Design is not for free

If you are a big brand name company, would you engage a lawyer for his services and say: “we want to engage your services but we will give you *exposure* for working with us, in place of payment”.

Similarly, would you hire a technician, an accountant, a developer or whoever and offer them *exposure* instead of paying for their services?

Can *exposure* buy you bread if you’re hungry? Can *exposure* pay for your living expenses?

But apparantly, Google, the company that made $1.42 billion in the first quarter of 2009 alone, had asked top illustrators to contribute artworks for free. Instead, Google offered *exposure* in return. Read the article.

I wonder where did the search giant get this grossly silly idea from. It’s not like they can’t afford to pay.  So much for their ‘Don’t be evil’ motto. Also, is this why Google sites and products have either ugly designs or no visual design?

Ofcourse nobody is forcing anybody to work for free here. If they don’t want to, just say ‘no’,  right? But the fact that a highly profitable company would even ask such a thing is so incredibly insulting to any designers & illustrators who do designs for a living.  Especially so for top creative professionals, who most probably won’t even need the exposure anyway.

The most unfortunate thing is that such incidence is not uncommon and there are designers who buy the whole idea of *exposure* and would naively slave on COMMERCIAL design projects for free. If you are a professional designer or an illustrator  and you’re reading this, please have some respect for yourself, your valuable time, your skills, your talent and the design & visual art field in general. If you don’t value your work, no one will.

What do a fortune-teller, a kebab-seller and a runner have in common?

1. Was walking fast in Suntec City, when a middle-aged, well-dressed man with piercing eyes approached me and said something to me, which I didn’t hear ’cause I had my mp3 on. I figured he needed help with the direction to a place or something. So I turned it off and this is the conversation that ensued:

Me: Yes?

Man: Lucky lady, lucky lady.. (with an Indian accent)

Me: Sorry? !  (I almost laughed out loud)

Man: I’m a fortune-teller..

I cut him off right away. Suddenly the piercing eyes looked a little scary.

Me: Sorry, I’ve got to rush

Man: July will be a very good month for you inshallah..

Me: I really have to go..I’ve got this meeting..

I really was on my way to a meeting and had to be on time. At this point I was already few steps away from him, but he kept on following me.

Man: you’ll be very lucky bla bla bla, let me read your sign, bla bla bla…lucky lady

Me: I’m sorry I’ve REALLY got to go

Man: 2 men bla bla bla…(his voice started to fade away at this point)

I just walked a little faster and after a while he stopped following and walked away.

What on earth is a fortune-teller doing in Suntec City?

2. I was running recently. I did the distance that I usually do, same time, same pre-run routine that I’ve always done. The only difference is the venue. Usually I ran at the park, lots of trees. This particular time it was at the stadium because I had to, basically.

After the run, I was walking off the running track and cooling down for a few minutes. I headed to a vending machine which was at the back of the stadium, put my coins in and pressed the button. Nothing came out. Pressed a few other buttons and it seemed like the machine is spoiled or something.  I couldn’t get my coins back and they were the only ones that I’ve brought with me. At this point I was feeling light-headed, VERY light-headed. I hold on to the wall nearby, but it just felt worse. My body dropped to the floor and my vision seemed like it was fading away slowly. A few things was going on in my mind: What’s going on? What did I do wrong before the run? Should I get help? Am I dying? Oh God, it would be seriously embarrasing if somebody found my unconscious body here. Maybe I just need to drink something. I don’t even bring my handphone with me. My family doesn’t  know where I am.

In that half-conscious state, I thought I really just needed to drink. I tried to get up and immediately felt like I should sit down. I looked around, saw a chair and sat there for a few minutes or more, I couldn’t remember. After my vision became clear I looked around and saw a shop at the corner and the shop keeper lady. I walked over to her and told her the vending machine was spoilt and it took my coins. She asked me to bang and shake the vending machine. I walked back to the stupid machine, feeling thirsty, hot, weak and still somewhat light-headed. How hard can I shake the machine, right? I banged the machine a few times. It didn’t worked. I was thinking  of asking the shop-keeper lady to give me a drink for free, ’cause I was so freaking thirsty I didn’t even care.  Before I could think of other crazy thoughts, someone came to me after hearing my bangings on the machine. He helped me banged the machine and the coins came out eventually. So I took the coins and bought a bottled water from the shop-keeper lady. I drank it and felt better immediately afterwards.

So that was it. I just needed a drink. A case of dehydration. I drank plenty of water before the run, but lets face it, Singapore is so hot even at night.

3. Later on, I went out to the grocery store. and I saw there was this take-away Turkish kebab place. So I thought I needed to eat some meat especially after the whole almost-fainting episode. I’m not a big meat eater, I eat mostly fish.

So I ordered one chicken doner kebab. The kebab man seemed very cheerful and friendly. I mean, he was either singing or talking the whole time. I saw that his shop is open from 11am to 2am. I’m not kidding. He’s probably the hardest working singing Turkish man in Singapore.  Just as I was leaving the shop, he said, “See you next year!!!!!”

Is she brilliant or what

“You let me in but then you slam my fingers in the door”–All love

By Ingrid Michaelson, the amazing singer song-writer who writes simple, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt lyrics with gorgeous melody.

Please…?

My body clock has gone haywire ever since the semester is done. It’s disgusting, really. Late nights spent working on projects are now replaced by late nights just trying to fall asleep. I need to get back to normal, acceptable sleeping time. To sleep at a decent hour so that I can get up at a decent hour.

I’ve always admired morning people, who by 5am are already up, out of the door, walking  in the park. and those who consistently wake up before the crack of dawn to do prayers and do productive stuff. 

Things that I’ve tried, but didn’t work:

1. Avoiding coffee during the day.

2. Getting myself physically spent, so that by night time I’m tired enough to hopefully ease into sleep. 

3. Read a boring book. 

4. Listen to slow music. 

5. Switched off the computer and shut out all lights at a decent hour.

Things that I have not tried:

1. Force myself to wake up and stay awake in the morning and throughout the day.

2. I’m not going to take sleeping pills, so forget that.

3. Avoid running late in the day. 

4. Stop thinking when trying to sleep.

I hope there’s some chance in number 1 , 3 and 4.

This blog is now kid-friendly

I was doing a little house-keeping for this blog recently and I came across a few posts that contained some expletives. These were  texts that I’ve cut and paste into the posts as excerpts. I didn’t black out the expletives. I’m really sorry about this. I’m happy to say that this blog is now curse-free and hopefully will stay so in the future. I intend to maintain an overall positive vibe for this blog.

Life lessons from tennis

1. It’s a mental game

The match is not over, until it is over. Some players manage to stage a comeback when they are just a few points away from losing a match, when it seems impossible to try to bounce back. Usually at this point, the crowd will go mad, things are intense after hours of exhausting play, and I’d imagine that it’d be hard to focus in such circumstances. Some players show expressions of their confidence fading away fast. Some manage to stay really focused mentally and get their act together to save the match. Top players have that mental tenacity and razor sharp focus.

Some players get irritated very easily and somehow that affected their concentration and their game eventually. It’s a pity, especially if it is a big event like a Grand Slam, and the player has every chance to win the game but partly because of his temper he sort of gave the match away.

It made me think, sometimes, of the things and situations in my life that I have ‘thrown away’ or didn’t fight for by losing my confidence, by losing perspective or by letting myself get too irritated or whatever.  It also made me think of the times in my life that I have fought for the things that matter. You and I both know which one we should do more of. 

I think people don’t get penalized for not winning or not succeeding, people get penalized for not trying hard enough, for giving up halfway. and people regret the things that they don’t try.

2. If you try one thing and it doesn’t work after numerous tries, try something else.

If a player is behind in a match playing his usual game, one thing he could do is try to do different shots, like come to the net more often, or try to play more agressive or whatever the situation calls for. You could almost see from a player’s expression that he’s actively thinking of something that could earn him winners or break his opponent. Well, at least the good players do this. They have many tricks up their sleeves and they know which one to use and when.