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02.07.09
Nigaz with attitude
A colleague send us this link to this story about Russian energy giant Gazprom’s latest venture in Nigeria. We’re continually creating names ourselves for projects, and one of the great paranoia’s is that that the name that you’ve dreamed up, and the client loves, falls over ‘in legal’ or translation because it means something ridiculous in another language. The classic of course is the Vauxhall Nova, which didn’t really work in Spain, given that ‘no va’ translates as ‘doesn’t go’. Ooops. But we’re wondering if Gazprom were really concentrating that hard when they decided to call their Nigerian venture Nigaz?
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29.06.09
Everyone starts somewhere
There’s rather entertaining mini-exhibition that D&AD have put together where a host of well known designers and ad-men have dug out slightly dodgy early work, with accompanying captions. It’s called Everyone starts somewhere and is on show at New Blood this week, or online here. Johnson banks’ Michael Johnson was asked to find something early and embarassing from the back on his plan chest: here’s an over-worked agency brochure from the late 80s, followed by some choice exampes from other designers. 
Michael Johnson Prior to working at Sedley Place I had been out of England for a couple of years, and returned to a design community in the thrall of the new typography from the likes of the Why Nots and Octavo. I fancied myself as an expressive typographer too, and set about turning what should have been a straightforward brochure into a typo-tour-de-force. Only snag was this was pre-computer and every page had to be meticulously hand rendered, then typeset, then re-rendered and re-set. It took four months, and eventually Sedley Place fired me. Can’t blame them really, in retrospect. 
Mark Farrow This was my first sleeve for Factory Records. I used to work in a really cool record shop on a Saturday. Everybody involved in the Manchester music scene bought their records or just hung out there, seven-inch singles covered every inch of wall space, it was an inspiration in itself. I became friends with the boys who eventually became the Stockholm Monsters so it was natural for them to ask me to design their sleeve when they signed to Factory. At last a Factory Records sleeve, I cannot explain how much I wanted to design one. The type came from an old book I found in the studio where I was a junior in my day job. There wasn’t an entire alphabet but there were all the characters I needed. Much photocopying and paste up followed, then it was down to Granada studios to nervously present my idea to Tony Wilson. I told him I couldn’t decide which colour I preferred, he suggested I do both, how very Factory. I’ve kind of expected that attitude of every client I have had since. 
Nick Bell Inspired by the Dutch graphic design of the time, this overwrought theatre poster was my very first commission on going it alone after a year working for Siobhan Keaney in 1988. Without a budget, I shot the image myself using the flat of a friend (Howard Milton’s sister) whom I used to cat-sit for in Battersea. The limited wide-angle on my lens meant I was balanced precariously on top of a stepladder. The name of the playwright ‘Yeats’ on a piece of board was wired to the tripod (also on top of the step-ladder) and reflected into the lens by a small vanity mirror I was holding close to the camera – it also reflected in the venetian blinds. Photoshop children don’t know they are born! The model was one of my flatmates – we shared a dilapidated hovel in post-boom busted south London. 
Simon Waterfall When I should have been eating sweets and cutting class to go down the Arcades in Brighton, me and my bezzer mate started a Computer Games company, called Silicon Genetic Ltd. It sounded important and professional but this was an age when everyone worked out of their garage and bedrooms, swapping “tapes” in the playground and buying magazines each month for any tips on how to make these plastic boxes work. We played and later programmed games for Commodore 64 and Amiga, they were the most expensive things we had ever owned and treated them like altars where we would over time, sacrifice our social skills, childhood and skin complexion. We had lunch meetings in the Grand Hotel in our school uniforms and eventually had an office with about nine staff, this is one of the rare few games we made that actually went to market, and one of the few that sold! We were sixteen.
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24.06.09
More than half is wasted
There’s that infamous quote attributed to everyone and anyone about ‘half my advertising is wasted but I don’t know which half’...* Long and tedious train journeys this week revealed that perhaps more than half is wasted when it comes to underground adverts. Of course when you’re stuck on a platform you’ll often read the large posters facing (or cross-tracks as they’re known). But when you’re inside a carriage, you can’t see them, so you don’t. Travelling to and from Clapham Common this week we noticed at one stop how perfectly the Kennington sign sat framed in the window of the carriage. Then it occurred - look around and the symbols are placed exactly at the height to be easily read through carriage windows, about a third of the way up the wall, so customers know which stop they’ve reached. Logical really, and just something you take for granted. 
Now try to read an ad through the window and what do you see? Er, ‘borghini?’. 
Maybe some trainers? 
Or some orange flowers? 
Turns out that ‘borghini’ was actually part of an ad for Englsih newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, the trainers were Skechers and the Orange flowers were actually Easyjet. My point is, of course, that advertisers could probably get way more bangs for their bucks if they placed important information, websites, logos et al about a third of the way up their poster. Of course that doesn’t correspond with most agencies’ view of where a logo should go (usually a happy variant on that familiar art direction theme, ‘buried in the bottom corner’). Here’s an example from our travels. Quite a nice ad for MBT trainers, logo bottom right. Ad ignored inside carriage. 
Of course what these ads would look like logos, URLs and end-lines hovering halfway up the poster remains to be seen. But at least they would be seen. * Usually attributed to Willam Lever, as in Lever brothers: ‘Half my advertising money is wasted. The problem is that I don't know which half!’
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19.06.09
Piece of cake
In April we mentioned an odd project that fell out of this year’s Design Auction, when young design company Teacake offered their design services for free on a project of the bidder’s choice, a lot that drew the attention of the marketing team at Land Securities.
We offered to show the final product here on Thought for the Week, so as promised, here we are, with a few of the original ideas for good measure. The brief was for a poster set for the Land Securities environmental conference, themed ‘Past, Present and Future’. Some of Teacake’s early ideas covered these kind of themes... 
...then an idea based on traffic lights emerged as the design dark horse, especially when coupled with the idea of printing the posters together, pre-perforated for easy separation. 
The idea that won through was of a building block image set that hinted at the theme in the way the images modulated (the ‘future’ poster is at the top of this post). 
Land Securities client Tom Foulkes seems upbeat about the process - ‘it wasn’t the easiest of projects - lots of stakeholders, from varying backgrounds with various vested interests’. He admits that he wanted to use the traffic lights idea- ‘I thought that the perforations and running all three posters together was a really interesting idea and helped to reinforce the 'traffic light' concept. I thought the graphical route of past, present and future was a little safe but still very nice. I think the route we chose was excellent and has created three stunning posters.’ So, there you go. Well done Teacake, and all from a random bit of bidding at a student auction. When we heard about the lot we heard a few alarm bells and wondered what could possibly happen, but actually it seems to have had a happy ending.
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16.06.09
Behind the seen
Stroll down London’s Dover Street and this rather imposing chap will stare out at you from the window of Philip Mould’s Gallery. If you’re a regular Antiques Roadshow viewer (and more people watch it than they might admit), Mould himself is a regular expert providing on-the-spot provenance, insight, yarns, and yes valuations too. Anyway, go inside the gallery (if they’ll let you in - pretend you’re loaded) and this imposing painting of Sir John Conroy by Henry Pickersgill, RA (1782-1875) reveals its other side - the most incredible ‘back’ which describes in meticulous detail Conroy’s life, his decorations, how many portraits like this existed (three) and that this one was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837. 
A judicious trawl on the Philip Mould website reveals that Conroy himself exerted substantial control over the young Queen Victoria - ‘Victoria was never allowed to be alone, had to sleep in her mother’s bedroom, and was restricted to specially selected visitors. Conroy’s power was such that William IV called him ‘King John’.’ 
You don't see the backs of priceless oil paintings that often - this is worth the visit for the stories told alone. This is what the painting really looks like. 
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