Posts in category "Random"

My Relationship with Frederic and Misun

I con­nect with Frédéric and Misun in two very dif­fer­ent ways.

With Frédéric, we relate through our emo­tions, our dri­ve, and the need to express our­selves. We also have a ten­den­cy to feel like out­siders, per­haps because we’re often judged or mis­un­der­stood. In this way we com­fort each oth­er, because it’s as if we feel less odd or alone.

Misun, on the oth­er hand, is like my big sis­ter. She cares about me, takes an inter­est in what I do, and gives me advice the way I imag­ine a sib­ling does. I can share my inse­cu­ri­ties, my dreams, my feel­ings with her, as if I’ve known her my entire life.

Together, they encour­age and sup­port me, although nev­er to the point of flat­tery. In this way, I know that I can trust them to be hon­est; some­thing increas­ing­ly rare nowa­days, as peo­ple hide behind smiles and emp­ty words. When I’m with them, I feel like I’m whol­ly under­stood and accept­ed.

I always leave their house with a tremen­dous sense of hope, because they believe in me the way no one else ever has.

Design Robbery

After my Perishable Press inter­view, and hav­ing Version 10 fea­tured in a Crestock arti­cle titled “13 Minimalist Designs You Really Should See”, this site has seen a surge in design-relat­ed traf­fic. But increased expo­sure is a dou­ble-edged sword. Higher pro­file sites make you a big­ger tar­get for secu­ri­ty issues, spam, and design rob­bery.

Such as the case with eric-akmal.com.

Does this look famil­iar?

Eric Akmal Dot Com top

Eric Akmal Dot Com bottom

Continue read­ing “Design Robbery”…

Ellen and Ziny

Peace sign

Thumbnail: Ellen laughing
Thumbnail: Ziny smiling
Thumbnail: Girls back-to-back
Thumbnail: Ellen serious
Thumbnail: Ziny laughing

Some more prac­tice with pho­tograph­ing cou­ples. Ellen and Ziny are both med stu­dents who used to be room­mates. They hap­pened to be in Ottawa at the same time for intern­ships at dif­fer­ent hos­pi­tals, so it was the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to get them both togeth­er for a few shots.

Getting black hair and clothes to show up against a black back­ground is very tricky. I sus­pect dark­er tex­tures need their own ded­i­cat­ed light source to increase the expo­sure.

Tattwo

Part of The Tao Tattoo Series

  1. The Meaning
  2. The Experience
  3. The Background
  4. Tattwo

The tao tattoo

Concept

Some peo­ple ask me whether I feel more Chinese or Canadian. While some first-gen­er­a­tion Canadians say that they’re nei­ther, I feel like I’m both, because I appre­ci­ate and under­stand things from both cul­tures. I have the best of both worlds.

I already have a the hanzi char­ac­ter for “tao” on my right wrist, so I got the word “tao” on my left in English. This tat­too serves two pur­pos­es: as an expres­sion of this dual her­itage, and as anoth­er reminder for me to fol­low the tao.

The Operation

I went back to Jay at New Moon, who did an awe­some job on my first tat­too. When I walked in, he had the lat­est Mars Volta album on, which I did­n’t even know was out until that day. Most of the time was passed com­par­ing them to Tool, two of our favourite bands1.

Can you tell when he’s going over my artery? (Hint: I start to swear)

Typography

tao typography

The three-let­ter word is writ­ten in Avenir. As the Humanist, sans-serif type­face designed by Adrian Fruitiger (also used for the title and menu of this site), it’s my favourite font. Clean, sharp, min­i­mal­ist, and leg­i­ble. The most dis­tin­guish­ing part, as with most good fonts, is the dou­ble-sto­ry “a”, which increas­es leg­i­bil­i­ty.

I had over a dozen vari­a­tions, at dif­fer­ent point sizes, kern­ing val­ues, and weights. I want­ed the weight, size, and posi­tion to bal­ance with the one on my right wrist. In the end, I went with one that was 63.78 points, and the 35 “light” weight.

Continue read­ing “Tattwo”…

  1. Tool was a favourite until Lateralus came out, and I dis­cov­ered Dream Theater. Ænima remains one of my top albums though. [↩]

Love is a Bohemian Child

Quand je vous aimerai?
ma foi, je ne sais pas,
peut-être jamais, peut-être demain,
mais pas aujour­d’hui, c’est cer­tain.

One day, he dis­cov­ered that she loved him just as much as the day she left, and that every new man she sought for com­fort was just anoth­er attempt to replace him; he was unlike any­one she had ever met before. But there was noth­ing that could be done; the pain had left him cold and unmoved.

So enough about love, he said, for love is often fick­le and unre­quit­ed.

And it’s only being on both sides of such an idea that allows him to accept this.