Ace Jet 170

Scribbling

I've found myself, in recent times, drawing for a living. Not good drawing really but now that I'm an interpretive designer and what I design has changed, the need to capture ideas quickly has become more pertinent. At first, I was a little reluctant; nervous at my ability; rusty. But needs must and two things surprised me: the first was that I wasn't awful and the second thing was that I enjoyed it.

Over the last eighteen months I've used a pencil to design sculptural lectern panels for an ancient fort, I've scoped out interior spaces for a derelict textiles mill and I've conceived physical interactive installations. With a pencil.

Back in the day, when I worked in England, I art directed an old-school marker visualiser to do this kind of thing. Boy could Jeremy draw. I'd poorly scribble an idea in front of him and he'd go away and perform magic with his markers. It was by far the best way to capture an idea – unhindered by the toil and tyranny of so called 'Mac visuals'.

I don't know how much value is given to the ability to draw these days in the world of graphic design. That's not a rhetorical statement, for all I know it's still prized like it used to be. My view of the world is distorted, what with my field of endeavour, being a bit out of touch and being blessed by working with a number of illustrators that can draw the crap out of me. And then there's the tech. Ever new ways to manipulate and originate an image – all those apps!

This all sprang to mind as I pondered why I'm obsessed with making these images on my phone. They couldn't be easier but I'm often surprised by the results. Mere mirrored images take on forms I was not expecting and with hardly a thought – serendipitous dark bits become alien eyes. Sticky out bits become limbs.

I use Diptic and make them quickly in batches once I stumble across source material. These are made from the annual debris found in our greenhouse. The realism of the original stuff, even after it's been abstracted, retains a foot in the real world and adds to the strangeness.

What's this got to do with drawing? Maybe not much but maybe a bit. Perhaps in the future we'll hark back to these days and lament the demise of Diptic or Brushes or, dare I suggest, Photoshop – because we'll be originating and manipulating images in all sorts of new ways. And it occurred to me that we're just using a tool to make an image. You might choose a pencil, you might choose a stylus. Messing about with a photo and Diptic is a bit like doodling with a pencil. It's fun, uses little brain power and can reap surprising results. It's not unlike what Alan Fletcher used to do, only he used scraps of print.

The Lost Birds

I was looking through some photos from the last few years the other night. Mostly family trips here and there. Hilarious photos of the boys and swoon-triggering photos of Karen. And some photos of miscellaneous farmyard foul.

Stick. On Rock.

Nothing Special #07

This is a weird one. I've been picking this up in our local charity book shop, then putting it down for weeks. It's that modernist cover. It feels like it's designed by someone interesting, but there's no credit. And then there's the oh so strange content. Kind of Shrigley-esque. Only it's all by Canadian Eskimos. Which makes it not as funny perhaps but equally peculiar and compelling.

A friendly Canadian has rightly pointed out that the artists are actually, of course, Inuits, not Eskimos. My feable excuse for the error is that I worked with information that was 43 years old. Apologies to all the Inuits out there. Keep up the good work!

Nothing Special #06

English/Slovene dictionary anyone? No? Or rather: Nobe? Or is it ne? Or zavrnitev? Of course, the truth is even with a notable Eastern European contingency in our neighbourhood, I doubt this'll come in that handy. But checkout that Helvetica, with those thin vertical rules. And that odd pale blue strip. Weird. Even though the internal pages are totally unremarkable the cover feels very considered.

Nothing Special #05

Who knows what particularly nasty rash is combatted by this ointment but there's something modernistically compelling and quite beautiful about the positioning of that red band. Notice too that the rule on which the lion is strolling is positioned exactly vertically central; suggesting either a designer with a precise mind or a happy accident. If you've got a nasty rash and a tube of Fucidin, to apply twice daily, perhaps you could check your box to see if Leo is similarly positioned. Please let me know. Thanks (and I hope it clears up soon).

Nothing Special #04

 

Let's face it, the Foreign Language section of any charity bookshop is not going to be the most popular section. But it's always worth a look; you just never know.

Nothing Special #03

It looks like it's straight out of Corporate Diversity but is really straight out of my Dad's big box of drugs. Forgot to check actually, it probably is in the book.

 

Nothing Special #02

It's about the size of a cigarette packet or one of those Collins Gem Dictionaries, only older. And when you pick it up, it's kind of chunky but feels too small. But it's cloth bound and because it's so small the impression made by the text in the cloth seems exaggerated because of the book's scale.

Nothing Special #01

I can feel a new series coming on. You see really, there's nothing special about this book; it's just a Reader's Digest Condensed Book. There's probably hundreds, maybe even thousands of them out there. This is so un-special that it wasn't even priced and was tucked behind a row of books in my local charity book shop. It was being used to pack out the book shelf. That's how non-special it is.

Nothing special.

(Lovely cover though).