Noisy Decent Graphics

Emergency exit

Meme truck

I was in New York the other week and the local Tesla showroom had a Cybertruck on display. It got a lot of attention.

It was very weird to see one in real life. It looks like a car drawn by a toddler and then made out of tinfoil. Even after sitting in it I couldn't get past the feeling of impermanence. The meme truck.

Which is the point I guess.

Brand dissociation

This is funny. A brand gives people something for free and they rush to state that they didn't ask for it and didn't pay for it. What an ugly mess.

 

"Older than Google"

Wow, nice one Jason.

Back once again with the genmon Kickstarter

Remember I told you I'd timed a post to remind you to back Matt's AI poem clock? This is that post, that reminder and here is a link to that cute clock on Kickstarter.

Minutes to you my friend

"Someone at the train company is gaslighting commuters. Before Christmas the departure time was 7:28am. After Christmas it changed to 7:31am. Now it’s 7:30am. Minutes to you my friend, but to anyone who thought they had an extra three minutes to run for it, the world."

A reminder to subscribe to Denise's beautiful writing.

 

It's time for rhyme

One of the Matts has made a clock that tells the time in AI poems. Hallelujah, they even rhyme. 

It's cute and funny and beautiful and you should take a look on Kickstarter. I've backed it.

You probably know this already because it's been featured in loads of places (yay!) so I've timed another post to remind you to take a look just before the deadline on 29th February.

Huge Christo in central Manchester

Looking for somewhere in Manchester I stumbled upon what looks like a massive Christo and Jeanne-Claude in central Manchester.

It's not, obvs, but it still looks incredibly dramatic. It's just scaffolding and renovations and the Manchester Evening News covered it a year ago. As you'd expect, our good friends at Scaff Mag have the juicy details; a bespoke and highly technical 90m high clock tower scaffold, 450m of staircases (enough to reach the summit of the Empire State Building) and "10,000m2 of the most complex temporary weather protection roofs the industry has ever seen".

Stunning.

 

A work post

Remember when Russell used to do that ☝️ all the time?

 

A bit of work for a change. Here's a link to the Public Digital newsletter, we do one every month but this is a special edition on the Post Office scandal. It's a round up of the best articles and commentary on this issue with some extra insights from PD people that have worked on large public sector IT projects. 

Public Digital newsletter: Post Office Special Edition 

 

Here you can sign up to our regular newsletter.

Very good sign for the London black cab building

I must have cycled past this building hundreds of times and yet only today in the year of 2024 did I notice this magnificent (yet obvious) sign. 

We must take this as a good omen.

Although it was dark when this photo was taken the building is black in the daylight too. The office houses the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association.

For my listeners not familiar with London taxis here is a photo of one with the distinctive yellow sign on the roof, it lights up when the cab is available. This one was designed by Kenneth Grange, more on him in this old blog post Kenneth Grange - Making Britain Modern.

 

 

"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.