As an aside: My response had actually been because my name seems to be on the Shambala Press mailing list and I regularly receive all kinds of junk mail regarding this sort of thing. I don't hate yoga. But still.

Okay, be prepared for this because it gets better. Sitting below her is a bed of large, multi-coloured roses... probably black and white originally but colourised yellow, peach, red, pink and purple. Some of them fade into the purple swirly background. Then on top of the roses, in an old thymey Western meets Victorian typeface are the words

"Make someone happy just make
one someone one happy."

Okay. That's the front. On the back we have the same swirly purple. Now add blue, green, violet and a splash of yellow to that. In the centre is the same snow-capped mountain minus the branches. On top of that is an asian girl with dyed blond hair wearing one of those fucking awful new-style rave-style cowboy hats! She's turned to the side but looking into the camera. She's wearing a jean jacket that has been splotched with bleach and the arms cut off. She's got long nails painted a matching baby blue. She's a little bit country and a little bit rock n' roll. In front of her is a small bouquet of the same colourised roses.

Now the inside. The first page has some Chinese characters, the word Notebook in a kooky font that has had some sort of bevelling filter applied and little daisies applied on top all over the words. There is an illustration of a teen rollerblader doing a trick. He's wearing a jersey that says "2002" and a bandana made of the American Flag. Nice touch. On the opposite page are more flowers shown at 50% or less opacity and splashed around the page. There's an illustration of a cat laying in the curve of a half moon and a little mouse sleeping on a cloud.

And since I'm almost there... the back pages. Here we see what I can't determine is a photo or illustration of a water lily pad with flowers poking out sitting on top of a bubble (with shading). There are two illustrated birds perched on the stem of an unopened lily bud. Chinese characters below, and little butterfly illustrations are splashed about the page. And finally... the opposite page. An illustration of a popular Asian cartoon character (a bunny in a baby carriage holding a baby bottle) sits on top of the light butterflies. The same character is shown at a smaller size below, going head to head with a dog? More Chinese characters and some book dimensions in cm. THE END

What does it all mean? What exactly was the designer trying to communicate with this jumbled mess of signs? Probably nothing, yet one reason why I am so in love with this sort of madness is that someone out there (bless your poor, poor soul) had to create that. And that, dear reader, (yikes if you've made it this far and you're in the 18-35 age bracket you've already defied those Sesame Street era attention span statistics) is the beauty of the world of design.

Everything was made by someone.

Every once and a while something comes along that forces me to think, contemplate and imagine the person who made it. I occassionally wonder if someone out there has held something I designed in their hand and wondered the same thing.