Designing from Experience

I was commissioned to design a box for a local chocolate company with specifics including it should appeal to the international and local AB market.

And, of course, there’s the product I should try. Yes, some companies do let you taste their products so you can have the feel, the inspiration to do whatever they wanted you to do for their packaging. For free! While munching on their chocolate, my mind wandered around- time traveling- 34 years way back. 

When I was younger, I used to spend my school breaks in a forested area way out of civilization in Batuan, Bohol. The place was called Tanod, literally, to watch, maybe because you go there to watch over your plants, ala plantation style. This was where my grandparents of my mother’s side lived, their old age no longer allowed them to go back and forth from their original house to watch their kaingin, so they made a house there. The total population? Except for the macaques that were abundant at that time, there were only four adults living in two houses there. Four old adults.

At eight, I never felt out of place in Tanod.

I became one with the cliffs, one of the sources of inspiration. I would go there to look for fossils. I used to hang from one of the sharp promontories that protruded from the steep cliffs. I would imagine Da Vinci or Wilbur Wright and their visions of flying while hanging from the promontory; but felt extremely afraid I would fall off to death. I also imagine dying and death there in Tanod.

The trees were also my friends. In fair weather or on rainy afternoons, I have a special nook in one of the biggest trees where I seek shelter by the lush foliage. No one can find me there. Amazingly, the trees were abundant in the area despite some patches of kaingin. The old folks were slashing and burning for rootcrops and corn, their main staple. Might also be the reason why the macaques, not native to the area, would do occasional raids for food. The old folks would fought back by putting up dangerous traps or shooting them macaques with slingshots. In retaliation, the wise macaques would come up to their houses and made their abode like a tornado just happened inside them. A vicious circle almost always never ending. 

This might be why the macaques would bully small children who came in their way, running after them until they were in some safe place. Can you imagine? I was the only kid in that place.

Why am I telling you these?

Because during those times, having a piece of chocolate bar or a hot cup of chocolate means you have an American friend or one of your relatives is in America. In short- you are rich, because you only have chocolates imported from America.

But not for me. Or us.

My grandparents had a considerable number of cacao and coffee trees around Tanod. During harvests, my taga lungsod eyes (a derogatory term for the much more civilized people from the town center) would pop out due to the war of reds, yellows, oranges and greens everywhere I turned.

Tatay Pastor, my lolo, would then ask me to suck and eat all the meaty parts of the cacao pods and coffee beans. This has a double purpose even if nowadays, sucking cacao seeds is discouraged because it would cause bacteria to thrive in the seeds, hence, affecting the quality and taste of chocolate. But it did not matter back then.

For one- the nutritious seed coating (called testa) is good for children to eat, a better alternative to candies.

Secondly, out of poverty, sucking on the seeds would give temporary relief of hunger pangs and parents would not worry about the need to buy food.

But while the rich had their imported chocolate, ours came fresh and direct from source.

After roasting, the browned cocoa beans would then be crushed using a big shell called melo-melo (Indian Volute). During grinding, my lolo would put muscovado in some portions and feed them to me.

No kid at that time exactly knew how it felt to be intoxicated. But at eight, I already knew. I would glow after several doleouts, my head felt like swimming in an unbeknownst stupor. The sugar-infused fresh chocolate and the hot choco would knock me sweetly down and woke me up famished.

I haven’t been to Tanod anymore. I haven’t been to that place since 1981. All the four people who loved me there gone. The place abandoned. I heard the place is now thick with trees and shrubs and already, the macaques taking hold like heirs of my grandparents. 

I want to go back to see if the cacaos and coffee trees are still there, my hauntings are still there.

So while I am thinking of how should I make this chocolate box appetizing to the international market, my mind wandered off and I became sentimental. Nostalgic. I cried remembering the people and the place.

This is the only product packaging that had me crying. I should bill them more.

My first study for Mint, Coconut, Chili, Dark and Coffee chocolate boxes

My second study for Mint, Coconut, Chili, Dark and Coffee chocolate boxes

Can you guess which of the two studies was approved by my client?

Home maker, law breaker

Here are some of USA's weird laws concerning your home and how you should manage it. Funny they are still existing today. I find them pretty unusual but nobody may have the guts (despite their so-called freedom) to question them, hence, their existence up to this day. Weird Americans!

1. Forget about using a dish towel in the state of Oregon or in Minneapolis. Letting china air-dry is the only allowable way.
2. In Florida, you're in trouble if you shatter more than three dishes per day, or chip the edges of more than four cups and/or saucers. If you get your kicks tossing plates, don't try it from any window above the ground floor of a house or apartment in Freeport, Illinois.
3. In Kansas, you can't stack plates more than eight high.
4. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, doesn't legislate what you can do with your rug outdoors, but indoors, it's a crime to sweep dirt under it.
5. California requires "housewives" to boil their dust rags or risk jail time.
6. Donkeys may not sleep in bathtubs in Brooklyn, New York. In Arkansas, it's alligators that aren't allowed in the tub, while in South Carolina, it's horses.
7. Don't try giving the twins a bath in Los Angeles, where it's illegal to wash two babies at once.
8. You're one toe over the line if you dip it into the bathtub before 10 p.m. in Piqua, Ohio.
9. Lawmakers in the state of Virginia and in Canton, Ohio, must not want their citizens to bathe: Indoor tubs are against the law. Don't head to Portland, Oregon, for relief, either. While you can have an indoor tub there, you’ll have to use it while wearing "suitable clothing…that which reaches from the bather's neck to his knees and completely covers the body."
10. You can be cited for "dozing or snoozing" in the tub in Detroit.
11. You may not sleep in, or on top of, a refrigerator in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
12. You can't sleep with your shoes on in North Dakota.
13. You can't snore with the windows open in Massachusetts.
14. In Iowa, a man can bar his mother-in-law from his home without explanation.

Source: www.thisoldhouse.com (including cartoon)

Lost and Found

I received a long call from an old friend. For five years I never heard anything from him. No mails. No updates. Suddenly he called up checking if I am still using my number.

Times and attitudes have changed. He has become more of a braggart. I mean he bragged a lot when he was here in the Philippines. And has become worst. He told me he didn't like it here in the Philippines because this country is just like what it is called- a third world country. He nags about undisciplined people and the poor people populating everyday. He said he would only visit here because his parents are still here.

He told me of things of grandeur of which the ordinary Pinoy could not have. I told him I have no work. What the fuck! You are an old bum? Go to hell and be dead! But I was not hurt. We were laughing so hard I could no longer hear him on the other line.

You know what? There's a burger joint down there and the line is almost three blocks long. He told me of an American associate telling him a weird incident. What burger joint? he asked. In the middle of deep winter, lots of Filipinos with kids lined up and it's called Jollibee. Do you have Jollibee in Singapore? Why no we don't allow that crap in Singapore, he replied. The American was dumbfounded.

My friend never told anyone else that he is (or was?) a Filipino. What Filipino? Fuck! I am Singaporean.

That's my friend. He could be mean to the highest level. He is the worst person you can ever imagine. BUT I have learned to love him worst and all.

I had fun talking to him, once again.