So I got to work to create a template that anyone can print out and pop into their Kaosillator for a perfectly mapped grid. Skip to the bottom of the page for the template. (Fear not, the template is sans Hello Kitty. I’m not about to impose anything on you.) Why a grid-mod? So that if you like, you can get specific about which keys you’re hitting.

For those of you who don’t know what a Kaosillator is, it is techno-dust-in-a-box. Here’s a video to save you the reading.

I’m going to start by explaining how I arrived at the grid itself here. To skip to how to use the template click here.
I started my process with some good old trial & error testing, with scrap paper laid over the touch pad:

After some measuring, I sketch out a preliminary grid on illustrator:

Printed it out. :

Checked it for fine-tuning:

And pretty much kept repeating this part till I got a grid that was accurate:

Then I made it pretty:

With is grid ready, it’s time to figure out how to stick it into the Kaossilator more permanently:

If you’re following this as a tutorial, have a print out of the template and a piece of acetate or transparency ready.
There are four screws at the four corners of the Kaosillator, remove them :

Pop the knob out :

Pry the silver face out, starting at the end close to the volume dial:

I used a paper clip to help. Be careful, the three buttons (Tap, Scale, Loop) can get caught by the metal casing and damaged at their joints. It happened to me. :

Remove the battery cover and undo the fat screw :

Keep these safe. The round-top one is from the back, the other four are from the corners :

You should now see :

Remove the four screws at the four corners of the circuit board :

You must pop the little circuit board with the audio jacks away from the plastic casing before the rest of the circuit board can be removed. It’s stubborn, use tools!  :

Gently push the dial to free the board from the casing :

Gently lift the board, don’t yank, the touch pad is still attached to the plastic casing :

Remove the three screws remaining on the plastic casing :

The touch pad is free! :

After looking around inside the Kaossilator, I realized four pins anchored the touch pad where it needed to be. So I traced the shape of the touch pad, along with holes for the pins, and through a little trail and error, aligned it with the grid I already had. :

At this point, I had not realized the chamfers (cut off corners) should have been at the bottom, not the top, of the touch pad:

Finally, a perfect fit:

Cutting the transparency to match the size & shape of the final print out:

Punching small holes where they belong:

Grid and screen-protecting transparency :

Installed! :

Now, just re-tracing the steps. After using a little tape to hold the touch pad & grid in place, put the plastic plate back :

Special note : The little circuit board & big circuit board interlock rather delicately at the top. Check for alignment before popping the boards back into the casing:

Special note: It takes some wiggling to get the on/off slider to fit the button properly :

Special note: I had to push the wire parts around a little to get the cover to fit perfectly :

And, the final product :

• DOWNLOAD>> GRID TEMPLATE (tiff, 300dpi, 8 x 6.3 cm)
  
• DOWNLOAD>> Grid in Illustrator format (in case alignment needs adjusting)
• Great link for grids : http://kgridmod.blogspot.com/
• Kaossilator grid mod by Vtecgogos : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33J5JYC5RLg
• Kaossilator grid mod by Kgridmod : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5QrCCxc_Y
• Vimeo group : http://vimeo.com/groups/kaossilator

The nutty nutty showreel of Meindbender Animation Studio. It made me feel so… rightminded. They do this stuff for the cartoon network, I’m pretty sure their audience are the quirky children. It’s nice to know someone out there is looking out for us.

From Meindbender via The Reels – The Official Demo Reel Channel on Vimeo
Check them out at meindbender.com

videogioco-loop experiment from donato sansone on Vimeo.

Via Carne Mag.

Place (Ställe) is a dance piece by the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre, 2009. Filmed by director Jonas Akerlund. Choreographed by Mats Ek, and staring Michail Baryshnikov & Ana Laguna

The trailer is amazing, I have to get my paws on the full version.

Incidentally, Akerlund is also the guy behind Ozzy’s Gets Me Through and Gaga’s Paparazzi. Hm.

Seldom does the world collectively experience a disappointment so great, it is humorous. Then again, as we sober up from the punchline, we begin to wonder if there is more to the iPad than a flub. Apple is, after all, the industry game-changer. It wouldn’t be wise not to watch closely.

The iPad could shift the rules of advertising, graphic design, blogging, journalism & publishing from right beneath your feet.

Iconic design house, Pentagram, has published a great trend-watch article, “5 Ways the iPad will Change Magazine Design“. Indeed, the iPad will, as an e-reader (as opposed to a half-assed excuse of a smart-phone-laptop hybrid) may revolutionize reading itself.

Magazine content, online and in print, will be influenced by the screen, interface, even processing capabilities of the iPad. Think this is an exaggeration? Just look at how graphic design both on- and off-line has been influence by the mouse and resolution for the past decade:

• Images got smaller and took the form of pop-up slide shows
• Content structure became dominated by overviews, excerpts and short articles while longer pieces sit on a lower hierarchy behind “more” tags or further into the heart of the publication.
• Video content flourishes and demands integration with text and still (often with awkward results).
• Advertising copy and images became miniaturized to integrate into layouts.
• The miscellaneous (archives, categories, similar posts, about-the-authors) became necessary browsing tools, equivalent to running one’s fingers through the pages of a magazine.

And all of the above will be changed, again, with the iPad. People will spend considerably more time, well, reading, than on a laptop or a computer. Trends that came about to adapt to people’s shrinking attention spans and patience will be, again,transformed. The screen real estate also changes when scrolling is eliminated or re-integrated into user interaction, or when reading patterns change.

Come to think about it … the iPad has even influenced the market as we know it before it’s release.

And of course, the iPad might just be the nail in print’s drawn-out descent into it’s coffin – with an iPad on every coffee table, where will print stand?

the iPad might just be the nail in print’s drawn-out descent into it’s coffin

But while the iPad’s potential is formidable, it must first, like every product, be purchased. And even as the kind of consumer who’s willing to part with a little more cheddar for a little more shiny, I must say that the iPad just won’t cut it. Lack of multi-tasking, limited processing power and no usb at that price tag? It’s almost vulgar.

Hopefully, all that speculation about Apple having something more up their sleeves is right…

EDIT: Haha,  Stanford does not heart the iPad.

Funny thing is that it totally reinstates my previous statement about bad design(and bad ideas…) going everywhere. It apparently wandered onto said second graphic and a song by Jim Steinman. So help us all.

Inspired by GTD (Getting Things Done), my latest wallpaper:

Download after the jump.

Can it be that it’s already February? Can it be that in 11 weeks, I will not have the numbing comfort of syllabi, academic units and past exam papers? Can it be? In my panic, I have brushed up on my Getting-Things-Done and started brewing double-shot expressos again.

Closer:

Free in Misc. Sizes:

• 1920 x 1080
• 1680 x 1050
• 1600 x 900
• 1344 x 756
• 1280 x 1024
• 1280 x 720
• 1024 x 768
• 800 x 600
• Not

Other GTD wallpaper ideas:

• by SmartProductivity.com
• by Josef Richter

The mass-discussion of such shitbits for profit is known as an industry.

Graphic designers wax kerning, painters argue composition, filmmakers fuss the mark of the auteur and advertisers, God bless their understanding of virals, tinker with social media.

If the working world is anything like crit sessions in school, then it will be clever to equip yourself with shitbits and the stamina to dispense them at length. Along comes these three delightful guides by Anneloes van Gaalen.

Good read? Not entirely, but definitely a good browse. And a great little pre-crit / pre-pitch pick-me-up.

While looking for a book on comedy writing (a topic sorely omitted during the rush and broad topic study of a filmmaking degree), I stumbled across this cute little read from Tony Bill.

I appeciated the little bits of information and trivia of like how Samuel Fuller carried a luger that he would fire sometimes in lieu of yelling “Action!”. I thought about making up my own creative way of saying action in the future. A gong perhaps. And if it’s a good take, I’ll yell “Cut. Awesome Take Shooortaayyys!!!” using the iPhone T-Pain autotune app. Ah. I can just picture the reactions of the filmmaking uncles, pure gold I tell ya. Holler back at ya Mr Pang.

And then I actually did get my comedy writing book.

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a Double Act. This passion has become stronger with the many nights I spend watching Sheldon and Leonard talk sexy, sexy physics on The Big Bang Theory. (+10 for Kaley Cuoco) This got me thinking of what kind of kinda Singaporean, kinda tacktastic Comedic Duo would work.

Any suggestions from you shitty bitties out there would be greatly appreciated. And hopefully this book will inspire some kinda screwed up fictional version of the trio that is the shitbits. Come alive script!

The season has come, once again, for the students of a grass-topped school in tropical Singapore to enroll in the next semester’s classes.

In the School of Art, Design & Media (ADM, see fig. 1a, b), this bi-annual ritual is no easy task (see fig. KNN).

This enraging/ enthralling/ enlightening experience recurs about 3 weeks before the start of every semester, and is well-documented on twitter & facebook (see fig. 2a, b).

This time around, yours truly was greeted by fig. 3. Yes, complications must ensue, it insists. And this is before the semester even begins. It is unfortunate that ADM, like any other young establishment, is ridden with many other similar & annoying little administrative kinks. In my four years in ADM, I have seen:

• my GPA get wrecked by a failing grade, which was later revoked,
• the school operate somewhat dean/chair-less,
• brilliant, brilliant teachers be dismissed due to petty admin & students raging about the lack of staff,
• core classes be canceled at weeks’ notice,
• mad-expensive facilities get carelessly demolished and refurbished, abused and restored,
• miscellaneous chaos.

But you know, I would be lying if I didn’t say that it is with great affection that I wrestle the absurdities that come my way semester after semester. The truth is, design kids will always have a special bond with their Alma Matter. And even more so ADM students. Why?

1. ADM is in Singapore
   The very unlikeliness of an institution dedicated to the creative arts on a stern island dedicated to efficiency is, in itself, a reason to find ADM charming. And God bless the person who had the notion to place it in Nanyang Technological University. Till today, I believe that this was done solely to culture-fuck with the general population of engineering students. There are some things that will always only fly in art school. Like an arches of grass for roofs. Like sleeves of tattoos on a top student. Or transgenderism. When ladyboy & freshman, Marla Bendini, struts across campus, I am never sure whether to feel awkward for her or those poor kids who scamper away in apprehension. Point is, ADM persists, like almost blissfully oblivious to it’s odd circumstances. In ADM, a great kinship is forged simply on the basis of our collective improbability.
2. Foundation Year
   Every ADM kid is initiated with a year of arguably fine-art-biased training. This will the the key bonding experience of all ADM kids, pre-declaration-of-Majors. There is something about all that freshman energy, channeled into two semesters of pre-assigned studio-based craft classes. For most students, this will be their first exposure to “Art School” – crit sessions,  stereotypes, late night deadline rushes, guzzling coffee, arguing about paper weight and all that. Friendships are as inevitable as gossip and crushes on those creative-type professors in their mid-30’s.It is easy to get lost in the whimsical charm of Foundation Year, but this romantic scenario will come to a rude halt. Suddenly it will be time to choose from a list of strictly design-based majors. How is all that dabbling in fine art going to help? Who knows?! But, you’d better choose wisely, because this decision will define your professional training for the next three years, and, oh, you are not allowed to change your mind further down the road. Everyone gets swept away in freshman year, no exceptions. It is the common ground and will always be.
3. Boon-fucking-lay
   Every art school is a communal pit of creative sweat, shit and tears. But ADM is in Boon Lay. Which really means, “Don’t even think about catching a train home after 11.15pm.” Like a blackhole, ADM has a certain kind of inescapable gravity that warrants respect, awe and those showerheads installed in the bathrooms. Perhaps the school should install some toothpaste dispensers soon? ADM nightlife reminds students of every major that, FCP, Maya, Rhino, MSP, Psd or InDesign, we’re all still in it together.
4. Loony diversity
   When I was very young, I attended an international school. There is something about ADM’s crazy mix of professors and students that invokes that same feeling. Classes are always small enough to know everyone by name and some handy gossip them. Students come from all over and the professors all seem like they’re poached from exotic places across the planet… a class in ADM never really quite feels like one in a typical local institution, yet, it’s undeniably Singaporean. What does that mean? Only ADM students will know.

In about 2 hour’s time, I will (attempt to) register for subjects via STARS* for the last time, ever. And honestly, I can’t help but sprinkle a lil’ misc. emo-ness over it.