Noisy Decent Graphics

Open Government - Creative Review article

The latest edition of Creative Review features a long article about design at GDS. It's a good article. Well written, facts checked, proper journalism.

We approached it slightly differently to normal design industry press stuff. Patrick and I spoke about GDS back in January, but I suggested it would be better to wait until the end of the year. For one I wanted to talk about the work we had done, rather than speculate about stuff coming up. But also it didn't feel right to just do an interview with me or construct something from a press release. 

So Mark Sinclair, who wrote the article, came in to visit us every week for around 6 weeks. Sometimes he called ahead, sometimes he just showed up in reception. He spoke to various members of the team, he sat in on design crits, he hung out in the office, he was present when the whole organisation all got together with 50 days to go before release, we saw how we worked and what we're like as a team.

I think it's a much better article because of that. Mark said he never done this before and in fact he was surprised about how open GDS was in general. With blogging, with data and with code.

But you should buy Creative Review to find out more. 

Skyfall Shanghai fight scene + Floodlit Grand Prix = Cars 2

Yes, rather obviously. But still.

The Skyfall cinematography is gorgeous. The brilliant work of Roger Deakins. The fight scene set to neon backdrop of Chinese typography is particularly incredible. (Hard to find pictures or a clip of that one at the moment. We'll discuss in detail when it's out on YouTube.)

Formula One looks spectacular at night. All glowing web 2.0 reflections hurtling round at 200mph.

Cars 2 is a great film and in some ways emcompasses both the previous two in look and in story.

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I'm sure I've said this before, but I can't find it anywhere.

Richard Turley, who used to work on G2 at the Guardian a few years ago, is the Creative Director at Bloomberg Business Week and (by God) he's doing an amazing job over there.

Week after week after week after week. Nail - head. Every fucking week.

Looking at this stuff makes me want to cry. Luckily for me, looking at the work of people better than you can only make your work better.

Here's this week's cover, published yesterday.

And here are some more. Enjoy.

 

Worth pointing out that Richard is open in his design process and sticks these amazing covers on Flickr, too.

 

 

Picture from By psd

It's a big day in the young life of GDS tomorrow.  At lunch yesterday Russell and I were talking about how we've been at GDS almost a year and we haven't really blogged about it that much. And we should have done, because it's fascinating and interesting and challenging and good. 

But that won't happen this week. And I wanted to mark the occasion somehow, so here are some pictures from the last 9 months at GDS. There are many more.

 

This is brilliant. I've no idea if it's real or not. I originally saw it on the Innocent Drinks Facebook page, which is by far the best brand FB presence.

I collect pictures like this in a folder in my Dropbox called Jokes. I only do that to annoy Russell.

My friend Anne says that all shops should have to display, outside their shop, a huge model of the thing they sell inside the shop. Like this.

She's right. It's a brilliant idea. Lots of shops already do it. Mostly the kind of shops you get in seaside towns. But it should made compulsory, for three reasons.

 

1. This is a good example of a Massive Happy Thing which is always welcome.

2. The rigour involved would be good for businesses. Can you distill your offer into one massive fibre glass thing? I bet these people couldn't.

3. The thing all shops should have these days is something people will Instagram. Something they can't resist Instagraming. Museums are getting good at this, shops should be better at it. Anne's idea solves the problem.

Picture borrowed from  russelldavies

 

Tuesday night was the D&AD 50th Awards.

 

It was good. I had a good time. Lots of nice people were there. They gave awards for awards - specificially awards for who had won the most awards in the last 50 years.

Good people won. All the ads and designs back in the day were amazing. Actually, ads were significantly simpler in the 70s / 80s. And better for it. Made me wonder that if today's ads get replayed in 50 years time everything will need a 20 minute explanation before you can play the app, viral, transmedia extravaganza.

The olds are all like "This is a pint of lager. It's the best pint of lager I've ever had. End frame."

De La Soul played, they were brilliant.

Jony was there. He brought the whole team on stage when they won most awarded design studio of the last 50 years. Nice touch.

All good.

More sensible write ups here on Creative Review and here on MJ's Thought For The Week.

 

The D&AD are 50 this year. It's the big party tonight. I'll be popping along and will hopefully report back later this week.

It has also been Pentagram's 40th and w+k's 30th. A good year for decades.

The other day me and a few people from GDS were privileged to visit Thomas Heatherwick's studio.

Sadly, but as expected, we weren't allowed to take pictures so I can't share with you, my beloved listeners. Rest assured it was beautiful and clever.

Over the next few months the design team and I will be visiting a few different design studios to see how different places are organised. How they handle resourcing, how they approach projects, how they structure teams. How they create amazing work. We'll visit some digital places, obviously, but I'm also keen to see non web designers and particularly inhouse teams. Where possible I'll report back here. Next week - Fosters and Partners.

The logo.

The building.

"Local people of all ages took part in the Olympic Deckchairs project which is part of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council's 2012 Public Art Commissioning Programme and has received Arts Council England funding."

Looks ace.

More here.

 

The other day I was at Durlston Castle in Swanage, Dorset. They had some exhibition down stairs and part of it was a movie thing. (Arrghhhh! A video in an exhibition! Run!) But it was great, really nicely shot. And better than that it actually made great use of four screens linked horizontally.

I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE.

I have never seen an elegant execution across several panels. Usually you see a normal film that happens to be shown across several screens. You hardly ever see one that uses the medium, the format, the dimensions properly. Let alone beautifully.

Some times the film played across all four screens, sometimes each screen showed a different angle / crop of the main shot. Sometimes two screens showed the same and so on. Lovely.

The medium adds to the story rather than getting in the way or confusing it.

The other day week month the GDS design team popped over to the V&A to look at the Heatherwick Exhibition. After that we crossed the road and went to the Google Chrome Web Lab at the Science Museum.

I love Heatherwick. So clever, so original, so playful, so British. The exhibition, like almost all design exhibitions, suffers from being too small, but if you take that as a given it's well worth a visit. It closes at the end of September. You should go.

Google Chrome Web Lab is a "a series of interactive Chrome Experiments made by Google that bring the extraordinary workings of the internet to life". Basically a load of web enable moving stuff. You can scan your face and get a robot to draw it in the sand. You can play the drums using a drag and drop touch screen interface. All good, all interesting and all very good at making a physical internet experience which is no mean feat.

There's also some deeper thinking around the "work is being done here" ideas that we've see James Bridle working on recently. They've done a good job of making the invisible parts of the internet visible. There's a neat bit where you google an image and then on a huge map it tells you where in the world that image is kept on a server. Interesting.

I was expecting it to be good. What I wasn't expecting was how beautiful it was. Beautiful machine. Gorgeous graphics and lovely colours. Again - you should go.

Taken in the hamlet of Halfway when I was halfway cycling from Bath to London. Maybe I'm halfway through this blog?

I'm speaking at a few things in Spetember, if you're interested in what we're doing at GDS come and say hi.

13th September PSFK conference

I'm speaking with Russell at this one and also on the bill is someone from Seasame Street, Should be good. More info and tickets here.

 

18th September Global Design Forum

Part of London Design Week, also on the bill for this one are Thomas Heatherwick, Yves Béhar and Matthew D Siskin manager of Beyoncé’s social networking sites. Tickets and more info here.

I said I'd tell you more about what we're up to at GDS. Here's a blog post detailing a small example of how we're using data and design at GDS.

Looking at the work of people better than you can only make your work better

I'm sure I've said this before, but I can't find it anywhere.

Richard Turley, who used to work on G2 at the Guardian a few years ago, is the Creative Director at Bloomberg Business Week and (by God) he's doing an amazing job over there.

Week after week after week after week. Nail - head. Every fucking week.

Looking at this stuff makes me want to cry. Luckily for me, looking at the work of people better than you can only make your work better.

Here's this week's cover, published yesterday.

And here are some more. Enjoy.

 

Worth pointing out that Richard is open in his design process and sticks these amazing covers on Flickr, too.

 

 

More soon

Picture from By psd

GDStagram

It's a big day in the young life of GDS tomorrow.  At lunch yesterday Russell and I were talking about how we've been at GDS almost a year and we haven't really blogged about it that much. And we should have done, because it's fascinating and interesting and challenging and good. 

But that won't happen this week. And I wanted to mark the occasion somehow, so here are some pictures from the last 9 months at GDS. There are many more.

Banana caution sign

 

This is brilliant. I've no idea if it's real or not. I originally saw it on the Innocent Drinks Facebook page, which is by far the best brand FB presence.

I collect pictures like this in a folder in my Dropbox called Jokes. I only do that to annoy Russell.

What's outside your shop?

My friend Anne says that all shops should have to display, outside their shop, a huge model of the thing they sell inside the shop. Like this.

She's right. It's a brilliant idea. Lots of shops already do it. Mostly the kind of shops you get in seaside towns. But it should made compulsory, for three reasons.

 

1. This is a good example of a Massive Happy Thing which is always welcome.

2. The rigour involved would be good for businesses. Can you distill your offer into one massive fibre glass thing? I bet these people couldn't.

3. The thing all shops should have these days is something people will Instagram. Something they can't resist Instagraming. Museums are getting good at this, shops should be better at it. Anne's idea solves the problem.

Picture borrowed from  russelldavies

D&AD 50th Awards

 

Tuesday night was the D&AD 50th Awards.

 

It was good. I had a good time. Lots of nice people were there. They gave awards for awards - specificially awards for who had won the most awards in the last 50 years.

Good people won. All the ads and designs back in the day were amazing. Actually, ads were significantly simpler in the 70s / 80s. And better for it. Made me wonder that if today's ads get replayed in 50 years time everything will need a 20 minute explanation before you can play the app, viral, transmedia extravaganza.

The olds are all like "This is a pint of lager. It's the best pint of lager I've ever had. End frame."

De La Soul played, they were brilliant.

Jony was there. He brought the whole team on stage when they won most awarded design studio of the last 50 years. Nice touch.

All good.

More sensible write ups here on Creative Review and here on MJ's Thought For The Week.

 

D&AD 50th tonight

The D&AD are 50 this year. It's the big party tonight. I'll be popping along and will hopefully report back later this week.

It has also been Pentagram's 40th and w+k's 30th. A good year for decades.

Heatherwick Studio visit

The other day me and a few people from GDS were privileged to visit Thomas Heatherwick's studio.

Sadly, but as expected, we weren't allowed to take pictures so I can't share with you, my beloved listeners. Rest assured it was beautiful and clever.

Over the next few months the design team and I will be visiting a few different design studios to see how different places are organised. How they handle resourcing, how they approach projects, how they structure teams. How they create amazing work. We'll visit some digital places, obviously, but I'm also keen to see non web designers and particularly inhouse teams. Where possible I'll report back here. Next week - Fosters and Partners.

Persons anxious to write their names will please do so on this stone only

The building that's a thousand logos

The logo.

The building.

Weymouth Deckchair Project

"Local people of all ages took part in the Olympic Deckchairs project which is part of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council's 2012 Public Art Commissioning Programme and has received Arts Council England funding."

Looks ace.

More here.

that was a good summer

 

Four screens used surprisingly well

The other day I was at Durlston Castle in Swanage, Dorset. They had some exhibition down stairs and part of it was a movie thing. (Arrghhhh! A video in an exhibition! Run!) But it was great, really nicely shot. And better than that it actually made great use of four screens linked horizontally.

I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE.

I have never seen an elegant execution across several panels. Usually you see a normal film that happens to be shown across several screens. You hardly ever see one that uses the medium, the format, the dimensions properly. Let alone beautifully.

Some times the film played across all four screens, sometimes each screen showed a different angle / crop of the main shot. Sometimes two screens showed the same and so on. Lovely.

The medium adds to the story rather than getting in the way or confusing it.

Heatherwick Studio, Designing the Extraordinary & Chrome Web Lab

The other day week month the GDS design team popped over to the V&A to look at the Heatherwick Exhibition. After that we crossed the road and went to the Google Chrome Web Lab at the Science Museum.

I love Heatherwick. So clever, so original, so playful, so British. The exhibition, like almost all design exhibitions, suffers from being too small, but if you take that as a given it's well worth a visit. It closes at the end of September. You should go.

Google Chrome Web Lab is a "a series of interactive Chrome Experiments made by Google that bring the extraordinary workings of the internet to life". Basically a load of web enable moving stuff. You can scan your face and get a robot to draw it in the sand. You can play the drums using a drag and drop touch screen interface. All good, all interesting and all very good at making a physical internet experience which is no mean feat.

There's also some deeper thinking around the "work is being done here" ideas that we've see James Bridle working on recently. They've done a good job of making the invisible parts of the internet visible. There's a neat bit where you google an image and then on a huge map it tells you where in the world that image is kept on a server. Interesting.

I was expecting it to be good. What I wasn't expecting was how beautiful it was. Beautiful machine. Gorgeous graphics and lovely colours. Again - you should go.

Halfway

Taken in the hamlet of Halfway when I was halfway cycling from Bath to London. Maybe I'm halfway through this blog?

Upcoming speaking engagements

I'm speaking at a few things in Spetember, if you're interested in what we're doing at GDS come and say hi.

13th September PSFK conference

I'm speaking with Russell at this one and also on the bill is someone from Seasame Street, Should be good. More info and tickets here.

 

18th September Global Design Forum

Part of London Design Week, also on the bill for this one are Thomas Heatherwick, Yves Béhar and Matthew D Siskin manager of Beyoncé’s social networking sites. Tickets and more info here.

Design and data (small example)

I said I'd tell you more about what we're up to at GDS. Here's a blog post detailing a small example of how we're using data and design at GDS.

I love seeing the teams in London (NDG Olympic series)