Please note: This post may be temporary if it messes up the page for a lot of people.

A little interactive exercise. It would help me to know which of these arrows you can see in its entirety without it impinging on the sidebars of the blog. If you can see all of all of the arrows, write ‘width 4′. If you can see width 2, but not width 3, write ‘width 2′. It would also be interesting to know if it messes up the page. If it does it would be useful to know which browser you are using. In the event of many reports of messed-up pages this post will be short-lived.

All clear? Go!

P. S. Thank you. This is to help me work on the design of my site.

P. P. S. This is not a competition and there are no winners and no prizes. In the event of a tie the Judges’ decision is final.

Interesting supplementary fact: I have found that if you say the word ‘width’ repeatedly it (a) becomes nonsensical, and (b) you sound like an idiot.

Posted by Dave at 10:18 pm on September 22, 2010 and filed under Design, Technical.

97 Comments

It seems to be fashionable to be against the Olympic Logo, so I am going to be for it.

One reason is that I was once rude about a logo I had seen, and then discovered that the person I was talking to was the person who designed it. I was mortified and have not yet really recovered (I wore sackcloth for a while, but now just prefer to wear a t-shirt with an abrasive label on the collar). Just in case I meet the designer of the Olympic Logo at Tescos whilst pondering the chilled Indian ready meals I am going to say I quite like it.

I suspect the reason that most people do not like this logo is that we have come to expect logos to be boring and corporate. We are so used to seeing the bland and ‘safe’ logos of multinational companies that we have come to think that that bland and safe equals good. This logo is not boring, which to my mind a good thing. Of course everyone thinks they can do better – lots of people have spent twenty minutes on their computer designing a logo and sent them into the BBC, but the results look like designs done by people who have done them in twenty minutes on their computers.

One thing that needs to be borne in mind is that this is not a static logo, but rather an animated one. In five years time of course everything will be animated – adverts, t-shirts, even the labels on chilled Indian ready meals, so there is no point designing a logo that is not animated. You need to watch the video to see the whole animated sort of aspect.

Of course it has not gone down well with the newspapers, though it should be noted that the same tabloids who have poured scorn upon the design have been very happy to receive a large cheque from Lloyd’s bank to display a full page advert with the logo at its centrepiece.

Other Pro-logoers:

prblogger.com » Blog Archive » I like it
Byrne Baby Byrne » London 2012
gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": 2012 olympic "brand launch"
The Rosemont Loving: Where is the love?

Update:
John’s point about the Olympics taking funding away from worthwhile projects is one that needs to be heard.

In other news, Radio 5 just phoned me and wanted me to be on their show defending the logo. I declined because my thoughts are jumbled and not well thought out. Also they wanted me to defend the £400 000, which I cannot do. Hopefully they found someone else – the piece is on at about 11 o clock.

Posted by Dave at 4:26 pm on June 5, 2007 and filed under Current events, Design.

28 Comments

Yesterday we went to see the exhibition of Alan Fletcher’s work at the Design Museum in London (This is Alan Fletcher the designer, not Alan Fletcher the Dr Karl Kennedy of ‘Neighbours’).

I find Alan Fletcher’s work inspiring and have done for a number of years since being directed to ‘the Art of Looking Sideways‘.

This sort of exhibition reminds me that I enjoy making notes and doodles in notebooks.

The exhibition ends this weekend, so go now if you have the opportunity and like design-related things. It costs £7, but if you go on the train you can take advantage of the 2 for 1 offers they do on going to London attractions by train. If you can’t get there then Flickr has quite a few images posted by people who have been.

Other people who have been: jonnybaker / Babble Babble Babble

Posted by Dave at 12:04 pm on February 14, 2007 and filed under Art, Design.

5 Comments

It is important when writing a weblog to write about the things that people are interested in. I have had a look at the search engines queries that people have used to find this website and have discoved that in January two people have typed in bedside tables free download. There is obviously a need out there for bedside tables that can be downloaded from the internet, or failing that instructions on how to make bedside tables. I have therefore produced the following worksheet:

[Click on the image to see it from a closer vantage point]

You can download a large printable version here (right click on link and choose ‘save as’ or something).

I must warn you that it is not very good. To be honest I do not know very much about making bedside tables, but it is what the public wants and if I was to stick to things I know a lot about then I would not write or draw very often. Also I did it in 5 minutes and did not take much care.

Feel free to print out and republish this worksheet. Please resist the temptation to sell it to someone.

Posted by Dave at 7:52 pm on January 14, 2007 and filed under Design, Household hints, Technical, Utter nonsense, Worksheets.

3 Comments

Here’s a fantastic link for a Saturday: The Rudiments of Wisdom Cartoon Encyclopedia by Tim Hunkin.

Tim has undertaken all manner of other wierd and wonderful projects, details of which can be found on his website. Don’t miss the eccentric arcade machines on Southwold pier.

Thanks to Russell who has also posted a few links to videos and things.

Posted by Dave at 12:02 pm on January 13, 2007 and filed under Art, Cartooning, Design.

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I have back pain. I am going to take a multi-pronged and many-faceted approach by getting a new office chair and also seeing whether I can think of any other ways to improve matters.

At the moment I sit on a wooden chair all day as it hurts my back less than the more conventional office chair that we have. The office chair now lives in the second bedroom. A lot of things live in the second bedroom.

I have done some looking in the Viking and Staples catalogues and have decided that an ‘operators chair’ is what I need. There is something called a ‘typists chair’ which does not look advanced enough. Then there is something called an ‘executive chair’ which sounds very important and executive and looks very comfortable but actually cannot be adjusted in many of the directions one might want to adjust things.

The problem comes when one wants to buy one. I went to Staples and tried sitting in a few of the chairs but they all seemed either too basic or too expensive and there were no sales people there to advise on the ins and outs of the ups and downs etc. I am also confused by some of the jargon. Some chairs offer ‘lumbar support’ as a feature. Is an unsupported lumbar my problem? Probably, but I don’t know. There are some that can be adjusted in any direction, but do I really need the seat to be able to go forwards and backwards as well as up and down? I don’t know. The other problem with Staples is that they do not advise on which chairs are suitable for ‘intensive use’, which is something the Viking catalogue does do. But the problem with Viking is that you cannot try before you buy which I think is probably important.

If anyone can advise I would be grateful. I do not mind spending some money on a good chair, but I do not want to waste money on features that are not essential to the wellbeing of my lumbar. What do you sit on all day anyway? Feel free to send make and model numbers, photographs, tales of chairs of yesteryear… Anything really.

Posted by Dave at 12:08 pm on January 12, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Design.

31 Comments

This morning I received this letter and also a very similar one asking for information about flat pack calendars.

When I was young I remember writing off to various people asking for information or samples. There was a ‘beer mat’ collecting craze when I was at primary school and we all used to write to the different breweries asking for samples and they used to reply with a brown envelope containing a selection of beer mats. Some people managed to get bar towels sent to them as well, but my letters were obviously not interesting enough to warrant such generosity. The real winners were classmates whose parents could bring back beermats from far-flung exotic locations which of course the rest of us could never match. I don’t think we really knew what beer was in those days, let alone a beer mat, but it was a fun craze for the few months it lasted. Such a hobby probably wouldn’t be allowed these days of course.

Anyway, I have now reached the stage in life where I am the sort of respectable businessman to whom children write when they want to gain new wisdom (the fact that it is only because I have a good Google ranking for the term ‘flat pack calendars‘ is neither here nor there). I feel an obligation to write back with useful information which will reward their intrepid letter writing. Therefore I feel the need to draft some fully working blueprints for a 3D flat pack calendar – I might as well kill both the ’3D’ and ‘flat pack’ birds with one stone after all. If anyone has any ideas of how to make such a thing then I would be pleased to hear them. Remember that this is a year 10 project not a primary school one, so it will need advanced features, moving mechanisms etc.

I’d ask readers not to send me letters written with their left hand pretending to be children asking how to make a fully functioning tv/dvd player using discarded food packaging and the leftover bits and pieces you get when you have constructed an item of Ikea furniture. I would not find that funny at all.

Posted by Dave at 10:38 am on January 10, 2007 and filed under Design, Letters.

7 Comments

Howies is a company making “Environmentally conscious casual clothing and sportswear designed for bikers, skateboarders and snowboarders“. They’ve recently announced that they are being taken over by Timberland, who make boots and things.

Joe (who runs the Freedom Clothing Project who did some of the Greenbelt t-shirts this year among other things) isn’t impressed:

Next time you walk down the high street wearing your ethical ‘I spend £35 on a t-shirt’ t-shirt, munching your ethical Fruit ‘n’ Nut, and wafting unsuspecting passers-by with the smell of your Community Traded Strawberry Cheesecake face cream, ask yourself who benefited from the radicalness being surgically removed from your radical product.

Posted by Dave at 8:40 am on December 5, 2006 and filed under Current events, Design.

5 Comments

I was pleased to discover that British Railways are putting poetry on the site of their cups. I particularly enjoyed this beverage-related piece entitled ‘O Coffee, O Tea’.

The text in full:

O Coffee
O Tea
O Espresso
O Caffe Latte
O Macchiatto
O Cappuccino
O Hot Chocolate

Quite beautiful. Moving almost.

Posted by Dave at 10:46 am on November 8, 2006 and filed under Design, Utter nonsense.

6 Comments

Admired by Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller and Saul Bass, Sister Corita Kent (1918-1986) was one of the most innovative and unusual pop artists of the 1960s, battling the political and religious establishments, revolutionising graphic design and encouraging the creativity of thousands of people – all while living and practicing as a Catholic nun in California.

So says the Guardian on a slide show page about an Exhibition of Sister Corina’s work currently showing in London. The official site has more examples of her work, and there is a new book of her work published by Four Corners Books – more about the book, ‘Come Alive! The Spirited Art Of Sister
Corita’ can be found on their site. Thanks to Richard Embray of Four Corners Books for the image used in this post.

Posted by Dave at 3:46 pm on October 30, 2006 and filed under Art, Books, Design, Ecumenical matters.

5 Comments

Today I am taking a break from my prolonged and detailed commentary on Anglican goings-on to return to the in-depth analysis which is the bread and butter of this internet column.

The subject for today’s essay: toothbrushes.

I am aware that many of you now use electric toothbrushes. I still use a manual model for the following reasons:

Firstly, as the years roll on one begins to realise that one needs all the excercise one can get. For Steve Tomkins this is cycling, for me it is brushing my teeth. This is partly because I cannot cycle as we have lost the garage key. It possibly went out with the recycling, but to be honest we do not really know. I am therefore unable to use my bicycle until we get around to writing a nice letter to the recycling people at the council asking whether they can have a bit of a rummage through the last few weeks’ collections and have a look for the key.

Secondly, I am of the opinion that the planet cannot support six billion electric toothbrushes. If we all used them at once a fuse somewhere would blow and the whole electricity infrastructure would collapse and civilisation with it. Having staggered bedtimes owing to the international dateline etc helps but it does not solve the problem.

The modern toothbrush is a wonder and a marvel. It is now impossible to sell a toothbrush to the masses unless it comes with at least ten ‘features’, samples of which are shown in the diagram above. It might seem at first glance that a lot of the features don’t really have any purpose. But that is not so my friend. Take the zig-zaggy flexistem for instance. The purpose of this is to collect toothbrushing gunk (Sorry – should have said – don’t read this while eating) so that after about two or three weeks one is reminded by the concentration of accumulated… matter… that one should renew ones toothbrush. Genius.

I do have to say though that I’m not a great fan of the bit that you are supposed to rub on your tongue. I tried it and it made me want to… no, you might be eating.

So, where do toothbrushes go from here? I’m hoping that toothbrush manufacturers will be tuning in to read this weblog entry, so do feel free to write your suggestions for new features in the comments.

Please brush your teeth twice daily, and if you only have one garage key get another one cut. Do it now.

Posted by Dave at 10:02 am on June 21, 2006 and filed under Cartoons, Design, In-depth analysis.

10 Comments

Tim posted this great site in the comments. It shows monthly examples of poorly designed Cycle lanes, cycle paths and cycle routes. Amusing, but beware, you can waste a bit of time looking at them all. I should know.

I have to say I’m not sure whether cycle lanes are a good idea. The roads here in Essex generally feel very unsafe for cycling because of the traffic, but I’m not sure that cycle lanes are the answer. One useful thing that could be done is to slow cars down a bit. The speed limit is 30mph around Rayleigh, but I rarely* see anyone going less than 40. I have never seen any police checking speeds in Essex as far as I can recall. I think speed limits in urban areas should generally be reduced to 20mph and transgressors should undergo some sort of embarrasing forfeit, but I haven’t decided what exactly. I am serious about the 20mph though.

I haven’t got time to tell you about my bicycle as it is nearly lunchtime, but I will soon.

*Exaggeration.

Posted by Dave at 1:24 pm on March 21, 2006 and filed under Cycling, Design, Essex Life, Transport.

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