Back to the future

I’m a geek, it goes with the territory really. One can’t be a designer with an interest in photography, music composition and sci-fi without getting excited when Apple comes along with the latest and greatest new iThing. This company brings us the future today, sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, or even make much sense at the time, but resistance is futile (I did say I was interested in sci-fi).

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Right Royal Rubbish

It’s been a while since the last blog entry. This is due to all sorts of things: work got in the way with a couple of new clients, I updated my website, was really poorly with a virus that knocked me out for nearly two weeks, a visitor from a distant shore arrived and Eurovision of course happened. All these things have now passed and the country is now firmly in the grip of Jubilee and Olympic frenzy – christened the ‘Jubilympics’ by some heretics.

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The vinyl countdown

Record Store Day 2012 is almost upon us. Just like last year, there’s a lot of publicity about how people love vinyl more than ever – the smell of it, our visceral connection with the object’s shape, packaging, design and even warmth of sound. This can only come from listening to music in its full audiophile format, apparently. To a certain degree I concur, a digital download really can’t offer the same satisfaction of owning a real object that has been manufactured and distributed in its own lovingly crafted sleeve that can be pored over and analysed while your music of choice fills the room.

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It’s a dog’s life

Myself and Ruby the beagle were intrigued to learn that a recent study has shown that bringing pet dogs to work can reduce stress and make the job more satisfying for other employees.

US researchers found that those with access to dogs were less stressed as the day went on than those who had none.

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  • Blog
  • April 2, 2012

iPaid. It’s a hard habit to break

Being an Apple addict isn’t a cheap habit but it’s one I’ve given up trying to beat. Quitting biting my nails was much easier…

So, there’s a new iPad and it’s called just that – ‘The New iPad’. Bit strange really, as they still sell the iPad 2 which is now inferior to iPad ‘The New’ and costs less which just doesn’t make sense. I can see that numbering things is silly and Apple don’t do it with desktops/laptops so really there’s no reason to do it with phones and tablets but I think the time to quit numbering things was back with iPad 2 so maybe it was Steve Jobs who had a thing for numbers?

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Out with the old – in with the new

It’s nice when you get a chance to fix a logo that you are familiar with and have never liked. Qwikprint is a local printer that I’ve used for a long time and whilst their service has always been brilliant, their logo has always irked me and my design sensibilities.

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Ooh aah… just a little bit

What’s not to like about the Eurovision Song Contest? It comes around every May and brightens our lives with eclectic sounds, visuals, performances and dance. The quality ranges from tragic to terrific and anyone willing to suppress snobbish musical opinions can usually find at least one gem amongst the 40+ international offerings. As a graphic designer, I always look forward to seeing how the host country will take the static Eurovision logo and build on it to reflect their own culture and identity.

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Dutch Lawn

I have always been interested in music, I remember getting bought a tiny Casio VL-Tone when they came out and thinking I was the fifth member of Kraftwerk or John Foxx Junior. My musical career however was never meant to be, even though I wrote plenty of songs and even did a couple of gigs which were thankfully in the days before people could film things and put them online for everyone to see – for eternity.

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Write here, right now

With so many fonts to choose from, one often forgets about the simplest of them all – your own. We all have our own unique font, and just like our fingerprints, it’s unique. It’s also perfect for many jobs. Before the design industry became computerised and while I was studying design in the 1980s, I used my handwriting for a lot of design work. This continued when I was employed as a graphic designer and the only alternative was transfer lettering, Letraset etc. My first major public health campaign for HIV/AIDS awareness was all written by hand and can be seen in a previous blog entry.

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