Don't give me a designer's job

I am a programmer by profession. It’s the job I applied for; it’s what I have studied for, for over four years. It is also, what I am ‘good’ at; I think I am a natural programmer: the kind of person who naturally thinks methodically and doesn’t make assumptions, a person who feels comfortable only in definitive, deterministic circumstances. It is also, what I like. I would solve a programming problem just for fun, I would use programming to do petty (hehe…) real-life tasks, and on any given day, I would rather solve a programming puzzle than write an essay.

But, I design too.

Narcissism aside, I am really good at design too. I love typography. Beautifully set books literally turn me on (take that to mean what you may, but they actually raise my heartbeat, make me excited). I can look at font specimens for hours (and can spend more hours on the internet ‘finding’ them). I have produced some much appreciated artworktoo. I have been known to express complex mixtures of ideas through my designs. And I spend more time at this than any other activity that I don’t get paid for (save for sleeping, that's still a winner).

But, that’s not what my job is. It’s not my profession. It's true that I have done free-lance graphic designing in past, but even if I was offered a full-time job at the place where I currently work, I would not accept it. You see, I don't like to design what I am told or how I am told. They say that the mastery of the art is to work with constraints. As the constraints become tighter, skill is needed even more. And I agree with that. But for me, designing is not a task, it's not work that's to be done. I can't design for a paycheck. I can't take guidelines from someone when designing. I can't find the sweet spot between unbound artistic expression and deadlines. I design for myself, to give form to my feelings. I can't design to please anybody.

When I did freelance, I enjoyed what I produced. But the journey to that end was very tiring. It was exhausting, consuming, sometimes, even frustrating. I get obsessive about little details. And so, after hours and hours of judgment, I would settle on something, and just for a second opinion, show both versions to someone, and they couldn’t tell the difference. That part was very frustrating. Also, because I lacked the formal training in this field, I had to read so much just to get one theme in line with color harmonies, or one layout in line with natural design. And guess what? My clients couldn’t tell the difference. So I thought I couldn’t design for money. Or for people.

Don’t get me wrong, I like appreciation. I like it when others like what I do. But that’s not the reason I design for! It's true that if I came up with a ‘masterpiece’ and Asad comes along and says, ‘err… Saad, the tracking on this one's a bit off…,’ as much as I would like to tell him to go screw himself for belittling my child, I would not. I would probably think, ‘My boy does need a haircut’ and I would adjust the tracking. But Asad's approval is not why my child came into the world. That happened cause I wanted to make love.

Trebuchet, Tahoma, Verdana

Some things gone wrong with me past couple of days. I guess it has to do with having a blog. I have gotten even more obsessed with fonts! Not just that, while earlier, the fascination was just with finding and downloading free great looking fonts, now it has become even deeper. Now I want to search for great serif fonts, that can look good on screen, great serif fonts that look good in print, I mean, in all these. More about that later, write now I am no mood to write, just present. So wash your eyes, and then look at ...

Trebuchet MS

TO THE RED COUNTRY and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover. In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves, and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country.

An excerpt from a Book

TO THE RED COUNTRY and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover. In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves, and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country.

And now, Tahoma!

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Verdana:

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties. 

Vladimir Nabokov

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.

Quote, Unquote

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

— Walt Whitman 

Words with voices

Every word has a sound. That's obvious. Every word has a characteristic sound, that's understandable too. Some people, like linguists, poets, writers, or the like, even fall in love with some words just because of the sound of them! For example, I like the sound of beautiful -- the way your lips curl while making that eau is just, beautiful.

But this post is not about words having sounds (Another post may be). It's about words having voices. I feel words have voices. I hear them! I wonder if you have noticed this, but I some times do. Let me put this way, sometimes, when I read a paragraph, or a sentence, I hear that said out in a voice, but that voice, and perhaps the tone, is actually the weighted average of the individual voices of those words that I read (and no, the voices of the words are not because letters have voices too). Let me give a few examples.

So for instance, whenever I read the word 'exquisite', I hear in the voice of 30 something white american woman. I mostly get this voice when I am reading Apple product's feature list too. You know, the kind of voice that wants to sell something? in an alluring way? That voice. You probably guessed I hear the same voice with 'alluring' too. I could never imagine these words in the voice of a black person, or a Pakistani villager, or an Indian. This has to be white Caucasian, and female.

'Clarity' -- just close your eyes and say that word. Clarity. When I do that, I hear this in the voice of 20 something young woman. Intellectual, honest. One with a honey-thick voice. I didn't say honey sweet voice, and I didn't see thick voice. It's just, the voice flows, slowly, like honey does.

Another word, 'I', It's a complete word, mind you. A very powerful word, and according to some, even dangerous too. I always hear that in a voice too. In my own voice :) Same goes for a lot of other words too, like 'Hahahaha!', but if that 'HAHAHAH' is in all caps, or all lowercase, I don't hear it in my own voice.

Another example is 'guilty' - whenever I read it, I hear it in the voice of a 12-15 year old boy, who is a debater, delivering some speech. Trying to look like he is making a point. I can't imagine this word in the voice of any 40 year old or something, and if in a story or something, it is said by someone other than the said teenager, I don't usually hear a voice.

Another word is 'seminar', I hear this in the voice of that sophomore girl who is doing really well in AIESEC.

That's just me. That is to say, that's just the result of picked up biases, prejudices, experiences etc.

But, like I said, that's just me.

Know your breakfast!

■ What is barley?
Barley is just another cereal, another grass which we humans cultivate to eat its seeds, in Urdu it's called جو.

■ What is Porridge?
Porridge is when you mix any cereal (any mixture of its components, inner seeds or husk or whole grains) in water or milk. You can add seasonings to it too. In Urdu it's called دلیہ.

■ What is cereal? and...
Cereal are just those grasses which have edible grains. Which humans cultivate for their grains mainly, like rice, pulses, wheat, oat, barley etc. In Urdu: غللا

■ What is oatmeal?
Basically it's just porridge made from Oats.

■ What is oat?
Oat and Barley are parallel. They are two different kinds of grain, each comes from a different plant. They are what you would broadly call Cereal. Oat is a cereal, barley is a cereal, corn (Maize) is a cereal, rice is a cereal etc.

■ What is bran?
So when you take the grains from cereal, it's a whole grain. Meaning it's complete, it's what's good for health. Mostly, it's refined, and the outer layer, the husk, is separated from it. And the inner seed is ground or milled to produced flour, while the husk is separated. This one is the husk of wheat. I don't know what are the names of husks of other cereal though. In Urdu: چوکر.

Monday Monday Monday!

So on Saturday night, while convincing Sharjeel that he should go to gym with me regularly, we decided that we will go for a morning jog/walk on Monday. What happened was that he tried to explain to me why gym wasn't such a good idea (*yawn*) and I, who usually listens to almost anything he says, did not budge. Well, cause I knewhe was wrong, I also knew that I had more reasons to work out than slim down.

Anyway, so while convincing me, he tried to be smart with me, said: 'If you go for jogging for one week with me in the morning, I will join the gym with me'. Now, the reasons I wanted to start working out at the gym, in the evening, by paying a fee, were served a thousand times better if I went to jogging in the morning with Sharjeel! So what did I say? That's right.

And on Sunday night, I made arrangements to sleep early. And for some of us, that's a risky thing to do, specially those who aren't that good with telling their minds to not screw with them. And so it happened. What followed was a sleepless night. And because I had woken up pretty late on the Sunday, this time is lasted till Morning. Though at 3 am I had texted him that I am not coming, at 5-ish I told him that yes, we are going. And so we did.

We had a great time. He had brought with himself Qasas-ul-Anbia by Ibn-e-Katheer and he read it to me after we had done jogging and had a sprint. I was very, very satisfied with my morning and till now had no plan of not going to work. At eight am, when it was time to get ready for work. I quit. I decided I hadn’t slept for the night, and had worked out in the morning, I decided I needed to sleep, take a day off. But, I was not to slack. I was to wake up with still some sleep deficit, so I could fall asleep easily Monday night. And I would go to NADRA office and get the process for my new NIC, the one with the beard, complete. And so I did that. I had a wonderful day! I made two trips to the place on foot, and thought, man we programmers don’t do anything physical on an average day! I got barley flour, so folks would eat that. And the nice walks in the sun surely had a soothing effect on the mind!

Thank Allah for that, and thank Sharjeel too. I hope this continues everyday.

Quote, Unquote

Double Bluff:

Said Watson to Holmes, “Is it wise –
Such false whiskers when hunting for spies?”
Said the sleuth, “I’m afraid
You’re as dense as Lestrade:
I’m disguised as myself in disguise.”

– R.J.P. Hewison, Punch, Nov. 21, 1951

source: http://www.futilitycloset.com/2012/06/06/double-bluff/