Archive for the ‘others’ Category

It’s been a while since I last write any post. Been busy at work and personal life, resulting in extreme exhaustion. Anyway I’m back, and in this particular short post, I would like to bring your attention to a gentlemen watch.

Watch for men, is like jewelry  for women. It decorates you in a subtle and purposeful way. Having said that, there are plenty ways for things to go wrong when you picking a wrong watch. A case in example, Al Gore with his calculator watch, and 20 something guy wearing gold plated Rolex.

Surely, name like Tag Heuer, Rolex, and Omega are guarantee for quality time piece. Not only that it has excellent quality, it also compliment your appearance and most importantly reflect character that you can (or want) to associate with. The draw back ? Well these brands can cost you thousand of dollar a piece, hardly fits everyone.

So what if you want something that has a character, but an affordable. Its arguable, but for me character  can only be found in  a watch that produced by watchmaker. And if European watchmaker are out of reach, the Japanese come into equation.  The brand in mention is of course Casio and Seiko.

Being the king of digital watch, Casio no doubt has its loyal segmentation and fans. The indefatigable G-Shock has been ruling the digital watch for more then a decade now, and I have not known someone who doesn’t know the all time famous solar powered Casio and its calculator equipped variant.  But the gem of the brand is of course its Edifice Series.

The Edifice EF-521 series in white dial.Courtesy of www.casio-intl.com

Mostly build as chronograph, Edifice series are designed as sports-formal fusion. Comes in stainless steel case, its suits most men, and give the youngish appearance that sports watch lent to its bearer. It also comes in various dial material, with most advance are the carbon fiber which gives  the sporty and accuracy image to the watch. With a price tag rounding around USD100-USD200 the only think that I dislike from any Casio watch, is its dependency to power source, meaning every few years or so, you will need to replace the battery.

Which brings me to Seiko, especially the Five series. Bearing from the same country of origin as Casio, Seiko is nowhere near its brother. Whilst Casio always keen to explore the digital side and brave in exploring new area, Seiko is much more conservative. And despite it has delivered an excellent range of modern looking wrist watch,  those who adores Seiko will cherished its Five series more than any others.

Seiko 5 Black Automatic.Courtesy of www.longislandwatch.com

Designed as sports watch the sign “5″ refers to the 5 essential features of the series, namely shock resistant, water resistant, automatic and day and date display. In quick look, the design has some kind connection with Rolex Oyster series. The dial is protected with crystal glass which make its scratch free. But what makes it prized, is its mechanical auto winding mechanism, which means you will never ever need to replace the battery (because it doesn’t have one). With a prize start as low as USD100, its hard not to love this watch. The drawback ? Well you’ll need to always wear it.

Understandably, for most men, acquiring watch not only a matter of choosing the watch that will suit your skin tone, and makes you feel good. But in  a away it also provide some kind of boosting to self confidence and upgrade to your style. Hence for some people who only thing about the later, will usually find himself in an odd combination of gold wrist watch, gold necklace and white shoes

That said, your style is your responsibility. For me, USD150 Seiko will bring quite the same level of handsomeness as an USD3,000 Rolex does.

This is continuation of my previous post.

Now the reason why I started the project is because of the necessity. You see, as you grew older you might, as I experience caught in the situation where you spent your weekend attending your friends wedding invitation.

And traditionally  any such attendance will be follow with an envelope that contains some money and off course wishes for the newly wed. For sometimes I underestimated the wishes part and focus only on the money part. Until on one occasion I notice an amount of effort that my Mom spent when writing a wishes for the bride and groom. When I enquired about this she answered, “You see son, money will just go to their bank account and get mixed with others, wishes however will get into an album, and in time will be reopened and cherished.

I was once, was one of those people who write wished at the back of my name card. Now I regretted every moment I did that. It’s  improper, impersonal, clumsy and yes very lazy.

So I started to change. At first I bough  a pack of simple empty fancy cards and enveloped that cost IDR50k for 10. And when its run out. I’m exploring other possibilities.

My first priority of course is a customized letter head, greeting cards on cotton paper. One inquiry to one shop that offers this product in Jakarta left me speechless. A set of customized letter head (100 sets) will cost approx IDR15mio, and a set of ready designed card set can cost as much as IDR600k (for 20).

While the quality might merit the price, I am not yet on that league. Hence this post.

Now this post series will ultimately  logging my journey in producing these packages. The end result that I have in mind are the following:

• Custom card and envelope for personal use (congratulatory note, thank you note)
• Letterhead (in case I need to write long ), business and personal alike .
• These items needs to be personalized , unique and needles to say pretty to look , deluxe at touch and nice to smell
• These items needs to come at an affordable prized
• If you can follow suit this experiments and happy with the results, it’s a bonus.

To achieve these results, here are the component that I need to look

• Writing paper that can be used with fountain pen, have a good and unique fiver and pattern, nice to touch and comfy to read
• Envelope Paper that will suits the color and fit to accompany the paper
• Type of printing method that is scalable, cheap and resulting in a good quality

For now, this should be enough to start considering options. Naturally off course, I will accept any suggestion, and your advice is most welcome.

In the age of digital art and electronic communications, the tradition of long and narrative letter writing is slowly dying and with it goes along the art of handwriting, or more specifically cursive writing.

I can no longer recount how many people that I know especially those of my generation (let alone those who are younger than me) who still writes in cursive style, and those still does are no longer following the ever strict rule of cursive letter, me included.

As you can see on the pic below, which is a photograph of one my arbitrary note in my Moleskine ( yes, I still write in a notebook), despite majority of cursive and italic style letter, I still occasionally use block as well, which in away, kind of disrupt the flow of the cursive it self.

My poor handwriting

Another poor handwriting, same style from different notes

It’s a pity actually, for cursive style are far more beautiful and stylish then a block letter. Yes, it may be less efficient, and in a way more difficult that the block letter and then there is also a chance that it will not be readable to some people, but there is no doubt that it has more character and identity. In a such that it is very much a mirror of your own characteristic and unique personal identity. Those who master the science of handwriting analysis can very much tell you how handwriting can reveal its writer personality.

It is to this trait that even today, it is strongly recommended that when you write greetings card, thank you note, or any personal note, it’s better you handwrite it, better still if you do it in cursive  and using fountain pen (the stroke difference between fountain pen and modern ball/roller pen is prized by the fountain pen fans). Not only that its is more personalized and intimate, it also shows that you care about the person you write for, and you mean every words in it, because you make an effort to write every single letter in it. Same thing can not be said about electronic letter.

Which brings us to the underlying reason, on why I started this post. This post is intended as start of series of post that will follow another of my project of developing letter head, cards and envelope) that I will use for greetings, thank you and congratulation notes. More explanation on this will be discussed in the next post. For now, let me ask you just one question, do you still write in cursive ?

Right, by default I should have said happy new year to you all my dear readers and post a writing about my past achievement and future commitment. But alas, I’m not yet on that level of narcissism nor pretend to my self that all of you care about what I have or have not achieved in the past one year.

So let me get this straight. Firstly, I would like to apologize because I haven’t been post anything in the last week or so, primarily because I have been away overseas, for some holiday and quality time with people that I care.

Secondly, that goes without saying, that my holiday hasn’t been dull, boring or anything like it. Not at all. In fact I’m about to show you some little souvenirs that I’ve obtained during my holiday, things that you might want to consider to obtain when you visit Singapore.

Thirdly, while I’m away and feasting my sight on deluxe good in abundant in the whole length of Orchard Road, I’m toying with an idea of developing several items that I would like but could not acquired. These of course will required some considerable research and trial/error but the result I trust will be worthwhile. In any case, I will inform you when the projects finally realized.

Fourthly, some new things to expect in weeks to come. The arrival of my made to measure Mario Minardi, a tailoring of my black suit, a letter head projects and some delicious recipe to be shared, including some that involved some spices that I acquired in Singapore.

Afraid not, I will assure you what about to come will broaden your perspective. Till the next post, I bid you good night and good luck.

Dear friends,

Have I ever told you ? That once upon a time, long time before I was banker, and sometimes in between my role as a chef, I was a graphic designer ? Well, not the best one out there but certainly a decent one. At the very least,  it paid for my living cost for quite sometime.

Anyhow, couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon this website called fudgegraphics, and I thought, wow this blog is pretty ! And the best thing of all, the guy by the name Franz Jeitz design it himself. And then I thought, why don’t I redesign my own blog me self ? Well, I know it’s not going to be easy, but it’s worth trying.

And so I started the process by designed the blog starting by creating my own brand. Now quite frankly, it’s not that difficult, because already have something in my mind, I didn’t go through the usual process of logo design that I used to went through for my customer. Oh well, may be I did it, but in a very subconscious way.

The name simplenotch, comes from idea that once upon a time in your life, you stumbled upon incident that changes your life, or how you lived your life ? My blog exactly represent several  things that changed after these “incidents” (the long story will follow sometimes). This incidents represented as a notch, a mark that tainted your life hopefully in a good way. This notch, is more then just a mark, it’s also a stepping place for us to climb up the otherwise step and slippery wall of life.

So what ever thing that comes it should a have a notch, a chip on it, triangular empty space where it looked that someone has just whacked it with axe or something like that. I came out with various media where I could put the notch in (as you can see), before I finally set with a simple[n]otch. It was derived for [s]implenotch, but after a consult with my dear friend Mira of Shopaholic (who thought that the notched squared is to corporeity), we agreed that it make a lot more sense to put the [ ] in the [n] instead.

The evolution of design

I considered several typeface, including the almighty Helvetica. But considering that not many all pc’s have Helvetica in it, and not many people can differentiate the difference between Helvetica and Arial anyway, and even those Helvetica lover and Arial hater are still using Arial as a content typeface, I settled with Arial instead. As for the color ? Well, I simply love blue, but to put it straight, I intend the color to change over time, adjusting to the mood and seasons we are in.

The final logo, and its variation

Once the logo ready and I’m happy and satisfied with, designing the blog was not an issue. I used Artisteer to generate the majority of back script for the WP blog, but toning and customizing each design components quite manually me self. Including adding some script in the header and footer.

This is my first own designed WP template, so it’s a working progress. And yes, I’m pretty nervous when I uploaded to server. But hey, it turned out to be just fine !!! Sure, I did some tweak again here and there, and will continuously do so. So expect some changed in time to come.

So, how do you like my new brand and blog design ?