Ace Jet 170

eethography

James on the amassblog has said, pretty much, everything I was going to say about ee. For me it was reading Dark Angels recently that made me think about my desire and failure to appreciate poetry. And in particular the orthographers favourite. James has a much more valuable volume on his shelf; mine is a modest Faber & Faber edition from the 60s. Nevertheless, it's letterpressed characters and pulpy paper are a pleasure to scrutinize even if the broken words are lost on my under-educated brain. (0/10 Must try harder).

Chicken Watch #26: Chicken in a basket

 

Day 587: Well, a box actually. For the second time in as many months there's a chicken down. Different birds, different afflictions; the first was fixed with every parent's essential survival kit component Calpol; the current patient is recovering in the house, feasting on porridge.

Many Happy Return

Very lovely postcards from Asbury & Asbury, written and designed to mark the return to prominence of the Macclesfield Barnaby Festival. Much more about it on their blog.

 

 

Peak

Not sure how widespread the trend is but here at least secondhand bookshops seem to be becoming a staple, and have to say extremely welcome, National Trust feature. Castle Ward's bookshop is in the courtyard, along with the sadly stocked cafe, fun-for-kids abandoned tractor and quality-fancy-goods-packed gift shop. The bookshop had an amazing and beautiful set of geographical encyclopedias, going for a song really but still beyond my modest book-budget. Thankfully, there was a handful of thriftily priced King Penguins on hand to comfort me. Insider dealings to follow.

Impression

Found another GTF-designed Globe Theatre programme. Same story as the other one.

 

Harder Better Faster Stronger

No design credit, and some might claim to understand why, but I think there's an unsung hero at work on this sublimely balanced cover from 1976. Take that finger, for example (photo-credited to John Hybert by the way); positioned one third in. Now, you're telling me that's by accident?

Oh, and then there's this (totally unrelated, but equally heroic):

Twiggy

Since we were there camping earlier in the year, Castle Ward has had serious pulling power. That weekend was as close to perfect as I can remember. Last weekend we were back, just for the day. To play, picnic and collect post-winter twigs with organical appendages.

 

Undesign

Nothing special really. Only it is. The chances are, if you're in the UK, you've got your new Colorplan book from GF Smith. It's simple. It's lovely. And it works.

Discerning Japanese #4

Mad Man

I read John Simmons' book Dark Angels (How writing releases creativity at work) immediately after his talk the other week. It's an excellent book and I emerged out of it full of ideas. Practice was one of them and one way John suggests you do that is to keep a diary. Nothing ground-breaking there but during the course of writing the book, he realised that that was one thing he'd never done, so tried it. Me to. Perhaps 'diary' isn't quite right. What I'm doing is using a Moleskine diary as a place to write something every day. Not necessarily something specifically diarific, just something. And so far, I've really enjoyed the discipline of having to write something every day. So far, while I don't claim these writings rival Hemingway, I think I've managed to avoid writing a load of old shite.

This snippet from Dark Angels has nothing really to do with any of that but with the next episode of Mad Men approaching fast I thought I'd share, as Simmons did in his book to illustrate how learning from other writers is vital, this excerpt, originally written in 1955, from The Unpublished David Ogilvy.

Discerning Japanese #3

DaMa Editions

A lovely new bundle of my very favourite Dalton Maag type specimens dropped through the door a couple of days ago and We Made This haven't blogged about it. Woo hoo! Beatcha!…ehum…er…well, er…highlights include the fantastic and robust Grueber, inspired by the lettering of Austrian architect/historian Paul Grueber. The previously seen and loved, North collaboration Co. And the rather serious and business like Cordale.

Rubbing me up the right way

And then I got this really nice package from Veer. It's like being back in the 70s again; rub down lettering, just like the good old day. Yes, yes, We Made This got their's first but hey, my pics are better. If you're quick, you can register for your own set here (but only if you're in the UK or Germany).

 

slash slash stack

Well I was going to tell you all about Stack Magazines. How they recently put me on their subscription list, and how I got my first package from them a few days ago.

How Stack is a subscription service which sends you out a different magazine each month - how you never know quite what you're going to get. How that means it works as a sort of taster menu, encouraging you to try out stuff you wouldn't necessarily choose for yourself. And how they've got a fairly varied and independent list of titles so far, including Eye Magazine, The Ride Journal, Little White Lies and IdN. (How if you already subscribe to any of the titles on the list, you can let them know, and they'll send you something else in its place.)

After that, I was going to tell you how there's a service for both the UK (and how you can choose from six, eight or twelve magazines, sent out one per month) and the US (six magazines per year, sent out bi-monthly over the year). And then I was going to say that each package comes with a magazine and a couple of extras - that this month the main magazine was music mag Sup. I was then going to mention that to go with that was James Bridle's 'Immanent in the Manifold City' newspaper, produced through the brilliant Newspaper Club service (which I was going to be writing more about sometime soon).

After I'd told you all that, I was to go on to say that to go with that was a beautiful one-off print from Jeremy Leslie's magCulture: a subscribers' reading list of 26 of his favourite mags from 2009. 

Yes, I was going to say all that. 

Then We Made This beat me to it. (Damn it).

Discerning Japanese #2

Great Apes

A shrewdness of those very lovely monkey-type posters arrived in the post yesterday, courtesy of Jungle VIPs totalcontent. I'm as pleased as a baboon in box full of bananas.

  

Discerning Japanese #1

 

Lightweight #01

I was on a photo-shoot last week, in our photographer's studio. Like many, his studio is filled with interesting left-overs and obsolete equipment. And it reminded me of my snail's-pace collection of light meters. I haven't got many and the few I do have have been brought together over, well, more years than I can be bothered to work out. Like lots of the stuff I collect I have no interest in actual value. My light meters are, almost certainly, of no significant value; I strongly suspect a couple of them were just run-of-the-mill devises and no self-respecting pro would be seen dead with them. That doesn't matter to me. I'm not even that into photography, not really. I carry a very average compact digital thing and am very happy with it. To be honest, I just think they're great objects. They could be for anything for all I care; they're just great, pocket-size, twiddly objects.

 

Jimplansthree

Hominidae primates and super-creative copywriter partnership totalcontent (Jim Davies and Deborah Kings) like lots of stuff and loads of other stuff, respectively. And have been working with Elmwood's Richard Scholey and Simon Morrow (and some monkeys from Rob Ball of the Partners) on a three-poster, self-promo mail-shot. You can read about their…ehum…Planning of the Apes*…ehum…here.

* I know, very poor.

(Via an Asbury and Asbury Tweet)

Thinking Ink

I don't know the full story behind these beautiful images but fellow Belfastites and enviably good designers Hurson have developed them as part of their work with homeless charity Depaul Ireland. (Found via their Belfast Fanciers Club).

Brick Buy Brick

 

We love a bit of Lego in our house (two small boys: aged 4 and 6). For the last few years a steady influx of kits have come through our door (or down the chimney, if you know what I mean). Each successive box more impressive than the last. Lego's doing some pretty amazing, creative stuff nowadays, with the beginning of 2010 seeing a flurry of new things. The Film/TV tie-ins are interesting but the exclusive-to-Lego sets are, in my view, more inspiring; superbly designed with commendable attention to detail.

If you're into it, I'm telling you things you probably already know but if you're not, if you've missed what Lego have been up to lately I think it would make an interesting brand case study. It's a classic, designer-friendly, toy but it's the level of commitment they've clearly applied to brand and product development and the business of Lego that would make an intriguing study. Like any great brand, they've invested on the ground level with tremendous creativity and what must be significant manufacturing capability; while I'm often impressed by how standard parts are ingeniously deployed across products our boys are delighted to discover, with a new kit, a new, previously unseen component.

Then there's the sales and marketing: Starting with prices that range from the incredibly accessible to the near-obstructively substantial, it's a brand you can get into easily and dream of greater and greater things. A content-rich website supplements the core Lego audience nicely and is growing and growing. Lego themed accessories are, generally, spot-on-brand; the keyrings were a sublimely simple but beautifully clever idea that we've bought into totally. The new(ish) board games are very well thought through. In stark contrast, the Playstation (etc) games have yet to grab us…but that's just us. There's plenty going on to get you hooked.

Towards the end of last year Lego released DesignbyMe: free downloadable software that allows you to design your own kit. In theory that's amazing: you can design a virtual model along with the box and then order it! I've not tried it yet, and apparently there were a few hick-ups with pricing, but that sounds impressive to me.

I suppose being complete converts excludes objectivity. And, although we have a small (tiny actually) arsenal of lethal weaponry, it's a very wholesome product that few could have a problem with. But it seems to me that as multi-channel modern brands go, Lego's not resting on it's laurels; it's working hard, doing an admirable job and I'm not sure if anything else comes close.

(Photos by Seth, aged 4)