Noisy Decent Graphics

Complicated opening times

There's got to be a better way of doing this.

 

Digital services so good people prefer to use them

In the very early days of GDS we used to do lots of presentations to explain the benefits of digital for government. Government is very big (c400,000 people) and there's no easy way to reach them all so we traipsed up and down Whitehall telling the same story again and again.

There was an unspoken assumption that it was OK for government IT to be rubbish because it's government IT. Not only is this lazy and stupid, it's outright harmful because people need government IT more than they need, say, Clubhouse. As Dai said at the time it's #unacceptable. 

We often asked people to raise their ambitions for digital government. Normally we were talking to ministers and very senior civil servants. We tried to put this in context they would understand, especially as they weren't familiar with technology and often didn't use the services they were in charge of. We quickly learned that almost all of them did their banking online and booked flights with British Airways online.

So we used to frame that as "X (government service) should be a simple as Y (familiar modern web service)". There's a communication benefit in making the government service from the same category as the modern web service.

For example "Managing your business tax should be as simple as managing your business banking"

Or "Applying for a visa to visit the UK should be as simple as booking a flight online".

A screenshot from an early GDS presentation 

Nine years on and here's a tweet from the world's most famous flight booker praising a government IT project.

As someone who spends (shall we say...) a certain amount of time with booking systems, a big shout out to whoever sorted this baby. Received a text, clicked the link, had both vaccinations sorted in minutes. Clear. Effective. Top work! pic.twitter.com/jPWFKjHyN1

— The Man in Seat 61 (@seatsixtyone) March 12, 2021

Nothing to do with me of course, and not really GDS, but made by NHS Digital. All of whom are part of an established digital government community. Those teams deserve huge praise for delivering this under the tough conditions that coronavirus brings.

This feels like a narrative loop closed. I like to think that we helped raise people's ambitions and that those ambitions will forever stay very high for government technology, services and service design.

Nine years - change can be slow but often that's exactly the type of change that lasts.

Pandemic Graphics Archive

Remember back in August when I mused that in the old days there would have been loads of blogging about the covid graphics. Thought not.

Anyway someone's gone and done exactly that. Pandemic Graphics Archive.

35 blog posts last year

20th anniversary of Break Down

20 years ago this month Michael Landy did an Art called Break Down. He took all of his possessions, all 7,227 of them, and destroyed them, broke them down.

Lisa and I went to the show which was in the old C&A at the posh end of Oxford Street. Back in 2001 I was working for a now bust dotcom agency, at the other end of Oxford St, that did work for loads of now bust dotcoms. Happy days.

Inside the empty shop Landy set up a huge conveyor belt and took everything apart, documented it all. Apparently it all went to landfill. The show struck a chord with us for some reason and we remember it vividly and often talk about it. I can't really explain that. We don't do that with other Arts.

Because it's the anniversary there are lots of articles about it. This one in the Guardian and this one in the FT are both good.

Feels very strange now, no mention of recycling or reuse or the environment at all. Sort of anti-capitalist but without the bite. I guess the YBAs weren't really the group to critique capitalism.

In writing this I've just found out it was sponsored by Artangel. I didn't know that at the time. Artangel are national treasures responsible for a huge quantity of amazing public art projects over the last 30 years such as Rachel Whiteread’s House, Jeremy Deller's Battle of Orgreave, Ryoji Ikeda's Spectra, Fiona Banner and David Kohn's A Room For London and recently Steve McQueen's School photos.

National treasures.

 

 

 

 

A nice simple logo, for a change

Shall we do a post about logos for old times sake?

Here is the first logo I've seen in years that made me stop. The first one I've thought it's actually worth commenting on.

It's for a company called Nix & Kix who make health drinks. (The whole brand looks nice FWIW.) Designed by Alec Tear who has a very nice portfolio. Stuff like this. I spotted this after Sagmeister posted it on his Instagram which came across my active daily eyeballs somehow.

Anyway, let's not overcomplicate matters, this is a just a nice logo. Just enough design to make you ponder, but simple enough that you don't have to wonder what it says. First logo I've seen in 3 years that wasn't algorithmically generated and designed to only work well at the IMAX.

Can't talk about ampersands in a logo without paying homage to the definitive example of the V&A logo by Alan Fletcher. Designed in 1989 and still wonderful. Still so good.

I've never been a huge fan of Sagmeister, as you may have guessed our styles of work are vastly different. But I saw him speak once and he was incredible. A real performer. And afterwards I spoke to him with some of the GDS design team and he was warm, fun and engaging.

Anyway. That's all I know.

Essential language

Remember in 1999 when everything got renamed to millennium something, Millennium Food & Wine, Millennium Pizza, Millennium Barbers and so on. I swear this shop was just called General Store a few weeks ago. I wonder if this is because the lockdown restrictions stipulate "essential" stores can stay open. Hardware stores can stay open anyway which probably covers this shop, but the term essential might just creep in and stick.

I often think the same about "key worker". There's no strict definition right now but there's some sort of understanding of what it means. How will it be used in 5 - 10 years time? Will staffing agencies be advertising for key worker jobs? Will politicians campaign for better conditions for key workers? Key worker tax relief? Remember when "hard working families" was a popular, misunderstood and overused term by politicians.

Will be it be weaponised by tech platforms and the gig economy?

Anyway.

The big boss shows us how it's done

Long time listeners will know that I've been doing a sketch every day 3 or 4 days for a while now.

During remote working finding interesting subject matter is hard. I like drawing buildings and people sat in meetings and I don't see any of those things any more. I've done a few views from my window and a few zooms but it's not the same.

 

Back in 2002 Michael Bierut started doing a pencil drawing every day and to relieve himself of "the chore of searching for a subject each morning" he drew a photo from the New York Times. Genius.

So I'm going to try that for a bit.

His drawings are of course all better than mine and it went on to be a brief set at Yale but that's another blog post.

 

 

RE: Stay at home, come on air

In reference to Russell's excellent post 'Stay at home, come on air' over on the Typepad platform. Yes, I completely agree and I would like to add that it has the additional benefit of seeing people in their homes, offices and home offices which is a million times more interesting than a tv studio. It also highlights how mad all those glass tabley things look. 

And once again reminds us that in certain parts of Britain there is more mock-Tudor than there ever was Tudor.

Recent Royal Designer talks and interviews

Video

Here's a video of a talk I did with Michael Marriott a few weeks back. You may not think our work is similar but we talked about the "boring magic" in designing every day things. I enjoyed it a lot. 

Boring Magic | In Conversation: Ben Terrett and Michael Marriott from RDInsights on Vimeo.

This is part of a series of conversations with the Royal Designers called RDInsights and you can see the others here. 

Audio

In the summer I was interviewed by Mike Dempsey on my life and career. It's by far the longest and most personal interview I've ever done. I talk about art and design at school and why I chose this particular path. The link is here and I believe you can get it as a podcast.

 

 

4 mins of Tony Hart brilliance

Two of my favourite things. Art and the subject of this picture. All in 4 minutes! 

Enjoy a few relaxing minutes of the great Tony Hart drawing with pastels, on Hartbeat #onthisday in 1987. pic.twitter.com/LrZRYrBqrC

— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) December 2, 2020

Drawing of a tree, next to a tree.

RDI Insights talk Tuesday night

I'm doing a talk with fellow RDI Michael Marriott on Tuesday night. It's free and virtual and you can sign up here. 

The evening is called Boring Magic and I think there is something of that in both our work. Michael is brilliant, look he made a lamp from a bucket!

We'll both do a really short presentation and then get into questions and a discussion. I think there's a rich overlap in our different disciplines and how we both approach functionality and the ordinary. I'm also hoping we can talk about reuse, something that's common in product and 3d design and not common enough in digital design and service design.

I'm really looking forward to it, so please sign up! It's literally free.

Thanks to Conor Delahunty and Steven Messer who both used the term Boring Magic before me.

 

 

 

Nice design for a pharmacist sign

Work news

In case you don't read Twitter or LinkedIn. Hi Phil.

Public Digital has joined the kyu Collective.

Warhol at Tate Modern

Russell, don't bother. You neither Phil.

Went to see Warhol at Tate Modern on Saturday, err, night. It was ok. Not enough famous stuff for me, but maybe I'm too mainstream. Anyway 15yo liked it very much which was a bonus. 

The Tate was virtually empty. Late on only the Warhol was open but it was very eerie. Strange times.

D&AD Presidency - why I'm making space for others

I love D&AD and I've always been a passionate supporter. I wanted to win the coveted Black Pencil from when I was young and I've wanted to be D&AD President for as long as I can remember. Today I should have been announced as the latest President.

I've been the Deputy President for a year and every other year the Deputy becomes the President. But I look around at the world and I see too many people who look like me, middle-aged white men, in positions like this. So I've decided to stand aside and make space for others.

I hope this small act encourages other people who look like me to do the same. It may achieve nothing, but it at least gives everyone an example to point at.

I want to make one thing very clear. This is not a criticism of D&AD. This statement is not really about D&AD, it's just that when I look back at previous Presidents in all organisations, there has not been enough diversity. That's an indisputable fact. 

Naresh Ramchandani will now become President, followed by Rebecca Wright. Kate Stanners has done a brilliant job through a very difficult time and she's just launched the first ever fully digital annual. In Naresh and then Rebecca there will be a focus on sustainability followed by the first ever President from education. What a brilliant position for D&AD to be in. I will remain a Trustee and look forward to continuing to support D&AD.

Huge congratulations to Naresh on becoming President and Rebecca on becoming Deputy. D&AD is a fantastic organisation, doing great work in education, it’s still the very hardest award to win and we should all support them. 

Thanks to Tim, Dara and all the D&AD Trustees who have supported me in this decision. Thanks to all those who have enabled me to be in a position to make this decision.

For completeness the statement from D&AD is here and there's a good interview with Naresh about next year for D&AD in Campaign here (paywall).

 

Me holding up a D&AD flag in Bucharest in 2007.

 

Judging D&AD Awards in 2010.

 

Winning a Black Pencil for GOV.UK in 2013.

 

Revisiting Adaptive Design by @genmon

Great post by one of the Matts summarising "Adaptive Design". A concept many years old but one that gained a digital prominence in the early 2000s. Well worth reading the full post here. Screws not glue etc.

Might have a go at this "I’d love to for designers to share their ideas for future adaptable iPhones and adaptable apps, expand the discourse, and pushing back on the status quo."

The UX of Lego Interface Panels - I wish I'd written this

This blog post by George Cave is so good. Best proper blog post I've read in years. I wish I'd written it.

It's not just about Lego, it's about design and interface more broadly. Take this point and the links off to the contrasting Dyson and Audi approach to car interfaces. Dyson - all on one screen. Audi - controls on individual parts.

It's a rabbit warren of wonderfulness like that. Glorious. Read it all The UX of Lego Interface Panels by George Cave.

 

 

Architecture by AirBnb

We rented an AirBnb by the sea the other day. This was the bathroom. 

This is not a bathroom designed for someone who uses it every day. This is a bathroom designed to catch your eye in the photos on AirBnb. I expect there's loads of this. 

Presumably whole houses are being designed purely for people scrolling through AirBnb.

Anyway.