I saw this on some steps into an office near the Tea Building. I like the quote, and even more I like the idea of the quote motivating and uniting everyone who walks up them each morning.
What would the quote on your steps be? Me? I’d be tempted to use Vin Diesel’s quote from triple X: he has jumped the bad guy’s Ferrari off the bridge and he yells “I live for this sh*t” as he jumps off the car and skydives away, before going back to his anarchist party den and upload it to YouTube. That’s living the dream.
This is the business card of the incomparable Ben Shook. Playful, gently provocative and all about getting it done – just like Ben.
I love how the brass lettering from a man hole cover have worn down with all the footsteps over time and become flattened out, abstracted shapes rather than letters. They look like the graphic letter shape typographic trend from a few years back too:
I used to work with a bunch of product designers and they all worship Deiter Rams. They’re crazy for him! And they always point out that his iconic designs for Braun, such as this SK4 record player, were the inspiration for the alot of Apple products:
Maybe I got influenced by them, but really like his ten principles of design. I don’t know when he wrote them, but they’re full of foresight – reading them now they seem a list of current issues for design and humanity:
Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Replace the word ‘design’ with ‘brand’ and they read like a manifesto for good branding. I feel that this is a list I will come back to. How can you design your brand like Deiter Rams designed his visionary products?
Time is art
A hippy in California said this to me. In fact, they were one of my first branding clients. At the time I didn’t really understand what they meant; I thought “oh right, we’ll work for art not for money = Humpf”.
I remembered this quote because I’m reading Seth Godin’s Lynchpin and he talks a lot about making art. Now I think I’m beginning to get it. And thinking back – we did pretty much work for art in that project, and it was an amazing experience…
I love Follow Friday on twitter – it’s casual and positive. I’m going to rock the same vibe here with a few Friday posts about blogs I find awesome.
My first follow Friday is Tom Williams: an inspired designer and a great friend. I love his blog. It’s like hanging out in his studio – a universe of crazy objects, fascinating old books and obscure records and great stories.
Well, can you?
I wasn’t aware of this type of ad before: completely generic, global, released when a competitor is in serious trouble to reposition yourself against their disaster.
I’ve left Onzo after working there for almost two years. It was an interesting time and impossible to sum up in a post. However, when I read ‘Ten rules for start ups’ by one of Twitter’s founders I thought it described the experience pretty well – I think we bumped up against every one of these in my time there:
1: Be Narrow
2: Be Different
3: Be Casual
4: Be Picky
5: Be User-Centric
6: Be Self-Centered (i.e. make something you want to use)
7: Be Greedy
8: Be Tiny
9: Be Agile
10: Be Balanced
