Noisy Decent Graphics

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.

 

cinécal

Mark made a screensaver, like mine, but better designed.

 

 

Following Davies's 3rd law

Of all the amazing things to do in London, this bronze head has probably given my kids the most fun over the years.

It's by Eduardo Paolozzi, it's called the Head of Invention and it's outside the Design Museum.

They've played on it for years. Sometimes they climb up as the adults are having lunch watching from a table nearby, sometimes they just quickly hop on and off as the adults walk past.

It's the perfect size, shape and construction for climbing on. It can be a mountain, a base, an aircraft, a spaceship or just a "home". 

What's odd is that there are no passive agressive Do Not Climb or Do Not Touch signs on it or near it. Not once has someone is a hi-vis vest told them to get off. It perfectly follows Davies's 3rd law "if you make something that looks incredibly climbable, you shouldn't be allowed to say people can't climb it... especially if it's an entirely decorative thing. You should either make something actually climbable, or something that doesn't look climbable."

Unlike this at the velodrome.

I've never seen anyone fall off the bronze head and the (presumably valuable) sculpture isn't noticeably damaged in any way.

 

 

 

My screensaver

I have my screensaver set to display tiles from a folder where I keep bits of graphic design I like.

The results are pleasing.

 

 

Play With Design - an update

A few weeks ago we held an event called Play With Design at the V&A Museum of Childhood as part of the London Design Festival. Bit more on the background here. A small event all about design and computer games. The point of the event was to show kids that if you like drawing and you like computer games, you could be a games designer. 

In the main hall you could see sketches of famous games and draw your own character and downstairs you could make your own computer game using Scratch Jr. We had 40 kids doing workshops and the stack up character cups got higher than the kids. I'm not sure of visitor numbers, but it was busy all day. MakieLab even brought along a 3D printer.

It was fun. Hopefully we'll do it again next year.

BERG a visual history

BERG closed their doors this week. A sad day. Timo worked there for 35 years as Chief Photon Historian and took one picture every 15 seconds. He's published the best ones here as a visual history.

Tomorrow Webb is going to post all the code names.

 

Play with Design - Saturday 20th September at the V&A Museum of Childhood

Last year I joined the advisory board of the London Design Festival. It's a pretty big deal, with over 300 events in one week. Started in 2003 by Sir John Sorrell it's spawned similar festivals all over the world..

But I was concerned that it was a bit to "chairs and lamps". That's a bit harsh, there are many bits to the festival and there's an good weekend of graphics at the V&A including Paula Scher, Disobedient Objects and Posters of Protest and Revolution.

Anyway. I decided to try something different and see if that worked. So on Saturday 20th September there is a small event at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green called Play With Design. It's about design and games. And it's aimed at kids that like drawing and like playing games.

You'll be able to draw a character on a coffee cup like Rexbox does and see very early sketches of famous games characters like Moshi Monsters and Monument Valley. 

 

Downstairs you'll be able to actually make a computer game in a workshop led by the brilliant Sophia George. Sophia was the games designer in residence at the V&A earlier in the year. 

MakieLab will be there and hopefully we'll have a 3D printer working away on the day and there will be dolls!

I'm extremely grateful to all the support and help from Jo Roach, Rhian Harris - Exec Director of the Museum of Childhood, Sophia George, Jo Twist and Elaine Wyatt who actually organising the event. 

Come along!

It would be great to see you and we could do with some help. You won't miss us, we'll be right next to the cafe.

If you can draw - please come along and help draw on the cups. The more people that do that the better.

If you are an actual games designer and you have early sketches please drop me a line. I'd like to get hold of some more so we can print them big and exhibit them in the museum. The more we get and the more sketchy they are - the better! Email me ben.terrett at gmail.

More details here. Please retweet etc.

 

 

Only half of these bank brands still exist

 

It's an odd sign, really. Other bank brands customers' can use this machine, not all of them and we're not tellling you exactly which ones, but these ten can. 

Don't know how old that sign is but after mergers and demergers and bailouts and the like only 5 of those brands exist in that form.

One year of Diana's Diner.

Further to this post three weeks ago it was one year of taking this picture.

One year of not a lot happening. From this:

To this.

As ever weekly updates here.

Nice numbers

Not in London

This is a City of London bollard in Swanage, Dorset which is not in London. I noticed it on a walk early one morning. Here are some more.

 The internet has more info, "Many architecturally interesting buildings and monuments were scavenged as a result of the company's construction work on prestigious projects in London, and re-erected by Burt in Swanage and Durlston… More prosaically, many of Swanage's cast iron bollards were originally made for London boroughs, and still carry their names."

And a bit more here, "One of the reasons why George Burt and his Uncle brought so many artefacts from London to Swanage had to do with the sailing ketches they used to trasnport stone from Swanage to London during the 19th century.

It was unsafe for these ships to return to Swanage unladen as they were liable to capsize without sufficient ballast. Masonry, bollards and street furniture, discarded in the rapid redevelopment of Victorian London, proved the ideal cargo for the return journey to Swanage.

Over the years, numerous bollards and many other items were transported to Swanage, so many in fact that the area became known as "Little London by the Sea."

Little London by the Sea. I have been to Swanage loads and never heard anyone call it that. But I wonder if any other coastal towns get called that? I bet they do. Posher places, probably.

Anyway. Even more info here. If by chance you are read this blog because you're interested in the local history of small Dorset towns.

I wrote about the design process at GDS

You might like to read it - What’s the design process at GDS?

 

Usability beats training

A few days ago Mike wrote a post about the prison visit booking system we're working on with MoJ Digital. He visited HMP Rochester, "This visit opened my eyes to just how hard people will work to cope with inadequate and unsuitable IT systems."

Leisa wrote a blog post yesterday about Joy and the huge notebook she has made to enable her to use the computer system she needs to do her job. Leisa writes "She told me that each time they upgrade the system it seems to get harder, not easier, to use."

And last night Cyd tweeted this.

 

It shouldn't be like this. You shouldn't have to write a book to help you complete simple tasks on a computer.

As we say in design principle number 4 "With great power comes great responsibility — very often people have no choice but to use our services. If we don’t work hard to make them simple and usable we’re abusing that power, and wasting people’s time."

This is true for more things than government. Making things easy to use isn't easy. But it's worth it.

 

Digital transformation

The boss has written a blog post. Read it, and understand that digital transformation isn't just the website.