I got bored and thought i'd repair this beautiful old chair with the only thing i had around which was some cable, also salvaged form the yard. Im thinking of keeping it outside- wood and plastic seem to make good garden furniture. Also featured in this blog is another great piece of design: the tube bench, created out of necessity it is pretty much everything that a bench (and possibly design) should be. Made out of what was lying around and simple as fuck: want a bigger bench, get a bigger tube.
The Philosophy of the Overlooked: Collecting
I attended a talk at the ICA about collecting- something I'm pretty interested in and fancy doing a project around, especially after this talk. It started out with a film - 'possessed'- by an ex- Goldsmiths guy about hoarding which was fascinating and thought provoking. There were loads of interesting thoughts and quotes which could start projects off. My favourite however were as follows: Mike Presdee, a cultural criminologist and lecturer spoke about how rather that being pathological, collecting was ore transgressive. A collector abstracts an object from it 's intended purpose and almost fetishises it: a stamp collector does not intend to post letters. A collector interrupts the consume, throw, buy cycle by hanging on to the item of collection. Another interesting thought was raised by John Sellers, a philosophy lecture. He put the collector in a Venn diagram - between the hoarder, who harboured an uncontrollable need and desire to have and keep items, and the museum curator who orders, arranges, organizes and acquires through an intellectual interest.
Something else which interests me is the criteria and conditions for something joining a collection.
I hope to do more with this so watch this space i guess.
[re]design
I've finished the first installment of my time with [re]design. It was great- i picked up my pace i think and it was great to get out some 'real' projects. http://www.redesigndesign.org/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=413&Itemid=999
This is a link to their website which shows parts of the identity i created for their upcoming exhibition 'lighten up'.
Slow Design or something..
So i was watching Ray Mears, as you do, but it was different to normal- he pretty much spent the entire time making this canoe from scratch with this first generation Canadian guy. They took about 5 days to make the canoe out of bark, split cedar and spruce roots. Apart from getting some cool ideas about using bark and laminating wood without a former i was interested in the emotional connection which got established with the thing. Every piece was hand crafted and- every notch and split was done by the guy who was going to use it. Every aspect was custom to the makers body, the height, width and all the measurements were deliberated over, checked against what the paddlers oar strokes would be and then decided upon by eye and hand measured templates. The process meant that if any part broke or needed repair then the paddler could maintain his canoe. Another couple of interesting things that Ray talked about were that hand crafting everything meant that nothing was wasted, and that because it he'd made it he felt an immense satisfaction paddling it and it felt right. One of the old 'canoe masters' said 'you end up loving your canoe'.
Chair
At a [re]design interview i was given the book from their award winning exhibition 'sit-up' which was nice of them. It had loads of sweet sustainable chairs- everyone should check out grownup stool by Chris Cattle http://www.grown-furniture.co.uk/- but a piece by Lou Rota (http://www.lourota.com/) reminded me of the spare maps i had stashed and the polypropolene chairs which were hanging around outside.
Old Vs. New
Hot Off The Press (well ish)
The new smiths magazine is out courtesy of the stoopdice crew. Pretty flouro spot colour, left in mistakes (some not so intentional) and some fucking hideous text on an american state shaped path make up the latest issue. Grab one now.
Hang on...
Actually there was one embarrassing moment, right at the end of the interview where he asked me who my favourite graphic designers were and i somehow clammed up and said erm erm erm you, and erm erm erm Build... and i couldn't think of anymore. So i had a think and thought i should post a list or images or something to remind myself of the awesome stuff i like. I dont think i have favourite graphic designers more like favourite projects and some favourite projects are by the same company or person because i have three favourite design projects- only one of which i graphics. I dunno- here's the list. (not extensive- enough for say when someone asks you in and interview) (of graphic designers and projects) (in no order) Stefan Sagmeister, particularly the Anni Kuan project http://www.sagmeister.com/work2.html
Build http://wearebuild.com/
The book A B Z more alphabets and other signs 
Bibliothèque http://www.bibliothequedesign.com/
This old map of bus routes around Brighton
Buro Destruct, particularly the BBD Designer screensaver http://www.burodestruct.net/bureaudestruct/bddesigner/index.html
Spin http://www.spin.co.uk/
Iwant, particularly the Youssou N'dour sampler and Tracey Thorn Project http://www.iwantdesign.com/iwant2007.html
Non-Format http://www.non-format.com/
This poster for Iceland supermarkets
Bibliothèque Interview
I managed to score an interview at Bibliothèque yesterday which was awesome. But the interview didn't go so well, the guy who was interviewing me was Mason Wells i think. This blog isn't any kind of get back at him, or argument or anything it's just supposed to help me clarify my thoughts- he gave me a lot to think about and i felt like it required or deserved some sort of response. He was this incredibly rigorous and pretty intense graphics guy and he wasn't really into some of the projects in my portfolio, mostly the goldsmiths stuff- he didn't like the lack of a clear logic and seemed to want everything to be graphics- i.e. he couldn't see why for a wayfinding project i hadn't designed a graphical system of signs. Which i guess is his thing but from my point of view Goldsmiths would have probably kicked my ass for designing 'just' a graphic system- it's just not quite what they're about. Another thing seemed to be the lack of application or clear problem solving nature of some of the projects which i would argue was partly to do with the briefs set. He pulled me up on some of my typography too which i hadn't even seen- he had a mad graphics eye- and i mentioned that it was hard to get better when i didn't really have that kind of tutoring- (i.e. please give me a placement and I'll learn!!!) but he suggested that maybe i might want to change courses- which seemed at the crux of the difference between his way of doing things and my portfolio- i like being at goldsmiths and i like doing loads of things which aren't graphics, as Victor Papanek points out- the best way to survive change and also be the most rounded designer you can is to be a generalist. I'm not saying I'm a jack of all trades master of none but i think i might not be specialist enough for the Bibliothèque school of design. The whole interview made me really be self critical and i think I've come up with some responses to Mason's criticism: my work needs to be more clear and logical- i realised that my projects get way too complicated and the ones which are the best i can describe fully and succinctly in a paragraph- i need to have more projects in this vain. I want to keep being a 'generalist' especially for now when I'm learning all the things that are going to keep me afloat for the next few years or so, but i do want to get better at typography and do more graphic design that's relevant and logical and ... I want to have better conclusions to my work- research is great but conclude it somehow- and if a project has an outcome go all the way with it- to work through a problem more thoroughly and to not have to finish half way because of time- work simpler and faster- get less concept heavy where i don't need to be and to know when to stop thinking, and i guess to know when to stop doing and take a look at how i might progress a project.
All in all it was a good experience and i don't think i embarrassed myself at all, and meeting with Mason and seeing how clear and passionate he was has made me want to work for them all the more. We'll see how the summer and next year turn out i guess.