Octoblog

I’m just back from a trip to Hamburg. I went to see a show called “Stylectrical” at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe. This interesting exhibition explored the complex process of industrial product design in the context of cultural studies. It focused primarily on the industrial design of products by Apple and ...

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• December 5, 2011

Today is World AIDS Day, not that you would know from the TV coverage, have you seen any mention of it? World AIDS Day was observed for the first time on 1 December, 1988. So much has changed since the early days of HIV/AIDS or GRID or HTLVIII as it's been called over the years, but so many things remain the same....

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• December 1, 2011

So, COMME des GARCONS are about to release a new fragrance on the world. I like the way this company works. I admire their approach and aesthetic. I like that they have always done their own thing, regularly working with artists and musicians to cut against the grain of fashion trends, and I like that they have prevailed as a result. ...

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• November 2, 2011

I woke today to the sad news that Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple inc. had died. He'd been ill for a while and had had major surgery as a result of pancreatic cancer but it was still a shock. I never met him and by all accounts he was tricky to work with; a ferocious attention to detail and demand for perfection made him as feared as he was respected. I think on balance, I respected him. Immensely....

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• October 6, 2011

UNICEF has come up with a clever and creative way for us to 'own' our favourite colour based on the fact that the average computer/smartphone/tablet can display 16.7 million colours. If everyone picked a colour and paid even the minimum amount (0f just £1) that would be £16.7 million. That's a lot of funds to help transform children's lives....

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• September 29, 2011

Yesterday I visited Tate Liverpool to see the much publicised René Magritte exhibition - 'The Pleasure Principle'. Very pleasurable it was too. The show focuses on the less explored aspects of Magritte’s life and artistic practice, and on themes including the artist’s use of pattern and artifice, ideas and revelation, and visual fracture and eroticism. The exhibition also investigates the relationship between Magritte’s painterly work and commercial design, and the inspiration he drew fro...

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• September 17, 2011

In 1993 someone suggested The Landmark Trust's historic holiday properties to me, time out in the countryside with no TV and only the sounds of nature and my friends for company, a lovely idea. I did this and became hooked. I love living in a city and couldn't live without my technology and the things that being in a city provides. Equally, I can't imagine not having such wonderful places to escape to. I try to head off at least twice a year to a Landmark Trust or Vivat Trust property with sele...

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• September 10, 2011

So many projects I work on come with their own set of guidelines that dictate what colours, fonts and images should be used, so it's refreshing when you get something where you can play. The Dao collaborative is a Soft Octopus client that comprises professionals from the public, private and voluntary sectors offering consultation around training, service improvement and strategy development....

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• August 15, 2011

It's always hard when people you know die. It's never easy, and even when their passing is remembered as a celebration of what's been achieved, it always cuts me up. There are never words to adequately encapsulate what's being felt. The hardest deaths are the ones that come from out of the blue, instantly and when you least expect....

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• July 27, 2011