More internal funniness. It's a shame more companies aren't as funny externally. (belated thanks to robin)
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APSotW; World Cup feedback
Hello folks, here are the presentations from the good people who entered for Assignment 8. With added comments etc from the equally good people of The Design Conspiracy. Here are their overall thoughts:
"We feel that D is the winner, although C ran it a very close second. C had passion by the bucketfuls, which was great, but D was just a little bit more sophisticated.
This was slightly different to the previous one we judged in that pretty much everyone knows about the World Cup and everyone knows about football. We think this was a harder brief too. It’s hard to write about something that almost everyone already knows about. Most people struggled to get the balance right between insight and information overloads. That’s why the ‘from the heart’ passion of C was so refreshing. A deserves a special mention for the link between WW2 Germany and Apartheid South Africa. E deserves a special mention for craft and the nice comment about the sketchability of logos. The only problem with E was that the craft got in the way of the thinking.
Take a look at F. We really didn’t like this one. There’s a great opening slide, but then it’s like a script and not a presentation. Presentations are funny things and they can be difficult, but writing for a presentation is very different to just writing. As we’ve said before, it’s about the drama, the pace, the delivery, not just the words.
Last time we wrote, “Don't over elaborate, don't take 3 slides to make one point. Make points. Pictures are good.” and we said “Seeing as we're Visiting Professors we've probably been harsher than Russell. We'll make no apologies for that, we won't bump into you in the canteen.” that’s all still true.
So, we’ll now design a logo based on the brief we received in presentation D. That should take about 2 weeks. Now we’re off to Cape Town."
I've had a look through and I'd echo everything the Conspirators said. And I'd like to thank them, a lot, for their efforts. You can see everyone's entries below. They're all worth looking at.
8A.ppt 8B.ppt 8C.ppt 8D.ppt 8E2.ppt 8F.ppt
By the way, I started anonymising these, which I normally do, but then it started proving quite hard, so I stopped. I'm not going to do it from now on. If you want to enter anonymously that's perfectly fine, but I'm going to assume that if you put your name on the deck you're happy for it to be uploaded for everyone to see. Does that make sense?
Also, by the way, we've only had three entries for Paul's assignment 9 which rather surprises me. I thought it was a really interesting question. Why only three? Summer holidays? Didn't find it interesting? Getting bored with me setting y'all homework? Anyone got any thoughts? I'm happy to extend the deadline if anyone else wants to have a go. Let me know. Otherwise we'll start having a look at the three who did enter, and who'll get extra special attention for being so diligent.
complex formula
Went to see the F1 exhibit at The Design Museum. NDG has written about how splendid the graphics etc were. Personally I was overcome with nostalgia at the site of this lovely black JPS thing. The Formula One of my youth.
And I was struck by the irony (is it irony, I don't know anymore, it probably isn't, maybe I'll start again.) I was struck by the contrast between this familar design bromide on the wall outside the gallery; 'progress means simplifying, not complicating' and the story that the exhibit itself told - which was of constant progress through increased complexity and complication.
Even if you ignore the splendid Cooper T51 and start in the 80s with these sleek but boxy things you can see the escalating complexity over the next 20 years.
The 21st century things are almost fractal, the closer you peer the more complication you see.
They're still beautiful, but they're asymmetric, unpredictable, with curious little bits that pop up to solve particular aerodynamic problems or whatever. They're things of detail not vision. More like bundles of contingent solution
s than a singular, simple design decision. Lots of little ideas rather than one big one. Good Lord, it's almost like there are parallels with other things.
And I know, it's not always this complicated. It's been exploded.
Having said that, this is probably my favourite car design ever, the Morris Minor. Not because it's simple but because it was famously compared to a poached egg, and it looks a lot like an armchair on wheels.
literary immortality the easy way - cash
This is a very good idea. Various writers are auctioning off the fictional names in various books on behalf of the First Amendment Project. For example, Chris Ware is offering: "The appearance in name and approximate drawn likeness, either as a 'supporting character' or more forthright personna, of the auction's 'winner' in an upcoming comic strip by the author/cartoonist, to appear sometime before the end of 2008 in serial (probably newspaper) form, and later to be reprinted in collected form at an unspecified, and probably quite alarmingly later, date." And Douglas Preston is offering: "Want to get killed? The winning bidder's name will be immortalized as a character who dies or is murdered in my next novel, to be published in 2008. The name you choose cannot be my name or the name of any character in a previous novel. I'll need to have written permission to use the name. I'd be happy to discuss with the winning bidder my plans for the hideous death of the character in question, and I'm always willing to listen to any ideas, although naturally the final decision as to the character and his or her fate will be my own. A signed first edition copy of the published book is part of the deal."
Excellent idea. Advertising could do something like this. We use fictional names all the time in ads and stuff.
Via Neil Gaiman, who explains the genesis of the whole thing here.
the distributed village meets
Splendid coffee morning today. Lots of people turned up. Fresh faces. Lively chat. We had Paul and Richard
Paul, Mark and special guest appearance from Distinguised Gentlemen Journalist Graham (behind the flowers).
Martin and Gemma (on a quick visit from Leeds).
Eva (visiting from New York) and Ollie (just started at Grey).
Ollie again. And Alex. Who's convinced he never looks good in photos. But this isn't too bad.
Henry. Late, but not as late as usual.
Last, but not least, Mr John Grant. And my mate Richard, who escaped being photographed.
I've a feeling I've missed someone. Have I? Sorry if I have. Thanks to everyone for coming. It was a top coffee morning(TM). Good chat. Nice toast. I was especially cheered by the look of anguish and frustration on Paul's face when he talked about building Let's See What Happens.
Let's do it again next week. Same Bat time. Same Bat channel.
jason's on a roll
Jason's just written a bunch of great stuff: Why don't agencies blog? A great find on Comedy Soup. Some failure. Hurrah.