Noisy Decent Graphics

Andy Cameron RIP

I heard the extremely sad news this morning that Andy Cameron had passed away. He died of a heart attack on Tuesday. Creative Review and Design Week have both written better versions of what I'm about to say.

So, written as notes, a tribute.

Andy started Anti-Rom, was Executive Director at Fabrica and Interactive Creative Director at w+k London. Most people would be happy to have done one of those things. To have done all three is amazing.

I remember when we got the Anti-Rom CD at college. It was the first well designed interactive thing we'd ever seen. It blew our minds. We spent the rest of the year making wobbly interfaces over Underworld songs. (Except me, I used the Spice Girls.)

I worked with Andy at w+k, and as many others have said he was kind, honest, supportive, encouraging and optimistic. Nic Owen said Andy was "always naive (in a brilliant way)" which is something I wanted to mention. I think he found an ad agency a culture shock and I think he was more valuable at the agency because of that.

Among many things he worked on the Kaiser Chief album thing that recently won a D&AD pencil.

At w+k Andy attracted a type of talent that ad agencies can't normally atract. Young developers and creative techs who agencies need but wouldn't have considered working at an ad agency unless someone like Andy was there. Those young developers and coders will miss Andy terribly.

Supporting young digital talent seems like a theme as you read the tributes to Andy. The list of people he taught and where they now work is staggering. Nik and Tom Roope, Andy Polaine and Sophie Pendrell, Andy Huntington, BERG, Google Creative Labs, w+k, Poke, One dot zero, Tomato and so on.

Of course we live in an age where this kind of news appears in unsual places. Earlier today Andy Cameron was trending on Twitter. As one of those young creative techs said, "I think he would have liked that."

But that's all work – Andy was a family man and his Instagram was full of their adventures in London and Italy. My thoughts go out to them.

Rest In Peace.

Where does the sky end?

Where does the building begin? Must be a hard building to clean.

Lovely picture from Sao Paulo by jeremyet

New Roberts radio – wonderfully Rams / Ive esque

I bought a new radio the other day. For the bathroom. It's a Roberts Expression. It sounds glorious and looks wonderfully Rams / Ive esque. Lovely stuff.

Pictures impossible to attribute as they're all over the web and I'm not sure what the original source is. Soz.

 

Road Pairs – Galt Toys

Mother-In-Law brought this round the other day.

Is there a similar company around today doing what Galt Toys did in the 60s/70s? Toca Boca? Pixar?

My new Converse ID

These new customisation websites are dangerous for graphic designers. This might end up being the colour scheme for the new kitchen.

Newspaper Club Student Week

Crossed posted on the Newspaper Club blog

Last week was our inaugural Student Week. Lots of students use Newspaper Club at this time of the year for final shows and portfolios so we put together a few blog posts offering advice to graduates from well known industry figures. In case you missed it, here's a quick round up.

Three writers, Henrietta Thompson, Nick Ashbury, Dan Germain, three illustrators Noma Bar, Neil Roberts, Andy Smith, three designers Max Gadney, Michael Bow and err, me, told us what one thing they'd recommend students read.

Kim Papworth, global partner Wieden + Kennedy offered us some advice on portfolios and getting interview.

Simon Manchipp from SomeOne told students of design they weren't designers.

And you might want to look at these posts (elsewhere on the web) from Michael Bierut, Michael Johnson, Frank Chimero, David Airey and Jamie Weicks superb The 50. Good luck with the final shows and dissertations and all that.

R/GA Getty Images Watermark Project

This is good. Watch the video, it explains it all. It's a really simple, subtle idea that does solve that 'oh bollocks where did I get this image from' art director problem. Nice work.

 

 

I've started reading blogs again

Using Google Reader. I'm restricting myself to 10 blogs. That's it. One in, one out.

Guardian Europe Season mastheads (from 2011)

The original idea was to change the masthead to the flag colours and the language of the featured European country - das Guardian etc. They liked it but ran with this compromise instead. Changing the masthead is, after all, a Big Deal. Looking back it still looks dramatic and makes an attention grabbing statement. Nice.

Designs of the Year 2012

I love this exhibition / awards scheme. 

I love the way the randomness of the selections accurately reflects the diversity of design talent in the world today (and what "design" means) .

I LOVE the fact you can't enter, you have to be nominated by your peers.

I love the fact I always see exciting new projects I wasn't aware of next to projects by friends.

(I love that we won the Graphics category in 2010.)

I would love to be on the nomination panel.

 

 

Why can they never make the text line up on the spines of the catalogues from one year to the next?