Noisy Decent Graphics

From the Ive interview

"she and Ive share a taste for Josef Frank, the Austrian-Swedish designer of rounded furniture and floral fabrics" more here

Opening the envelope

The other day I opened the envelope. It was an anticlimax. It was merely a copy of some documents I had sent to DVLA 16 years ago. 

No brilliant inventions. Sorry.

But look at the old advertising company logo!

 

Digital Maturity

A few people yesterday were tweeting about Deloitte's Digital Maturity survey. I was on a long train journey so I clicked on the link.

 

Week 80

Over a year and half. 26 Olympics. 20 World Cups.

Lightbulbs

 

The picture is a bit rubbish, sorry for that. It's a box of 10 lightbulbs I ordered from Amazon.

It occurred to me this is what I use Amazon for the most. Ordering very specific cheap DIY/household type things in bulk.

Lightbulbs are good, so are batteries.

I get paranoid about running out of both of those so when I see I'm low, I'll order a bunch of 10. With Amazon I can get the specific one I'm after, dimmable energy saving bayonet fitting ones are a nightmare to find, and I don't have to risk a trip to B&Q and they don't have it in stock. I'm in no hurry, so if it arrives 4 or 5 days later that's cool.

Anyway.

Sprints

Pictures from Paul, GDS and Giles.

Memorial notes

We went up to the top of 20 Fenchurch Street the other day. The top of the Walkie Talkie, the 'sky' 'garden'. Russell wrote an eloquent architectural review here. Building Design managed to write a fairly dry review that still makes their views clear. Oliver Wainwright gives it both barrels.

Tl;dr - it's rubbish. 

However I noticed this.

Turns out Francis Golding was a interesting man, who sadly died in a cycling accident in 2013.

I like these characters who remain sort of behind the scenes but have a big impact on society. Professionally famous but anonymous to the general public. The Frank Picks of the world. And I like discovering them via random memorials.

Like this bench. 

James Black was a fascinating man, quietly going about his business inventing the world's best selling drug. 

(Or Keith Tantlinger who I just found out about from Dan W's excellent Postcards from a Supply Chain.)

 

ual

I was at UAL: London College of Communication on Monday night to hear Emily Bell give the Cudlipp lecture. She was very good. She started with a tl;dr version, which was smart and was - journalism needs more journalists who have a deep understanding of the technologies of the web.

I was there partly because I've just been appointed a governor of UAL and I'm keen to help out with digital stuff. So I'm interested in what they're doing in that area.

If you're a UAL student and you're reading this, I'd love to meet for coffee and hear what your experience of digital at UAL is. All of digital, the application process, the internal systems, the teaching resources and the teaching. Drop me a line. Details here.

And this lit up logo was in reception, which is ace. It was made by Vent project. Some behind the scenes stuff here.

 

Weak notes

 

I was in Bath the other day. Took this picture. Didn't think anything of it until Migurski posted it on his tumblr. Reminded me a bit of this.

It's been a good week.

I've always liked this way of parking

Seems like a sensible idea to me. Not to everyone though.

iPhone presentation 6 years on

 

That's a good chart. Easy to read. Looks like science, totally convincing. And he hasn't even shown a picture of the product yet. 

Tom's right. Worth watching again.

Surprise post

Found this yesterday at the back of a filing cabinet.

It's an envelope I sent to myself with something written on the seal to prove it hadn't been opened. Luxford is the name of a now closed ad agency I worked at in the late nineties.

This is a thing they teach you at college as a cheap way to project yourself in case of copyright desputes. Theory is; have genus idea, post copy of idea to self, then you have legally dated, sealed proof.

I'd always hoped to be involved in one of these disputes so I could rip open the envelope with a flourish in Courtroom A in front of Rumpole and his mates. But I don't remember any of my brilliant ideas being stolen in that time so I figure it's safe to open.

The envelope is dated 9 Feb 1999.  It's very tempting to wait until 2019 and the twentieth anniversary, but I think instead we should open it together, live on this blog, on Monday 9 February. 16 years after posting.

See you back here, then.

YouTube video inside

Saw this on the top left corner of a slideshare thing thing other day.

Never seen that before.

Odd.

 

No puns

Tony and Kim and w+k in general, had loads of little phrases and rules.

One famous one was Kim's obsession with no puns in ads. They were strictly banned. Everyone knew it. (You obviously had to induct the new creatives before they presented puns. It's a popular option with creatives.)

Here are two reasons why that's a good rule. 

The ads aren't very well written. They don't make sense without the pun, they make even less sense with them.

They've mistaken pun for idea and sacrified clarity.

No puns, it's a good rule.

Discussed 5

On New Years Resolutions. More here. See also point 3 on this list.

Two book reviews

Here are two books, both good, both worthy of your consideration.

The first deserves a better review than I can give it. TM: The Untold Stories Behind 29 Classic Logos by Mark Sinclair is a beautiful book, well written and well thought out.

Does the world really need another book on logos? Mark answers that here, but the sucess of this book is in only picking 29. Lots of these logo books cover thousands of them and the quality is dimished with every turn of the page.

This keeps it simple and sticks to the classics. It's a good addition to a design library. In fact, I'd go so far as to say if you only have one book on logos get this one. And then don't buy anymore. You only need one. There are enough logos now.

Next up is the It's Nice That Annual 2014. Always good, this year they've raised their game on the design and it looks great.

They've even done that big hyphenated type thing that you lot love. I can never bring myself to do that, but it looks good here.

Some highlights of the year and some new stuff I hadn't seen before.

Makes me wish I'd answered the questions they sent me...

 

Would you like to buy this song?

 

I know we all know the problems with iTunes. But this is so odd.

Seeing this a lot recently due to not understanding iTunes Match or iCloudTunes or whatever it's called. I have to go into the store to find a song I know I have. I have to click to "buy" the song, it asks me for my password (again) and then it says, "You have already purchased this item. Would you like to download it for free?"

Considering the interaction pattern knows I was attempting to pay money for it, I think they could safely assume I'd be happy to download it for free.

And then to confirm that I have to click "buy".

I know this stuff takes lots of work, but this feels so wrong and pretty straight forward to fix. It's not complicated, it's just hard.

 

 

Discussed 4

 

I'd forgotten about the agency Christmas card.

It seems like today is the day most of them get sent out.

Anyway.

Discussed 3

There is a difference between saying you're doing "innovation" or just saying innovation a lot, and doing something that is innovative.

I read somewhere that for <large number> of "innovation units" only <single digit number> of them had actually delivered a product or service.

Mostly what we do is Fix The Basics, not Innovation. Turns out lots of people think that's innovative.

Anyway.

Do you watch football in a glass rectangle?

This is pretty much one question - do you watch [football] via the internet?

But I think what they mean is:

a) do you watch [football] on a laptop
b) do you watch [football] on a tablet
c) do you watch [football] on a phone

But they could mean:

a) do you watch [football] in a browser
b) 
c) do you watch [football] in an app

But, to be honest, I have no idea. 

Anyway.