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The latest gift book from Pentagram dropped through the door last week. Always interesting, this new one attempts to, once and for all, assign a more comprehensive colour system to common moods and emotions. French folded pages with perforated edges hide within the mood/emotion the design team felt best matched the hue.
Only trouble is, if you want to know what it really means to feel kind of brown, slightly purple or seriously orange, you have to break the perfs. Nightmare. Still, out came my Swiss Army Knife and in slipped the clean, sharp blade. Slit, slit, slit.
Merrick's got a new print. And it's only got flippin' morse codes all over it. Go here now.
Alan Aldridge 1961/4
Towards the end of the growing season last year we experienced a minor mini rodent problem in our greenhouse. Just a few mice. With humane traps bated with peanut butter (crunchy) and fragments of chocolate coins, one by one, the culprits were caught, jarred and re-homed in the estate that houses the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Despite warnings to the contrary I soon had the little blighters under control and after a few weeks our unwelcome lodgers were all relocated. I'm happy to report there has been no sign of any more. Not that Karen quite believes that they've all gone. Which is the reason why she/we neglected to clear the greenhouse last year. Instead, we left much to rot and decay over the winter months.
Consequently, earlier today, I was presented with my new assignment: Clear all the shit out and make doubly sure there is nothing still living inside. Perhaps some would recoil from a task like that but not me. In fact, I jumped at the chance. Weird though it may sound to some, I find decay as beautiful as it is gross; especially when isolated and photographed against an unnnatural surface, like the galvanised steel shelves.
A little while later and it was job done, greenhouse cleared. And I can report that, without any shadow of a doubt, there is definitely nothing living inside. If you're interested, there more dead stuff here.
I didn't think about it until we got there but it's been years. Blimey. Could be ten?…No, more like twenty, since I was in an old library. Our local is reasonably modern. There's an amazing one in Bangor a few miles further on; all internet and lime green vinyl flooring.
Linen Hall Library, in Belfast's city centre is not like that. We were there for the launch of a book we'd designed (more about that another time) but as soon as we'd stepped inside, well, I think all three of us were struck by the beautiful. It's from another time. Actually, I'll backtrack a bit. We went in through the modern side entrance, which is a narrow but bright space that leads into a three or four story stairwell. Look up and it's all modern materials and framed prints of party political advertising. But the stairs are there to give you access; you're soon in the original library. And that feels like something out of another century. Bookish (obviously) and still; it reminded me of Tinker Tailor. I could imagine Smiley, sitting in the corner, waiting for a clandestine liaison. Or searching for a microdot in some obscure volume.
The Library couldn't be more central in the city which is why it felt like a secret place. I've passed the outside many times, carried along by the crowd. We stood outside one Christmas, regretting our misguided decision to come into town to watch the lights being switched on. Never, NEVER again.
I had no idea what was just inside those doors.
It's one of those times when you find yourself with a load of real-life, proper, paying work on and your blog gets side-lined. Even though some really nice people are sending you stuff. Like Luke, who sent me issue two of Boat, the magazine he art directs for the studio-on-the-move-with-the-same-name.
It's an amazing idea. Basically, for one month Boat Studio re-plant themselves into a "forgotten city". They spend their time digging beneath the surface to find the really interesting stories hidden from view. Stories they scoop up and pull together using the magazine as the tactile, inky vehicle to carry those stories out into the wider world.
Bad press victim Detroit was their most recent temporary home. The truth is, as you may know, the Motor City has fallen on tough times since the car industry crumbled. Boat's Erin Spens explains in the magazine's introduction how 25% of the city's population left leaving properties in the hands of criminals and vandals. On the surface, it's grim.
But the bad stuff is only part of Detroit's present and, like anywhere I guess, there's still much to feel positive about. Boat Magazine attempts to capture that positivity; the music, the food, the resilience of the people, the sense of community, the culture and, yes, the kale.
It's a beautiful publication. Nicely printed, great photography, superb typography and intriguing, real-life, optimistic stories.
Patrick from Moo got in touch the other week and offered me the chance to try out their new premium quality cards: Luxe. Now I must admit, being a bit long in the tooth, I'm not mad about "off-the-shelf" template driven graphic design, so I was a little reluctant at first. If it had been anyone else I think I would have turned it down.
But Moo do it all really well don't they? I thought I'd give it a whirl and try the system out (I should mention, I've only used the Moo system once, a few years ago). To test it properly I opted for no original artwork; I'd use a Moo design. It took a while to choose one that I felt was appropriate (first problem with pre-set templates) but I got there. You don't get to choose your font (second problem) and my chosen design came with Bembo, an elegant enough typeface but not one I'd ever choose to use. I shelved my negativeity to Bembo and ploughed on and before very long cards were ordered.
A week later they're on my desk.
I showed them around the studio and everyone was pretty impressed: the pre-set designs are nice, the system works really well of course, the cards are better than a lot of "professionally" designed/printed cards that you get handed, the three-ply board is great and they're presented beautifully. Perhaps a little bit over the top; they come wrapped in a purple silk band fake wax seal (not shown).
Overall, there's no question, Luxe raises the bar for template-based, print-on-demand business cards.
Of course, I've conveniently skirted quickly around the whole issue of how we designers feel about template-based, print-on-demand solutions. To kick that around right now feels untimely and I'm not that interested in doing that anyway; it's here, it's not going to go away. There's some total crap and some stuff, like Moo, that's actually really good.
(If you're in the UK) Are you following the development of GOV.UK? So far, it's been great. I think the most impressive aspect of it has been how open the development is. The blog is really good: vibrant, busy, has multiple contributors each with their own angle and area of focus. Then there's the nationwide beta testing. Has that happened before? Ever? Anywhere?
Last night I had a brief exchange of DMs with Chris from Front who said he felt "proud to be part of a country that 'gets it' to that extent". I agree. So far, so good.
But that feeling of pride; it's like what we should have felt when the Millenium Dome went up and how we should feel about the run up to this year's Olympics. Despite wanting to feel really positive about both of these things, I didn't/don't. External forces weigh heavy. National cynicism annoys the hell out of me but why does it happen?
The thing with GOV.UK is how the openness, of course, makes you feel like you could have a say. Actually, you can. The national beta testing prompted immediate and actionable feedback.
I suspect it's no coincidence that Ben, who if you don't know by now is part of the GDS Team, had pictures of Festival of Britain paraphenalia on his blog a few days ago. Who knows what it felt like in the UK when the Festival was developing; different times I guess. Perhaps there was a mountain of cynicism directed at that on the run up to 1951. But when you look at what happended, well, it looks pretty damned exciting.
Right now, GOV.UK does, in a 2012-digital-kind-of-way, feel a bit like that.