davidthedesigner

this made me smile #149

Sculpture to be seen from Mars by Isamu Noguchi.

This in fact is a perfect illustration of a tale from the long tail, for it was my guest poster Elle who first introduced us to Isamu Noguchi in September 2008. That post was picked up by our good French friend Loïc, who, with Elle's help with pictures, did a feature on Noguchi's Moerenuma Park in his Cligne Cligne Magazine. Then I happened to pick up in my statistics a link-back from The Republic of Less, which told us a whole lot more about Noguchi (with lots of useful links), and introduced us to the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York. And that post leads on to this report of a visit to the said museum by Visualingual.

You see, this is why blogging is a good idea. You should try it sometime.

cow bombs, anyone?

The cow bomb from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Here's one for all you wrinklies out there - although, as you'll see from the picture, it's a bit of a long shot. It's doubtful that you read all of the comments on here, especially on posts that go back four years. So you've probably missed the one from Richard Webber last week about bombs made from Cow Gum. He's compiling a memoir about his dad, Bill Webber, who was a designer and apparently told tales of making 'Cow Bombs'. I must admit, I've never heard of such things. If you have though, let me know, and I'll pass on the information to Richard.

tales from the long tail: the french connection

One of the drawbacks of being English is that we don't really understand the French: and when it comes to Loïc at Bureau l'Imprimante, both Ben and Richard are equally as mystified as I am. But that is our loss, since Loïc is a good friend to us - even though he may seem to move in mysterious ways. We must remember, though, that if we didn't blog then we probably wouldn't know Loïc at all - which would be our loss.

So now let me give you a little demonstration of how the long tail works: getting on for a couple of years ago I took a two-week break from blogging, but I set up a crack team of fellow designers to cover in my absence. One of whom was Elle, who posted about Moerenuma Park and Isamu Noguchi, amongst other things. Fast forward to this year and Loïc emailed me to say that he was setting up a new webzine and he wanted to do a feature on Moerenuma Park. So I put Loïc in touch with Elle and the result is this.

Which is just one reason why blogging is a good thing.

tales from the long tail: "owzthat"

The thing that fascinates be about blogging is just how networks can grow and develop over an extended period of time. Which is why I keep on doing it, I suppose. And I'm never quite sure which posts you lot out there will respond to - unless I manage to get a Twitter recommendation from David Airey, and then the visitor numbers go through the roof (thanks David).

Now I'm assuming that most of you won't have been reading this blog from the very beginning, so let me explain that this connection goes back almost to the beginning, when I recounted the story behind the design of the National Theatre logo (the one above, which seems to be hanging on in some form of half life - even if it's only as a favicon). And that tale put me back in touch with Ian Dennis - one of my old work colleagues from the days I spent in Hampstead. Which led to Ian becoming the first guest poster on here.

Anyway, jump forward by two and a half years, and Ian has now been bitten by the bug and has started his own blog.

And the 40-year story that will emerge from the typecase should prove to be a fascinating one.

tales from the long tail: ace jets and cow gum

So I've been blogging now for three and a half years, and I've got a little series for this week which reflects back on the connections that I've made, via blogging, during that time.

First up is Richard, over at AceJet 170. For this morning I've found a lot of visitors making their way to this spot via Grafik magazine (and a very warm welcome if you happen to be one of them): because Richard has told Grafik's Caroline Roberts that he kind of leans to me on a regular basis. Which is nice.

Actually, this is what Richard says about blogging: "The best thing is the comments and the connections you make. I've had access to all sorts of people I might have otherwise felt were out of my reach." I couldn't agree more, Richard.

 

And, for me, one of the totally unexpected means of connection is Cow Gum. All because of a little post I made way back in 2007. Which means that if you now do a web search for Cow Gum, chances are you'll end up here. Which is nice as well: because that brings me all sorts of unexpected connections. Kim is the latest of those, and she's in desperate need of one of those white plastic Cow Gum spreaders that we all used to use. Her's has almost had it, apparently - and she uses it every day (although she doesn't say what for).

Anyway, if you have a Cow Gum spreader that you can spare, or if you know where Kim can get hold of one, either leave a comment down below, or email Kim at joaniejoanie (at) mac.com. Oh, and Kim tells me that she's in the UK.

Thanks.