Noisy Decent Graphics

Finally a meaningful strapline

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

I made a parking viral

I posted this tweet the other day, so far it's had 12,000 likes. We're in Phil Barnard Castle territory here.

I didn't realise it would go so viral but of course it's about parking which British people love. And so here we are. Some of the responses are typical of the internet, some are funny.

Here are some of my favourites.

Jennifer Daniel's Emoji Newsletter

I follow Jen on loads of socials. I think she's amazing at everything she does.

I've even met her look here is a picture of me and her and Dr Wave and Frances in San Francisco.

Picture by Drew Altizer in 2014.

But I did not know until the other day when Phil blogged about it that she writes a newsletter about emojis. After all she is Unicode's Emoji Subcommittee Chair and Head of Emojis at Google.

Newsletter here, looks amazing please subscribe.

Thanks Phil.

Heritage status for my reckons

This article Spanish village seeks Unesco world heritage status for outdoor chats I learned you back in April on another popular platform for reckons All this sitting in the road / alley / pavement in the freezing cold is the most British thing ever and I am here for it.

I mean, not really. But I have content deadlines.

Anyway.

50 years of the Photographers' Gallery

I didn't realise the Photographers' Gallery is 50 years old. But it is. Obviously.

Good piece in the New York Times about it. (Link, possible paywall I'm not sure how that works on the NYT.)

Our hero James in a previous exhibition Seamless Transitions.

The Photographers' Gallery have a nice bit on their website 50 Exhibitions for 50 Years.

And let's not forget the great logo by North.

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At home with Richard and Ruth Rogers

Stunning. The tech architecture, the pipes and the kitchen and all that, yeah. But I'm transfixed by the colours. Amazing.

Brought to you by The Modern House.

How (we all) experience the web today

This is good. I've been wondering for a while about doing something like this but I was thinking more of a collection of screenshots. This is better. Brutal.

how-i-experience-web-today.com

Other than an email address (which I don't want to put on here) I can't seem to find anything to link to as a credit. If you find a personal site or a social handle, lmk.

Eventually every screen becomes full of ads

This hideous MSG Sphere thing in Stratford, London, I suppose might look quite cool if it was an animated globe or a big singer. Show the Cup final or Glastonbury or the Masked Singer or something. And maybe they'll start off like that but eventually it will be full of ads.

And not even good ads. Just a ginormous glowing ball of shit motion graphics. The planning renders never show this.

Oliver Wainwright has written more eloquently about it, Does London really need a gigantic glowing orb the height of Big Ben?

The BT Tower has had a screen for a decade or so now and (from memory) they're not allowed to use it for ads only "information". It was set up in 2010 here's what Russell said at the time.

Or have you seen the "banner" on top of the BT Tower counting down to the Olympics? It's as bright as 1,000 60W bulbs, it's visible from at least eight boroughs, it's got planning permission to be there until 2014.

Eleven years on it mostly shows a rotating BT logo but occasionally, like during the pandemic or after the death or Prince Phillip it shows "public information" messages.

Eventually it will be full of ads.

5m high banner ads floating 70 storeys in the sky. Always good to remember that Minority Report and Ready Player One were fiction not planning permission.

I know it's too late and controversial but we need a better, more digital, empowered CABE for this kind of stuff. The National Infrastructure Commission Design Group nearly does this and they have some very good people involved but it doesn't really cover this type of stuff.

Anyway.

I miss the BRIG

I saw Matt Webb for a walk and talk the other day. Lovely chat. Made me miss the BRIG. Shout out to the BRIG Alum RSS massive.

Pic from Toby Barnes.

Marketing lies

I suppose this might be true. Might be actual science. But it looks and sounds like lies. Marketing lies. The ™ doesn't help, has the opposite effect of what was intended. 

Funny how marketeers do this all the time. See also; those shampoo ads where they say, "Here comes the science bit".

Another Hockney exhibition

Went to the latest Hockney exhibition. Very good. Small. 

Feels like Hockney has had loads of exhibitions since I've been blogging. 

April 2012

February 2014

April 2017

Postcard from the park (3)

Sure, this is when they close, but when do they open?

I met a friend at the park the other day at 6am. The park was closed. I always imagined it opened when the sun came up, after all it closes when the sun goes down hence the complicated closing times.

Someone pointed out to me that it's unreasonable to think there are council employees (park keepers?) getting up at 4am to open up the parks. Another friend, an early riser like me, thinks this is perfectly reasonable. It would be a good Richard Scarry job.

On the website it says the park opens at 7:30am but I went past at 6:45am and it was open. So some time between 6am and 6:45am. I shall endeavour to find out and report back.

Set your alarm clocks.

 

Small vehicles of Tokyo by Dan Hill

The perfect piece of blogging by Dan Hill. You must have already seen this but if you haven't, grab a coffee, click on the link and enjoy. What blogging was invented for.

A slim cataloguing of the rich diversity of small vehicles that help shape street life in the world’s largest city.

Small vehicles of Tokyo by Dan Hill

 

Sloppy graphics

This is a sloppy signage installation at John Lewis. You'd expect bette

Pleasing

Digital demands changes to infrastructure faster than the pace of infrastructure

Exactly four years ago I wrote a blog post about the pace layers of digital services and infrastructure. Think of it as a junior school short story to a Dan Hill PHD.

It was prompted by this photo I took in Manchester.

The other day I saw this e-scooter park.

In May I saw this dockless bike park. 

Four years. Pace layers. How cities learn. 

 

Make the font bigger

Andrew from Birmingham sent this in. Wonderful stuff.

 

https://t.co/KQ8T6i53Bk has a saved version of the sewing page that never closed its font size HTML tags:https://t.co/H0SMYhtFUg

— The 💿🐴 (@Hellalena) September 29, 2017

Turf accountants

A lot of London Land Rovers

Couple of years ago I started collecting pictures of Land Rovers in London. Defenders specifically. No idea why, that's just what we used to do in the middle ages of blogging.

I had a vague idea that I'd match them with pictures of muddy Land Rovers from the country. But that's a bit silly.

Anyway.

Some kind of hell on Earth

We live near an LTN, a low traffic neighbourhood. A few streets where they've blocked the roads to cars to make them go somewhere else and make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists. To encourage more walking and cycling. I'm a fan. I appear to be in a minority.

It gets vandalised regularly.

Graffiti and plants pulled up. Occasionally people try to move it with vans. One a few miles away had oil poured over it.

I can't remember another measure introduced by a council that brought about such violent opposition. Maybe the first speed cameras, but that felt less widespread. Poll tax maybe, but that's only administered by the council it was introduced by central government. That was certainly a violent protest. This is an unusually high level of hostility for a council traffic calming scheme.

They don't protest during Walk To School week.

I think in London these LTNs are primarily introduced to try and solve congestion and pollution but obviously prioritising walking and cycling over cars is also a response to the climate emergency.

Whenever I see these planters vandalised I reflect that LTNs are probably 0.001% of the change required to save the the climate, so is this one thousandth of the violent protest we are likely to see as governments introduce more measures. As governments will inevitably do that in a piecemeal and haphazard way, does that mean the violent protests become never ending. 

If you react this way to a 10 minute increase to your car journey how are you going to react when a government says you can only eat meat twice a week. Or you can only heat your home to 18 degrees C. Or only fly once every two years.

At the launch of yesterday's report on the Climate Emergency, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Prof Tim Palmer said “If we do not halt our emissions soon, our future climate could well become some kind of hell on Earth”.