In the glory days of Peak Graphic Design Blogging (circa 2009) everyone would have gone crazy for all the arrows you see everywhere these days. Fat ones, thin ones, Mexico 68 ones, ones they did in Word ones. Keyboards burning with all the posting. Oh how incensed everyone would have been!
I guess there's still time. Or maybe they're all on Insta now.
Saw this in a shop window in East the other day. Feels like the language is wrong.
On the one hand it's just a sort of malapropism, where the PayPoint and British Gas should be swapped. But that doesn't work because they're not trying to explain British Gas's payment policies in 6 words. What they're trying to say is if you are a customer of British Gas you can't pay for that at the PayPoint till. But they're also trying to use as few words as possible so it can be a Big Red Sign.
If you tried to pay at the PayPoint til it would be rejected, so in that way PayPoint does not accept British Gas.
But it reads like a protest sign from a march where British Gas has done something terrible. Or maybe British Gas have lost an election to PayPoint and are refusing to leave office.
Or as Russell says in the much better, much longer blog post from 8 years ago in reference to this sign, "on one level it's just a stupid typo, on another it's a brilliant seed for a short story about a sentient restaurant that's trying to stay close to you, and the mystery of the inconvenience it caused. But - most interestingly - it's a story about the meaning created in collaboration, presumably between someone who didn't have English as a first language and Microsoft Word."
Picture taken by Russell, borrowed from his Flickr.
And either way, in both cases, it does not matter. Because you know exactly what they mean.
Haven't blogged for a while, so hello.
After this one the other day, here's another bad chart. Or as Michael puts it, "This is one of the stupidest charts I've ever seen and I can't believe that adult human beings were involved in its creation". His tweet here.
We've been here before, in November 2008 during the "credit crunch". In fact I wrote A LOT of blog posts about it at the time. I even did a whole series of guest posts with advice for designers to help them get through a recession. Included posts from an accountant and an agency CEO.
Yeah, I know. Different times.
Anyway the best thing to read is probably this blog post by Phil - Graphs that lie.
There are lots of charts like this at the moment. I really don't understand the point of the chart.
I mean, yeah, obviously. And yeah, good. Well not good, but appropriate and so good. It's exactly what you'd expect to see, isn't it?
I guess the stark lines are very attractive to editors and, yes, to graphic designers.
Anyway. Not helpful, sorry.
Out for daily exercise I was struck by all the dystopian, Orwellian screens. STAY HOME.
If this had happened 20 years ago, 15 years ago, we didn't have all these screens. I guess there were press ads and posters, but they don't feel as scary. More static, obviously.
The phrase has stuck. STAY HOME. It's simple and fits onto these funny screens well. Same message every time. Very on message we would have said in the old days.
I'm not complaining - it's good. It's necessary. I'm just recording it here for posterity. Timehop.
You've come to expect this sort of behaviour from the BT Tower but it's odd to see this from a theatre and a cinema. Presumably it's not bought media - the National definitely isn't. Will they be used this way in the future? Register to vote? Get out and vote? Queen's birthday? Where's the bar now?
And there's this too. A clever YouTube montage of all the coronavirus ads. It makes its point well. Every brand is saying the same thing. The same message.
I mean, I agree. But what else are they supposed to say? They could say nothing, that's a solid idea. But if they have the media booked anyway and if they sell online then saying 'thank you' and 'hang in there' and 'stay home' is not a bad idea.
Anyway. Stay home.
I'm really struggling with this one. Pret ❤️s London's Homeless.
I think they're giving meals ("7,000 additional meals") to the homeless which is good. But this still feels like an odd thing to say. However much you might love individuals who are homeless, surely you must hate the fact that homelessness exists.
This reads like you love the group and the idea. It's all a bit "Yay homeless!"
Also, if you love homeless people then surely you must want them to not be homeless anymore. So, idk, give them all the sandwiches or start a shelter or something.
Anyway, hashtag brands.
This is a picture of Matt Webb and Matt Jones. Nope, I have no idea either.
Matt Webb has started blogging again, pretty much daily, and it's great.
I've never liked science fiction (sorry) and I mostly only like movies that are set right now. Again, very sorry about that. Sorry.
Matt writes about a near future, let's say tomorrow, in a science fiction way. If that's science fiction then I guess I'm into that now.
Some examples.
"There are a bunch of ersatz foods that were invented out of scarcity and necessity, but have somehow stuck around. Salad cream. Canonical substitute food done good. Basically a bit like tangy mayonaisse but with less expensive mayonaisse and more oil and vinegar."
also
"If I were WeWork, I'd roll out their exact setup to office buildings right by commuter belt railway stations. Sell package deals to city-based firms for separate 3-4 person offices in 20 different towns, for all the employees that live in those places; sweat the details about integrating with I.T. department and make sure there's secure internet."
also
"Next: discos, probably. Music is massive UK export. Eurovision aside we're really good at it. Drop nightclubs in shipping containers, stream in all the good stuff. Good sound system, good lights. Hearts, minds, and banging techno."
Anyway. Read Interconnected.
Hashtag goals as some of you would say.
Brendan Cormier, senior design curator at the V&A has posted an immense 146 tweet thread walking you through the Cars: Accelerating the Modern World exhibition. It's brilliant.
I always find lots of text in exhibitions difficult, I like to keep moving. So this commentary is just the right length for me. And it's fascinating, much more about society, changes to the workforce and technology's influence on design than just automobiles.
Well worth 20 minutes of your time. Thanks Brendan.
Full thread starts here.
Let's not over think it. Good stuff.
This is a book of frustratingly unresolved thoughts right from the cover. Mad Men is obviously a reference to the HBO tv series about advertising, so what is Bad Men a reference to? Are politicians bad men? Or are the ad men bad men?
Small point because I get that the author is punning Mad Men, but half the book is about the Saatchis and Thatcher who was obviously not a man…
It’s an interesting read but it relies too much on anecdote and the author’s closeness to advertising.
In the blurb it says, "How did a bunch of unelected, unaccountable admen end up running British politics?". That appears to be saying that admen are running the country, yet the book says nothing of the sort.
It tries to make the point that advertising sways elections when all the politicians and all the advertising people say it doesn’t. Admittedly there is some weird double bluffing here especially from the Saatchis who are still keen to promote their client, Thatcher especially, and attribute all electoral success to her and the Conservatives.
But the evidence points to ads having little or no effect. The most interesting bits of the book are when the elections were the most interesting - 1979 and 1997. They produced great ads, but obviously they would have been significant elections regardless of the ads. And Thatcher and Blair would have won regardless of any advertising.
Delaney tries to make this point at the end but seems constantly drawn back to the case for advertising.
At best the ads come across as useful artefacts, especially for the media. They give a rich visual image for intangible subjects such as tax policy. Making an ad is also a useful process for making politicians focus on a particular topic. Nothing wrong with that. But not “unaccountable admen end up running British politics”.
Anyway. Register to vote.
Just spent an enjoyable 20 minutes looking through this. You could do the same.
Relevant to this, thanks to Lauren I've learned how to do single window screenshots without loads of potatoshopping.
No, you probably don't.
Since the 60s they had a small shop just off Carnaby Street in Soho. When I was much younger, in the very early Nineties, my brother and I used to visit. My brother was into boxing. There wasn't much room in the shop, barely room to swing a punch. Once inside you'd stare at the walls for a bit, nod at the intimidating men with broken noses behind the counter and walk out. But it was an evocative place, full of history, passion, and honesty. I used to like the brand, big, simple and powerful.
In 2002 Lonsdale got bought by Mike Ashley and it's now a corner behind a corner on the top floor of (what used to be) Lillywhites.
Tweet from Tom Albrighton
We made a website to help you with this, it's called scalingagile.net.
Never noticed this before. Which is odd because it's the sort of thing me and Russell would have noticed. It was a Co-operative too. More here.
More buildings should have clocks outside. In fact, planning laws should state that one in every ten public buildings must have a large exterior clock.
Anyway.
It's closed now, but it was brilliant. Her paintings look great when they're big in a gallery. The slight texture of the paint and canvas adds just enough to make it much more rewarding than looking at pictures.
There's obviously a graphic quality that appeals to graphic designers. She must have influenced hundreds of album covers and logos and tshirts. But in real life they feel more "painterly" and better for it.
Her early sketches and college paintings were lovely. A reminder of everyone's days at art college, except she was obviously better than you and me.
The best bit was her planning sketches, showing the way she works out the geometric patterns. Lots of graph paper. Graph paper! Wonderful stuff from a wonderful, timeless, artist.
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