davidthedesigner

a few more sheets of paper

As a follow up from my little piece about Jen Stark last week, you may have missed the comments from Lora and Elle: so let me remind you.

Lora points us towards Leo Fitzmaurice who takes excess printed material and turns it into something else entirely:

The “Cylinder” series: catalogs are also a favorite material of Leo. To him, a multi-page document multiples the enigma of a flyer’s invested time and energy, since every page had to be designed, developed, printed and distributed! Here he blocks the viewer from reading anything but the colorful patterns on the edges indexing hints for inaccessible information.

And Elle suggests we take a look at the amazing paper sculptures created by Richard Sweeney:

Icosahedron
2006

And if that wasn't enough, let me also point you towards the wonderful photography of Cara Barer:

happy birthday acejet 170

I can't let today go by without saying a big 'Happy Birthday' to AceJet 170. And, if you don't yet blog yourself, it's well worth heeding this sound advice from Richard:

"What I would like to say though is that if there's anyone reading this who's thinking about blogging but perhaps is hesitating: Hesitate no more, go for it. Blogging's ace! You learn stuff, interact with people you would otherwise never interact with, it broadens your mind and it makes you think a little more about what you're doing, although you'll probably sleep a little less too."

this made me smile #16

Parking for white cars only.

By Helmut Smits (via O.K. Blog).

a few sheets of paper and a scalpel

Give those to most people and they'd soon be reaching for the Band Aid. Give them to Jen Stark, on the other hand, and you end up with something else entirely.

Truly beautiful work at jenstark.com.

things to look at

Thanks for the resounding support following my 'half a birthday' post - and it's especially good to hear from (previously silent) newcomers Elle and Lora. If there are any more of you out there, do take the time to say hello: I won't bite (well, not unless you call me Dave). And I owe a belated apology to Richard who left a couple of comments, to which I didn't respond, while I was away in Belgium.

And now, to prove me wrong about designers not blogging, a few more have appeared over the horizon. The first comes via the other Richard: things to look at - mostly from the keypad of jaypeg. If you love type, you'll love this blog.

And you know what I always tell you when I recommend a site - don't just read the entry page, have a good rummage around the archive. There's some hidden treasure in there.

things to look at - got that?

here's the new way to do it

You may remember my posts from a little while back about 'big picture' home pages on design studio websites. And I also made reference to the 'piece of work held in somebody's hand thing' - another designer favourite. Like this in fact:

Well, here's the new way to do it:

peter saville doesn't disappoint

Portrait by William Selden via the Design Museum - I hope they don't mind.

You may have picked this up elsewhere, but there's a very interesting interview with Peter Saville over at The Scotsman. I urge you to read it - especially if you're a design student.

Now most designers have very strong views about Peter Saville - probably because he can come across as being arrogant and self-important (a view you might share if you don't get past the first two paragraphs). But I've learned in life never to judge someone unless I've actually met them - and I've never met Peter Saville, so I'll reserve my judgment until I do.

What can't be denied, though, is his influence on graphic design in the UK. Of his generation, he's up there with Neville Brody - and not very many others.

Which makes it all the more surprising that he struggles to make a decent living out of this job. Because it isn't always easy. Yes, there are very wealthy designers out there, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

"I just about break even in my earnings; I'm only just getting to the point where I'm solvent. Between 1985 and 2005, I never settled into an ad agency or a large design firm or owned a big successful design company of my own. That's why I don't have any money."

Thank you for your candour Peter.

do as we say, not as we do

Of course we all suffer from junk emails and spam. A lot of it we can't do anything about except set our filters accordingly. But it's the stuff that arrives in the in-tray that's resulted from having your email address 'harvested' that really gets up my nose. You know the sort of stuff - trying to sell you photocopiers or discount flights, or other similar rubbish that you neither want nor need. The ones that tell you in the small print at the bottom that they respect your privacy and that you've 'opted in' to their database. I have a standard response to them:

So I had a load of junk emailed to me yesterday from amstore, and I naturally responded in the usual fashion. And blow me, I got this email back:

Thank you for your e-mail.

Due to continued issues with SPAM, this address is no longer valid.

Please contact our sales team on:

sales@amstore.co.uk or call on 020 7232 5820.

Best regards

Amstore Team

Thanks a bunch sales@amstore.co.uk

half a birthday...

...is better than none.

Today, dear readers, marks the half way point along the road to this blog's first birthday. And what an interesting six months it's been. I started on the spur of a moment and with no grand strategy, but with the determined intention that - if I was going to make it work - I had to make at least one post every working day of the week. It's not always been easy, either because I've been chasing work deadlines or I've simply run out of inspiration, but I have at least managed to stick to that (except on my brief sojourns to Wales and Belgium).

It's usual form on these occasions to start quoting statistics at you (because the down side to blogging is the tendency to develop an unhealthy interest in checking stats and referrers). So I'm not going to do that, but I will tell you that this will be my 149th post and that, on average, I get two comments on every post I make. Which is the thing that makes it all so worthwhile, at least to this point - the participation from my readers. So, thank you for making me feel welcome here.

Not that I can predict what will prove comment-worthy. I sometimes spend days or weeks worrying about whether I should post on a particular topic (especially when it involves criticism), only to be greeted with a wall of silence. And then something flippant will generate interesting comments from out of nowhere. I was tempted to post a complete list of everyone who's ever commented here - but, hey, that would mean a lot of hard work on my part, and is it really worth it? You know who you are. And thank you, I really appreciate your participation.

Now the first comment I ever had was from Ben (closely followed by Richard, by the way). And, quite by coincidence, I find myself namechecked on Ben's blog this morning. There's a beautiful sort of symmetry about that which all designers will appreciate (note to Ben: it's the blog equivalent of well-centered text). But it seems to me that Ben, Richard and I are 'brothers in arms', since - as UK-based designers and bloggers - we do seem to be pretty thin on the ground (and I mean bloggers in the true sense of keeping a personal on-line diary of what we see, do or think)*. And I wonder why there aren't more of us doing this? And why there seems to be nobody of my generation (maybe they've all retired and taken up painting by now)? Or where the students or new graduates are (maybe they're all over on MySpace, Facebook or Bebo)?

*There are exceptions to this rule, of course, so special mention also goes to David Airey, dgthekneelo and Andrew. And the excellent referral blog Serif.

So if you're reading this and wondering whether to start, just jump in and do it - you'll be very welcome. Stick at it for the next six months and you may even get an invite to a big birthday bash on the 22 November.

the dead artist needs your link

But first of all you need to read about this man:

and the worst Sunday he's ever had.

To which Marcus responded with:

At the beginning of April 2007, just when things were going good for “it could get worse” and “sacrum”, Marcus killed off both these blog personalities in order to create “The Dead Artist” a project he has started in order to raise money for charity by selling “the mountain rescue painting” he painted for Paul Colman at “life in the middle”. So he is now, officially, dead – and as far as the blogosphere is concerned; a ghost. “The Dead Artist” project will be the main focus of his blog work.

And all you need to do is link to The Dead Artist.

Is that clear?