ampulets

A new project J started planning late last year when J's design studio turned five.

When we rebuilt some of our bookshelves last October, J had proposed to re-arrange our books according to the colour of their spines. The literature student in me was appalled. Trust a designer to judge a book not only by its cover, but by its spine! The designer persisted and had his one shelf - just one - of books with white spines. The literature student considered it a compromise - they were mostly his books on design anyway. It's been some time since this blog talked about books. Friends, here are some recent white (well, white-ish) books we relented and bought that may be of interest to you too: A - Z  and  sugarcube  (top left, top right),  Atelier Hoko We found these slim, almost wordless picture books at  Supermama  some months ago. There is only 1 word I seldom have use for, to describe these 2 books: charming.   Tools 2012: Real Stuff for Future Classics  (top centre), Kodansha, 2012  I think of this book as a glorified catalogue.  But according

Lee Wen, Strange Fruit , 2003/ SAM Collection It's been a long time since I've been to a museum exhibition opening like that of artist Lee Wen 's retrospective at SAM . I've been thinking about the words to describe the energy. Sure, there was a lot of the usual hi-hello-howareyou going, but it didn't distract as much. I think the word is "real". There was something absolutely real and grounded about the artist who was being recognised and celebrated that evening; and about his art. Some of it perhaps owing to the immediacy of performance art, and its seeming nakedness - the artist's body marking time and space. There was also a real sense of collaboration, camaraderie when Lee Wen, at the end of a performance in the SAM courtyard, poured the pail of yellow paint over Jason Lim - an embrace between fellow artists. In this sense, the better word may be, as the artist or curator have chosen for the show, "lucid". I'm still digest

The time when stamp collecting was every child's hobby is past. I recall tearing off the edges of envelopes and soaking them in the bathroom sink, dislodging the colourful perforated squares from Italy (there's something dramatic in "my dad did business with the Italians in the 80s"), the UK, Eire (which I found out later was Ireland), China, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore... I can still picture some of their designs in my mind. But enough of nostalgia. Still, J and I always enjoy the occasions when we have to make a trip to the post office for stamps. Not so much for those booklets of adhesive stamps that are convenient, but somewhat perfunctorily designed. But when we have letters or parcels that require the post office attendant to take out his or her good ol' ledger book with tabs indicating the different denominations, and from the relevant pages, retrieve whole sheets of stamps. Illustrator Drewscape has snagged our dream assignment to design stamps.