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A Designer’s Personal Shrine

For commercial artists, being bugged down by Client requirements can put creativity in a shutdown. Requirements put a limit to vision and deadlines making matters worse. Flexibility to try out new things for a project can be hindered and following working trends for a specific industry can make a designer forget something very important: his or her own personal creativity.

A designer needs something personal to remind him or her creative meaning. In meaning, a shrine is a place or a furniure used to place meaningful intangibles through display of sentimental materials. For designers, it could be a place to store materials to help him or her in creative endeavors. It would really be great so spend some time everyday adding something to the shrine. It could contain books, art materials, candles, even incense. It could be very simple and it should evolve over time but it will always remain relevant to the designer. As a designer or artist, these shrine could help develop personal relevant creativity that is not often accessible as a commercial artist.

A shrine doesn’t have to be big and take up so much space. It could be something small like an ashtray or box that houses favorite knick knacks like marbles, pins, crayons or whatever the designer likes. It could also be a portable plant or keychain that has some memento inside.

I remembered a fad during my high school when everybody carried bulky organizers everywhere. They weren’t bulky from school documents or inserted allowance bills. They were full of pictures, love letters, stickers, drawings, slam-book like pages filled with notes, anecdotes and information of friends, colorful calling cards, stationaries, etc. Everybody liked looking at those organizers. Each organizer is relevant and tells a lot of its owners. Same thing was also done to wallets.

If you are a tech geek like me, a digital gadget can be really handly. My PALM PDA serves as my mobile shrine. Everything in my PALM is relevant to me creatively. I have my Notepad to doodle, my ebooks (learning textbooks and pocketbooks) to read in my free time, my japanese dictionary and workbook to practice on once in a while, some pictures to make me remember people close to my heart, games, some music, etc.

So a shrine can practically be anything that is relevant to a designer. Make your own shrine. Take care of it so you will never cease inspiration to create things you love. ^^

Below are some ideas that could serve as shrines. You can pick one or add some suggestions to the list.

1) Wallets and Organizers. These come in various shapes and sizes. Be creative in what you place in them!

2) Mugs and Boxes. The designs are in variety and could house your favorite stuff.


3) Keychains. You’ll be surprised on the variety of keychains available out there. Check out these displays. You can check out this page for more options.

4) Mobile Gadgets. If you have money to burn, try to find the portable gadget to fit your lifestyle. As long as it can house your tools and you can carry and use it anywhere (unlike a laptop, they can be a hassle to bring out compared to a PDA device).


5) Have a blog. Make a blog your own personal sanctuary. It will house everything about you. Your way of thinking, pictures, ideas, imagination, videos, etc. It’s everything about you and its yours so you can add anything into it.

Do you have other ideas that could serve as a personal shrine? Comment it here! ^_^

1383 days ago • My Work • Tags: , ,

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Pinoy Trivia

I borrowed a book from an officemate titled “Pinoy Trivia” by Bong Barraneda. In it are facts and trivia about common knowledge not everybody would particularly know about. And no, just because it’s titled “Pinoy Trivia” does not mean it’s everything Filipino related. There are facts and odd news from other parts of the world. Below are but a few trivias that really stuck in my head and I want to share it here for knowledge keeps. ^^

1) Why is the wedding ring traditionally placed on the third finger of the bride’s left hand?

The custom dates to the ancient Egyptians who believed this finger carried a vein leading directly to the heart. Writers later gave it the name vena amoris, or “love’s vein”.

2) “Here Comes the Bride” – played at almost all traditional weddings as te happy couple march to the altar – is actually the “Bridal Chorus” of Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin. And it’s sung in quite a different setting. In this opera, the chorus starts singing as the hero, Lohengrin, accompanied by his new wife, Elsa, enters the bridal chamber, which is dominated by a very large bed. Their attendants then help them disrobe for their wedding night. Because of this sexually oriented scene, some religious sects have objected to using the “Bridal Chorus” as a wedding march.

3) A Japanese puppy named Haichi went to a Tokyo railroad station to see his master off, as usual, one day in 1925. That afternoon, at 5 o’clock, he went to meet the train his master always came home on. But that afternoon his master wasn’t on it. The puppy had no way of knowing his master had died in the city. Never giving up hope, Haichi went to the railroad everyday for the next 10 years – the rest of his life – and waited for the 5 o’clock train. Then, when his master didn’t appear, he went sadly home. When he died, the Japanese government put up a statue of Haichi on the spot where he had waited and sent small replicas to all schools in the country.

4) What language has the biggest vocabulary?

English, with abouot 490,000 words plus another 300,000 technical terms. It is doubtful, however, if any individual uses more than 60,000 English words.

5) There are many ways to play the ten opening moves in chess. How many – millions, billions, trillions, or even more?

Even more – there are at least 170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (17 x 1025

6) A Friendly Reminder. The World Health Organization estimates that smoking the one cigarette stick shortens the smoker’s expected life span by 5 minutes.

1383 days ago • Journal • Tags: , ,

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Today is Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day and an important part of this event is the reminder of global tragedies happening all over the world, more importantly the advocacies to save Mother Earth and our lives from dying.

I’ve very glad to hear that there are already activities going on today locally to promote preserving Mother Earth for future generations starting with cleansing of Manila Bay (or was Pasig River?). Either way, there will also be instructions and teachings on other ways to save our world. HBO will also show the controversial Al Gore documentary titled “An Inconvenient Truth”. I haven’t seen it but I bet it will be highly satisfactory to my tastes and expectations since I’ve already heard snippets of the documentary from friends and their anecdotes brought goosebumps to my skin.

Here is a trailer of the said documentary:


To give a brief history on Earth Day, please read all about it from an excerpt below taken from Wikipedia.

Earth Day is a name used for two different observances, both held annually during spring in the northern hemisphere, and autumn in the southern hemisphere. These are intended to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth's environment. The United Nations celebrates Earth Day, which was founded by John McConnell in 1969, each year on the March equinox, while a global observance originated by Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in, and since January 1970 also called Earth Day, is celebrated in many countries each year on April 22, including the U.S.

1384 days ago • Journal

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