Use the given design!

when i was making pictures at the kowloon tong station of the "go right" and "go left" arrows, i found something very interesting. look at this:

the arrow is seated between two ad posters right above the escalators at the exist towards baptist hospital. it show the way to exit the escalators which in my opinion has no sense. the exit is seen clearly so no arrow is needed and furthermore, it is kind of hiden between the posters. but that's not what i want to talk about. it made me to come closer to see whether the two posters have something in common. they seem to do so! they both seem to be aimed at kids - one is a cartoon movie, the other some event. as there is a cartoon figure, i suppose it is for kids.

but to me it is not enough. as the arrow is already there, it is given, it could be used better. what if someone makes a story of two posters? and the arrow guides you to the second part of the story? i am pretty sure there are more places like this one, where the "story" could be used...

it is a pitty that the advertising companies do not pay attention to these things as there could be lots of chances how to make the advertising different and interesting.

Svastika

well, it is very interesting how the cultural history changes the way people look at different designs. when i saw this gate for the first time, i got fightened.svastika? right. for "western" world, especially for europe this cross is strongly connected with the second world war and the nazism. but originally the svastika was an ancient symbol for "good luck" in India. in the nazi symbolic shows the svastika two "s" crossed. "s" like socialism. and for a european girl who has some friends whose grandparents spent years in concentration camps it is very hard to get rid of these connotations.

have you been to the po lin monastery (at the lantau island) in the budhist restaurant? and did you have a look at the ceiling? it is full of these crosses. the nazi movement changed the svastika from a good-luck symbol for "well-being", to a bad-luck symbol for "socialism". and i have to try very hard not to feel bad whenever i see it...

Communist posters

as we saw the chinese cultural revolution woodcuts in the class today, it reminded me something we call "communist propaganda" or "political posters". of course i do not remeber them as they were popular long time ago and many years before i was born. but here are just some of them...
let's start with russian ones:

those clearly show that lenin is the best one, the only one who can win our fight for communism. but of course, he cannot do it alone, we - proletariat - have to help him.

it's very interesting that comparing to the chinese ones, the russian block posters used a lot women in the poster. women became very important part of the revolution and they not only helo by supporting their husbands and bringing up kinds in the "right communist way", but also by fighten themselves, as we see on the second picture. this was actually the first time women were given also some economic power as they were massively employed in factories, collectivistic agriculture but also heavy industry (but which obviously did not help their social status).

czech woman, we are calling you!

another part of the proletarian fight was the youth, which was given power. there have been youth organisations educating new communists, new kind of human race which does not have any private possession desires and lives just for the collectivistic society.

10 years of communist youth internationale

war to the imperialistic war!

bringing up men towards the ideal communist society was also supported by the educational institutions as we can see on this book cover.

civics for 2nd and 3rd secondary school grades

the same as mao was shown next to marx and lenin as his ideological ancestors and his great historical ideological background, so were czech presidents shown with stalin. we didn't probably need to show that stalin is a follower of lenin who was a follower of marx, because those who would deny it have already been arrested.

on this picture we can see the first communist czechoslovak president klement gottwald who was in power (because it cannot be called mandate) in the years 1948, when the communists regime won the elections, to 1953 when he died. here we can see the strong personality cult no only of the czech presidents, but also of stalin.

p.s.: when we were talking about lenin, this pictures tells everything - he is the leader, the teacher, the wise one... he is standing on a tribune because he is the only one who know the truth and only him can reveal it to us. exactly how jesus is sometimes painted, how jan hus and many other deliverer are also.

btw. did you know that the ideology russian communism was using was called "marxism-leninism"? it tells a lot about the lenin. actually, as far as i have studied marx, his idea had nothing to do with what we witnessed in the soviest region. it is honestly a great idea to me! really! he just wanted the equality to win. and not that the economic conditions and power gives also the social power. but it was just an idea, brilliant societal and economical analysis, but that's all. marx was the first one who started thinking about it and it should help us to understand our society better. but we should never try to reach the communist ideal. it simply does not exist, it is an utopia, as thomas moore's utopia or campanella's the city of the sun.

and would you believe some people feel offended that students learn about karl marx at the university?

Sutnar 2

well, one more thing. we saw sutnar's work at the class - it was a book cover.

maybe would be nice to translate it: as you can see it is g. b. shaw's book "getting married"...

Ladislav Sutnar

and here is something about the ladislav sutnar we learned about...

http://www.sutnar.cz/index_cz.html

well, i shoul really shame because i didn't know him... :( actually i knew the name, and i think i heard it connected with desing but had no idea what he did... but now i know :)

Afons Mucha

well, here is the biography of alfons mucha

http://www.mucha.cz/index.phtml?S=biog&Lang=EN

you can actually visit a mucha museum in prague. there is also a mucha restuarant where you can find his posters... and you can find them in many other pubs and restaurants in the centre as well...

and this is what we saw in the class. yeah, a typical mucha.

but this is also mucha. would you believe this is painted by the same person?

belive it! this is the famous slav epic... just great! i simply cannot understand how he could change his "typical" style so much. he was really good...

yeah, he was really good although we (czechs) do not like him that much as he is everywhere and foreigners are crazy about him, want us to send them postcards with his paintings and make us to see his exhibition whenever they visit our capital.

but of course, we are very proud of him. we take him as a part of our history, culture, heritage. we are proud of him so much that we use him as an example of czech capabilities and all the other "we are a great nation" things. have a look here and you understand what i mean :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLDHfeOEp38&feature=player_embedded

btw. this video tells really a lot about us: we just have to drink beer to get great ideas ;)

Fonts

having a font, italic and bold is just a mathematical calculation? never thought about it... let's try it...

a word
a word
a word

hmmmmmmmmmmm... looks fine to me. but i cannot recognise it anyway. :D
ok. i will not use it the next time. but to make my own font would take me my whole life :) although i would love to do it one time. in my opinion an font tells a lot about the person who uses it... it is something very personal to me...

Left or Right?

when i am entering the kowloon tong mtr station, the arrow tells me to keep left on the stairs. ok, no problem. the cars drive on the left so it seems pretty logical. but then i am leaving on some other station and the arrow tells me keep right... or even at the same station, there are stairs to go to the trains and an arrow tell us to use the right side of the stairs...why? isn't that a bit confusing? actually, it is a lot confusing! i always step into way of some other passangers and they do the same to me. it's just because the "mtr design" is not unified. it causes huge misunderstandings. to keep always on the left would make the most sense. but if you do not like it, ok, let's walk right. but it should be the same everywhere... it's just like with the lifts! you never know where you are when you want to press the button and you never know where you are when you step out of the lift... :)

Views...

my life in Hong Kong is really different. not just that it's so hot and humid here, the university rules are different, i do not understand a word when people talk and there is not much to eat for vegetarians in the canteen. i can see the difference every morning. this is what i see from my windows back home:and this is what i see here...
it both shows the surrounding conditions. this is a great example of the cultural differences. exactly these things have formed the society's priorities...

How is HK...

is hong kong a red city? well, maybe. to me it is "human" city. really! i can see just humans, no animals. except the zoo and the bird garden at central, of course... yesterday i saw my first bird. and dogs? six since august? not much, right?!