by admin on August 16, 2011
A strange thing to see aspects of your back catalogue re-surfacing out of context. Metronomy’s take on The English Riviera lifts not only the collective name given to the three resorts of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham – something we helped re-introduce through an overhaul of their marketing and advertising through Travis Dale many, many years ago. But it also lifts, wholesale, the palm tree branding device used in all the award-winning advertising we produced for the resort. A sample from the series produced over many years appears below.
by admin on June 24, 2011
Richard Seymour gave a truly inspiring talk at Designer Breakfasts on the 24th June in BBH’s Kingly Street offices.
The central theme was based on the thought that a designer has a special responsibility, and ability, to reveal the truth. The clue was wrapped up in the title of the talk: ‘The Pilot’s Prayer’. The shorthand for which Richard put as “Thanks for the ability to do things other people cannot do”.
Over the course of an hour Richard revealed the truth about a host of objects, from personal vibrators to floating hotels.
In getting to the truth he proved time and again that in an increasingly technologically sophisticated world we are not limited by the technology but by our own imagination. And that even in our seemingly digital-with-everything world the truth lies more often in the analogue and is embedded in our anthropological make-up. The anthropology, he argues, never changes.
Looking for the dissonance between what people say they do and what they actually do often reveals the truth about what needs to change.
He clearly has a gift for seeing things as they are, not as we imagine them to be. And then it’s a short hop to seeing things not as they are, but as they might be.
The answers all appear blindingly obvious when the blinkers are removed. The solutions look so elegant and simple. But getting to the simple truth is anything but.
Rather dispiritingly he also explained why even the face of an obviously great idea, things sometimes don’t or won’t change. It’s not a shortage of ideas necessarily. It‘s often a lack of will to see them through to fruition. The very metabolism of an organisation can pre-dispose it to repeat its failings rather than innovate its way to a better future.
By contrast, those organisations that do rise to the challenge find that “The further they walk into the future, the less competition they have”.
It’s the first Designer Breakfast I’ve been to in a long while. But on the strength of this talk I’m determined to make it a regular event.
