jammie's jarful

spring scribbles.

a saturday trip to gadani
with a hundred college kids
a busful of songs
a gorgeous cloudy day,
emerald green waters
the awe-inspiring rocky caves
and scribbles in my head

posted by jammie @ 1:59 AM 9 comments

doing what I do

In a social setting somewhere random, Someone asked me what I do.
"umm I'm a designer" I mumbled- not quite sure if I should link a longer line with it to explain exactly what I design. Predictably the next question was, "So what kind of clothes do you design?"
Sigh. "Well it's like brochures and logos and all" I try to sound excited but end up sounding irritated. I hate myself for making something I'm so passionate about sound as lame as past-time on the computer.
"I conceptualize ideas for products and campaigns- and then see the applications through" Great. Now I sound like I have no idea what I do, except use long words to sound important.

I struggle almost every time I'm asked this question not because I don't know the answer but because I have yet to find the words which do justice to what I actually do. I look at things we all see everyday, and use them to grow as a person. Too pseudo. I actually design for agencies on a contract basis. Ugh. Too limiting. I believe that design is all not something that I can confine to the boundaries of human definitions. Aaaargh. Too philosophical. I search in vain for words which will encompass the excitement and thrill I feel in my work. Can words really ever make up for feeling?

"so what do you do?"
"jee I'm a teacher."
"oh how nice beta. What do you teach?"
"umm design."
"oh what kind of clothes do you design?"

siiiiiigh.

posted by jammie @ 10:03 PM 11 comments

just browsing.

Nothing makes me tingle in anticipation more than having a stack of unread books on my bedside table. After a dinner at Nando's tonight, with just the right people, the four of us went to Liberty to browse (i think it's almost a calling in my life). By the way, for anyone who doesn't know,"browse" in jammie-speak, means a definite "buy".

And suddenly, a few books later, my Sunday looks brilliant.

posted by jammie @ 11:48 AM 15 comments

The Perfect Valen(tiny) Gift

what a day to arrive three weeks early on!
lots of love and kisses to big cuz's li'l one,
maha. one thing I must warn you about this family
is that you will be smothered in attention.
All the time. Good luck kiddo.

posted by jammie @ 11:48 AM 10 comments

St. Valentines Day 1996.

feb 14, 1996: hopeful hearts club in IVS, foundation year.

feb 14, 2006: give or take 6 husbands collectively, 4 or 5 odd children in total, a few marvellous careers, a couple of major life changing moves, a masters here or there, a design house, some heartbreak, lots of love, laughter and many years of wonderful, wonderful friends.

what's not to celebrate?

posted by jammie @ 10:29 AM 6 comments

The Never-ending Story

Msn-ing with hussy all the way in the Phillipines about love, work and loving work, she said something that got me thinking about what work, to us, actually means. When do we, as designers, take on projects and when, as weary designers, do we lose heart in it? The thing about our work is that it has no boundaries. Where do you stop calling something design? When the page layout is done? Or when the idea has taken seed? Or when the plant is providing shade? Does the design of something ever really end? Or not? On some very clear level, it imbues its spirit into the management and suddenly you aren't only designing design, but designing lives instead.

Exhausting innit?

So many times after having agreed to "paper" terms in a project, where I draw up figures and deadlines and do's and dont's for myself and my client, suddenly I find myself working way way overtime. Not in actual minutes and seconds of time alone, but in my head and my soul. It's no longer a project but a part of who I one day plan to be. It's a designers curse called "Inextricabli-tis", in which the main symptoms are that you and your work are intrinsic in nature. One cannot be separated from the other because where you end and the work begins is vague. Very, very vague.
Design for people like us was never meant to be just a profession. It was meant to be a full fledged life and as we graduated those millions of 6 years ago, I don't think I knew that I was afflicted because it didn’t show back then. But now, now it's stark raving obvious.

posted by jammie @ 12:08 PM 5 comments

so the last post had a title AND a small write-up which blogger ate up.
we had a cousins trip to the beach over the weekend.
in my dad's side of the family, everyone big on together stuff. always have been. very vocal about family ties and all that. all of us cousins are a couple of years apart in age and while that used to be a BIG deal about 10 years ago, now we have all settled into a much more mellow age restriction rule; hence group outings are more chaotic, more fun. And with time, way more rare.
in the pics below, you see me and my sis with mo, the underground hero of the family.
beach outings, in their madness and fun, fire my imagination with the never ending possibilities of pic-taking. the situation was ripe too, with what the matching t-shirts (by mistake, i promise) and mo in black. Mo-trix ishtyle, you know.

posted by jammie @ 4:20 AM 4 comments