Turning Japanese

Prepare yourself. I spent some time in Japan earlier in the year. My first time. The next few posts will be that of me as a Japanophile.

Going to Japan has been something I wanted to do for many years. I love the minimalism, the respect for beauty, the torturing of nature. The ability to create beauty by the arrangement of things.

On my first few days in Tokyo, to my western eyes there were constant contradictions between beautiful vistas and mundane interruptions like electricity wires and TV antenna's. I would frame a shot, and there would be the bright pink sign in front of the perfect cherry blossom tree in flower.

For a while - I was frustrated, until I did some reading.

Donald Richie who since WW2 has lived most of his life in Japan provides some interesting insights into this. In his book Partial Views: Essays on Contemporary Japan he argues in one of the essays that the Japanese have a way of ignoring interruptions to beauty. The Japanese view instantly edits the frame to eliminate the telephone wires, or the neon sign.

Once I had read this comment - I abandoned my quest for the 'perfect shot'. It was quite liberating.

Fridges - Platter or no Platter

Not really graphic design related, but anyway.

This weekend, I went looking at fridges for our soon-to-be-renovated kitchen. Being a child of the sixties - one of those fridges with 2 side-by-side doors, an icemaker and chilled water dispenser has always been my aspiration.

These are very available and quite affordable, but they come with a downside. They won't take platters (because each side is narrow), or if they will, they are over a meter in depth - which means you have to have kitchen benches that are a meter deep if you want the fridge to be flush. Or have a sticky-outie fridge - and no one wants that in a modern minimalist interior.

They have two door fridges with freezer draws (sounds like a good idea until you try one). They have one door fridges with freezers at the top. But do they have a two door, freezer below wide model with an icemaker . . . not that I could find.

So, the perfect fridge would be wide (for the platters), with an icemaker, and chilled water in the door, and a freezer at the bottom (not in a drawer).

If you find one - I need to know

All web designers should be a part of this list

Design on the web moves at such a pace. I find it difficult to keep up.

I have some regular sources I check on. Some are in magazines, but most are online.

A List Apart has been around in one form or another for a few years. It is a community of contributors that want to share their knowledge.

It's probably more for the designer and developer rather than the client.

I hope you find it stimulating.