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The main thing I don't like is the sizes. It seems like the three separate elements have been stuck together. They all fight with each other. The relative sizes are all over the place. There's no elegance to the spacing. Way to complicated visually.
Moan, moan, moan.
If you ask me Creative Review are doing a pretty good job of bridging the gap between print and online. Lots of good stuff from the magazine finds it's way onto the blog in an accessible fashion. There's enough of a gap between the print version so subscribers don't feel cheated, yet it still feels like fresh content. Good.
On that note, my ten years article is now on the Creative Review blog in full. Since the article was published lots of people have emailed over their ten years stories. It might be nice if people started adding these to the CR Blog.
In other exciting publishing news I think a cartography publication are going to reprint the map post.
I've just joined The Penguin Collectors’ Society. They sent me this lovely postcard.
You should join too (you don't have to collect Penguins to join). It only costs £16 in the UK and you get good, free things every now and then. AceJet170 explains it better than me.
As an aside, on that postcard it says, "Penguins, taken on the train, elevate and entertain". I wonder what a format that could elevate and entertain and be taken on the train would mean today...
Yesterday Noel Gallagher said that he wouldn't be giving the next Oasis album away for free.
"I didn't spend a year in the most expensive studio in England, with the most expensive producer in America, and the most expensive graphic designer in London to then give it away. Fuck that."
Which begs the question, who is the most expensive graphic designer in London? There are three obvious candidates.
a) Simon Halfon. He's designed stuff before for Oasis (post Microdot days ie post the good covers) and Weller. He probably isn't the most expensive graphic designer in London, but I'm not expecting Noel Gallagher to know the going rate of every design agency in town.
b) Peter Saville. Obviously. Would he work with Oasis? Would they work with him? There's a strong Manchester connection so maybe. And he probably likes being called the most expensive graphic designer in London.
c) Peter Blake. Not technically a graphic designer, but he did a cover for them before. He's not gonna be cheap is he?
Who do you think is the most expensive graphic designer in London?
This a picture of my Rodchenko notes, my meeting notes are all a bit longer but a bit more confidential.
In my continual quest to become uber organised, I have recently ditched Moleskine's in favour of note taking on my Jesus Phone.
This has several advantages.
1. Less stuff to carry around.
2. When it's done, it's done. No typing up the notes.
3. You can email the meeting notes to the client as you leave the building. When they arrive back at their desk, it's in their inbox. Trust me, this impresses clients.
The only problem is that I have to start every meeting with "Sorry, I'm not txting, I'm taking notes" which makes me sound like a wally.
Alex and I were talking the other day about tattoos. I hate tattoos. Alex said that all the graphic designers he knew didn't like tattoos because they could never pick one mark, or design, that they could be sure of liking forever. Let alone a font, "The font is always something Latino and gangster". Couple that with the horrible colour distortion of tattoos over time and you've got a designers nightmare.
But obviously there are designers with tattoos.
And some marks would be OK for life, wouldn't they?
Let's do a quick poll. Are you a graphic designer? Do you have a tattoo?
Here's some more pictures from last night.
Three great links from the CR Blog this morning. First up, here's the full list of all the D&AD winners from last night.
And here's a good discussion between Michael Johnson and Sean Perkins (from North) about why they think graphics was so under-represented this year. This year there were no pencils in graphic design.
Lastly, here a great article from Patrick on where the D&AD and Graphic Design go next. Well written, well worth a read and well worth taking part and commenting. It's an interesting debate.
It's good in here. Good music. Good atmosphere. Better than Billingsgate. Everyone at D&AD seems happy. about 2 hours ago
"It's all moan, moan, moan, in here" Iain Tait, non pencil winner.
There are huge queues for everything, and the food is a bit slow in coming. But overall we don't think anyone will be wanting a return to Billingsgate. I think there are some robots on stage. about 4 hours ago
Imagine the letters in Campaign. about 4 hours ago
Wow. Juan and the Gorilla get a Black. about 4 hours ago
We did alright on the predictions didn't we? about 4 hours ago
Websites now, Yellow for Uniqlock and Black for Get The Glass! about 4 hours ago
Apple have now won more Black Pencils than anyone else. Ever. about 4 hours ago
Apple get 3 yellows and... 2 Blacks for iMac and iPhone! about 4 hours ago
Grand Jury by The Partners gets a Black! about 4 hours ago
The first Black Pencil of the night for Uniqlock! about 4 hours ago
Uniqlock gets a yellow about 4 hours ago
Yellow for Get The Glass in gaming. about 4 hours ago
Juan. Bunnies. Again. about 4 hours ago
Juan is up again. Yellow for the bunnies. about 4 hours ago
Cake gets a Yellow. Best baking 30 seconds. about 5 hours ago
Gorilla wins a Yellow for sound. Juan is on stage. First of many? about 5 hours ago
No pencils for Graphic Design. about 5 hours ago
Nothing for Saks (as we predicted). about 5 hours ago
John and Frances Sorrell get the presidents award. Well deserved if you ask us. about 5 hours ago
Your president is wearing a pencil encrusted suit. Tony Davidson said he looked like a prisoner. about 5 hours ago
Amstell is very funny. "When you guys run out of ideas you put a man in a guerilla suit and give him drums." about 5 hours ago
The team at NDG aren't too fond of the programme typography. about 6 hours ago
Just sitting down in the RFH now. We're running a little late. about 6 hours ago
The terrace is packed. All the usual suspects here, ex Presidents etc. Lots of skinny ties and pointy shoes. about 6 hours ago
Saks to get nothing and everyone is very mixed up about the Gorilla. about 7 hours ago
OK here are the official NDG predictions. Blacks - iPhone, Grand Jury and Get The Glass. Silver - Uniqlock, Spot The Bull and Bravia. about 8 hours ago
Anyone think the Gorilla will win? about 8 hours ago
Send us your Black pencil predictions. about 8 hours ago
The entire NDG team have been for a slap up meal. (Gotta eat sommits if we don't get any scran til 9.15.) about 8 hours ago
More predictions - what will The President wear? about 9 hours ago
Tom and I are speculating on food for tonight. Mini burgers, mini chips, mini portions, mini everything we reckon. about 11 hours ago
Welcome listeners. Live D&AD Awards Twittering begins at approx 7pm BST. about 13 hours ago
Hold on to your hats. For the last couple of years (2006, 2007) we've written, exclusive, no holds barred, comprehensive, glamorous reviews of the D&AD Awards. For contractual reasons we may not be able to do that this year. So here at NDG we've decided to put the whole editorial team into Live Twittering the event. You know, like those brilliant live text things the BBC do for the football. Except bigger and better. No expense has been spared.
We'll get interviews with all the big names. We'll get gossip. We'll get scandal. We'll get tantrums and tears. We'll let you know, first, whether the Royal Festival Hall is better than Billingsgate. We can't promise to break news of every award but we'll be keeping an eye out for the Saks identity, the UNIQLOCK, the Grand Tour, the Gorilla and of course the iPhone. Will Jony get another Black pencil to go with all those black tshirts?
The Twittering will start around 7pm BST and will appear up there in the next post and over here on Twitter. Hit refresh to see any updates. Bet you can't wait.
More and more I'm convinced that graphic designers are like hairdressers. Graphic design agencies are like hairdressing salons.
I believe you could open a hairdressing salon in any town in Britain and you would make money. If you were sensible and kept on top of things you could make a nice living. Nice house, nice car, two holidays a year. All that.
I also believe there could be three hairdressers in this same town and they would all make money. All have nice cars. Two holidays. That's all perfectly possible.
I also believe you could open a graphic design agency in any town in Britain and you would make money. If you were sensible and kept on top of things you could make a nice living. Nice house, nice car, two holidays a year. All that.
I also believe there could be three graphic design agencies in this same town and they would all make money. All have nice cars. Two holidays. That's all perfectly possible.
You could repeat this formula up and down the country and it would still work. Just because there's already a hairdresser in town, it's no barrier to setting up another one.
Essentially all of these hairdressers will be of roughly the same quality. You could walk into to any of them, anywhere in the country, and get roughly the same haircut for roughly the same price. From time to time some of them will win awards and some of them will have good patches, but essentially, they're all just as competent.
Every once in a while one of these salons will become very well known. Famous, even. That's because approximately a couple of percent of everything will always be very good. The rest will be average. It's the same with graphic design.
From time to time some of these salons, or agencies, will go bust. Such is life. The staff move on, the good ones start up on their own, taking the good customers with them.
With the right financing and the right management a few of these salons could expand and go nationwide, maybe even international. But this will be rare, because essentially the business model isn't scalable.
According to the Design Council, 95% of design consultancies have less than 5 staff and a turnover of less than £250k a year. I wonder if The Hairdressing Council have similar stats?
Imagine a hairdressing salon pitching for your custom, how would they differentiate themselves? Could they differentiate themselves? If Bob cut your hair at British Hairways, would you change supplier when he moved to Curl Up And Dye? If The Cutting Corner was busy one Saturday and you needed a haircut quick would you chance it and get it done at Head Masters? Apply that thinking to your agency and your clients. Ever wonder why they find pitches so confusing? Worth thinking about that.
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It's just something I've noticed. What do you think?
Here's a form I was asked to fill in for a tender the other day.
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Key information about your agency
1. Key skills and experience
Please list any key skills or experience that you think are relevant to XXX and make you stand out against other candidates
2. Relationship and Communication
Please explain the relationship that we would have with you in terms of the way our account is managed and your preferred frequency and methods of communication
3. Quality procedures
Please explain the quality procedures that you have in place to ensure the work that you deliver is of the highest quality standard.
4. Project Management procedures
Please explain how you would go about managing complex projects, for example we often have projects that involve the production of several different versions of a piece of literature to serve all of our European markets. What procedures do you have in place for complex project management?
5. Responding to a brief
Please explain your strategic approach in terms of responding to a brief.
6. Capacity and capacity planning
What procedures do you have in place for capacity planning and dealing with capacity issues?
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What do you think of that?
Very funny. Read more at Iain's place.
I love this.
Now, there are probably people who hate it. That's fine. I like it and this is my playground with my rules.
Instead of building the usual wank agency website Modernista! have utilised the tools of web 2.0. So the work is shown through Flickr.
Easy to use, easy to find, easy to access, easy to comment on, easy to bookmark, easy to share. good, good, good.
The About Us page utilises Wikipedia.
The best way to get what I'm on about is to take a look at the site.
Found via this month's issue of Creative Review which is also The Annual issue and very good. In the shops now.
But this is how you get a D&AD pencil.
Morning.
Right, today you should read this by Iain. It's good and Iain knows what he's talking about. You should also read this (admittedly slightly fluffy) article on the Beeb about airport design. "Ten minutes in a horrible space can feel like half an hour but in a nice space can pass relatively fast."
You should then read this article tantalisingly called Secrets of UX Design Productivity from Google, it seems that "Google is in the process of getting great ideas produced quickly" which is no bad thing. Lastly read this article in the Harvard Business Review about a Japanese bank's new IT system which was developed using the path method. As you'd imagine it's a bit heavy going in parts, but it's interesting and there are the makings of some good lessons, "firms should not have to sell new systems to users; rather they should build systems that users willingly embrace".
Or your products, your brand, your communications strategy... I love that. Via Etre.
It really is, just to be typing here.
some beholders are blind.
But lately, my mind is thinking more towards design authority.
"Beauty... eye of beholder... yadda, yadda... "
But there are some things that always look good. And some that almost always, don't.
My mind isn't as full of examples at midnight... but there are some principles that good design consists of... and principles that CAN be broken... intentionally---and STRONGLY broken, that can create a provocative, strong design as well...
But those principles (contrast, eyeflow, whitespace, borders, justifications, wise color choice, line length)... they are there for a reason. They help designs be good- er-- well--whatever. They make design better and more effective, webpage, flyer, or buswrap.
And the trouble is, clients, or worse, bosses, can sometimes be more degree-d and trained in business or marketing or whatever, and their position affords them the luxury of coercing you to break those principles for their whim or fancy, or worse yet, for a client's proposal. And not in a strong, edgy, provocative way. In a way that makes you wish you could forget that it was technically your mouse and keyboard, and servitude that made it that way.
Here's to sticking to your guns. design backbone. designing with integrity of principles.
thanks for the wonderful RSS. this lowly designer/ web maintenance guy in Florida has been enjoying the lessons and interesting posts for over 2 years now. keep it up!
Part of All Request Thursday
I got sent this in the post the other day. Actually a few of us got sent this in the office.
I'm about to slag it off pretty heavily. Part of me feels bad about that because I imagine that every time any printer/paper company sends designers a mailer they get nothing but grief and gripes and turned up noses.
But, you know, fuck it.
You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk. This 'talk' is about green printing. Using environmentally friendly papers and stuff. The cover is printed on Greyboard which is basically all the dregs from the recycled mush. Designers always think it looks great. Good start.
Then it takes you through all the different terminology PEFC means, what FSC means. What carbon footprint means. Obviously it uses all their different environmentally friendly papers throughout.
But there's so much of it. It's 32 pages long.
Right at the end it says, "James McNaughton Group now offer a range of carbon neutral paper products". That winds me up. Don't just offer a range of carbon neutral paper products, make the whole bloody business carbon neutral and be done with it. You're either carbon neutral or you're not. It's not an upgrade option.
32 pages of big, over produced, over designed, printed thing to tell me about environment friendly options. That's just not good, is it? I'm picking on McNaughton's (they can take it) but we get sent loads of these all the time and it's really starting to get on my nerves. Another big convoluted bit of print sent to several people at the same address is not the way forward people.
And before someone asks; no, we're not perfect. We're not entirely carbon neutral and we don't use 100% waterless printing. But we don't send people 32 page mailers.
We did a pitch the other day and me and the work placement were an hour early.
So we popped into a nearby cafe and had a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. Lovely. I opened up my laptop to check the presentation and noticed that the screen was a bit grubby. Very grubby. Kids at home and all that. So I asked the cafe owner if I could borrow a cloth and gave the Mac a good wipe.
"It's not like this at The Partners" said the placement.
This is the best post I've never written.
I was thinking about Pentagram, Archigram and Magnum and how they've all got similar co-operative style set ups. They're all at the top of their field. They've all got great longevity. And they all end in M, which is probably important.
So I thought I'd write about this.
But the thing is I don't really know enough about all of the organisations. So I asked some experts to write a few words on the structure of each organisation and how that helps contribute to their success. The experts don't need any introduction. A huge thank you to each of them.
You can't help but be inspired and excited by reading all of these texts.
The passion of the protagonists and the power of the collective is evident in each organisation. Investigate further and you'll see that the quality of the work is incredible and consistent.
A few things stand out for me. Firstly they all seem to have been formed out of an honest idea to create amazing work. Secondly they all seem to have come to the same conclusion about the kind of organisation which begets superior work and thirdly that structure has been copied by significantly few others.
So read the stuff below and like me you'll find yourself wanting work in an organistation that pushes the boundaries, puts creative doers at it's heart, where excellence perpetuates and which ends in M.
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Henrietta Thompson on Magnum
Magnum was a war baby. Founded by four photographers just back from the frontlines in 1947 Magnum Photos resulted from a powerful what-the-hell manifesto, and despite celebrating its 60th birthday last year, its vision is as still just as strong as ever.
Picture taken from the Magnum website, usual rules apply.
Robert Capa, David –Chim- Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson and George
Rodger established Magnum in an effort to change in the way photography
was traded. In order to empower photojournalists to work truly
creatively, without the constraints of demanding managing agents and
editors Mangum made a departure from conventional practice in two ways:
Firstly, the necessary staff would exist to support (rather than
direct) the photographers. Secondly, the authors of the imagery held
the copyright - not the magazines, so if a photographer was published
in Paris Match, Magnum could still then sell the same photographs to
Life magazine, say, or the Picture Post. This meant that the
photographer would gain the means to work on new projects even without
an assignment. More importantly, it meant that photojournalism would be
recognized as the artform it was.
Picture by Martin Parr, taken from the Magnum website, usual rules apply.
With the flexibility to choose their own stories (and to work for long
as it took to get the right shot) the photojournalism being processed
by Magnum was – and is still – very different to that of a photographer
on commission: there is a point of view to the stories that goes far
beyond the purposes of event recording. “We often photograph events
that are called 'news' ," Cartier-Bresson told Byron Dobell of "Popular
Photography" magazine in 1957, " Life isn't made of stories that you
cut into slices like an apple pie. There's no standard way of
approaching a story. We have to evoke a situation, a truth. This is the
poetry of life's reality."
Picture by Elliot Erwitt, taken from the Magnum website, usual rules apply.
Magnum today is still such a cooperative, operating from offices in
London, New York, Paris and Tokyo - and providing photographs to the
world’s media, galleries and museums. It is entirely owned by the
photographers it represents and , if you see an iconic image of any
significant world event since the Spanish civil war and are not sure
who took it, chances are it was a Magnum photographer.
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Michael Bierut on Pentagram
The Public Theater, New York identity by Pentagram, usual rules apply.
Pentagram's
structure is based on a few simple principals. First, the first is
structured around its partners, each of whom runs an autonomous team of
designers who are dedicated to working on that partner's projects. This
is meant to replicate the creative intensity of a small design office,
where everyone is focused on the work. Second, all of the partners are
designers. There are no partners who are managers, or strategists, or
account people. That means that while money is important -- the
partners have to be good businesspeople, after all, since they can't
pass that responsibility off -- the attention of the firm is on design,
not money.
The Fashion Center information kiosk by Pentagram, usual rules apply.
Third, the partners are all equal, regardless of seniority. Finally, the partners are diverse. There are architects, product designers and new media designers along with the graphic designers, and even the graphic designers have wildly divergent styles. This means that there are many advantages in working collaboratively.
These principals are surprisingly unchanged since firm's founding in 1972. I think they've guaranteed a certain amount of stability, a longstanding commitment to good design, and slow but steady growth.
Saks Fifth Avenue Identity by Pentagram, usual rules apply.
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Dan Hill on the "Archigram - What - Organisation - You - Must - Be - Joking - Mate"
The bare facts are these. Six youngish men come together in various flats in Hampstead, London, in the early 1960s. They produce a magazine-like publication Archigram, that lasted from 1961 to 1970 (roughly), and the firm that had grown out of it Archigram Architects, lasts until 1975. 900 drawings are produced along the way, yet assessed In terms of built projects they produce only a playground in Milton Keynes and a swimming pool for Rod Stewart. If that. And yet they influence architecture profoundly. Their work is the thing, and should be pored over time and time again (see refs. below), but the question here is whether their organisational structure aided this extraordinary state of affairs.
Archigram pictures from all over the place, usual rules apply.
The 'rock group' motif attached to Archigram is a little overplayed - generally the analogy goes they were "the Beatles of architecture", a lazy comparison based around their perceived insouciance, iconoclasm and psychedelic visuals, exploding out of a then-stuffy trade. "A necessary irritant" as Barry Curtis called them. Firstly, they were of course far better than the wildly overrated Beatles. (Even musically: in the retrospective at the Design Museum a few years ago, the visitor was confronted with The Yes Album playing, from a messy mock-up of their studio, but it really should've been Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler.)
Secondly, the key point of difference is that they heavily influenced without making buildings. Could a band influence as much without releasing a record? In this, they were part of a tradition of un-built but visionary work that makes architecture and urbanism almost unique in design practice. So what set them apart was the publishing.
That espoused a take on modernism informed by a generally positive reaction to the technology and media that had which emerged, with necessary inventiveness, from WWII, a conflict that was still front of most people's minds, self-evident in the half-shattered cities around them. This optimism and invention is then allied to the 'post-scarcity' culture that emerges in the late-'50s, as they cut and paste the space race onto colour telly and pop-art and planned obsolescence, spray-painting structural engineering with beat poetry and Harold Wilson's 'white heat of technology', fusing Monty Python montage into avant-garde internationalist happenings in, wait for it, Folkestone. In pursuing the unbuilt, ephemeral, temporary and informational, they are precursors for a version of the 21st century (at least the one unaffected by peak oil).
Their proposals for Instant, Walking or Plug-In Cities, Suitaloons and Living Pods, were radical, fluid, malleable, intimate and transient - "tune up, clip on, plug in" into "rooms (that) expand infinitely. Our walls dissolve into impermeable mists or into the imagery of stories and fables ...".
The Walking City by Archigram. Pictures from all over the place, usual rules apply.
Yet their own structure remained relatively solid. If not the band, the architectural practice was essentially their recognisable model, though that is usually just as rife with splits, egos, and partners flouncing out over non-musical differences. There seems to have been little of that in Archigram's dissolution. Only that a large scheme in Monte Carlo fell through, and their fabric couldn't stretch over the distance from Folkestone to Los Angeles, which is a long way geographically but even further culturally.
So there's a disparity between their projects - "an architecture that twitched ... was responsive to people" - and their own structure. Certainly, it seems to have been fairly disorganised. Reyner Banham called them, the "Archigram-What-Organisation-You-Must-Be-Joking-Mate". But no more so than for many other architects.
The two groups of three came together to form six (three out of the art schools, and the other three working at the innovative London County Council). In a recent interview, the group's Peter Cook listed their roles:
" I was the enthusiast. Mike Webb was the genius. Ron [Herron] was the fantastically fluent member. Warren [Chalk] was the warrior. David [Greene] the poet. Dennis [Crompton] was the technologist. And I was the beaver, the operational person. Everybody overlaps, but that's the simplified version."
So we see the specialist-meets-multidisciplinary brew common to many micro firms. Though they were all essentially trained in the same master discipline, Cook points out they ranged over 10 years in age and came from different schools - "There was a hint of internal competitiveness. So it was rather like a studio in a college would be—looking over the shoulder of the other and thinking, "That's interesting, now I must do something, too."
The fact they were rarely troubled by praxis may have enabled the six-person team to remain six - to attempt to build much of what they proposed would have inevitably meant a certain fraying at the edges, as this highly complex work now tends to involve numerous specialists. Plus of course the messy necessity of clients. Firms actually approaching their ideas in built form these days - arguably OMA/AMO, Arup, MVRDV, Foster, Rogers, Herzog + De Meuron, Future Systems, Morphosis and Atelier Bow Wow perhaps - are larger, highly diverse, often corporate structures.
Archigram pictures from all over the place, usual rules apply.
But as an ideas generator, this 6-person team of occasionally spiky, overlapping semi-specialists, unified by a single trade, medium and sensibility, was immensely productive. Given that medium was publishing, and their trade ideas, it was also immensely flexible. They took to heart the maxim, perhaps after Cedric Price, that "when you are looking for a solution to what you have been told is an architectural problem - remember, the solution may not be a building."
Cook, the most vocal member today, is slippery on who was actually in the office, doing what. But also notes that the "untidy structure", as he called it, meant they've never really stopped as well. As they transcend a firm and become more of a genre, they become less of an organisation and more of an idea.
If we can get that fluid with things, a key part of their organisation not often articulated might be the umbrella. In a sense, they were part of an un-named and equally loosely-aligned multidisciplinary movement, with Cedric Price, Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton, James Stirling, Buckminster Fuller, Reyner Banham and The Smithsons hovering over the group as some kind of unlikely beneficent chorus. Other firms or movements, such as Italy's Superstudio, Japan's Metabolists, fore-runners Team X, are also part of this scene. In this, a fluid membrane of intellect surrounded the group, through which ideas could be tested, progressed, translated or deleted. A jellyfish-like structure comes to mind, a translucent, flexible dome of thinking, floating over a smallish core body.
This was not a formal organisation at all - barely even a movement, just partly-shared sensibilities - but enabled a rich loam for fertilising ideas, and created a purpose and direction for the work. It's difficult to see equivalents today. Might this layered umbrella structure be the important factor? They might have called it the 'organisation gloop'.
Archigram pictures from all over the place, usual rules apply.
Cook asserts "the strength of Archigram was surely its layers of inconsistent parts, keeping going a continual fascination with each other. " So within the gloop, this fascination holds the core. It's almost no more than a sudden freeze-frame on a longer timeline, a group of people coalescing around a way of thinking, as much as doing. They were a purely informational organisation, as close to media, marketing, branding, banking or academia as to architecture, as was their work.
So perhaps the essence to extract from Archigram's organisation was not in their own structure, but in the structure of the buildings they proposed - an organisation that twitches, is responsive to people; an organisation that coalesces, exists briefly, and then is gone, existing only in time; organisations that can expand infinitely, or dissolve into stories and fables; organisations in which the function can switch fluidly; organisations with a permeable skin ... Really, you could take Archigram's work and find and replace the words 'built environment' or 'architecture' or 'city' with the word 'organisation', and that would give you a truly innovative structure indeed.
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References:
Archigram
Archigram.net
Archigram [Wikipedia]
Concerning Archigram - Dennis Crompton (ed.)
Archigram - Peter Cook (ed.)
Archigram: Architecture without Architecture - Simon Sadler
Interview with Sir Peter Cook [Architectural Record]
Pentagram
Pentagram Design
Paula Scher's Family Of Men diagram / video
Pentagram Blog
Pentagram [Wikipedia]
This year is my ten year anniversary. I've been working full time as a graphic designer for ten years.
I'd like to talk to other people in this industry who've been working for exactly ten years this year. Designers, art directors, copy writers, account managers, planners, all of you. If that's you or if you know someone who fits the bill then drop me a line ben at thedesignconspiracy dot com.
Thanks.
I was forced to get a bus earlier today (normally I'm a black cab man, but you know...) and I saw this lady furiously working her Blackberry.
Being rude and inquisitive I peered over her shoulder where I could just make out she had received an email that detailed "nine points for the way forward". This email had been sent to at least nine people and maybe more.
She began her reply with, "What an exciting and informative way to spend the xxx bus route. Totally agree with points 1 and 7..." Jesus Christ. I imagined all the other eight people sat on buses compiling their replies and I thought what an awful way to communicate / conduct a relationship. What a dreadful, miserable, connected world we live in.
But don't worry. I was just having a moment.
Via the wonderful Design Disease Flickr Pool I stumbled upon this interesting little story.
Photo taken from create_up with permission.
That picture above was taken of some wall artwork in a McDonalds in London. It's startlingly similar to David Carson's artwork for the Nine Inch Nails album The Fragile.
You might think they don't look that similar. But take a closer look.
Here's the wall graphic again.
Photo taken from Echoing The Sound, usual rules apply.
And here's some detail highlighted.
Photo taken from Echoing The Sound, usual rules apply. The arrows/highlights are theirs.
Look at the McDonalds logo. Have you ever seen it cut up like that before?
Now look at the on body artwork from the CD.
They even used the same photo haven't they?
This isn't just in London, it's in McDonalds globally. It's very odd that McDonalds would choose to copy NIN artwork from '99. And it's terrible that they would copy artwork in the first place.
I understand David Carson is considering legal action.
What do you think?
It's the 1st February today which means you've run out of time to take advantage of Glazer's fee sale.
Throughout January you have been able to use the design consultancy Glazer and gain 10% off their fee or a whopping 15% if you book before the 11th Jan!
This is a terrible idea. There's no two ways about it, this is an awful idea. I'll hesitate on saying it drags the whole industry down, but it's not far off.
I can understand the attraction to the consultancy.
1. It seems like a fun, PR-able idea, "Everyone on the high street is having a sale, why don't we!".
2.The 10% of fee lost in January will be recouped if that client stays for the year, or many years.
3. January is a quiet month, this will boost sales and give the New Biz people something to talk about.
4. What's 10% between friends anyway?
Firstly it's not PR able, because it's just not that interesting. Client don't expect consultancies to have a fee sale. They probably don't know what your fees are anyway, they just negotiate fees on a project or agency basis. Apple cutting the price of iPhones 10% is news, this isn't.
Design consultancies work had to explain their fees and why they are reasonable. Designers constantly moan that they can't charge as much as ad agencies, lawyers, plumbers, doctors, anyone and then someone knocks a whopping 10% off. If a new client is attracted under this scheme how are they going to feel when the fees go up 11% in February. If they start off being charged 90% an increase back to 100% is an increase of 11% of 90.
Is January really that quiet? Does this make you look a bit desperate? Have the phones stopped ringing? Do you New Biz people need to offer a 10% discount to attract clients?
As I've explained 10% is a lot when it gets put back up. This idea makes the consultancy look cheap and undoes a lot of good work done by a lot of successful design consultancies. It's a silly, flippant idea which doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.
What do you think?
(It only seems fair that I contact Glazer and ask them for a comment. More soon.)
There have been about 3 posts in my drafts folder for ages. And then today, like Paul on the road to Damascus they've all come together in one delightful little package.
Let's start with data.
Everyone is very excited about data right now. Data is everywhere. Google are to blame for quite a lot of it, but so are things like the Freedom Of Information Act, the Internet, Andy Gray, Sky Sports and a whole bunch of other stuff we call the Information Age. Nothing new there.
Just look at the watch in that photo.
Except that now we're starting to see this data used and reused and repackaged and (crucially) redesigned in lots of different ways. Redesigned in sexy ways, redesigned in innovative ways and redesigned in different ways to suit different audiences. Same info, different look.
Lets take a look at one of my favourite examples of this. On One Map.
That site uses a Google Map and pulls in data from estate agent's websites and Government statistics. It can tell me there's a 2 bed flat for sale for £895k and four mobile phone masts 400ft from the office. All of this data is (sort of) freely available. I'm no Property Geek but what I love most about this site is how you can search for a new house by visible map rather than funny drop down boxes. So you can look for properties near Drury Lane rather than searching for <1-2 bed> <£500k-£1000k> <flat>. That map is a much more intuitive, easy to understand device.
There are some absolutely fabulous examples of data being redesigned in all sorts of ways over here so I'll steal a few of them below.
All data that's freely available to you or me. But it's not just online. Take a look at these gorgeous data representations from Global Cities exhibition.
That's just some boring stats made to into a must see 3D thing.
And here's a film of Lisa Strausfield's model of downtown Manhattan in action.
It's just data. But incredibly beautiful.
So, effectively you can now get your data styled however you like. This is a huge step and has massive implications for designers.
Let's take something as ubiquitous as Google Maps. You could (nowadays) have a widget that printed off your map in the same style as an A-Z for Black Cabbies, in the style of a Beck Tube Map for Graphic Design Geeks and in the style of the Alliance to Restore the Republic for Sci Fi fans. That is not only possible, it's probable.
Where the users of Dopplr went last year. Borrowed from Matt Jones.
So this changes the game a little bit for designers and brand owners, because you could easily end up losing control. You might not want your data redesigned as a Tube map. But you can't stop this stuff happening so what do you do?
Obviously some brands (and designs, branding work etc) are already kitted out for this world.
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