Noisy Decent Graphics

Homage to Calvert in Camberwell

(and Kinneir of course).

 

 

Baths mended all over the world

Apologies in advance for the post about bad UX

Five warnings, five other actions. 50% urgent, important information.

I think the one about being closed for Christmas is almost acceptable. The one about the postal address might be because it's a financial product that people probably don't check very often. But not really.

I promise this is the last bad UX post of 2022*. Happy New Year. 

 

* Actually I might do one on taps.

Some links from 2021

Primrose Hill about 5am in July. Surprisingly busy.

Life in football's cocoon – a photo essay.
Pictures of football stadiums with matches but no fans.

The 15 most notable lies of Donald Trump's presidency
From 'Windmill noise causes cancer' to lying about speaking to the Boy Scouts. Utter madness.

Evening with Fergie and Klopp
Sir Alex Ferguson, Jurgen Klopp and Gareth Southgate on a zoom call.

The imminent possibility of UFOs
In January Matt Webb thought UFOs were imminent. Must check up on that.

How To Turn Off The Annoying AirPods Automatic Switching Feature
Rolls eye emoji.

15 more of the best Cairngorms Munros to climb in the National Park
List of munros, obvs.

Michael Johansson
Art with containers. Very good.

Dominic Cummings was right about greater role for scientists, says ex-DCMS perm sec
“delivery people do apply for these roles but they don’t get them because ministers don’t choose them,” she said. “It’s not a skill that’s valued in the heat of having to go to cabinet.”

Here's How To Balance Radiators
Life skills.

Vintage technology: 'It sounds so much cleaner'
Jealous of the PalmPilot user.

Things I have learned about the general public whilst working at the library
Twitter thread of the year. Probably a book by now.

How Dolly Parton became a secular American saint
Praise for Dolly.

Like all firms, the royal family must learn to listen on diversity
By Margaret Casely-Hayford. See also Marina Hyde “BUT YOU’RE LITERALLY A HEREDITARY MONARCHY, YOU MAD BASTARDS”.

Watch John Oliver explain Bitcoin using $15,000 Beanie Babies and rap videos
I think the origin of “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers".

 

 

 

You should buy Everything I Know about Life I Learned from PowerPoint by Russell Davies

Russell has written a book, Everything I Know about Life I Learned from PowerPoint.

You should buy it because:

1. It has practical advice
2. It's funny
3. It's designed by the brilliant Stefanie Posavec
4. It's really about modern professional communication
5. It makes the perfect gift for people who communicate at work

Full disclaimers: Russell is (on and off) a friend, colleague and art collaborator. I'm thanked at the back of the book. Twice. Don't let any of that put you off.

1. It has practical advice




2. It's funny.

This probably isn't the funniest paragraph but I love the phrase "PowerPoint seems to be the software we hate to love".




3. It's designed by the brilliant Stefanie Posavec

4. It's really about modern professional communication.

Including the origins of. He actually interviews Robert Gaskins who wrote the original software.

5. It makes the perfect gift for people who communicate at work

 

Author direct, signed!

 

Amazon, unsigned!

The Beatles and the singing dog

 

10 lessons in productivity and brainstorming from The Beatles is a great blog post by Tom Whitwell.

I remember Russell and I did number eight once, "Pretend to be someone else". We got stuck coming up with some ads so we simply pretended to be all the other agencies and imagined what they would do for the brief. What would BBH do? What would Mother do? And so on. So and so would have a singing dog. Such and such would shoot on a drone with a manifesto type voiceover. Thingy would use that trendy actor. We did about 7 or 8 agencies.

That was a fun hour. And it genuinely helped I think. 

Anyway.

Where the streets have one name

Harley Street is a good example of that wonderful London phenomenon where A Street is famous for A Thing. Hatton Garden and jewellery. Savile Row and suits. Whitehall and civil servants.

Harley Street is famous for doctors. Or as wikipedia says, "noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery". Harley Street is obviously a very desirable address if you're a doctor. Posh doctors of course, it's in the centre of London, up West, so there isn't an A&E or a GPs surgery. It's all private doctors and private dentists and skincare clinics. Chauffeurs waiting outside.

Looks great on the letterheads, essential for some business models. Russell has often pointed out it's a lot of fun to see how far they can stretch the concept of a Harley Street address. Turns out you can go quite a long way around a corner or a side street and still put Harley Street on the business card.

Here's a photo that captures that nicely.

2021 water fountain update

We've spoken about these fountains before. 

Undoubtably a good idea in August 2019 and Here's the latest on the water fountains on September 2019.

Tl;dr the design of these fountains caused a stir, even though they're a good idea. They got covered up quickly. For non-design reasons.

I think they've been covered up for ages. I don't think they've been covered for two years but maybe they have because of Covid. Today I noticed they were open. I had a sore throat and an empty water bottle so I filled it up.

Lovely stuff.

Still think they look like an ad campaign which is a shame. But yay for free water.

August blogging done

31 days of posting every day. Exhausting. Off for rest now.

Finally a meaningful strapline

They don't even bother saying "our" investors. Perfect.