I was talking to my mate Wozza earlier this week and amongst all the chat was the suggestion, nay, allegation that I'm a designer that only likes old stuff.

Well, how very dare he!

So I've been thinking about that and this is what I've come up with:

To start with, of course, there's some truth in it; I love old stuff, but not because it's old. I like new stuff too, it's just that new stuff is of less use to me. From old stuff I get inspiration; I can take a little bit of this and that and use it here and there. From old stuff I learn techniques that aren't reliant on prevailing technologies. Old stuff is detached from current styles and trends, and that's good because I'm an "ideas" designer, I'm not style-lead.

Take that little BR booklet for example: I might look at the symmetry in that photo of the men working on the track and see how a client's product could be seen in a similarly dynamic way. Or look at that image of the tankers and note how dramatic the angle is and use a similar technique elsewhere. Or think how the way the designer has overprinted some images on that colour looks really great. Or how he/she's used the space to dramatic effect. They're all things I can use. Yes, I could get all that from new stuff but my point is that age creates distance, so you detach from style and concentrate on effect, if that makes sense.

Then there's the dead designers: as graphic designers we operate in an industry with a rich history and like all creative endeavors, what has gone before informs what happens now, even if we aren't conscious of it. Personally, I think it's better to know where you're coming from, so you're in control, you know why you're doing something. And this kind of leads into something I was going to post anyway...

Every now and then I bang on about my love of the dead designer monograph (like this one). Well I've been thinking about a job I did a few years ago, so I thought I'd break my cardinal rule, not to post any of my work, to illustrate the point yet again.

In my last job we used to do a lot of work for Saab, for the aftermarket (you know, all the stuff that comes after you've actually decided to buy a car: accessories, services etc). We were asked to introduce their new in-car phone system. Cynical at first (at the time such things were less than reliable) we tried it out and it worked beautifully. If I remember correctly, you'd get a small box fitted into the boot of your car, into which you'd insert a duplicate SIM card from your mobile. The system, probably common place now, would use the existing sound system and dash mounted eye-level digital display to deliver calls and voice messages along with text and email notifications to you, with the help of an additional steering column mounted control stalk. There was a bit of that Blue-tooth nonsense thrown in there somewhere as well.

What impressed us most was how integrated it all was and I remember remarking in the briefing that it basically turned your car into a phone. And that was the idea.

I was pretty familiar with the various models and thought immediately that an aerial view of a 9-3 would look quite like the popular Nokia phones of the time. It all worked out very well.

But the missing bit, and my point, is that at the time I was reading Abram Games, Graphic Designer: Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means and I had become fascinated by Games' ability to make these amazing double images. So I think, thanks to Abram, I was in a double image frame of mind.

One week from tonight is the first class in the Design Research Methods that course I’ll be teaching at the Involution Master Academy in Sunnyvale, CA. If you’re thinking of signing up, don’t wait!

I hope to see some of you there.

Lovely low-tone artwork for melancholy musicians at Jason Munn's The Small Stakes.

Lovely low-tone artwork for melancholy musicians at Jason Munn’s The Small Stakes.

Louise (now sadly deceased and taxidermied) was raised, fed and tattooed at Wim Delvoye's Art Farm in China (where animal welfare regulations turn a blind eye to tattooing - sidethought: is branding still allowed in the west?)

Other pigs have more classical tattoo motifs, Disney characters, or brand figureheads.

I'm not sure if David Lachapelle had seen lil' Louise when he shot this.

Faces in Places. A site featuring, well, faces in places.

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I’m about to head off to Gatwick airport and catch a flight to Spain. I’m going to the Fundamentos Web conference in Gijón in the prinicipality of Asturias, somewhere I’ve never been. I was asked to speak last year but it was right after Web Directions South and I didn’t want to cut short my trip to Oz. This year I face no such dilemma so I jumped at the chance.

I’ll be speaking about Ajax. Nothing new there. What is new is that most of the audience will be non-native English speakers who will be relying on an interpreter for simultaneous translation. I wonder if I should adjust my presentation style accordingly (like, maybe slow down a bit). I’ve already tried to localise my slides; because most of my slides consist of one great big word, I’ve tried to get that word translated into Spanish (of course that doesn’t apply to coding terms like XMLHttpRequest). It remains to be seen how successful my attempts at cultural sensitivity turn out to be.

I’ll be landing in Asturias fairly late this evening and then speaking early tomorrow so I’ll need to hit the ground running. Pre-presentation nervousness has already begun and I haven’t even left Brighton yet.

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Tagged with fundamentosweb presentation spain spanish

The Astrogeology Research Program is a team of 80 reseachers, cartographers, computer scientists and students working to explore and map our solar system. From carrying out scientific analysis and remote sensing they have created some really beautiful abstract maps. The moon maps are especially nice and available to download from here.