I took a little detour this morning and popped into the Rapha Cafe. I'm really glad I did, it was gorgeous. Beautiful understated, comprehensive design that you don't see that often anymore.
Those of you familiar with the Rapha brand won't be disappointed. Lovely stuff.
There's even a picture of our dear friend Patrick Syms.
Hurry up and visit. It's only temporary and closes at the end of July. More pictures on The Flickr.
Tidying my desk the other day I discovered these postcards which I bought when Russell and I visited the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy last year because you weren't allowed to take pictures inside the gallery.
And then I remembered that they were part of the inspiration for the design of these.
Here's a story a (well known) developer told me last week.
I met some digital advertising people the other day. They'd just come back from Cannes. I asked them which part of the festival they were involved with. The conversation went like this.
Which part of the festival were you part of?
The Cyber part.
What?
The Cyber Lions.
It's called CYBER? Really?
Yeah.
Is that a joke?
No.
Is it an acronym?
No.
The digital advertising part is really called Cyber? Like, seriously?
Yeah.
Fucking hell.
I always forget how nice it is in there.
Like being in New York, in a good way.
I'm pretty happy with 2010, but I imagine there are lots of people who'd like to reset it.
I really like this.
It's really simple. It reminds me of that famous story (can't remember which book it's from) where the guy starts putting his initials on his buckets and that the first instance of branding.
Anyway, let's not ruin it by over analysing. It's good. Well done Kelloggs.
Look closely and it says, "This offer applies to all England merchandise priced at £1.95". Very odd.
And then this, it says "Almost funny". What's that? Better than 'not funny' but not as good as actually 'funny'?
And lastly this. They definitely don't want you to do any of these things.
If that's the case, why did the graphics designers make them look like so much fun in the little pictures?
In an age where people rarely send letters or faxes. In a world where saving paper and ink would be seen as a huge advantage. In a time when every home has a desktop printer but those printers are used to print out address, or phone numbers or tickets. Why does the default paper size have to be A4?
One of the biggest uses of A4 is for stuff like this.
Every single one of these notices could have been produced on A5. Indeed they would have looked better on A5. In fact, I'll bet the total print area of most of these notices could fit on A5.
So why don't we have smaller, A5 printers. Why isn't A5 paper the standard paper size you can buy in Tescos? Why isn't an A5 printer more common place at home?
Wouldn't that be a more useful and a more efficient size?
Peter Stadden is the winner.
As Andrew says, "Not only is it spot on visually, I also love the idea of Mr Eatock taking his place alongside Blair; Nixon and Clough. Though he might need to up the intensity a little."
Brilliant.
I have been meaning to review this since Christmas but have only just got round to it. David Airey is probably familiar to most of you, he gets some stick in some parts of the design blog world but he's written a good book that I'd recommend. He deserves credit for it.
Let's start with the "gets some stick" part. If you look hard enough you'll always be able to find someone who doesn't like a thing. In the far corners of the blogosphere you'll find people who look down their noses at bloggers like David Airey. I'm guessing this is because they don't fit into the London-centric design clique. But also a little bit because their work isn't award winning, world famous stuff. I hate that sort of attitude. The design industry is fairly large and only 5% of it consists of the people you read about in Design Week. The rest of it is made up of people doing work up and down the country, designing new identities for new businesses in Newark. Some of this work is good, some of it not so good. But there's also a lot of award winning, world famous agencies doing a lot of bad work.
David Airey is a good designer and in my humble opinion has got better over the last few years since we've come to know him via his blog. He's also a good blogger and a decent chap. So put your preconceptions to one side and let's have a look at this book.
First thing to note, the text is huge. That's a good thing. A design book where you can actually read the text, brilliant. Second thing to note, it's actually quite short. A design book that won't take the whole summer to read. Brilliant!
This book is a comprehensive look at logo design. It's fairly basic and better for that. It's straight forward and easy to understand. As David does on his blog, he backs up his points with lots of photographs and roughs of different stages of logo design. This works really well. Designers talk about how they designed a logo and you get to see the sketches along with their thoughts. That's a rare thing in a design book. And very beneficial to someone wanting to learn about logo design.
The book features work by Lindon Leader, SomeOne and Bunch among other. Here are some logos I liked.
The new version of the French Property Exhibition.
Ed's Electric.
David also talks about his own work, as he does on his blog.
I feel the book will be most useful to someone starting out in logo design, maybe in the first years of a degree course. Or someone who has a basic understanding of logo design and wants to know more but is put off by the big glossy design tomes.
It's full of useful advice that might seem obvious, but isn't. Like this.
There are lots of big famous agencies that don't take that advice.
This is a well put together, well written, comprehensive, manageable introduction to identity design. The design world is better off for this book. If you're in the market for that kind of thing you can buy it here
One last thing. Taken from David's own blog, here's how he got Tom Geismar (yes, that Geismar) to write a testimonial.
"It wasn’t long before I emailed him a PDF containing a large chunk of my book, saying that if Tom was able read it and offer a quote, that I’d need his words by the end of the week. That only gave Tom a few days, so needless to say, I wasn’t hopeful.
Friday passed, and I thought to myself that the book wasn’t something Tom would want to put his name on. That’s fair enough. I’d be equally critical of endorsing someone I knew nothing about on the back of an emailed PDF.
Then on Tuesday Chris got back to me saying, “Tom loved your work and gave what I think, as a book author myself, is a perfect blurb."
Good enough for Geismar, good enough for me.
Win that ticket right there. Holding that ticket is a nice man called Andrew. Andrew bought a ticket and then got called up to the England World Cup squad and so can't go. So he has very generously offered it FREE to my listeners. It the Daniel Eatock D&AD lecture on next Tuesday, June 15th. (You could buy a ticket if you don't win one.)
Anyway. On with the competition. Simple question. Who would play Daniel Eatock in the Hollywood biopic?
Answers below. The one Andrew and I think is funniest wins. No swearing.
Another envelope from Stack dropped on the mat today. I love Stack and I love it because it exposes me to things I would never look at any other way. In fact, it's things that I would probably say I hated if you asked me.
I don't hate them of course, it's hard to hate a magazine you've never read before, it's just that I think I'll hate them. Or rather that they're just outside of my normal set of reference, and while that isn't exactly uncomfortable, during our day to day lives we're too lazy to risk doing that.
Stack forces us to do that in an easy, simple, low risk, rewarding way. It's an easy way of doing exactly what you should be doing anyway. It's brilliant. And it's not about me discovering new magazines I like. I don't always like them, but that's not the point. The point is that for 20 mins each month I'm taken somewhere I wouldn't have gone to any other way than via Stack. And for a creative professional that's invaluable.
I know millions of people have written about Stack before but I felt this needed saying again. For those of you who don't Stack is a service that sends you different, random, magazines every month for as little as £24. The one in the pictures is called VNA.
There must be other media they could do this with. Albums would probably be an easy one. TV programmes? Films might be too much investment. Books? I bet James could make Stack for books. Clothes? I'd sign up to a clothes version of Stack. Food?
Anything.
1. That RIG now have a blog and some other stuff about our office and who we share it with.
2. The innocent ConsumerCam and other recent projects including our involvement in this.
3. How fucked off I get with blogger outreach and a list of stuff i actually would like to get in the post / inbox.
4. Tips on how to eat and sleep when busy.
5. These lovely pictures.
6. Design as frame / system / structure.
7. The similarities between this and this. And why it doesn't matter which you prefer.
8. This.
Andrew won a ticket to see Edward Tufte from this very blog. As a way of saying thank you he's written a review. In the interests of balance I thought you might like it.
This is not a map
This is what was waiting for you, balanced uneasily on your seat, as you arrived for Edward Tufte’s talk at the Royal Geographical Society. Respectfully re-produced, on a smooth 220gsm uncoated stock, it’s a graph showing the fate of the 420,000 French soldiers as Napoleon led them in a suicidal march on Moscow in the freezing winter of 1812. It’s a nice giveaway, and there’s a free elastic band, too.
Tufte doesn’t come to the UK very often. He’s been busy advising Barack Obama that his website design should be invisible, and “91% of every single screen should be content, and navigation is not content”. “Graphics should not be a special occasion”, he emphasised, after a faltering opening, because “Content doesn’t care what it is”.
He doesn’t seem to like designers very much; they worry about process too much at the expense of content. His ideal website design was a “well considered news site”, as practised by the New York Times. Tufte thinks touch screen technology will change our relationship with data, as it will give us back the “physicality of a gesture”.
His view of powerpoint (“It sucks”) seemed too easy, but his comment, “In only two industries do they regard their customers as users...” hung in the air, accusingly.
Tufte has been active in this area before 'infographics' became a common noun, and gaps in newspapers were filled with bar charts for figures that don’t need explaining, so when he says, “This is not a map”, and holds the piece of paper aloft, the room goes quiet; the elastic bands stop twanging.
He’s already explained at length why this is probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, but he pauses for a second, and says, “This is an anti-war poster”.
These are notes taken as it happens at the Tufte talk. They are probably inaccurate.
(My comments in brackets.)
(There is an annoying woman to my right. Doddsy keeps texting me.)
A centaur wordle - Centaurus constellation.
1612 Gallieo 'Saturn looks like this' and as your eye gets tired 'it looks like that'. This and that, best piece of comparative visual design ever. (That must be where Jones nicked 'glanceable' from.)
Seems to be suggesting beauty will come from clarity of communication. (Good.)
The Chinese had maps about right by around 1050.
Napoleon's march etc.
Your task is for users to understand the information. The way to be a great designer is to get people to not notice your work. (Broadly agree.)
Seems to be saying ignore fashion in data design. Aim for comprehension from people who know nothing about the data. Clarity, comprehension over convenience. (Selling souls in an empty church etc etc)
(On a piece of data design) document everything and tell people about it.
(It's a bit dry.)
Don't cherry pick.
(It's very dry.)
There are only two industries that call their customers users. (Very good.)
PowerPoint is rubbish. (Not really, it's the stuff people put on it that's rubbish.)
Talking about Sparklines now.
(I wonder if he'll mention the Dopplr logo.)
(Joking aside, the use of a Sparkline in the Dopplr logo is very smart.)
(This Sparlines stuff is very good, but we've heard it all before. Haven't we?)
"the right question is better than the exact answer to the wrong question"
My next book. (Hurrah, the new album! And the annoying woman is leaving!)
Stuff about his Obama gig.
Stuff about his new art gallery.
(Was that it?)
(The questions are rubbish. As always. Leaving.)
I have no ideas what this is about. But it's gorgeous. Beautiful. Ethereal beauty, but at the same time bold and almost blunt. I love this.
And if I was in charge of the 2012 Olympics I would do an Olympic version of this all over town.
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