of the habitability concepts such as eating and showering.  You can see some vintage Loewy Skylab sketches on Core77.

Check out the triangular floor tessellations.  Apparently one of Loewy’s concepts.  The idea was that matching plates in the shoes would lock into these floors to keep you from floating around in zero G.  Reportedly did not work very well..

Moon rocks.  These are classed as national treasures, and are kept under high security.  You damn well better not try to steal them and have sex on them.

Playing around with my camera’s art filters at the dioramas.  Grainy black and white.

The Apollo Moon Rover.  Check out those lawn chairs strapped into the chassis.  No joke.  Function first.

This cute little guy was the camera that brought back first images of man on the Moon.

What visit to a museum would be complete without checking out the gift shop? No, NASA, I don’t need a combination bottle opener-toe nail clipper.  Pretty gaudy souveniers.

One thing I really would like is a nice printer.  One that doesn’t look like sin and is capable of printing in tabloid size.  This would be awesome for printing out inspiration images mainly.  I’m not a fan of cataloging and looking through images on the screen.  I hear Epson makes nice printers…

And then I want a giant corkboard to pin up all those images on.

So here’s to starting fresh.

I need to work on theming the blog (wordpress) so I can make it match my website, so for now here’s a nice clean theme I found online.

Enjoy!