As promised, here’s part two of my Design Heroes entry.
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Stefan Sagmeister. He’s worked on album packaging and posters for music industry giants The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, etc. and is best known for his trademark hand-made typography. With an emphasis on concept over style, everything he churns out has an exciting, “made you look, huh?” quality. His mantra? Work slower, do less work, do it better.¹

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Paula Scher. I love designers who play with type and Ms. Scher is certainly one of them. She designed the uber-cool “Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk” posters² as well as the simply clever “Citi” logo of Citibank and the globally-recognized elegant branding for Tiffany&Co. How’s that for style diversity? Incidentally, she’s one of the partners at legendary design studio Pentagram.

Next time, I’ll tell you all about my web design heroes.
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By the way, Graphika Manila — the first ever design conference in Manila — is happening on December 2 at the Mall of Asia. It’s gonna be a huge event guys, design biggies of the new skool, Joshua Davis and MK12, are flying over to speak alongside local talents Team Manila, Blackflood and our good pals Rex + Jois of Inksurge (yay!). Count on us to be there for support 😀
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We have back-to-back shoots this week so do check out the phlog from time to time for updates.

1. I’d love to apply this work ethic but sadly, in the third world we’re often driven by extremely tight deadlines, not to mention the need to make ends meet as soon as we can. 🙁 [ back]
2. I actually watched the show on Broadway (’98) just because the posters grabbed my attention. [ back]

{More Flickr photos tagged with Milenyo}

How are you?
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Our families, Arn, and myself are extremely fortunate not to have been directly affected by Milenyo (Xangsane) one of the angriest typhoons ever to hit our shores. I was actually down with the flu the entire day so believe it or not, I slept right through it. Power was out¹, the mobile networks were down, and we didn’t have a short wave radio so we had no idea about what was happening outdoors. Arn was busy overseeing some construction being done inside the house and didn’t realize the gravity of the situation until he stepped out to purchase cement and found the roads covered with leaves and fallen/uprooted trees everywhere. When we talked to my mom, we found out that my brother was stranded at work and he told us later on about the horrifying view from his office window in Eastwood: tree branches, sheets of yero, lamp posts, bits & pieces of bright pink MMDA fences and urinals, and (gasp) entire roofs of houses spinning helter skelter in the air. Good grief! Thankfully he managed to drive home safely by 8pm.
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What we also didn’t expect was a Luzon-wide blackout (although Meralco promises to have power fully restored by today. Our area in Quezon City already had electricity back by 5am the next day, Friday. Lights went out at 2pm Thursday so I actually thought that it sure was a looong time to have a blackout until I learned that more than half of the Metro was still in darkness. In fact, a friend who also lives in QC² didn’t have electricity yet by Friday afternoon, and Arn’s parents in Cainta did not have power restored until Saturday morning. I thought that was the last of it until I heard from cousins in the South today (Sunday!) that their village is still in darkness. Good golly, shades of the early 90s (remember the blackout era?)
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At the end of the day, Arn and I are just thankful that none of our loved ones were harmed.
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One of my blog-friends, Mr. BP, posted a comprehensive list of happenings in the blogosphere after Milenyo’s wrath.
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More Milenyo stories from other blogs:
M for Milenyo (with pics taken at the Mall of Asia)
Marshalls in Manila (with videos taken in Makati)
Balitang Morong (with pics taken in Morong, Rizal)
Meeting Milenyo (with pics taken in Buendia, Roxas Ave, Taft Ave)
Doomsday: A Sneak Preview (with pics)

1. We were also lucky to have power back by 5am the next day Maybe because we live near all the major TV networks? There was an outage again today but it only lasted for an hour.[ back]
2. She lives almost beside the ABS-CBN compound to be exact[ back]

Like our good pals Sheila and Mike, Arn and I have been going on a nostalgia trip, to the 70s this time. It all started when I gave him The Incredible Hulk¹ tv series on his birthday.

And then my ate Pam², a dear cousin all the way in Oz sent me an Amazon gift certificate worth, well, a lot so I decided to use it on items that remind me of her and the days when she and her family still lived next door: The Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys tv series starring Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy, and Patrick Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy as Frank and Joe³. I’m a bigger fan of the books but watching these again made me miss the old days when plots were less complicated and when primetime tv was so much… “cleaner”. It’s true, they just don’t make shows like they used to. By the way, a Nancy Drew movie (starring Emma Roberts as our beloved strawberry blonde sleuth) is slated to come out next year. I can only hope that she stays true to her character in the original Carolyn Keene novels⁴.
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And my fellow 70s kids, because I think I love you⁵ here’s a little video that I’m sure will put smiles on your faces 😀

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The other DVD set I ordered was The Best of The Electric Company which was really fun to watch then and surprisingly even more fun to watch now! Talk about being ahead of its time. And omigosh who can forget the cool Easy Reader, the bumbling Fargo North: Decoder, the bratty Pandora, and of course the singing group Short Circus. Or how about songs like “Punctuation“, “Silent E“, and the spelling silhouettes (which eventually inspired a TV ad for Nike Shox). Like I told Arn, watching the cast in the classic and oh-so-familiar sketches is just like seeing old friends family members again. It’s true, hearing Rita Moreno holler “Hey you guys!” actually brought a tear to my eye⁶.

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I’m still in denial that my schedule is turning topsy turvy again. Here’s what’s on my plate right now:
• Two album packaging projects⁷
• An identity system⁸ for a soon-to-open restaurant in Greenbelt2.
• And of course, the 5th issue of Wedding Essentials which we’re all very excited about. We’ve started shooting already so take a peek now and then if you like. 😉
Ideally my schedule by now should be blocked off to accommodate WE but (1) the album projects were given by one of our favorite and most suki clients so “no, we’re booked” was not an option; and (2) I wanted to take on the restaurant project because, well, it was challenging and not to mention a good addition to my ever-growing-but-needs-updating portfolio.
So if I don’t get to post the following days, you know where to look.

1. Sigh, it’s a much-delayed reaction but I feel bad knowing that David Banner (Bill Bixby) and Jack Colvin (Mr. McGhee) are both gone. 🙁 [ back]
2. With the exception of one, all my Feliciano-side cousins are 4+ years older and she was the one I tagged along behind most often. I don’t have a sister so she was my very first “ate” figure.[ back]
3. …I know! As in “Da doo run run!” Can someone say “Hit-baaaaaackk-baacck-baaacck”?[ back]
4. I’ve read and have most of the 56 original hardcovers, from “Secret of the Old Clock” to “The Thirteenth Pearl”.[ back]
5. Ah yes, another tv series I have to get my hands on. Someday.[ back]
6. Also because I remembered my brother Toting who I used to watch the show with.[ back]
7. Yes, they’re both tribute albums, surprise surprise — that seems to be the trend nowadays.[ back]
8. Meaning logo and signage design, logo application on business cards and stationery, layouts for the menu, flyers, in-house signs, etc. Fun, yes, but it’s also a lot of work.[ back]