Ben Maxwell's blog

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and..."

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:24:49 +0000

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

- Albert Einstein (via the excellent mrsamweller)

"Stories trump statistics"

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:21:51 +0000

“Stories trump statistics”

- Zainab Salbi - Iraqi American writer, activist and social entrepreneur

via @johnmaeda at davos

I never seen this brand before but I love it. The packet just...

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:04:50 +0000

I never seen this brand before but I love it. The packet just yells energy.

Photograph by the super talented Simon deGlanville of the urban wildlife fame

Design in the backwoods

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:52:14 +0000

Really enjoyed a series of blog posts about the design and meaning of signage in and around the National parks of Northern Wisconsin by Richard Bucht. The posts are a great read - opinionated and multi-referenced they’re really similar to having a conversation with Richard himself at the Garrick St Waterstone’s.

The signs are natural and easy going. Being hand-crafted from the woods themselves they respectfully integrate into their surroundings rather than demand to be noticed. Conventional typography and layout rules are foregone and a truer meaning emerges. As he says in the first post “When and where is ‘good design’ good design?”

Photo

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:17:06 +0000

Maths doesn't change behaviour

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:02:00 +0000

I love Calvin and Hobbes! To me, this strip highlights the problem with the approach that a lot of organisations take with behaviour change: the insistence on quantifying everything.

How can we expect to change behaviour if people don’t care?

Know your audience!

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The WHSmith at London City airport showcases finance, ski and wine books instead of the usual John Grishams and Dan Browns. They know what interests their audience of well heeled, picky business travellers. What are your audience interested in?

Found this looking through my brother-in-law’s present...

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:17:02 +0000

Found this looking through my brother-in-law’s present pile. Its Beck’s first simplified sketch of the underground map. I like the principles that Beck (not that Beck) applied to simplify it from the unworkable previous versions:

make all lines either horizontal, vertical and diagonal
remove link to geographic scale to show relatives rather than absolutes

Amazing to think that the map that we all have a strange affinity with started as a spare time project.

Polar bear made of ice melts to reveal skeleton as Copenhagan...

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:10:00 +0000

Polar bear made of ice melts to reveal skeleton as Copenhagan slowly fails

Saying no is such a powerful differentiator. Especially in this...

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:13:00 +0000

Saying no is such a powerful differentiator.

Especially in this world of growth obsessed aquiessence (think google and yahoo giving dissendents’ web history to the Chinese authorities).

What can your brand be known for saying ‘NO’ to?

"Don’t have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then..."

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:18:52 +0000

“Don’t have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve.”

- From a post about how an organisation can catch-up on web strategy on Seth’s Blog

My mate Tom is trying to buy these trainers. I love how Agassi...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:12:00 +0000

My mate Tom is trying to buy these trainers. I love how Agassi is framed in this image: bursting into the frame from left. Explosive and impossible to contain.

(image via www.whatsalltheracquet.com)

Photo

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:31:00 +0000

"Question everything generally thought to be obvious."

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:27:00 +0000

““Question everything generally thought to be obvious.””

- Dieter Rams (exhibition at Design Museum)

A Japanese street jazz band giving a lunch time concert is pretty much the last thing you expect to...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:09:00 +0000

A Japanese street jazz band giving a lunch time concert is pretty much the last thing you expect to see outside a photography shop. That’s what I love about Lomo and what makes them such a great brand. They understand that life is all about the exciting things that happen when you mix it up.

A celebration of supreme utility

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:41:04 +0000

Functional and intriguing. Rare and humble. Useful and special. The products on show at the Kiosk meets SCP collaboration during London Design Week are oxymoronic. And therefore fascinating.

Even the act of going to see products like these, displayed like this, is contradictory. Products as plain as laundry clips and drain plugs are displayed like works of art: hung on the walls with little printed signs describing them.

These are quiet products, but they are full of stories. The little printed signs tell the story of where and how Kiosk’s ‘curators’ found the item. And, given space, the products seem willing to tell their ancestors stories – what happened to other versions of the same product.

The Kiosk brand works in a really interesting way. Its adventurer; travelling around the world to find unique knick-knacks for stay at homes. Its curator; presenting these objects to us in thought provoking way. And its a storyteller: imbuing context and meaning into products we’ve never seen before.

The packaging alludes to these different aspects of the brand: a clear wrapper allows us to see the product, the package is sealed with the name of the people who brought it to us and the story is provided by a copy of the little sign.

Meddling parent brands

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:57:00 +0000

Why would you do this?

Why add your parent brand logo to a thriving brand? Especially when the Flickr community are hugely loyal? And the Yahoo brand is looking a little grey and lost.

Such meddling control freakery is bad parent behaviour and just makes Flickr look uncool.

Rock on

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:32:00 +0000

The bad news: the cables on my headphones broke.

The good news: Rather than having to buy a new pair all I had to do was replace a cable. Designing for re-use says “we value long-term relationships over short-term sales”.

tool belt + sharpies x pantone books = hobby belt

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:06:00 +0000

tool belt + sharpies x pantone books = hobby belt

"Time was, music was collective experience you had at a concert, or listening to vinyl with friends..."

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:37:00 +0100

“Time was, music was collective experience you had at a concert, or listening to vinyl with friends in a dorm room. Now its white earbuds in every ear and a wall post you may find out about tomorrow. Forget sharing music, we need more of music as a shared experience.”

- Conduit Labs