Noisy Decent Graphics

"Companies make their biggest mistakes when things are going well."

Someone told me this recently. I think it was said by John Bartle of BBH fame. Saving here.

Is there an AI that's good at lettering?

And spelling? I'd love to know.

“Buy Two, Get Two Free”

This is a great blog post.

Like blog posts from the olden days it starts off being about nothing. It meanders around a bit and has real photos of real things in real life. Then just as you finish it you realise it was actually quite profound in the way normal everyday life is.

But read it for the story about the "baffling “Buy Two, Get Two Free” promotion".

Design Research urls #21

102. This analysis by the FT of central bank logos is incredible 'A comprehensive taxonomy of central bank logos, with jokes'

But this article 'sellside research notes ranked by aesthetics, not content' by the same crew is more important. Central bank logos are a bit irrelevant to be honest but research is designed to be read. If you can't read it, that's a problem. See also 'The solutions to all our problems may be buried in PDFs that nobody reads'  a recent report by the World Bank. 

 

103. Norman Foster has a new monograph published by Taschen. It's gorgeous. It's also £350. The limited edition, numbered, signed one is £3,000.

104. Neville Brody has a new book out, the Graphic Language of Neville Brody 3. That's £35. The Graphic Language 1 (1988) and 2 (1996) were hugely influential to designers of my age. Fond memories.

105. Es has a new book out, An Atlas of Es Devlin. That's £85 and has the most interesting paper engineering of the lot.

Monographs, eh? All are RDIs, Foster, Brody, Devlin.

106. The world’s largest stadiums – in pictures.

107. An AI Johnny Cash sings Taylor Swift on TikTok. Perfect.

Randomly accessed memories: 3

I was ironing. We must have been going out, no other reason I would be ironing, but then we were always going out so I've no idea why this night was different.

It was hard to find room to iron in that kitchen. It wasn't a small kitchen but it was messy, cluttered, full of stuff that shouldn't be in a kitchen like a basketball and broken glass (related).

We lived halfway up a very steep hill in a 2up, 2 down house with a second 2up floor. Four of us.

I found room in the kitchen, or most likely I made room, and I was ironing. I had Radio 1 on (probably this) and I heard Wonderwall for the first time. I remember being struck by the powerful starkness of the opening vocals compared to the rest of Oasis's songs. The kitchen was cold and the sound echoed off the hard surfaces. I loved it from the first few seconds. 

Wonderwall was released on the 30th October 1995, 28 years ago yesterday.

Originally I thought this memory must have been from then. Except Wonderwall was on the album (What's the Story) Morning Glory? which we all bought on the day it was released on the 2nd October 1995, so the dates must be slightly off. It was definitely the second year at Uni (1995) and it was definitely in the house on Arboretum Avenue (second and third years) so it must have been September or October. Maybe.

Strong culture of communication criticism

I went to Glasgow the other day and saw this piece of comms on the side of a bin. Down at the botoom, someone's written some feedback in the grime. Have a closer look.

They're right, it doesn't really work. You can see the thinking, river, boats, pirates, pirate jokes. Meh. It's not clear enough (or clever enough) to be worth the reader's effort. Nice to see this sort of thing called out in situ though. More people should do that. More efficient than blogging.

Also in Glasgow there are a lot of signs saying 'People Make Glasgow Greener' and I couldn't help thinking that it's the people who are the problem.

Anyway.

Cafes and tables 14 years on

2009.

2023.

2009, we didn't have a table but we did have a cafe sign.

2023, we have a table and it's in a cafe.

S/O to Ruby who took the cafe picture. Seb is still the coolest of us all. Here's a good interview with him. 

Thinking about it we probably could have used the cafe sign as a table. Would've got on boing boing with that. 

Neil is back once again like the olden days webmaster

Neil has resumed blogging.

In issue one I've already learned about Now pages. I've also discovered he can't see images in his head. Apparently that is called aphantasia. I've been meaning to blog about this diagram below for ages.

It might not surprise you to learn that I can see pictures in my head. Presumably Neil is a 5? I'm a 1, or maybe a 1.5, on that scale. In fact, I sometimes struggle without a picture. If you were describing something to me without slides or visuals and you said there were 3 parts to it I would find myself doodling 3 shapes to help my brain "see" it.

Funny old world innit.

Anyway. Neil is the CDO of the BFI, a good writer, a South Londoner, a superb human and you should all read his personal blog.

 

Nuts

Nuts the new publication from FOOD. Pop down to 70 Clerkenwell Road and say hi to Iain, Nick and Richard. Well, not Richard he's in New York.

Do Interesting: Notice. Collect. Share by Russell Davies

It's very good. Available to buy from Do, from Bookshop, from Amazon and from other places.