Tagalore: A post-SONA blah

Delivering an all-important speech in the local tongue was a good start. I've been truly (and hypocritically) hoping for a Tagalog-fluent nation without exceptions. I snickered upon reading Inquirer's sidebar story on envoys lost in translation during the President's wrist-slapping State of the Nation Address (SONA) yesterday. For once those suits felt out of place, while our people could listen on, knowing they were addressed to, and finally had hopes renewed.

But can we call him brave? Triumphant? An icon of justice? Words are easy, and stats are hard. We were probably glad to see Arroyo on the spot before the whole world, but Aquino put one foot before justice has taken its first step. He accused before due process. He exposed problems without sufficiently providing solutions. He swore to do the opposite, even if it's old news.

Mrs. Arroyo did this and this and this, now we have no money, she's in Hong Kong attending to wifey duties, but she's nowhere near a trial. The only solid policy the past few weeks has been an enacted wang-wang-free EDSA. Call me impatient, but I'm not the only one here who's tired of reading about Dato Arroyos shrugging and saying, "Kebs."

Let's say, GAME. Send all those stats to court and get to work, Mr. President.

P-noy could have been more precise and be less of a beggar to the reigning private powers. But he showed what our people needed to see -- a prime, embattled figure prepared to prove himself.

Today, the peso is up, and things are looking lighter. The SONA was not perfect, and it made our nation's future look cloudier, but it was a good start. And in Tagalog. #

Google Images' new format. That's what I'm talking about!

A screenshot says a thousand words. Image searching is better, faster and easier than ever. We can just imagine how they went about the design process and integration, genius!

Mouse over on this report for more detailed descriptions of features. #

Because they give a damn

About a year ago, I'd have Net-surfing lunches with a friend who doesn't only share my love for alma mater, but also my passion for the Web. Our bookmarked clickages would land us daily on Good.Is -- a particularly attractive e-zine with updated, though not necessarily outstanding, design taste and much knowledge in visual journalism.

Thing is, the issues it covers are ambiguous at worst, and there's no keen grounding when it comes to its advocacies for the environment, gender and various other pressing matters such as whether or not James Franco should become an Ivy League professor and LeBron James be nicknamed "Lebronmageddon."

But the intention is there and is admirable. It's a platform that wants to stand for something and speak for "those who give a damn," and it does so in a fresh, fun and engaging way by retaining its youthfulness both visually and in writing. GOOD's model, even with its vices, is for me definitely a worthy benchmark (or at least a worthy bookmark).

A multimedia platform like GOOD which looks at multiple sectors and topical issues in society today can be used to address interconnected matters as a whole. It does not exhaust its resources to dwell on minor areas, but instead presents itself as flexible and creative by painting broad strokes. As I said, it does need grounding, and this can only be achieved by seriously considering ethics and having a clear vision-mission that aims to enable and enrich every individual it engages.

In short, the general editorial question GOOD should answer is, if it is for those who give a damn, what is that damn for? Is it relevant and purposeful? #

Image from trueslant.com

Absolutely loving Blogger, but

... I have a journalism training and even though I recently got into marketing communications, objective reporting is a professional discipline I can't part with.

Therefore, I resolve to share unbiased judgments. Blogger is wonderful, especially with its new themes, friendly and simple CMS, easy design and layout manipulation and almost universal compatibility. But more and more developers and web designers find Wordpress the more flexible and professional platform. It was the first to feature pages and menu options other than posts, and its themes have been the edgier ones around. It is a little more expensive to integrate and institutionalize though, but when one gets it going, it's tops.

I, for one, used Wordpress to develop Tanglaw University Center's new website, keeping in mind that someday I won't be around anymore to keep it up to date. Someone else has to take over, with or without techie skills, and I figured Wordpress is easy enough to learn when it comes to adding content. One problem solved.

Blogger's amazing layout and design GUI was its best advantage. But not anymore.

Hello Wordpress 3.0 Thelonious.

Because we don't just adore Comic Sans

I don't think that type should be expressive at all. I can write the word 'dog' with any typeface but it doesn't have to look like a dog. But there are people that [think that] when they write 'dog' it should bark.

--Massimo Vignelli in Helvetica (2007)

We Filipinos should seriously rethink our typographic sense. I know several good designers who can whip up a couple of amazing posters in an hour but using typefaces that shout or jump. There is almost no grid discipline and no respect for spaces. And there's ubiquitous clip art, an abuse of Photoshop brushes and simplistic vector elements.

A design should breathe easy, but we sense either hyperventilation or asthma.

Perhaps the best examples I can give to prove how much this developing part of the world has to improve on typography are some aesthetically bereft signage.

Introducing ultra thin, overly scaled type with uneven bars and stems.

Inconsistent tracking! Sponsored by Coca-cola

It's so against pink and irregular that it's deadly.

Philippine Airlines for the win. Designer was a non-Photoshop, Notepad-user who doesn't know that small caps exist and that it's a sin to impulsively resize an uppercase letter like lowercase ones. #

What I loved about freelancing

Half a year is half a year, and for many workers that translates to regularization, promotion or even instant celebrity. But for those who can speak out, six months of freelance work is something they would want, to just try it out, see what happens, earn a little less or even a little more and have something they'd get excited to do every single waking day.

Sure it was cluttered and spontaneous and a little reclusive, but it was not necessarily so. I could've shut down computer twice a day to meet people and clients more often.

No boss, no charts, no checklists. Only tight deadlines and clients always trying to be nice to get a discount. There were days when work was zero, by choice, but there were also packed weekends to try to squeeze in the smallest projects for almost naught. Hectic. But fun fun fun.

The downside? Minimal team work, the inhuman feel of interacting through chat interfaces and text messages and the haunting uncertainty of whether this suspicious client would lay down what was agreed upon after the work is done. Not to mention, the burden of paying taxes and having no one else to deal with BIR.

Next time, I'll write about what I'm into now. But as someone has already noticed, I hardly fulfill my promises in this blog.

Photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sstrudeau

Next in line

Three blog posts are in line for the following days, and I'm beginning to see blogging as a serious business, a part of my to-do list outside paid work. 'Cause blogging is work too, and more of an initiative, playing some itsy bitsy part in that much-talked about plan to change the world and contributing to the public opinion-media agenda dynamics beyond communication theory books.

Thing is, I have only written about one sentence for each of them, even though I find the topics real interesting. I guess there's virtue in waiting for some more writing space and time. Will publish soon. Thanks for virtuously waiting, too. #

The winner: the loser

It's clear he won. And here's hesitantly taking out the Gordon Post-it on my banner. There's that photojournalistic technique of high angle portrait shots on an international magazine to convey power, distinction and rule. The psychological effect out of it is undeniable. Noynoy is the not just the new Aquino, but the new hero, the new president.

"America loves winners," a friend would say, and they knew Noynoy would come out top. Even if his top is somewhat scarce, Time endorsed him. But Noy strikes us as rather irrational sometimes, like how he insists to reside in his Times Street home when president. As someone who lives in the neighborhood, I can enumerate almost 100 reasons why he should stay in Malacañang.

It's also creepy how he dissents with almost everything even before he's proclaimed Head of State. So he's a deviant, we get that, but as the sole face of a third world nation, he must also be a Mandela, an icon of solidarity. A real winner is one who's not afraid to lose his own feelings and opinions for the sake of the common interest and the objective good. #

Pseudo Übermensch

Ang sarap mag-aral. Kung ako lang ang tatanungin, hindi ko gustong matapos ang mga nalalabing panahon. E ano ngayon kung may exams pa at mahirap sila? Endorphins lang ang katapat n'yan.

Can't wait to get back to work, too. 'Cause awesome work is awesome to do. Yoohoo. #

Quite misguided use of "quite"

Several people I've talked to or I've heard use the adverb of degree "quite" to mean "slight." Although it's just a little bit bothering, it's quite wrong. Completely wrong.

Let me demonstrate.

When someone says, "The taste is bitter but I'm just quite used to it." She's mistaken. She wants to say that she is only a bit accustomed to bitter melon but uses the adverb to describe her degree of adaptation to the activity. WRONG.

I remember looking up the meaning of quite as a 13-year-old student of English. Right there, right after the word quite listed in good ol' Webster, it says "completely."

I looked it up again for the sake of supporting this post of mine. From WordWeb dictionary:

Adverb: quite kwIt
1. To a degree (not used with a negative)
"quite soon"; "quite ill"; "quite rich"; "quite tasty"
2. To the greatest extent; completely
"you're quite right"; "she was quite alone"; "was quite mistaken"; "quite the opposite"; "not quite finished"; "did not quite make it"
3. Of an unusually noticeable, exceptional or remarkable kind (not used with a negative)
"her victory was quite something"; "she's quite a girl"; "quite a film"; "we've had quite an afternoon";
- quite a, quite an
4. Actually, truly or to an extreme
"was quite a sudden change"; "it's quite the thing to do"; "quite the rage"; "Quite so!"

Nuff said. #