White Persian Cat Icon

These Cute Cat icons have just been released over at the Iconfactory. The collection includes six cat breeds: the Abyssinian, American Shorthair, Bombay, Russian Blue, Siamese and White Persian.

It was a snowy weekend in January, when these super cute, kawaii inspired cat illustrations first turned up. It started with one, and although I wasn’t sure what to do with them, they gradually expanded into a whole family of cat characters and suddenly it became clear to me, that they wanted to be icons.

Now I’m writing from the middle of July. There’s a heat wave. Summer dresses made of cotton or linen, watermelon, iced coffee, Gazpacho (cold Spanish vegetable soup), Chlodnik (Polish chilled beetroot soup), Ajo Blanco (Spanish chilled almond soup), nectarines, feta cheese and midnight swims in the lake are my life savers. And the creative process for Cute as a Button illustrations seems far away. In deep winter. But here they are, the first volume of Cute Cat icons.

Tags: cats, character, creative process, cute, Cute as a Button, illustration, Japan, kawaii

Forsythia

Showy and vibrant Forsythia, or golden bells, is a native to Asia. Erupting with abundant, bright golden yellow flowers on bare, leafless stems ushering in spring. These desktop backgrounds were inspired by Japanese art and patterns as well as yellow.

Forsythia comes in two versions so you can either take your pick or use them for a set up with dual monitors. As usual, available both for fullscreen, widescreen and iPhone/iPod Touch.

Save this wallpaper to your computer.

Tags: Asia, flowers, Japan, spring, yellow

Bombay

During the weekend, this cute little character appeared out of nowhere.

It’s funny how things can happen unexpectedly! When I look at the illustration I can see how it’s inspired by kawaii and characters in Japanese packaging design, but at the time I had quite different plans for my weekend and this cat seemed to appear of his own accord.

Birman

I started making a few friends for him, but I can’t think of a good name for the series yet. Does anyone have any ideas?

I thought these cats might make nice prints and later on this week I’ll do some testing to see how they come out on paper.

Well, now I think it’s time to curl up with a book and a cup of hot chocolate to wind down from all the excitement these cute cats brought me!

Tags: cats, character, creative process, cute, Cute as a Button, illustration, Japan, kawaii

A New Year Begins

Colourful Stationery

A New Year begins with a blend of old and new. I decided to actually use some of the scrumptious stationery that I keep saving for a special day, a special project. Why not start the year by making 2010 special, I thought, and broke in my orange leather note and sketchbook with some sketches for fabric designs.

One of my Christmas presents was a new diary from Swedish Ordning & Reda, whose range of funky, colourful stationery make your eyes smile!

For daily use, I like the calligraphy pen and packs of gel ink pens from earth-friendly, minimalist and innovative Muji from Japan.

Origami To-Do Notes

The box of delightful origami paper has been salvaged from my collection of paper treasures and I’m using it for notes and to-do’s. It felt like a bold step, but I wasn’t prepared for just what a huge difference it makes to my days! It’s a simple technique. I write down one thing to do on the back of a piece of origami paper, and when the job’s done the origami paper goes on my notice board, creating a beautiful collage, and a rewarding, visual payoff. It’s so inspiring and tactile to handle and use these gorgeous origami papers daily, and in a casual way.

A Personalised Computer Desktop

Now that my desk has a little stack of purple and orange stationery to keep me inspired and on track, I cleaned up my disastrously messy computer desktop and populated my current projects with Luminous Purple and Orange Folder Icons. Then I weeded out my RSS feed, e-mail subscriptions and bookmarks to a minimum.

Now I feel happy and wildly virtuous, and I think I’ll put-off sorting out my e-mail and have lunch instead!

A box of origami paper.

Origami to-do notes.

Tags: carpe diem, ease, folder icons, getting organized, goals, Japan, motivation, organized, productivity, seize the day, simplicity, stationery, to-do list, workspace

Emoji emoticons used in Japanese text messaging

Emoji (絵文字) is the Japanese term for the 461 picture characters or emoticons used in Japanese wireless messages and webpages. Originally meaning pictograph, the word literally means e “picture” + moji “letter”. — Wikipedia

Aren’t these little emoticons simply adorable!? The good news is, that you can use them on your Mac and on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. You just have to activate them.

Several Apps Activate Emoji Icons

There are many Emoji enabler applications in the App Store that enable Emoji icons on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Most of these apps simply enable Emoji icons, but there are some apps that offer a bit more functionality.

Typing Genius (link to App Store) is also a touch typing trainer.

XEmoji (link to App Store) gives you a description of each icon as well as the hex code.

If you’re only looking to activate Emoji icons you might be better off with a free app.

Remember, Emoji only works from iPhone to iPhone, so for your friends to see them, they also have to have an iPhone.

Activating Emoji Icons On Your iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch

Once you have picked an application that turns on Emoji icons, follow these steps.

1. Use the application for a short while (around 30 seconds) to start the process. Exit the application.
2. Go to Settings > General > International > Keyboards > Japanese. Turn on Emoji.
3. To use the Emoji keyboard in Mail, SMS, Notes or any other application, tap on the World/Globe key next to the space bar on your iPhone or iPod Touch keyboard.
4. The Emoji keyboard has several tabs for the different categories of icons. Scroll sideways for more icons.

Once you’ve activated emoji icons on your iPhone you can delete the app. The app is only needed to activate the Emoji icons.

How To Activate Emoji Icons For iChat

If you want to turn on Emoji icons for instant messaging in iChat, you can download Emoji for iChat by Einar Andersson & Tor Rauden Källstigen.

Tags: Emoji, emoticons, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Japan, software