Heavy Maintenance

Well it would seem that some people have looked at this once or twice…and I’ve decided to try again, but there will be some heavy maintenance while I’m trying stuff out with WordPress. Cue multiple font, layout and theme changes.

Duped, conned, diddled & faintly irritated…

…by my own naivety and ignorance. Here’s the story: I went to Twickenham (Twickers darling), for the first time ever on Saturday to watch England play Argentina. The weather was a heap of sh™, the Rugby frankly apalling, the walk back from the stadium long, but the Guinness was cold, the company good and the atmosphere great. So generally can’t complain. However…England were playing in their new second strip which, very controversially is purple. I’m not going to get started on this, but despite the post-rationalisation from the RFU of things like ‘it’s just like when Will Carling and Rory Underwood sang the national anthem in purple tracksuits’, it smacks slightly of Mr Nike having Mr RFU over a large barrel of nasty corporate sponsorship cash. It’s the next bit that got me. As we sat down, there were purple poster size cards on the seat saying ‘Wear it with pride’ and some text about the new kit, and how after the national anthems, wouldn’t it be jolly to celebrate the new lovely shorts on Jonny’s bottom by everyone holding the cards up to turn the stadium purple. Fair enough, kind of cool. But then, as we did so from the sea of beautifully co-ordinated Pantone purples emerged a clean, whie, unmistakable Nike tick. ‘Those clever bas™rds’ said my somewhat corporate-tainted brain. Then I was just annoyed (maybe a little fuelled by Guinness admittedly). Why does it always have to come back to who’s got the money and who’s really paying for it? Who really cares apart from the Man whos pockets bulge that little bit more? Oh well. I supped on my beautifully branded plastic beer glass drinking vessel and forgot for a while, that my job too, revolves around filling those bulging pockets.

It’s a warped world

So. Been kinda quiet. There’s always excuses; kinda busy @ work, kinda busy @ play, kinda busy @ enjoying my new sofa…but here goes again with some bloggin’. I’m just gonna hit the pages with a load of small things and try make this thing work (again). First up, I’ve just been playing with my long lost Lomographic Fisheye friend. This kinda ties in with the last theme of fun (some sort of thread running through my life right now?) The world has forgotten how fun it is to take photos, forget about them for months then get a little packet of excitement, disappoint, focus and blur back. Also, it’s great having to hold a clunky looking lump of plastic up to your eye to attempt to frame something. Check out my efforts on flickr. Down with digital! Long live Lomo!

Improper Critiques?

I’ve been brooding for sometime on the mixed press ‘Design’ with a capital ‘D’ has been getting recently. In fact, truth be known, it was one of the triggers to get me blogging. I was so enraged for a brief 24 hours that I started this blog, wrote a ream of unedited piffle and then (thankfully) didn’t press the ‘Publish’ button. Essentially it began with a pretty poorly written piece by the well-respected and publicised Alice Rawsthorn (formerly Curator of the Design Museum). It was entitled ‘British Design: Not what it used to Be’. After scraping myself from the roof, reading, digesting and trying to grasp actually what her point was, Jonathan Glancey of the Guardian stepped-in. He did a good job of explaining what he thought she was actually trying to get at and then wrote a balanced response pointing out that the UK is beyond ‘firsts’ of things like the original Routemaster, Harry Beck’s tube map and the K2 phone box, and is actually at the heart of a global industry that is so much more important in shaping industries, behaviours and society in general (I hope).

Then, Starck happened. He came on our TVs, told us that there ‘ees only one, maybee two good dezigneeeers in Britain’ and oh, that we have ‘no soul’. He didn’t tell us who this great bastions are and exactly why we are soul-less, but nonetheless, he is le Saviour. I like Starck. Quite a lot. I don’t necessarily like the objects he creates and I think he is amazingly contradictory in the things he says relative to his actions, but I think he is a pretty cool ambassador for design on many levels, with an ability to hold an audience on a primarily visual subject with his own unique english.

What annoyed me though was how the BBC produced the show. Throughout the series Starck was obviously less and less interested in the ‘students’. I’m not going to get into a rant, but I think they did a terrible job of researching the subject matter and then obviously recruiting a reality show friendly cast. I’m not exactly sure how you get actual good design ‘talent’ interested in something like this, but it definitely wasn’t the model the BBC/production company used. I’m a big fan of the Beeb and think they themselves get too much of a hard time for what they do; they are quietly leading the field in so many things (cite iPlayer their history of motion graphics and their relationships with some amazing talent), but this was not good. On top of that, I was really upset that Adam Buxton has sold his warming soul to dodgy narration…

What am I trying to get at? Well I guess my beef lies with the fact that design as an industry/profession is being increasingly recognised for its importance in developing both business and societal thinking, but in parallel is being badly misunderstood in the media. ‘Design thinking’ is being banded about as the new post-recession saviour for helping businesses take a new tack or understand their consumers in order to better deliver Services and a great way to help public services innovate in how they deliver themselves (e.g. Participle). It is easier to celebrate or critique the more visually tangible works of design, than get under the skin of what is really happening. It’s no coincidence that the UK is now home to the design centres of some of the largest brands in the world (one of which I work for admittedly). Contrary to all the criticism, design in Britain is flourishing and at the centre of an increasingly global stage. But unfortunately all the media can do is look for which designer is creating a highly expensive chair for an obscure Italian furniture manufacturer (as per one of Richard Seymour’s most recent rants). Come on folks, looker deeper. See the bigger picture.

I love design. It’s so polarising and devisive.

Making people smile

Here’s the story in brief. My mate Adam found out I used to kayak. He likes to kayak. He bullied me beyond belief to get back into it and buy a kayak (to my undiscolsed pleasure – don’t tell him that). In the meantime, Adam likes old Beatles. He hasn’t owned one for years but bought a new/old one (sadly, my bullying wasn’t required in return). Now, we’ve started roadtripping with said kayaks and said Beatle. This makes me smile a lot. But what I have also discovered is that the rare sight of a brightly-coloured classic-retro Bug with several (also brightly-coloured) kayaks atop makes other people smile also as much.

The poops on the Motorway from middle-aged men in drab modern Vauxhalls/BMWs/Volvos/Peugeots (*delete as appropriate) and even better, the waves from Zebra crossings late on a friday night in Central London make you realise just how serious the world has got. So, a lesson for us all…don’t be scared to drive round in a crazy car/wear a pink sweater – it might just make everyone that little bit happier. Stop taking it all so seriously!

Unsung Brave New World

I’ve just come back from Spain ending with a few days in Valencia. I knew nothing about the place. Nada. But was amazed that I’d never heard of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencies in Valencia by architect Santiago Calatrava (I used to generally consider myself pretty good at matters in important contemporary design…evidently not). Absolutely stunning. What made it even more stunning was travelling into this slightly Syd-Mead/Blade Runner-esque world from the old cobbled back streets of Valencia by Segway. So appropriate, and so much fun! In all seriousness though, I am generally quite conservative and pragmatic in all things design (think Dieter Rams, Braun, Apple…yawn) and struggle usually with big, expressive statements in Architecture (I think because of the Zaha Hadid pr-machine). But, when you experience such wonderful worlds as this one, you can’t help but be bowled over, and impressed that big cities have the nerve to put their reputations in the hands of retro-futuro-visionaries such as Calatrava. If this is the future then I think I kind of like it. Thanks Pau from Valencia Segways for letting us fly round at break-neck speed. Segways, now there’s a whole other thing…