Noisy Decent Graphics

Do you watch football in a glass rectangle?

This is pretty much one question - do you watch [football] via the internet?

But I think what they mean is:

a) do you watch [football] on a laptop
b) do you watch [football] on a tablet
c) do you watch [football] on a phone

But they could mean:

a) do you watch [football] in a browser
b) 
c) do you watch [football] in an app

But, to be honest, I have no idea. 

Anyway.

Culture

A good culture is hard to define. For future reference, it looks like this.

 

 

Fixing the basics

"Dear Tony, I see the Russians have put a space vehicle on the moon. Is there any chance of a better bus service in Bristol?"

From Tony Benn, Letters to my Grandchildren.

Bus stop

Couldn't resist this.

It's a bus stop in Baltimore.

I have no idea if it's real, or if it actually works as a bus stop. I can't see any times or a map of routes for example. I think it's real, there is more detail here.

But it looks cool and it's pretty clear what it is, which is nice. And it reminds me of these. 

Discussed 2

 

People around my age (39) have grown up among digital transformation.

When we started listening to music it was on vinyl and cassette, when our tastes started hardening it was on mp3s. We've seen both and experienced the change. The same is true of many other things.

The generation after us won't see this. They've grown up with digital technology and they find the analogue ones strange and confusing.

The generation before us largely had digital technology happen to them. They can often find it strange and confusing.

This is neither good nor bad. It just gives us a different view.

Anyway.

Discussed 1

Design and creative stuff often seems to invove a lot of bottlenecks. In a traditional agency the Creative Director is a bottleneck and the maybe the ECD. Sometimes you can't see the High Ups for days and this becomes a reall issue.

There's got to be a better way of doing this? I'm not suggesting you have no oversignt and no approval process of any kind. (I have written a little bit about the design process at GDS.)

Maybe there's some interconnected way of doing this that is better. Forces pulling together not apart. Some inter-related approval system. A network effect instead of a bottleneck.

Anyway.

In praise of Toca Nature

We've been playing Toca Nature all weekend. It's gorgeous. Beautifully designed, incredibly intuitive interaction. The 6YO opened it up and dived straight in. Hooked all morning. :"Daddy, this is even better than FIFA!" he exclaimed.

It feels like Minecraft crossed with Monument Valley, and that's a great thing. The good, simple, Lego style building of Minecraft and the blocky style to quickly display depth and scale coupled with the lush colours and the rich tones of Monument Valley.

Recommended.

Visually stunning blog post

We went to see the poppies thing at the Tower of London. It's officially called "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red". Visually it's stunning.

 

I wanted to write a blog post called 'We're good at this stuff' but I don't know who I mean by "we". Great Britain? The world? Designers? Museums? Culture types? No idea, to be honest.

By 'this stuff' I mean this and Ryoji Ikeda's Spectra from earlier in the year, which was also visually stunning.

Both of these are commenorative things and designed to capture media attention as much as anything else. They are extremely Instagramable. I'd include the Angel of the North in the 'this stuff' part of 'We're good at this stuff' but that's not a memorial.

 

Picture from Jordan.

Reminds me of Massive happy things on the landscape. 

Anyway.