Ohayou KaishinLab readers!

Ohayou means “good morning” in Japanese. It is also the title of the first ever Japanese textbook series for arabic pupils, which is in turn the first book ever to have my name on it. I have been collaborating with Kai as an all-in-one illustrator, designer and translator for over one year now. Yesterday, I received few copies of the third and latest book in the series, depicted above.

Even though I initially felt reluctant to take this freelance offer -as I had no previous experience with textbook illustration-, things went much better than I had imagined. Had I turned down this offer, I would have missed a lot.
As much as being realistic and rational is important for any ambition to concretize, getting over mental barriers and trying is paramount to get anything achieved. Truly, you never know until you try.

Innocent Drinks is a UK based company producing and selling smoothies (thick beverage made out of fruits and milk) in many European countries. For my part, I enjoy their smoothies, but it’s rather their visual identity that I appreciate the most. Their logo is a good example of simple and effective design. The hand drawn mark is original, memorable, and can be easily reproduced in various colors and backgrounds. It is oozing with innocence and fits perfectly with the brand name. The typography adds a faint serious tone to the visual identity without appearing inconsistent or contradictory.

What I find particularly appealing in Innocent branding is their packaging design. Soft drinks in general, juices and smoothies in particular, tend to come in exceedingly vibrant and colorful packages plagued with fruit illustrations and whatnot, ranging from the acceptable to the mediocre. Innocent understood that an abundant color palette is not a prerequisite to achieve good design.

Verdict: Solid concept, good execution, tasty smoothies, life’s good.
Lesson to learn: Good design is simple.

PS: Today I had a Pineapple, banana and coconut smoothie (link).

KaishinLab is finally out of the private beta!! Banzai!

During the last two months I was able to fix the major bugs in the website, thanks to the help of the few private beta testers to whom I would like to express my gratitude by the same occasion. KaishinLab is going public, but this doesn’t mean it is going out of beta. Also, going public coincides intentionally with my birthday. Needless to say, the best gift you can give me is a comment or two.

Context

I spend most of the day in front of a monitor, almost everyday. And that’s not eye-friendly to say the least. Our daily lives have became so plagued with monitors to the point that we barely get “off-screen”: phones during commutes, computers at work, TV at home and so on and so forth. In the midst of this pixel flood, we can at least take some precautions such as leaving a healthy distance between us and our monitors (starting 40cm / 16 inch).

Concept

While the concept is not scientifically approved, it is a good reminder that staring too close at the monitor is not the healthiest activity around. This concept was originally featured on my Twitter page.

…is the culprit. Or so they say. Man-made global warming theory was first spread by Al Gore, who is currently the chairman of Generation, an investment firm that speculates on environmentally friendly businesses since 2004 and whose assets have quadrupled over the past year standing now at about $1 billion, according to Marketwatch. Go figure.