Noisy Decent Graphics

Jumpers Required

The picture above was taken in January 2005. Reckon you can jump like that? Read on.

We've got a bit of a favour to ask. We need some people to turn up to our office on Friday morning and jump around a bit. There will be a trampete and there will be a video camera.

We can't pay you I'm afraid, but we will reward you with a case of beer and some lunch.

We need you to be there at 11am and you might have to wait around for an hour or so. A little bit of jumping in front of the camera and you're done.

You have to look cooler and more athletic than I do in that picture. Interested? Email me ben at thedesignconspiracy dot com.

Lego men iPhone unboxing

Absolutely brilliant. Perfect for a Friday. More here.

Vote Univers

There's been a lot of talk about the design of ballot papers.

This one for the London Mayor elections looks OK to me. By that I mean it's simple, clear and easy to see what you have to do. It's even done in Univers. Which will make Bruno happy.

What social network web 2.0 type things would you drop first and why?

Russell asked me the other day - which social network (webby 2 type things) would you drop first and why?

That sounds like a good excuse for a meme.

What social network web 2.0 type things would you drop first and why?

1. Twitter
Me and Twitter really don't get on. I don't hate it, that's too strong a word, but I'm not in love with it. I try and do it but I'm never sure it works. I like reading them but I hate the attempted boastfulness of some of the tweets. You know the type, "Writing this on Al Gore's Mac Book Air whilst sat on my new organic deck chairs on my 10,000ft roof terrace." And the food ones, I hate the food ones. And the links. Don't link via Twitter people it's not a good look. Dan Saffer has some good Twitter rules here. So Twitter I could lose easily.

2. Technorati
What is Technorati? I have no idea. It gives me a ranking which is nice and it was always higher than Paul's which was nice. But er, what else? That can go.

3. YouTube
Ohh YouTube to me you're a channel not a brand or a thing. You're a means to an end. I like you when I can find Premiership goals or music videos or Fireman Sam and I love it when clients want to use you because it makes so much sense. But. But. You're a channel. A means to an end.

4. Blog
Sorry blog, but you know what? It's just a bit of internet. As much as like doing this I don't take it all that seriously. You've probably noticed but I try and write from the hip without huge research and spell checking. This is not the International Herald Tribune - this is just a bit of internet.

5. Facebook
There are a lot of reasons to hate Facebook. It's hugely obtrusive for one. But I like it. If you don't let it get to you, if you say no to it every now and then - it's OK. And it's great for keeping in touch with people you don't see that often. People you don't share blogs, emails or twitters with. Long lost friends and relatives. It's a nice hassle free way of finding out what my cousins are doing, at my own pace.

6. Dopplr
I haven't blogged about Dopplr and I should have done. Dopplr stays because of the way it treats me. It's reverent, it's never in the way. It only asks for a tiny bit of my attention and it asks for it in a clear, polite way. I don't think it's ever emailed me, which is nice.

7. Bloglines
One of the best things about blogs is quickly scan reading a group of them. I don't really like Bloglines but it's sheer usefulness and it's reach means it's one of the last to go.

8. Flickr
I'd be very reluctant to get rid of Flickr. In fact I probably wouldn't get rid of it. I love Flickr. The 366 thing is really interesting and attracts a different crowd. The comments are always nice and helpful. It looks great. It's simple and unintrusive. It's great for family members home and abroad. It's useful, valuable and easy. IT NOW DOES VIDEO! Flickr I love you.

There are more, obviously, but that will do for now. I now tag all of you. Go ahead.

Pentagram - The Black Book

Look what arrived in the post the other day! It's Pentagram's Black Book.

It has a lovely softback Wickertex cover. I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling of Wickertex (Marcus?) but I remember that it was once substrate of the year. Every year designers have a substrate that they're desperate to use. It was edge lit acrylic one year, Wickertex one year and bible paper another year.

This use bible paper too. To great effect. The whole book is printed on bible paper, lovely thin, translucent stuff, hence you can see the text through this page. (We used bible paper once).

Continuing the bible theme, they've used these great coloured ribbons so you can book mark pages.

The tabs are gorgeous. That's a great idea you can easily borrow.

In case you hadn't guessed this is a self promotional book. Designers love self promotional books. The thing is a book is a very hard thing to put together. And writing about your own work is notoriously difficult. Pentagram have deftly avoided this by not talking about the work at all. It's just pictures.

Which makes you think about all that self justifying post rationalisation crap you normally read in designer's books, on designer's websites. Next time you do a self promotional piece try using no words.

That spread up there features a digital thing for Bloomberg. I've never seen that before. Looks great, doesn't it?

Anyway. It's a great book, really nice (more pictrs on Flickr). It's 800 pages long and it's only the last couple of years worth of work. Big thanks to everyone at Pentagram for sending me a copy.

Type Anatomy

Useful. Via Armin Vit.

"In my spare time, I devise schemes to create more spare time."

Step forward Chris Glass. Brilliant.

How not to get a placement here, or anywhere

Decibel Monitoring Poster

I liked this poster on spotted on the Shoreditch Twoway the other morn.

It's an advert for quiet fridges or sommits and it features a digital decibel monitor which measures the sound live on the Shoreditch Twoway. It was 64 decibels for most of the time I looked at it, but it rose to 99 when a police car sped past. Good fun.

NT Interactive Screens

A little while ago the NT had this interactive screen in the foyer.

It was good. Not earth shattering, it's like a big iPhone, but I learnt more about the play than I've ever done from a poster. More pictrs on Flickr.

Unpackaged visit

I went to Unpackaged the other day. John Grant and many others have talked about Unpackaged before, but briefly, it's a shop where all the stuff they sell has no packaging.

I'll admit I was hugely sceptical. It just sounds like some twee, middle England, poncey London, greenwashing fest. After all, anyone can sell this sort of stuff with no packaging.

But I'm pleased to report it's a lot, lot better than that. Sure - it's small and it's expensive, but it's also brilliant. And it looks great.

Those little boxes hold flour and nuts and dried banana skins and what not. They're all designed to be easy to clean, even the tags can be wiped clean and reused for another product. That's good sensible design.

So you bring your own bag / box / jar and you save 50p. They will even refill olive oil bottles, which is pretty impressive.

There are some things they can't unpackage yet. Ecover won't give them a great big vat of washing up liquid for example, but you can leave all the packaging there for recycling. I understand this is common practice in Germany?

There's lots of great little ideas here. Yes, it needs to be bigger (in size and scale) and it needs to be cheaper to have a big effect, but it's a great start and it's a glimpse of how things could be. Surely all packaging designers should (nowadays) start with the goal of having no packaging and then work backwards from there?

More pictures on Flickr.

UPDATE: Catherine Conway from Unpackaged has just emailed me to clarify a few points.

Firstly (and importantly) the shop was designed by Multistorey

Secondly she's asked me to correct an inaccuracy,

"you mention that some things can’t be unpackaged- the Ecover example is wrong as they do provide us with vats of cleaning products" "most people buy it [Ecover] in refills from us." "an example of something we can’t unpackage currently would be cotton wool or toothpaste."

We also had a little discussion about what I meant by expensive. Cath says, "The question of whether it’s expensive is a moot point- our prices compare pretty favourably with like for like products (organic, fair trade) in supermarkets but are obviously more expensive than their value counterparts…"

I guess I should have been clearer. What I really mean is that for an unpackaged concept to be adopted across the whole country it would have to cater for the people that shop in Iceland as well. Do you know what I mean?

Anyway. Happy to clear all that up.

Spellbinding bookbinding

Go and look at David's bookbinding pal and his amazing workshop. Picture by David, obviously.

I wonder how many businesses you could say this about?

And no I don't mean 'how many businesses are run by opticians'.

AYE

The other day Tom saw some great big letters for sale on the internet. But they only had AEYVG left.

Being a Yorkshire man he thought it would be good to get the following: