This where I write and sometimes think
Bruce DeBoer from Permission To Suck has post the results of a new word game. Change, add or subtract one letter from a word and come up with a new definition.
Examples like Osteopornosis (n.): A degenerate disease and Dopeler effect (n.): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly, make for a light hearted distraction from work.
On a more important note games and exercises like this make for a great way to flex your creative muscles once in a while.
I’ve always been captivated by the sea and images of it are a source of constant joy. So I was delighted to discover the exhibition The Sea: LS Lowry & Maggi Hambling at the The Lowry.
As someone who only knows Lowry as a painter of “matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs” I was amazed by his peopleless seascapes. I was equally taken with the work of his 21st century successor Maggi Hambling, painter and creator of the controversial Scallop in Suffolk.
In this BBC slideshow you can see their work and hear Hambling talk about her work.
In this interview, Maggi talks about her processes for painting the sea, and the effect of Lowry’s work on her.
LS Lowry & Maggi Hambling: The Sea from Rob Martin on Vimeo.
Like everybody else I thought I’d list some of my favourite bits and pieces of media from 2009
Neither of my favourite books in 2009 were written or even published this year but since I first came across them this year they should be on the list
Lives of The Artists (Giorgio Vasari) A classic insight into the creative processes and lives of the most influential artists from the most creative period in history.
Blue Like Jazz (Donald Miller) A funny, moving and inspirational insight into how Christian ideals have informed the life of one man and made him a better human being
Pomplamoose. Two talented musicians, a brilliantly quirky instrumentalist and pretty girl with the voice of an angel. What more do you want? Their covers of classics are fresh and original whilst their own compositions are refreshingly different but catchy.
Creedence Clearwater Revival Not exactly 2009 more 1969 but I rediscovered them this year so they’re on the list.
As usual the BBC proves that it’s the best broadcaster in the world.
The Thick of It. Brilliant satire on the role of spin in modern politics. Worth watching just for Peter Capaldi’s performance as the foul mouthed Malcolm Tucker whose swearing outbursts have a poetry that almost justifies the license fee.
Life David Attenborough has done again, revealing the beauty and wonder that is the natural world. It’s hard to pick out a highlight but opening sequence of the episode on plants, where the work of parasitic plants is speeded up, is some of the most entertainingly creepy television I’ve seen in ages. As a side note the camera teams who capture the stories in near impossible conditions are heroes.
Alan Fletcher was graphic designer who described himself as a visual jackdaw but in his book The Art of Looking Sideways he proved that he was no jackdaw but a very discerning observer and collector.
The book is a collection of facts, thoughts, quotes and images which cover almost every subject imaginable. This might sound vague but when the table of contents covers the areas below it seems reasonable to say everything.
culture; tools; creativity; wit; improvisation; colour; dreaming; ideas; synchronicity; mutation; learning; noise; paradigms; automaton; intelligence; brain; mind; senses; thinking; problems; chance; imagination; visualizing; alphabet; seeing; places; perception; stereotypes; value; illusion; paradox; figure ground; symmetry; reflections; pattern; camouflage; economy; proportion; composition; leys & lines; aesthetics; taste; style; perfection; meanings; symbols; numbers; typography; skill; perspective; space-time; figuring; language; rhetoric; design; process; copying; words; imaging; picture play; wordplay; handedness; pictograms; scripts; letters; identity; names; signatures; insignia; trademarks; writing;
At about 500 pages it’s physically impressive and the care that has been taken with its design is a reflection on the quality of Fletcher’s other work. Without inspiring content this would be meaningless but in this case the content is better than the presentation.
To describe it as the best bathroom book I’ve read sounds like an insult but this isn’t a book to read in long sessions but one that’s best enjoyed in small bursts so that you have time to absorb and consider what you’ve read. Ignore the pretentious language and comments about designers in the Amazon reviews, it’s a book for anyone who wants to be inspired. Over time it will become a source of enjoyment and creativity which you will turn to time and time again.
Below are just a few snippets of the literally dozens of fascinating items in the book.
"the unlike is joined together and from differences results the most beautiful harmony" Heraclitus
"…apparently unrelated things become interesting when you start fitting them together…" John Kowenhoven Mathematician
Imagination is the active ingredient of thinking. Imagination jumps from present facts to future possibilities. Imagination forms the mental pictures of things not present. Imagination conceives of situations not yet in existence. Imagination conjures up correspondences and analogies
"what is now proved was once only imagined" William Blake
"simple is better than complicated. quiet is better than noisy. what is close at hand is better than what has to be sought" Dieter Rams
A Wombat is not only an Australian marsupial but also an acronym for Waste Of Money, Brains and Time
"There is nothing more difficult to take in, more perilous to conduct, more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things because the innovator will have for enemies all who have done well under the old conditions and luke warm defenders who do well under the new" Machiavelli
Eero Saarinen got the idea for the design of the Kennedy TWA Terminal when after eating grapefruit for breakfast he turned the grapefruit over and squeezed it with one hand to form the indentations.
" you have to give a letter of the alphabet the dignity it deserves. this becomes clear when you don’t know the language. think of Arabic or Chinese. It is beautiful by itself, an art apart." Franco Maria Ricci
There 37 letters in the alphabet. 26 lower case and 11 capitals that don’t resemble their lowercase pairs. A,B,D,E,G,H,LN,Q,R,T.
Seeing Les Demoiselles d’Avignon at an exhibition, a man approached Picasso (who happened to be at the exhibition) and asked why he didn’t paint people the way they looked. "Well, how do they look?" asked Picasso. The man took a photograph of his wife from his wallet and handed it over. Picasso looked at it, then handing it back said "She is small, isn’t she. And flat too"
"A metaphor is a leap that unites two worlds" Garcia Lorca
An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications
"no object can be tied down to any one sort of reality; a stone may be part of a wall, a piece of sculpture, a lethal weapon, a pebble on a beach or anything else you like, just as this file in my hand can be metamorphosed into a shoehorn or a spoon, according to the way in which I use it. The first time this phenomenon struck me was in the trenches during the First World War when my batman turned a bucket into a brazier by poking a few holes in it with his bayonet and filling it with coke. for me this commonplace incident had a poetic significance: I began to see things in a new way" Georges Braque
A scientist, an engineer and a designer were arguing about the height of a church steeple. As luck would have it a man walked by with a barometer and joined the debate. To resolve the argument he challenged them to solve the problem using barometer. The scientist measured the barometric pressure on the ground and then at the top of the steeple and calculated the height using the difference. The engineer dismissed this method as too cumbersome and took the barometer to the top of the steeple and drop it and worked out the height by timing the fall. The designer popped into the church and offered the barometer to the verger in exchange for a look at the plans. The simplest route to solution is usually the best.
The sea squirt roams around looking for rock, when it finds one it sticks to it for the rest of its life and since it no longer needs its brain, it eats it.
An antique three legged stool was made that way so it could stand on uneven floors. Simple no further development required
Marty Neumeier "Problem + fresh perspective X intuition = concept" e.g. Gutenberg could not figure out how to simultaneously press a large number of letter seals onto a single sheet of paper. At a wine festival he examined a wine press and suddenly realised that a wine press with a few alterations, plus letter seals would result in the printing press.”
I was trying to find out more about the artist (Ilana Yahav) behind the Twinings Lady Grey advert and I came across this video of artist Kseniya Simonova who won Ukraine’s Got Talent. Using just a light box covered with sand and awesome skills Kseniya manages to depict the Ukraine’s experiences during World War Two.
I don’t know what to admire more the artistry, the skill, the planning or the emotion conveyed using such a simple medium. In any case watch it and be amazed.
Multi-award winning graphic designer Michael Bierut claims he is not creative but more like a doctor who helps sick patients. In this video he distils the knowledge from his career into 5 maxims that are useful not only for designers but for anyone who is starting out on a project.
Michael Bierut: 5 Secrets from 86 Notebooks from 99% on Vimeo.
I was checking flights times at Aldergrove and came up against the problem that the official site doesn’t list flights arriving after midnight until late in the day. During a search for alternatives I came across series of interesting factoids.
I was going through some old notebooks and came across the notes I made after a talk on the quest for money I had given to group of young Christians. The group were all in the early twenties and just starting out in their life and careers. The discussion moved around a variety of topics but one area that struck me was the questioning about whether the businesses we worked for were ethical or were they driven purely by money. This wasn’t the purpose of the talk so we didn’t dwell on the topic.
When I say we, I mean they didn’t dwell on the topic. I spent the next days and weeks trying to rationalise the radical difference between their opinion and mine. I said ‘the company will drop you as soon as you don’t make economic sense’. They said that their companies / managers were driven by higher ideals like professionalism, care for employees etc.
Was I older and more cynical by nature or were they youthful and too naive?
Is business really founded on the bottom line of money over ethics? If this is true am I as complicit as the business if I work for them but don’t buy into their ideals?
I still haven’t come to a conclusion but I thought I would post some of questions I generated and considered as a result of the discussion in the hope that someone else might find insight through them.
From the file marked ‘no sh*t Sherlock’ comes the report from the Independent Review of Economic Policy (IREP) which is critical of InvestNI, the organisation tasked with improving the business environment in Northern Ireland.
Reading the report it would appear that it’s not a reorganisation that is required but a wholesale clear out of staff and a reassessment of priorities. The list of dubious decisions include the fact that of the £3/4 billion invested since its creation, InvestNI has
The responses to the report seem to prove the disconnect from reality InvestNI suffers from
“As a Board, we are encouraged that many of the recommendations in the Report are consistent with changes which we have lobbied for in recent years. In particular, increasing our focus on innovation and increasing levels of R&D, widening the reach of our support for business and encouraging the development of higher added-value sectors are all central elements of our current Corporate Plan.”
Stephen Kingon, Chairman of Invest NI
So the chairman’s response to the report that says you’re not doing enough for innovation, nor investing in a range of business, nor raising waging is to say that it’s encouraging that Invest have noticed the same failings as the report.
“This is illustrated by performance in the first half of this year when, despite still being in a period of recession, almost 1,600 separate offers of assistance have been made, offering almost £70m in support towards planned total investment of £237m by our clients who, with our support, are continuing to take steps to preserve their current position and plan for future market recovery.”
Alastair Hamilton , Chief Executive Invest NI
More numbers with no explanation of why they’re good. Has the £70m been used to support local companies, or improve innovation or secure jobs or what? These might look good in the press office but in the real world they mean nothing without evidence of how they’re actually contributing to the economy not only today but tomorrow.
As a closing point, the report itself doesn’t set the bar too high.
“Furthermore, a more commercially orientated view would help switch the emphasis from Innovation and newness per se toward the introduction of products and processes new to the region. Hence the encouragement of imitations, adaptations, improvements and adoptions of products and processes into the region would appear to be much more relevant to the promotion of productivity growth in NI than the pursuit of newness per se.”
This is from a report which suggests more innovation and R&D are essential but recommends that copies and a few tweaks with probably do instead. Why did they bother?
The viscously funny Charlie Brooker wrote a piece in the Guardian comparing Apple and Microsoft’s operating systems. It’s worth reading to see how some can say
“I know Windows is awful. Everyone knows Windows is awful. Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it’s there, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
and yet still end up by saying
“Still, bad though it is, I vaguely prefer the clumping, clueless, uncool, crappiness of Microsoft’s bland Stepford gang to the creepy assurance of the average Mac evangelist.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/28/charlie-brooker-microsoft-mac-windows
