An old vending machine repurposed to sell DVDs
From an art project in Brixton Market – each DVD contains a minute of someone else’s time.
I loved the work by Charles Avery in the British Art Show. Since 2004 he has been depicting his imaginary domain The Island through texts, sculptures, drawings and even taxidermy.
The show included a giant drawing called the Port of Onamatopoeia – detailed with mystical tribes, inexplicable slogans, never-seen-before brands (with beautifully rendered signage) and symbols of unknown meaning. I loved looking at the drawing: immersing myself in these details and trying to figure out the relationship between these things and the culture they represent.
There’s something intoxicating and bewitching about made up worlds – whether ‘fictional’ ones like Avery’s or Jorge Luis Borge’s Tlon, or ‘real’ ones like standing in a 7 Eleven in Thailand, surrounded by brands we don’t recognise – they’re engaging because we want to figure them out.
One of the things I love about the Field Notes Colours subscription is the design dialogue from each edition and the next.
The original brown kraft covers gave way to the first edition of vibrant orange. Then flipped across the colour wheel to blue. The innocent, primary coloured, ‘Country fair’ edition was followed by the rather sinister all black ‘Raven’s wing’ cover in time for Halloween.
After 10 editions they’ve finally lost the logo. Given the space normally reserved for the iconic wordmark over to the owner to say whatever they want to with the enclosed Letraset.
This edition is called the ‘_________ edition. I really admire the playful and humble approach of un-branding. The cover design is so iconic that it’s still immediately obvious to those who know.
There was a big ole furore this week when the UK government’s business advice service, Start-up Britain, suggested businesses go to the cheap US crowd sourcing site to ‘get a logo’ rather than hiring a UK design company.
I agree with the design press that it’s pretty shocking that the government didn’t promote UK design businesses ,many of which are are the very SMEs that they’re trying to encourage.
Crowd sourcing a semi anonymous designer via free pitch process is a bad idea too. You get what you pay for and $200 doesn’t get you much: No understanding of what makes your brand unique, no competitor research, no insight. In short you get a cookie cutter logo.
But some of the reaction from the design community felt a bit defensive. Maybe we should recognise the probem and do something about it rather than complain?
How about forming a club? A bit like considerate builders, but for designers.
Stand for something. A public code of conduct that helps clients know what to expect.
Recognise members. A badge of honour that can be displayed by companies that adhere to the code.
Celebrate and communicate to help people understand the design process, showcase successes and break down the walls between designers and clients. One of the first missions could be to explain the difference between a cheap logo and a brand, which is something the UK government could do with understanding.
I’m so excited about my new camera.
It’s a point and shoot film camera, so it’s kind of old school. But there’s something special about it. It feels mythical.
Partly because it’s a beautiful object. Getting nerdy for a second it’s not just any point and shoot camera – it’s a deluxe compact. This range it belongs to, the Contax T series, defined a new genre of cameras that brought qualities previously only seen on SLRs to point and shoots. Things like top notch optics, some creative control and outstanding design and build quality. So it’s a delight to use and look at.
There’s something about the technology too. They were released just before digital cameras were launched. So the technology is in one way obsolete, but in another way at the top of its game. Like the last of the dinosaurs. Nifty features, but 35mm. I really like that paradox.
The brand adds to the unusual magic. Contax – it sounds precise, esoteric. Because they were never mainstream and closed up shop in 2005 they feel rare. Like they didn’t really exist. The website is just a page on the parent company’s website with no product info. We don’t see Contax marketed anywhere. All that is left is the cameras that were made, obsessives scouring eBay and Flickr groups sharing their photos.
What do you think about the new Starbucks logo?
They’re certainly recognisable enough to have a just a symbol for their brand identity, like Apple or Nike. But those logos are simple, identifiable; composed of a few strokes. Seeing them on their own for the first time was almost a breathtaking experience: experiencing the power of just a logo on a page or a splash screen.
In contrast Medusa looks ‘nice’, but complicated. On a cup it looks pretty, a decoration. But the logo is too complex to have that audacious power that those symbols have.
It’s the lettering that people relate to more in Starbucks brand identity. Those sturdy, simple letters convey the promise of warmth and familiarity that people are looking for in Starbucks.
Saw this art student type guy reading a huge old hardback book on the tube. Full of gorgeously laid out black and white photos. Somehow it felt like a statement: I see your iPad / Kindle. Raise you a hardback book.
Work doesn’t happen at work. Jason Freid’s message in this great TED talk really chimed with me.
A few carelessly scheduled meetings splits the day into fragments that are too short to do any real thinking work in. Plus, the office environment is full of distractions. So people find other places to work: a room at home, a moving vehicle, or the office out of hours.
I like the office before everyone gets in, but my favourite productive place is being on a plane. It feels like pure my time, with added sense of purpose.
Jason suggests meeting/distraction free days. How about meeting/distraction free areas? A corner of the office that has a few airline seats where you can go to be left alone for a few hours.
Scale it up to a cafe in town designed like the inside of a PanAm plane, 1968. Trolley service by super stylish staff. Book seats by the hour or the size of the problem you’ve got to solve (Short haul, Atlantic, Long haul). A place to really work.
This is one of those powerfully simple diagrams that just sums it all up. What a great way to think about what you do.
Budd Caddell drew the diagram, called ‘how to be happy in business’, back in summer 09. I’m posting it now because it’s a brilliant way to think about things at the start of a new year.
His advice is about making those overlaps bigger: Learn to monitise by experimenting. Learn to do things better by watching others. And learn to say ‘no’.
Large, national blue chips often have their headquarters in quiet towns, or in out of the way business parks. Places that seem a bit cut off from the world. Traffic whizzes past on the dual carriage way outside. Once you’re inside, you’re cut off further by plate windows, security passes, turnstiles and landscaped gardens.
Sure, there are plenty of logistic and cost benefits to this, but it strikes me that this is such a disadvantage. Your workforce feel cut off from the world. It’s easier to go get a coffee from the cafe than it is to go outside for one. Less conversations and exposure to non-colleagues. It’s easier not to think about those difficult people outside and what they want, because it’s cosy inside and it’s far away. The company starts to become the whole world, a bubble, and it’s easy to forget the context that it exists in: real world, real people.
