My new threadless t-shirt submission is up. It’s a present for someone, so click the link and give it your best vote. And if you’re so inclined, pass it on to your friends too.

Vote for it

Up until today, Thomas Edison held the title for first recording of the human voice on a piece of tinfoil in 1877. Edison’s breakthrough recorded sound through a stylus which moved in response to vibrations from a mouthpiece and made indentions in the foil.

But now a piece of sooty paper has changed this fact. A 10 second recording of someone singing “Au Claire de la Lune”, was found in Paris.

It was recorded on a phonautograph, that visualised soundwaves by scratching them onto a piece of paper cover with the soot of an oil lamp.

the phonoautograph

It was recorded April 9, 1860, by the parisian inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. However, while Scott de Marinville managed to record sound, he never discovered how to play it back.

It’s this sort of radical experimentation that, at the time may seem like madness, but can have such an impact on how we think about the world. There is so much more we can discover about sound, but so much of today’s exploration into sound seems imitation.

Have we lost the madness? Perhaps, back in those days, you needed to be mad to do these kind of experiments, but it does raise my hopes that this generation’s modern artists are yesterdays mad scientists.

Listen to the recording

via New York Times

“I asked if he would come up with a few options and he said:
‘no I will solve your problem for you, and you will pay me. You don’t need to use the solution. If you want options go to other people.‘ ”

A rather tactful Steve Jobs tries to explain Paul Rand’s principles while designing the apple logo working for Next and Apple. I love the part where Jobs gets stuck on a stuttered ‘interesting’ while trying to explain Rand’s principles.

So today is the day I could propose, wearing a scarlet petticoat.

If you said No, you would, by the five-year-old ruling of Queen Margaret of Scots, have to give me a kiss, a pound, or a silk gown.

That’s pretty astute for a five year old queen.
x

Drive: 3,937 mi (about 29 days 10 hours)

1. Head south on A3212 toward Great College St 0.4 miles
2. At Horseferry Rd, take the 1st exit onto A3203 0.2 miles
3. At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto A3036/Albert Embankment 0.6 miles
4. Turn left at A202/Kennington Ln 0.2 miles
5. Turn right at A202/Durham St 0.1 miles
6. Turn left at A202 3.2 miles
7. Turn left at Kender St 397 ft
8. Turn right at A202/Besson St 0.2 miles
9. Turn right at A2/New Cross Rd 0.6 miles
10. Slight right to stay on A2/New Cross Rd 105 ft
11. Turn right at Amersham Rd 0.2 miles
12. Turn left at A20 1.1 miles
13. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit and stay on A20 Go through 1 roundabout 11.7 miles
14. Continue on M20 49.7 miles
15. Continue on A20 Go through 4 roundabout 8.5 miles
16. At Eastern Docks Roundabout, take the 1st exit onto Dock Exit Rd 269 ft
17. Continue straight 0.4 miles
18. Slight right at The Fan 0.3 miles
19. Sharp right at Camber Way 0.2 miles
20. Turn left at Eastern Service Rd 387 ft
21. Slight right at Dover - Boulogne-sur-Mer 9.7 miles
22. Continue on Dover - Boulougne-sur-Mer 21.0 miles
23. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Place Emile Sénéchal 236 ft
24. Continue on Rue Ferdinand Farjon 0.6 miles
25. At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto N1 Go through 2 roundabouts 1.4 miles
26. At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto N416 1.3 miles
27. Merge onto A16/E402 via the ramp to Amiens/Rouen/Paris Toll road 43.1 miles
28. Take exit 23 to merge onto A28/E402 toward Le Tréport/Rouen/Le Havre 46.4 miles
29. Take the exit onto A29/E44 toward Le Havre/Caen Toll road 22.8 miles
30. Take the exit onto A29/E44 Toll road 27.2 miles
31. Take the A131/E05 exit toward Le Havre 1.1 miles
32. Merge onto E05 5.6 miles
33. Turn right at Quai Colbert 358 ft
34. Turn right to merge onto Rue Marceau 0.2 miles
35. Take the ramp onto Quai Frissard 0.6 miles
36. At the roundabout, take the 4th exit onto E05 0.6 miles
37. SWIM across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 miles
38. Turn left at Long Wharf 0.1 miles
39. Continue on State St 427 ft
40. Turn left at John F Fitzgerald Surface Rd 0.5 miles
41. Turn left at Congress St 23 ft
42. Turn right onto the ramp to I-93 S/Quincy/I-90 W/Worcester 0.5 miles
43. Keep right at the fork, follow signs for I-90 W/Mass Pike/Albany St and merge onto I-90 W/Mass Pike/Massachusetts Turnpike Toll road 55.4 miles
44. Take exit 9 for I-84 toward US-20/Sturbridge/Hartford 0.6 miles
45. Merge onto I-84 W Partial toll road Entering Connecticut 41.1 miles
46. Take exit 57 on the left to merge onto CT-15 S toward I-91 S/Charter Oak Bridge/N.Y. City 2.6 miles
47. Take exit 87 for I-91 S/Brainard Rd toward Brainard Airport/Airport Rd/I-84-ALT W 0.5 miles
48. Merge onto I-91 S 16.0 miles
49. Take exit 17 for W Cross Pkwy/CT-15 S/E Main St 0.4 miles
50. Merge onto CT-15 S 64.4 miles
51. Continue on Hutchinson River Pkwy S Entering New York 10.6 miles
52. Slight left at Cross County Pkwy W (signs for Cross County Pkwy/George Washington Bridge) 4.7 miles
53. Take exit 2 to merge onto Saw Mill Pkwy S/Saw Mill River Pkwy S toward New York City 1.8 miles
54. Continue on Henry Hudson Pkwy Partial toll road 11.6 miles
55. Continue on RT-9A S/W Side Hwy 4.1 miles
56. Turn left at Chambers St 0.4 miles

• I’ve left my work; gone freelance
• celebrated christmas in geordie style
• act as the sole remainder of my family in this country
• moved into a new studio with two very grand scando neighbours
• started mass renovation work on my flat
• started part-time research work for Glasgow School of Art
• squeezed my brains, tore my hair and generally gone a bit looned out over a thesis
• designed a few websites

I will, very soon, give my undivided attention to each and one of these elements, and my little blog… but for now, here’s my leaving limerick to Topshop:

Twas come a young lass from the toon,
Not a duck nor diver nor loon
She performed a flip-flop
When she went to topshop
And discovered a whole basket of tunes

What really hit me, was the scientific manner in which he picks apart exactly the things we designers moan about, to produce matter-of-fact conclusions on the consequences that arise. Consequences that perhaps lead to the numbers of designers who don’t make it past the first 7 years in the ‘design business’.

It is no secret that the real world in which the designer functions is not the world of art, but the world of buying and selling. For sales, and not design are the raison d’etre of any business organization. Unlike the salesman, however, the designer’s overriding motivation is art: art in the service of business, art that enhances the quality of life and deepens appreciation of the familiar world.

Design is a problem-solving activity. It provides a means of clarifying, synthesizing, and dramatizing a word, a picture, a product, or an event. A serious barrier to the realization of good design, however, are the layers of management inherent in any bureaucratic structure. For aside from the sheer prejudice or simple unawareness, one is apt to encounter such absurdities as second guessing, kow-towing, posturing, nit-picking, and jockeying for position, let alone such buck-passing institutions as the committee meeting and the task force. At issue, it seems, is neither malevolence nor stupidity, but human frailty.

The smooth functioning of the design process may be thwarted in other ways, by the imperceptive executive, who in matters of design understands neither his proper role nor that of the designer; by the eager but cautious advertising man whose principal concern is pleasing his client; and by the insecure client who depends on informal office surveys and pseudo-scientific research to deal with questions that are unanswerable and answers that are questionable.

Unless the design function in business bureaucracy is so structured that direct access to the ultimate decision-maker is possible, trying to produce good work is very often an exercise in futility. Ignorance of the history and methodology of design — how work is conceived, produced, and reproduced — adds to the difficulties and misunderstandings. Design is a way of life, a point of view. It involves the whole complex of visual communication: talent, creative ability, manual skill, and technical knowledge. Aesthetics and economics, technology and psychology are intrinsically relate to the process.

One of the more common problems which tends to create doubt and confusion is caused by the inexperienced and anxious executive who innocently expects, or even demands, to see not one but many solutions to a problem. These may include a number of visual and/or verbal concepts, an assortment of layouts, a variety of pictures and color schemes, as well as a choice of type styles. He needs the reassurance of numbers and the opportunity to exercise his personal preferences. He is also most likely to be the one to insist on endless revisions with unrealistic deadlines, adding to an already wasteful and time-consuming ritual. Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.

The designer who voluntarily presents his client with a batch of layouts does so not out prolificacy, but out of uncertainty or fear.
He thus encourages the client to assume the role of referee. In the event of genuine need, however, the skillful designer is able to produce a reasonable number of good ideas. But quantity by demand is quite different than quantity by choice. Design is a time-consuming occupation. Whatever his working habits, the designer fills many a wastebasket in order to produce one good idea. Advertising agencies can be especially guilty in this numbers game. Bent on impressing the client with their ardor, they present a welter of layouts, many of which are superficial interpretations of potentially good ideas, or slick renderings of trite ones.

Frequent job reassignments within an active business are additional impediments about which management is often unaware. Persons unqualified to make design judgments are frequently shifted into design-sensitive positions. The position of authority is then used as evidence of expertise. While most people will graciously accept and appreciate criticism when it comes from a knowledgeable source, they will resent it (openly or otherwise) when it derives solely from a power position, even though the manager may be highly intelligent or have self-professed “good taste.” At issue is not the right, or even the duty, to question, but the right to make design judgment. Such misuse of privilege is a disservice to management and counterproductive to good design. Expertise in business administration, journalism, accounting, or selling, though necessary in its place, is not expertise in problems dealing with visual appearance. The salesman who can sell you the most sophisticated computer typesetting equipment is rarely one who appreciates fine typography or elegant proportions. Actually, the plethora of bad design that we see all around us can probably be attributed as much to good salesmanship as to bad taste.

Deeply concerned with every aspect of the production process, the designer must often contend with inexperienced production personnel and time-consuming purchasing procedures, which stifle enthusiasm, instinct, and creativity. Though peripherally involved in making aesthetic judgments (choosing printers, papermakers, typesetters and other suppliers), purchasing agents are for the most part ignorant of design practices, insensitive to subtleties that mean quality, and unaware of marketing needs. Primarily and rightly concerned with cost- cutting, they mistakenly equate elegance with extravagance and parsimony with wise business judgement.

These problems are by no means confined to the bureaucratic corporation. Artists, writers, and others in the fields of communication and visual arts, in government or private industry, in schools or churches, must constantly cope with those who do not understand and are therefore unsympathetic to their ideas. The designer is especially vulnerable because design is grist for anybody’s mill. “I know what I like” is all the authority one needs to support one’s critical aspirations.

Like the businessman, the designer is amply supplied with his own frailties. But unlike him, he is often inarticulate, a serious problem in an arena in which semantic difficulties so often arise.
This is more pertinent in graphic design than in the industrial or architectural fields, because graphic design is more open to aesthetic than to functional preferences.

Stubborness may be one of the designer’s admirable or notorious qualities (depending on one’s point of view) — a principled refusal to compromise, or a means to camouflage inadequacy. Design cliches, meaningless patterns, stylish illustrations, and predetermined solutions are signs of such weakness. An understanding of the significance of modernism and familiarity with the history of design, painting, architecture, and other disciplines, which distinguish the educated designer and make his role more meaningful, are not every designer’s strong points.

The designer, however, needs all the support he can muster, for his is a unique but unenviable position. His work is subject to every imaginable interpretation and to every piddling piece of fact- finding. Ironically, he seeks not only the applause of the connoisseur, but the approbation of the crowd.

A salutary working relationship is not only possible but essential.
Designers are not always intransigent, nor are all purchasing agents blind to quality. Many responsible advertising agencies are not unaware of the role that design plays as a communication force. As for the person who pays the piper, the businessman who is sympathetic and understanding is not altogether illusory. He is professional, objective, and alert to new ideas. He places responsibility where it belongs and does not feel insecure enough to see himself as an expert in a field other than his own. He is, moreover, able to provide a harmonious environment in which goodwill, understanding, spontaneity, and mutual trust — qualities so essential to the accomplishment of creative work — may flourish.

Similarly, the skilled graphic designer is a professional whose world is divided between lyricism and pragmatism. He is able to distinguish between trendiness and innovation, between obscurity and originality.
He uses freedom of expression not as a license for abstruse ideas, and tenacity not as bullheadedness but as evidence of his own convictions. His is an independent spirit guided more by an “inner artistic standard of excellence”(1) than by some external influence.
At the same time as he realizes that good design must withstand the rigors of the marketplace, he believes that without good design the marketplace is a showcase of visual vulgarity.

The creative arts have always labored under adverse conditions.
Subjectivity emotion, and opinion seem to be concomitants of artistic questions. The layman feels insecure and awkward about making design judgments, even though he pretends to make them with a certain measure of know-how. But, like it or not, business conditions compel many to get inextricably involved with problems in which design plays some role.

For the most part, the creation or effects of design, unlike science, are neither measurable nor predictable, nor are the results necessarily repeatable. If there is any assurance, besides faith, a businessman can have, it is in choosing talented, competent, and experienced designers.

Meaningful design, design of quality and wit, is no small achievement, even in an environment in which good design is understood, appreciated, and ardently accepted, and in which profit is not the only motive. At best, work that has any claim to distinction is the exception, even under the most ideal circumstances. After all, our epoch can boast of only one A.M.
Cassandre.

- Paul Rand
from “A Designer’s Art”

(1) Anthony Storr, “The Dynamics of Creation”, (New York, 1972), 189.

The original source from monoscope

Last weekend I went to visit my oldest friend’s mum, Jane. She has a teeny cottage in bale, Norfolk, that is probably a third the size of her back garden. The intial reason for the visit started when I made Jane a blog. As a thankyou, Jane was giving me a blanket, much like the lovely one in the photo above.

To be honest, I was a bit stressed, as I seem to be doing alot of work recently, and travelling quite a bit, so it was so nice to be thrown into jane’s world of wonderful pots and knitwear.

The weekend quickly filled up with walks with Sal & Tilda, Jane’s two dogs, chats with the mussel man, a trip to Cromer - a holiday seaside town stuck in a timewarp; home of the cromer crab - investigating Jane’s home-made kiln, digesting local lamb and relaxing by the fire with earthenware cups of wine. It was a glimpse of a life I might like to have… when I’m older.

Jane and I talked alot and I left feeling I’d made a friend of my oldest friend’s mum.

Last Sunday I went with Nico and Karl Ringman to see Ani Difranco at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. It was my first Ani Gig.

It was amazing.

She is an extremely good performer - not just in a musical sense, but with a stage sense that really engages her audience. Each song was mixed up with mini-monologues and her crazy laughter, which makes for the perfect environment to really listen to her music. I found I was hearing new lyrics with every song.

Leaving an Ani gig, you want to fill in the blanks of a conversation you started with her in your mind.

A little mind-blown. It’s all a bit like a whirlwind romance.