One thing I like about Seoul is the great use of spaces in urban and building design. When you're in packed and crowded city, the idea of space is really important. So in a lot of the newer areas, there are nice spaces in between buildings for people to walk in and chill out. The sidewalks are also spacious, not like in Kuala Lumpur where sidewalks are afterthoughts and not built with the pedestrian in mind. With an efficient public transport system, it makes long commutes more bearable. Sit back with your take out coffee and chill for a bit while waiting for the next bus. Or take a breather before catching a crowded train.

The other great thing is that there is a law that in certain parts of the city (Gangnam only?) that all buildings must have outdoor sculptures. I think this is great for a city. Art is really important to give a feeling of culture and life to a city. These are just a sampling of the hundreds of sculptures in the city.

http://www.iosn.net/Members/kaeru/blog/epson-2480

I should redo these blogs as proper articles. I spent quite a bit of time learning about working with levels, which should be shared with others.

Feeling lethargic past few days, but managed to clear a few urgent things this morning. Change can be a good thing sometimes, and in going with the dark theme thread at Planet Gnome, I also opted for look and feel change on my desktop.

So here's my new desktop:

Theme is a slightly modified Darkilouche

Icon theme is the nice Tango icons that everybody is using these days.

It's funny how life decides things. When I was applying for university, my second choice was Industrial Design at University of Canberra. So I decided that doing some graphics and illustrations, would be one way of relaxing at the end of each day and using long dormant skills.

A simple redesign of this site is the first project. Inkscape is very usable now. You can do pretty impressive text layout stuff on it, and once it supports multiple pages, it would replace all the functionality I used CorelDraw for. I'm budgeting for a nice Wacom tablet next month for graphics work.

full size

Design, including industrial and interior design is a cool field. It puts the cool factor as well as usability in everyday things and our environment. The most obvious one of course are the new Apple products, but they're in a lot of other things as well. It can turn the mundane into a work of art, and something geeky (PDA) into something that looks normal in an executive setting. An example the Visor Edge. I'd pay a premium for my TX if it looked like that.

Similarly, smooth lines and elements in the right place, can make your living or workspace a work of art.

Original photo by KellyB