Ace Jet 170

How to reach over 18,000,000...

What I'd like to know is whatever happened to aerial advertising? 

The thrills, the danger...the marmalade.

 

 

 

 

Wordy Post #01

This is a very self-conscious bit of a thing. You see, as you know, I'm a graphic designer. And I work in a design studio. We spend our time trying hard to make stuff that is beautiful and relevant. We don't do advertising, direct marketing or anything (to speak of) that traditionally falls on or above "the line". We're well below it (do people still talk about "the line"? Does it still exist? - I think it does. Here it does).

I used to sit on it. Dangling my toes below while simultaneously waving my arms above it. Both dangling and waving was fun and I'm still as interested in waving as I am dangling even though, at the moment, I'm only dangling. I'm not sure how many dangler-wavers there are out there. I feel that a lot of designers are either one or the other. I'm probably wrong and anyway, if I'm right, that's fine, nothing wrong with it. Never mind.

Fuelled by an insecurity that manifests itself in a feeling that I don't know enough, I read a lot of stuff about the stuff we do (or would like to do). And again, I swing both ways; sometimes I read toe-dangling stuff, sometimes wavy stuff (marketing stuff).

What I don't know is if that's what everyone/anyone else does. Perhaps they do, in which case this waffle might be a big fat waste of time but it's here to be helpful. Of course, the trouble with marketing books (as I've probably mentioned before) is that even the best ones usually look sooooo shit, so my suspicion is that many designers give them a wide berth. And why shouldn't they? They're ugly and it's quite feasible, for those taught kerning and colour, to exist and even earn a decent crust without knowing a load of old marketing shite.

And yet, what's occuring to me more and more is how each camp (if indeed my microworldview is in any way accurate and these "camps" exist) has so much to teach/give the other. If nothing else, even now, after nearly [lots of] years of doing this kind of thing, I'm still discovering new and useful stuff in surprising places.

Here's an example: 

I've been reading John Grant's, eight year old, New Marketing Manifesto - The 12 Rules for Building Successful Brands in the 21st Century. Old hat no doubt to all those planners, marketists and whatnots out there, but I'm a designer; this is not a book that I would naturally encounter; I don't remember seeing it in Design Week or CR and anyway, what do I know of the dirty business of marketing? Well, of course, I should know something. I can't go about claiming to know a bit about branding without knowing about the ever evolving nature of the big "B" in the 21st C? How can I design the stuff if I don't understand how it works?

Even though it's eight or so years old, there's lots in it that I didn't know and many idea-stimulating thoughts. Some of it re-defining shifts in thinking for me; like the bit about how brands have become the new traditions by which we live our lives now many of the old traditions have broken down; how they should emerge as the by-products of innovation rather than be some kind of re-spraying exercise; how we should think in terms of genre before we think about form; and, best of all, the importance of authenticity. It's a great book for designers too because it advocates bold, new, emotionally-driven ideas over straight-jacketing, focus group/analysis directed stuff. Music to my ears.

Importantly, having consumed it, I feel better equipped for the briefs, meetings and presentations ahead.

One surprisingly interesting thing about the book is that I enjoyed it all the more because it's eight years old. Although he talks about stuff now gone (New Labour) and doesn't talk about now-stuff (Web 2.0), he presents ideas that were new then and have since been embraced, either consciously or naturally, with great success by exemplars of contemporary marketing/branding. Things we've witness emerge.

Anyway, the point of this ramble is that for us designers, slaving away on matters that have traditionally fallen below the you-know-what, there's much to be gleamed and embraced from the study of things going on above. Things that we can use.

And that's that.

Except, I should explain that the reason I got this book in the first place was because I wanted to read his latest but felt the need to see where Grant was coming from first.

His Green Marketing Manifesto is quite a different book and quite possibly more important. I'm half way through and it's opening my eyes to many things; I'd recommend it to anyone. Everyone. Massively over-simplifying things, the GMM explains the importance of marketing in our efforts to save our global asses by making green things seem normal as opposed to making normal things seem green (or "greenwashing"). He talks a lot about that then tells us how to do it.

He also describes who's doing what right now; some surprising people doing remarkable things. 

It seems to me that with this book Grant's made a kind of self-fulfilling thing; after all the talk in his first book of brands as "new traditions to live by", the Green Marketing Manifesto drops just that into your lap: a fresh and new way to approach the stuff we do everyday.

And he's even managed to make a marketing book look (a little) more like a book for a designer.

Secret codes and a magic star

The work of the devil it may be but I still have to say a special thank you to those lovely people at Pentagram. Not only for that copy of the Black Book but now also for a copy of Harry Pearce's excellent and diabolical holiday book.

I've tried cracking that last matrix there but all I can get from it is an order for Kung Po style pork and a taxi for Zapf; that can't be right...

Decipher

A message from Mr Bierut:

Finally, "Decipher," our holiday cryptogram mailing, is available on an online version for hours of play at home.

A taste of the print version is here.

Best,

Michael

Pentagloat

I am a cat with a big bowl of the finest, creamiest cream in front of me and it's all mine; I've only got my mits on one of these beauties and I'm sitting here, licking my paws and cleaning behind my ears (whilst purring softly).

Oh it's lovely. And it's mine. But I'll let you have a little look too...

Paul Arden

Very sad to hear (via the CR blog) that Paul Arden died yesterday. Here's some is his wisdom (repeated from last November).

Vintage Graphis on The Nonist

If I read between the second David's lines correctly, he's spotted that Ace Jet's on a go-slow at the moment. It's the usual, heavy workload story; blog fodder is piling up. In the meantime, enjoy someone else's blogetry.

die neue Graphik

It's probably going to be a bit of a slow burner but I've started a Reference Material collection on Flickr, kicking off with my dilapidated copy of die neue Graphik. The book's being gradually falling apart since I bought it and, to be honest, Sunday's photo session hasn't helped but hopefully now, I can leave it safely on the shelf.

Training for the harder work to come

I bought this crumbling old volume for one whole pound. Attracted to its title, I imagined it would tell me everything I needed to know. Unfortunately, all it's told me so far is how to build a locomotive, why the children of Topsy-Turvy Land are all so bleedin' pleased and how to train my own kids for that "harder work ahead".

Perhaps not as immediately useful as I'd hoped, it has its moments nevertheless; there's a fine section on letterpress for example. It turned out that this was just volume five of, I'd guess, around ten but a pound for a tenth of the world's knowledge isn't bad value for money, according to my calculations.

The (Book)Shelf Preservation Society

OK, it's an aside but if you're not humming that tune by now, there must be something wrong with you.

Regardless of that, the real purpose for this post is, as Ace Jet's back in Penguin mode, to repeat that if you're in any way interested in those modest little paperbacks, you could do a lot worse than join the club. A years membership will cost you just sixteen of the Queen's pounds and you'll get two issues of the Society's excellent magazine (pictured above) and, this year, a copy of Penguin by Illustrators, sister publication to the ace Penguin by Designers.

The next issue of The Penguin Collector promises, "a major piece by Colin Forbes on the revolution in graphic design in London in the early 1960s with the formation of the Design and Art Direction Association (D&AD). He talks of his association with other designers, such as Derek Birdsall, George Mayhew, Dennis Bailey, Romek Marber, and of Alan Fletcher and Bob Gill with whom he later went into partnership. Penguin, in the form of Germano Facetti and others, played no small part in their development by commissioning many cover designs from the firm."