Surreal Kid Song

I don't know what to say about this. I don't respond to it on any kind of intellectual level. I will say that I love it. Oh, ok, cerebral kicks in - I like it better than the Cadbury commercial discussed below. Picking it as a web phenomenon.

Should raise an eyebrow or two.

According to Faris Yakob, if you want to make the kind of movies (for brands) the Internet likes, this is the recipe:

Leave out all that stuff about the product. As much as you can anyway.

Make people feel something nice, link that association to your brand.

Give people things to copy, or respond to, or play with.

Don't take yourself or your brand too seriously.

Ok, I guess if your brand is Cadbury, you have 100% understanding of what your brand is, you have 100% distribution you can get away with it. Oh, and if you share the colour purple with Alice Walker/Whoopi Goldberg - and millions of dollars/euros to spend on media (and PR). But other than that I'm not sure the theory will apply to many brands in the real world.

Not sure it has the charm of the Gorilla ad either. Music lacks iconic charm. Talent not furry enough. Gag not especially funny (seems like something from America's Funniest Home Videos).

I'm backing Relevent, Distinctive and Competitive...there's a recession, haven't you heard?

Via Talent Imitates Genius Steals

Do vegetarians have better sex - where's the beef?

This ad for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals claims that 'studies show' Vegetarians have 'better sex'. The ad was banned from the Superbowl slot it was supposedly intended for, but I'll come to that in a minute.

I have a question: What constitutes 'better sex'? Better than what? Yesterday? Better technique? Successful impregnation of the female? Climax of female? Climax of male? Male and female - simultaneously. Too many variables.

Implied in the commercial is that sex with a vegetable is 'better' sex. On that point I might require some convincing. In vege-sexual terms 'giving head' seems to mean fully embracing the cabbage, broccoli or lettuce. So, ...unpersuaded on that point.

As for the rampant claim 'Studies Show...' I am afraid I'd ban it or the use of this term alone. I never trust anyone who refers to research without actually referring to the data. If any of my students claimed such a thing without corroborative fact they would be screwed when it came to assessment.

The truth about the PETA ad is that it was never intended to run in the SuperBowl. It was designed not to run. The refusal by the network then becomes the stuff of righteous indignation. The only problem with the self righteous is that simply get it wrong. PETA can't persuade me to be more ethical in my treatment of animals with a 'you should because we say so' approach. Oh, and I doubt PETA could afford the spot on the prime of prime time.

As for vegetarians having better sex? I shall have to research that one further.

By way of 'compare and contrast' here is a virtually identical execution for the equal and opposite:

Obama Prezo

Obama's campaign was masterfully orchestrated. I'd really like to see an analysis of how the programme was developed and managed. I don't think any other politician in recent history has been so effective in deploying a single minded proposition - Hope for Change.

The messianic fervor surrounding the Prez is a little awkward to me. The cult of personality has never really panned out well: Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, JFK - when politicians become bromides or brands they seem to become caricatures.

The HOPE poster that caught like wildfire in the Hollywood Hills is literally both a bromide and caricature. Interesting that, in spite of all the subsequent hype around Obamas black-ness, he is portrayed as a multi-coloured identity that refers to the red white and blue, but avoids the primary colours of Old Glory. By referring to the known and stepping into the void the posterised image had a magical effect, like creating a new form of mac'n'cheese.

Within days of taking over the keys to the White House the house had a new paint job - the White House web site suddenly, after more than ten years of plain vanilla had been reconstructed in full colour.

I wonder if the promo campaign needs to be wound back now to be more presidential? It seems a little needy and slightly creepy to continue campaigning for a secured objective.

Download my novel for free

I wrote Vanishing Act Christmas last year. I've just decided to give away the download version for free.

Click here to get your copy.

Of course you can still order a copy of the physical, hardback edition.

Tell a friend, the more the merrier. Write a review and win a hard copy.

Rubber Soul

Don't watch this if you are easily offended.
A nicely executed commercial for condoms that could qualify as a product demonstration in a hard category.

Truth, Lies and Advertising

The Australian blogosphere was briefly alight with talk about 'Heidi', the girl who, supposedly had met a man in a cafe. Nothing so strange in that. But in a twist on the on the Cinderella story the mystery man left his jacket behind.

Naturally Heidi took the garment home and enlisted a friend's help to create the video above as a message to the mystery man to come claim his coat (and, undercurrent, his girl).

All a hoax by the Australian fashion retailer Witchery, who were in the process of launching a men's line. The jacket co-star turned out to be the star. Heidi even took the time to lovingly describe the jacket.

I'm in two minds about faking it. On one hand it is harmless and trivial. On the other the extent to which the ruse was carried on after it had been outed as a scam seems silly.

Can brands be built on a hoax? Well - Coca-cola have been doing it for years turning caramelised sugar water into a fantasy of togetherness and pleasure.

Waiheke market corker experience

Over on Waiheke I like to visit the Saturday markets. Brings out the locals and sometimes reminds me of what the island must have been like before they started building me-too suburban homes with Linea weatherboards and corrugated iron fascia.

Every week Mark Sommerset is there promoting and selling his books - I have talked about him before. He certainly has the knack of creating an experience around his brand. The stall, though it is as simple in scale as his neighbour's is a very sophisticated retail experience.

Much to be learned in the strangest of places.

Polaroid memories

It's sad that Polaroid ended production of their 'instant' film at the beginning of this year. I tried to express it before, but it came across as hollow - given that me, and everyone else, had long ago adopted digital imaging. So much more instant than previous instances of 'instant'.

Still, there was something about the SX70 I liked, it was insignificant - don't like it it? - take another.

Rummaging today I came across these shots.



This one is some of the crew from Rialto advertising. You can tell the 'creative' dudes, think sunglasses inside.

Left to right: Carolyn Travaglia (became a famous makeup artist), Gael Praast (Simon Praast's mum but a formidable accountant in her own right - managed to assign MD's Tv to my smorg, easy). Centre, big smile: Megan (my son's mum - we got married). Back row: Ginga: Barbie Cope - stylish, iconoclastic studio manager - now photographer. Terry Stevens - art director, now commercials director in Europe, the Diane, accounts, stayed with Clemenger for years (don't know where she is now), then Michelle - I can't remember more than that, then me, front row, daylight, 'bans.

Those were the days.

And so were these: MacKay King Christmas party breakfast '84 - yes, that's me - so young and, aherm, innocent.



Polaroids were the informal record of the day. I miss their presence as an instant artifact - something digital can't provide.

Dick Tracey phones...finally

In the first edition of Idealog we were going to make a photographic spread representing the end of the wristwatch and the rise of all sorts of other ways of telling time. The feature fell on the cutting room floor. My favourite time-piece is the microwave oven readout, with my cellphone a close second.

The watch's demise has seemed inevitable for years, but still it hangs in there. In something of a backflip here is an idea that loops back to the old Dick Tracey idea of the watch phone.

With the current trend for fetishistically large wristwatches it maybe an ideas whose time has finally come. I don't like wondering where my phone is - I always pat myself down before leaving a location - phone, keys, wallet... It was comfortably and fashionable attached to my wrist I would have one less thing to worry about. Except, perhaps, looking like a Dick (Tracey).

“When the truth is replaced by silence,the silence is a lie.”

I have been mortified by the coverage of the butchery in Gaza on New Zealand television. The matter has been portrayed as a simple Punch and Judy show to fill the time. Though there is the pious presence of concerned looking reporters standing miles away from the action, contained by the Israelis, there seems no point in their presence other than to promote the channel's news gathering efforts in channel advertising. There are few insights and no discussion. Why put a man on the ground if they are simply placards for the channel?

Conflict in Gaza has barely been noted by the New Zealand government, which has famously refused to take sides as if it was a schoolyard squabble. The obvious answer is that New Zealand does not want to offend the United States of America - who supply Israel with guns, technology and yahweh knows what else.

The brutal assault on the people living in Gaza by Israel is an assault on the sensibilities of a civilised world. It ignores the principles of justice and fair play, it defies the rules and conventions of war (though 'war' is fundamentally wrong and inhuman and should not be normalised by 'rules'.

The thing about the article below, by John Pilger that resonates most strongly with me is the opening paragraph's quote:

“When the truth is replaced by silence,the silence is a lie.”

New Zealand's government's silence is to its shame - and so, too, our shame.

And amidst the hoopla and rhetoric of the Obama presidential inauguration it is to that country's eternal shame as well that campaign donations mean more that human concern for decency and fairness. Polarising the situation as a response to missile attacks is morbidly evasive. Israel is not Larry David stealing flowers from his friend's mother's road-side memorial it is genocide.

John Pilger says it better:

Writing in the New Statesman, John Pilger calls on 40 years of reporting the Middle East to describe the 'why' of Israel's bloody onslaught on the besieged people of Gaza - an attack that has little to do with Hamas or Israel's right to exist.

“When the truth is replaced by silence,” the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “the silence is a lie.” It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea, can be viewed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC. But Russia’s incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemeral we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why.

They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, “Israel’s right to exist”. They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine’s right to exist was cancelled 61 years ago and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. They know, for example, that the infamous “Plan D” resulted in the murderous de-population of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Jewish army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as “ethnic cleansing”. Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon, “What shall we do with the Arabs?” Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, “made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ‘Expel them’. The order to expel an entire population “without attention to age” was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world’s most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapan Party co-leader Meir Ya’ari noted “how easily” Israel’s leaders spoke of how it was “possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy … who remembers who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war... we are appalled.”

Every subsequent “war” Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land. The lie of David and Goliath, of perennial victim, reached its apogee in 1967 when the propaganda became a righteous fury that claimed the Arab states had struck first. Since then, mostly Jewish truth-tellers such as Avi Schlaim, Noam Chomsky, the late Tanya Reinhart, Neve Gordon, Tom Segev, Uri Avnery, Ilan Pappe and Norman Finklestein have dispatched this and other myths and revealed a state shorn of the humane traditions of Judaism, whose unrelenting militarism is the sum of an expansionist, lawless and racist ideology called zionism. “It seems,” wrote the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe on 2 January, “that even the most horrendous crimes, such as the genocide in Gaza, are treated as desperate events, unconnected to anything that happened in the past and not associated with any ideology or system... Very much as the apartheid ideology explained the oppressive policies of the South African government , this ideology – in its most consensual and simplistic variety – has allowed all the Israeli governments in the past and the present to dehumanise the Palestinians wherever they are and strive to destroy them. The means altered from period to period, from location to location, as did the narrative covering up these atrocities. But there is a clear pattern [of genocide].”

In Gaza, the enforced starvation and denial of humanitarian aid, the piracy of life-giving resources such as fuel and water, the denial of medicines and treatment, the systematic destruction of infrastructure and the killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50 per cent of whom are children, meet the international standard of the Genocide Convention. “Is it an irresponsible overstatement,” asked Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and international law authority at Princeton University, “to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not.”

In describing a “holocaust-in-the making”, Falk was alluding to the Nazis’ establishment of Jewish ghettos in Poland. For one month in 1943, the captive Polish Jews led by Mordechaj Anielewiz fought off the German army and the SS, but their resistance was finally crushed and the Nazis exacted their final revenge. Falk is also a Jew. Today’s holocaust-in-the-making, which began with Ben-Gurion’s Plan D, is in its final stages. The difference today is that it is a joint US-Israeli project. The F-16 jet fighters, the 250-pound “smart” GBU-39 bombs supplied on the eve of the attack on Gaza, having been approved by a Congress dominated by the Democratic Party, plus the annual $2.4 billion in war-making “aid”, give Washington de facto control. It beggars belief that President-elect Obama was not informed. Outspoken on Russia’s war in Georgia and the terrorism in Mumbai, Obama’s silence on Palestine marks his approval, which is to be expected, given his obsequiousness to the Tel Aviv regime and its lobbyists during the presidential campaign and his appointment of Zionists as his secretary of state, chief of staff and principal Middle East advisers. When Aretha Franklin sings “Think”, her wonderful 1960s anthem to freedom, at Obama’s inauguration on 21 January, I trust someone with the brave heart of Muntadar al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower, will shout: “Gaza!”

The asymmetry of conquest and terror is clear. Plan D is now “Operation Cast Lead”, which is the unfinished “Operation Justified Vengeance”. The latter was launched by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 when, with Bush’s approval, he used F-16s against Palestinian towns and villages for the first time. In the same year, the authoritative Jane’s Foreign Report disclosed that the Blair government had given Israel the “green light” to attack the West Bank after it was shown Israel’s secret designs for a bloodbath. It was typical of New Labour Party’s enduring, cringing complicity in Palestine’s agony. However, the 2001 Israeli plan, reported Jane’s, needed the “trigger” of a suicide bombing which would cause “numerous deaths and injuries [because] the ‘revenge’ factor is crucial”. This would “motivate Israeli soldiers to demolish the Palestinians”. What alarmed Sharon and the author of the plan, General Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Chief of Staff, was a secret agreement between Yasser Arafat and Hamas to ban suicide attacks. On 23 November, 2001, Israeli agents assassinated the Hamas leader, Mahmud Abu Hunud, and got their “trigger”; the suicide attacks resumed in response to his killing.

Something uncannily similar happened on 5 November last, when Israeli special forces attacked Gaza, killing six people. Once again, they got their propaganda “trigger”. A ceasefire initiated and sustained by the Hamas government – which had imprisoned its violators - was shattered by the Israeli attack and home-made rockets were fired into what used to be Palestine before its Arab occupants were “cleansed”. The On 23 December, Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire, but Israel’s charade was such that its all-out assault on Gaza had been planned six months earlier, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.

Behind this sordid game is the “Dagan Plan”, named after General Meir Dagan, who served with Sharon in his bloody invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Now head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organisation, Dagan is the author of a “solution” that has seen the imprisonment of Palestinians behind a ghetto wall snaking across the West Bank and in Gaza, effectively a concentration camp. The establishment of a quisling government in Ramallah under Mohammed Abbas is Dagan’s achievement, together with a hasbara (propaganda) campaign relayed through a mostly supine, if intimidated western media, notably in America, that says Hamas is a terrorist organisation devoted to Israel’s destruction and to “blame” for the massacres and siege of its own people over two generations, long before its creation. “We have never had it so good,” said the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir in 2006. “The hasbara effort is a well-oiled machine.” In fact, Hamas’s real threat is its example as the Arab world’s only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians’ oppressor and tormentor. This was demonstrated when Hamas foiled a CIA coup in 2007, an event ordained in the western media as “Hamas’s seizure of power”. Likewise, Hamas is never described as a government, let alone democratic. Neither is its proposal of a ten-year truce as a historic recognition of the “reality” of Israel and support for a two-state solution with just one condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders. As every annual vote in the UN General Assembly demonstrates, 99 per cent of humanity concurs. On 4 January, the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto, described the Israeli attack on Gaza as a “monstrosity”.

When the monstrosity is done and the people of Gaza are even more stricken, the Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a “1948-style solution” – the destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authority followed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller “cantonments” and perhaps finally into Jordan. This demolition of institutional and educational life in Gaza is designed to produce, wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian exile in Britain, “a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed... Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Sharon] had in store for us, and he has nearly achieved it.”

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is an American writer on Palestine. She has a Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father. “Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic,” she wrote on 31 December. “But I’m not talking about World War Two, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad (the president of Iran) or Ashkenazi Jews. What I’m referring to is the holocaust we are all witnessing and responsible for in Gaza today and in Palestine over the past 60 years... Since Arabs are Semites, US-Israeli policy doesn’t get more anti-Semitic than this.” She quoted Rachel Corrie, the young American who went to Palestine to defend Palestinians and was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. “I am in the midst of a genocide,” wrote Corrie, “which I am also indirectly supporting and for which my government is largely responsible.”

Reading the words of both, I am struck by the use of “responsibility”. Breaking the lie of silence is not an esoteric abstraction but an urgent responsibility that falls to those with the privilege of a platform. With the BBC cowed, so too is much of journalism, merely allowing vigorous debate within unmovable invisible boundaries, ever fearful of the smear of anti-Semitism. The unreported news, meanwhile, is that the death toll in Gaza is the equivalent of 18,000 dead in Britain. Imagine, if you can.

Then there are the academics, the deans and teachers and researchers. Why are they silent as they watch a university bombed and hear the Association of University Teachers in Gaza plea for help? Are British universities now, as Terry Eagleton believes, no more than “intellectual Tescos, churning out a commodity known as graduates rather than greengroceries”?

Then there are the writers. In the dark year of 1939, the Third Writers’ Congress was held at Carnegie Hall in New York and the likes of Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein sent messages and spoke up to ensure the lie of silence was broken. By one account, 3,500 jammed the auditorium and a thousand were turned away. Today, this mighty voice of realism and morality is said to be obsolete; the literary review pages affect an ironic hauteur of irrelevance; false symbolism is all. As for the readers, their moral and political imagination is to be pacified, not primed. The anti-Muslim Martin Amis expressed this well in Visiting Mrs Nabokov: “The dominance of the self is not a flaw, it is an evolutionary characteristic; it is just how things are.”

If that is how things are, we are diminished as a civilised society. For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants the impunity of war criminals the immunity of our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people’s courage and resistance and their “luminous humanity”, as Karma Nabulsi put it. On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, believing the world will not forget them.

Behind the scenes

I am not a great fan of showing clients lots of ideas. It conveys a sense that I am unfocused or can't make a recommendation.

That doesn't mean I don't go through an evolutionary process to arrive at the recommendation. Simply that showing the client the workings is wasteful and indecisive. If you hand a choice over to the client, you are simply the raw material to be mined, rather than the high value end product.

That said, I was fascinated by the design process for something called UKE (not even sure what it is). For non-design/non-marcomms people it might be interesting to see some of the process.

Logo design from start to finish - CreativePool

If you are ever in the position of commissioning creative work and are presented with choices, tell the vendor to man-up and come back with a recommendation (unless you are controlling fascist who thinks they could do everything better themselves and hires weaklings).

Goodbye bush

The best newspaper ads used to be topical - newsy. They still are.

The question we get left with is what constitutes topical? Newspapers will have a bumper day as people get there copies of the inauguration edition - "Where were you when the first non-white president was sworn in Daddy?" But in the Follow me on Twitter era major, breaking news comes instantly - often from eye witnesses.

Image via Brand Strategy blog

Seeya Dubya

Hard to resist...

Boxing clever

I rather like the craft in the this ad, but wonder about the shoehorning of a product into the idea - especially when the idea is something of an 80s cliche 'out of the box' thinking? (Which is a variation of 'think outside the square'. Is there nothing to commend the Audi Q5 other than its styling? - which is streamlined? What, is the competition Hummer or Jeep, the only two truly boxy SUV's I can think of.

In my mind the real problem to overcome is that my perception of SUVs for unnecessary urban use is that they should be shot at with anti-tank weapons. (I may be biased as I was nearly killed on my Vespa scooter by an arse in a Nissan Patrol who felt so safe and secure that considering other road users before making an unindicated u-turn didn't even flash through his mind).

Is Audi running out of steam as a brand? Are all car brands struggling to be relevant?

And, finally, didn't Toyota New Zealand use that song for the launch of the latest version of the Corolla? Why, yes, yes it did.

Facebook a closed book.

I'm a very private person. Which is different from being a social person. I have been enjoying exploring social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and, of course, I share my thoughts on this blog (and others).

I have just turned my Facebook profile off. I had been wondering how transparent my life needs to be. And how much I want to peer into those of my friends - even close ones.

Call me old fashioned, but I think there are some matters that are unnecessary to transmit. I'm not sure I want to see photographs of a friend at a barbeque when he or she is the only person I know but everyone else present has been tagged, allowing me in many cases to become a voyeur in the stranger's life - not that I am that interested, but you get the point.

LinkedIn is different, it is a professional contact tool and I have yet to be 'poked' or sent a 'hug' by friend or stranger, though I have had interesting business contacts from it.

Twitter is marginal. I am yet to figure out what its true purpose is for me, though I can see potential for it to be useful. Right now it amuses me to see how traffic builds and to explore some of the peripheral tools for managaing and measuring.

So, anyway - be careful with Facebook kids, it is very open and while I can see the fun at first - accumulating friends, it is open to abuse. From here on in I'll be in touch personally if we're friends I hope you feel free to do the same.

The Daily Show Guide to Rebranding

Glad the Daily Show is back. Their Christmas holiday hiatus was more like a lowatus for me. Rebranding is a hilarious topic at the best of times - I can see all those groovy design types lickin' their chops at the prospect of making design guidelines and manuals - maybe a logo or two. The GOP get the nub of it in this clip.

Watch The Daily Show online.

We're all in this together...?

This has to be the worst cross promotion in the history of advertising. I can't see how it benefits either brand. Actually, it must be a scam ad from an agency thinking it had a great idea and making it anyway. No Coke product or brand manager would survive such a faux pas, surely?

Also Via Design Cubicle

Thin Disguise

A nice example of wit in advertising.

Via The Design Cubicle

Is it just me?...

Or could Mickey Rourke and Frank Costanza have been separated at birth?

But seriously folks: Here's what Salon's movie reviewer thought:

Like most great performances, Rourke's is the sum of a million little parts. There's the way Randy's face lights up when, trying to buy a surprise present for Stephanie, he seizes upon a shiny satin baseball jacket with an "S" embroidered on it. We already know his no-nonsense daughter would never wear this hideous garment. But Randy thinks the jacket is perfect, not just because it has her initial on it, but because it's the kind of flashy stagewear he gravitates toward himself. Rourke renders this fairly complicated example of dadthink with just the right mix of cluelessness and love. It's just one place in "The Wrestler" where Randy's meaty mug -- beaten down more by life than by anything that has happened in the ring -- tells us more about his character than a dozen lines of dialogue might. It's impossible to pin down what makes that beat-up face so beautiful. Aronofsky, to his credit, knew what becomes a legend most.

Wasn't, but now am looking forward to it.

The Wrestler Trailer

Feeling Frisky Punk?

Gone Troppo
Having been swept up in the 'Change' manifesto, New Zealanders enthusiastically said farewell to the Labour Government of Helen Clark and opened the door for John Key's National Party.

Key has famously appointed himself Minister of Tourism, then gone on an extended holiday to his house in Hawaii. The pratfall seems to have eluded him and his advisers that the job of the Minister is to promote inbound tourism. And, while he is self-made, lolling around in luxury doesn't wash well with the great unwashed, especially when the worlds headlines are filled with stories of bonkers bankers creating obscure financial instruments that only produce the kind of crashing sounds that indicate a collapse in the market.

Speaking of crashing sounds Key then followed Helen Clark's lead during the election campaign by falling over at a public function. While Clark stood, brushed herself off and kept going without breaking the momentum, Key broke his arm in two places, though it seems he didn't receive medical attention until the following day (which suggests he may have gone to a public hospital emergency room).

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

The National Party campaigned on a 'Law & Order' plank - what party doesn't? It is the low hanging fruit of politics, bested only by anti-terror talk. So now the government is floating the idea of adding $50 surtax on all fines imposed by the courts to be assigned to a fund for 'victims'. The tax will be incurred even when the offence had no victim of its own. Fruit loops like the publicity hounds at the 'sensible sentencing trust' love it. In their black and white view of the world there are only Goodies and Baddies, so they delight in their friends and neighbours with parking fines having to cough up an extra $50 for their victim constituents. Little matter that a huge percentage of people who fall foul of the law are poor and poverty is an indicator for many offences, so a further financial penalty (and, one assumes, penalties on top for late payment etc) will simply exacerbate the problems - no doubt resulting in more offence on which to add the $50 surtax. You can see where this goes - nowhere but down. More importantly must be the notion that the punishment should fit the crime. Why should reparations be made by a citizen found guilty of one offence, probably without a victim at all, to a victim of someone else's crime? It is a venal, simplistic response to the issue of victim support. In simple terms it is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Oppose it before it becomes law.




Wonder Woman seen in West Auckland

In the news this morning is the weird story of Social Development Minister Paula Bennett who 'waded into a maul of about 30 young people outside a shopping mall to break up a fight' according to the NZ Herald. Presumably she spun around at high speed, jumped into her invisible plane and tied the snotty little perps up in an Amazonian rope. There is something about the story that is not believable. The report said: "Four or five of them, mostly females, were fighting - "fists flying, blood, it was full on" - while the rest were egging them on, she said. When one fight ended, another would begin, and others would join in." Some shopkeepers in the mall in West Auckland had pulled down their grates. Obviously it all took some time. A crowd had gathered and were egging the pugilists on. But the mall security were nowhere to be seen and no police. Ms Bennet was able to step in and stop the melee single handedly?
Let's just say, I've been to West Auckland and I have doubts the perps would have ended their ruckus quite so easily. Let's just say - I'd like to see the security camera tapes. If it turns out as reported then my suggestion is that we reduce police numbers and assign Wonder Woman to the hotspots - bearing in mind New Zealand police are inclined to shoot to kill before going near a single perp, rather than wading in fearlessly. Let's take a deep breath and pause before assigning super-human characteristics to Bennett under the heading of 'Tough on Crime'.

Herald Story here



There are a couple of other urgent matters:

Changes to the copyright laws. You only have a few days to be heard on this. Get involved. The proposed changes to the law give draconian powers to unelected people with vested commercial interests to interfere with your freedom.

VisitCreative Freedom Foundation find out more - sign the petition.

Foreshore and seabed. I haven't had time to give this much thought or research but there seems to be an important shift coming that may have ramifications - a time bomb/booby trap left on the outgoing tide by Michael Cullen for the new government.

Report here

Kiwis - forget about Obama's inauguration for a few minutes and watch what your own change agents are doing.

Tony Hart draws short straw

Vision On was a show on television when I was growing up. Aside from the Goons-meets-Goodies skits I always admired the talent of Tony Hart. His drawings and easy creativity must have pushed a button for me - drawing was 'my thing'. I liked the spare style and still do.

I thought of the show several months ago when I was holed up with a friend's son on a rainy day on a farm. I suggested he make some drawings. He was reluctant, 'I can't draw' he said. Of course you can I though to myself. I told him to make a random scribble on the page. When he had I saw a whale, filled in a little here, joined this us and voila - whale. He was impressed. I made a scribble and threw down the gauntlet to him. He picked up the pen and realised there was a kangaroo lurking in the lines. He was pretty pleased with the result. "See, you can draw. Drawing is just scribbling with style."

I'd like to see Vision on, or something like it on TV now to help kids learn visual thinking.

Seems like the influentials in my life are dropping like flies.

Tony Hart obituary on the Guardian site

Later dude...

As a confirmed procrastinist I have nothing but admiration for people who are able to set goals, make lists, then feverishly work on crossing the items off. It seems to equate with a 'been there, done that' T-Shirt to me. But, then again, that my be a passive aggressive rebellion - in the same vein that the things which annoy us most about our children are the things that remind us most of ourselves.

Still, nothing actually happens until you make a start. I have found that, once I have overcome my inertia, I can set a cracking pace. I wrote my novel Vanishing Act in a month, designed and typeset it within a week and had an international worst-seller the following day. I know that literary colossi labour over their masterworks for ages - none more so than Truman Capote:

"I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand. Essentially I think of myself as a stylist, and stylists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the weight of a semicolon."

It irritated Capote (and I have to say it would drive me bonkers). I saw the Capote quote on a site called Daily Routines - How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days. Which I have found reading is the perfect antidote for beginning the work at hand.

Rock on

Another excellent visual pun from Glenz

And, this - just in, sorry I don't usually like to ammend a post after pressing the go button (except to correct my many spelling mistakes of wobbly grammar). But, in the light of events on the Hudson River with heroic splashdowns, I couldn't resist adding this image - which was available as a shirt on Despair.com - though I fear the moment may have passed, as a limited edition for Christmas. Still, check out the Valentine's day designs or grab some Bitter Sweets for your beloved.

New Yak Times

I have been working on one of my other blogs: The New Yak Times. Thought it would be interesting to chat about a specific topic. Just a few posts to date, but chugging along.

Take a look at it here.

A stain on their judgement

The great cathedrals of the world often feature stained glass windows. They allow light into the vast vaults in a way that must have seemed fabulous to parishioners whose own homes were dank and dark, without even Coronation Street or Everybody Loves Raymond to brighten their otherwise squalid existence.

I watched a documentary about the architects working to complete Antoni Gaudi's great cathedral the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona just the other day and, while the forms and structure of the place beggar belief, it was the effect of light passing through the coloured glass that was breath taking.

Looking around the sights of New York, through the eye of Stephen Fry's camera on Twitpic I couldn't help but laugh - the kind of laugh that makes your sip of coffee come out your nose. At first glance a wonderful bright stained glass window with the sort of modern-ish imagery you will see at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, should you be down this way. On closer inspection you have to wonder why the PR firm handling the church's business haven't lobbed a brick through it and organised a new one with the insurance money.

I had been teetering about whether to go see the new Meryl Streep/Philip Seymour Hoffman movie Doubt:

It's 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A charismatic priest, Father Flynn, is trying to upend the schools' strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline. The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, and indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James, a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her guilt-inducing suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school. Now, without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn which threatens to tear apart the community with irrevocable consequence.

I had been having doubts about whether it would be, lets just say...'entertaining' enough as a summer diversion. But it rates 8.2 on the IMDB site. So, what the hell?

Star Wars & Religion

This clip is a synopsis of the the Star Wars trilogy by someone who hasn't seen it.
In many ways it is like the Christian Bible. The apostles who wrote the stories in the New Testament and whoever wrote the Old testament kind of mash things up to make sense and some sort of meaningful narrative that explains small, imponderable matters like creation and how to live life as a sentient being.

Of course the bible leaves out chunks of important stuff, such as dinosaurs, mainly because its authors (and, like the wikipedia, there were many) didn't have the technology to know the difference between a fossilised dinosaur bone and a spare rib and so they simply didn't 'see' it. Much in the same way that the makers of Star Wars could only conceive of the fantastic worlds in the early movies using the vernacular of the day - models made from commercial kit sets and sets made from polystyrene and fibreglass - much of which was revised in the 'pre-quels' when the new technology of computer generated imagery became readily available.

I guess there is a parallel there with the Scientologists who revise creationist myths based on spacemen (Thetans) being stuck on earth. Hardly surprising when you consider L.Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology was a science fiction writer. 'If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail' (Emerson).

People who believe in creationism or 'intelligent design' are like the girl recounting the Star Wars narrative. They don't get it right but base their thoughts on mad fragments that uphold a general belief.

Unfortunately beliefs are to facts what Star Wars is to science - fiction.

Reach for the Sky

This morning I found some old books in my mother's basement. A copy of Reach for the Sky, the Douglas Bader story. I had inscribed it with my name in a strangely clipped copperplate script 'David MacGregor 1972'. Which means I was nine, the same age as my daughter is now.

It is interesting how the things that preoccupied my mind are so different from kids today. I was obsessed with planes and tanks of WWII. I am pretty sure my daughter wouldn't even know what Heinkel He 111 was, let alone a Spitfire (or its range and climbing rate).

Mind you there was also this book (below) in the cache - The Golden Book of Astronomy. Copy reads

"The time seems near when people will use rockets to get from one part of the earth to another. After successful round the world trips the next goal will be the moon."

Assuming I was reading that in 1972 it was a little late (contrasting that with live as it happens 'tweets' on my twitter feeds this morning when the US Air Airbus splashed down on the Hudson River).

Rocky Mountain Low

I likes me music, I do. I just looked on the LastFM site and was surprised to be confronted with the stark reality of what masquerades as my taste. At number 1 is John Denver. Now that is just absurd. I refuse to believe that I listen to John Denver more than Avril Lavene - oops, I feel busted. having catholic taste is one thing, but really, Avril? Is someone using my iTunes remotely? Or is the randomiser playing parlour games with my street chops?

I'm a little teapot 2

Went painting pots with Zoë today.

She is so much fun. Aren't all kids?

I don't try to encourage her (actually I drag her along as cover for my own fun), tomorrow is Dangereax... she wanted to see it but somewhere along the way it became my thing - they grow up so quickly.)

Jarmusch, Jarmusch can you do the fandango?

Advertising is full of snappy phrases to describe the trade. You would expect nothing less, surely? One of my favourites is "Make the familiar strange and the strange familiar."

I came across the quote above on TIGS blog. It is rule #5 in Jim Jarmusch 5 Rules on directing (#1 is, of course, there are no rules).

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.” Via MovieMaker

Call me a philistine but I hadn't been aware of Jarmusch until just the other day. He is featured in the Joe Strummer bio by Julian Temple The Future Is Unwritten(which I recommend). Because Temple doesn't flag the contributors names as they reminisce beside primal fires about Joe's life I had to go figure who was who for myself - aside from the obvious ones. Glad I did, being spoon fed is for infants and geriatrics - and I consider myself a 'tween' for the purpose of that exercise.

I left a comment on the Talent Imitates, Genius Steals - just a quick theory on the birth of the cult of originality. Feel free to debate.

French Mixer

It hardly ever occurs to me that there is a world out there that doesn't speak English as its native tongue. Anglo-centrism isn't always helpful, especially these days at the end of empire.

Came cross a French site that allows you to mash up a variety of iconic images and video with your own titles. I'm sure many of those published and rated highly were hilarious, but my command of French is barely adequate enough to buy a ticket on the RER, so the subtlety of humour is a train that leaves the station without me.

Just a time wasting diversion...though it would be très drôle to create something along these lines where consumers could make headlines for your ads. The results might be terrifying, but amidst the chaff...you never know. Offer a prize for the best and verify names and email accounts before permitting participation.

The best years of a womans life

There is an old joke I like: Being 29 are the best years of a woman's life. I trot it out often, but usually it doesn't result in the gales of laughter it so richly deserves.

Age is a touchy subject in society. I remember thinking that the pressure of sitting school certificate and university entrance examinations would be unbearable, but that the day was so far off that I could defer my anxiety (it's easy when you are eleven and have a buffer of four years before D-Day).

As a 19 year old punk the prospect of turning 20 seemed like a betrayal of the punk ethos - but even Johnny Rotten is an old geezer like me now.

By 30 I had reached my goal of being the youngest creative director for a multi-national ad agency in New Zealand and was in the process of wondering why I should work for anyone else and began my first company - Milk Moustache - branded communications since quarter past two (being infantile is a characteristic I'm comfortable with).

Being in my forties I have to say has been a doddle. Jung describes middle age as a time for individuation: Jung called this final step self-realization-- “We could therefore translate individuation as “coming to selfhood” or “self-realization” - in other words, this is who I am, and if you don't like it I am OK with that too, now - excuse me I have a blog to write. Aside from a little extra weight, zoom lenses in my glasses and monumental blood pressure I feel pretty mush the same way I always have...

Anyway, so far so good.

I came across these images of from Paris vogue (via Picdit) Using just make-up and styling the same model is transformed from a 10 year old to a sixty year old. Slightly creepy on one level, but nicely done.

New York Stories

I recently bought one of Penguin's nicely packaged classics - On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Gave it to my son to read. It must still be a right of passage. Saw this clip on YouTube with Kerouac reading with jazz in the background. The images of New York are sensational. It all just kind of works and reminds me of first trip to the big apple in 1987. It was the autumn, I arrived the day before Columbus Day. Americans love a parade.

It also reminds me a photo I have by Norman Parkinson called New York, New York. I used the image in a poster for the Auckland Opera Company, set next to an image of a Geisha holding her blonde, blue-eyed son (who was actually my son Taylor), wrapped in the Stars and Stripes. My interpretation of the Madam Butterfly's central theme was the pursuit of the American Dream.

At the time there was no Internet, so tracking the copyright owner was tricky. I got in touch with Conde Nast in New York fax to ask their picture editors what they knew. I was directed to the estate of the late, great Parkinson in the UK. They were reluctanct to allow the picture to be used. It had just been licensed to UTA, the french airline and, they emphasised, it was a very important picture. I persisited and got the reply that I could use it for about 15,000 dollars. I would discuss it with my client I said. In fact I didn't discuss it at all. The next day I informed my contact that my client was a provincial opera company, the ads would not be widely seen but that we were keen to use the image and could offer 250 sterling. With nothing to lose but the concept I had sold to the client I waited for the reply which came through the fax overnight. They accepted my offer. Within the week I had an excellent print from the negative in my hot little hands. Though the print hasno commercial value and is unsigned it is a wonderful thing and serves to remind that "if you don't ask - you won't get"

Martin Scorcese in front of the camera

I watched Annie Hall the other day. It must be Woody Allen's finest moments. You can see where Seinfeld came from; the endless whining and prattling and often self deprecating humour. I enjoyed it very much.

This commercial reminded me of Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese must be the Italian version of Woody Allen. It's very funny and makes its point powerfully. Though I recently criticised ads that tuck the brand away in the last couple of seconds this one doesn't suffer from the pay-off delivery.

Via Time Magazines' Top 10 ads of the year (not all of which I think are quite so good)

Where creativity comes from

Well, the secret is finally revealed. Creativity isn't learned, or innate. It is grown and cold pressed, then shipped in vats.

I am not sure what the actual purpose of this video was. But it is nicely done, with a sharp mockumentary eye. "Mind that wire." and "Mad as a badger." stand out as lines that give it a patina of authenticity.

Worth watching.

Via Paul Isakson's blog

Neil Finn cashes inn.

Hey cool. Just flipped the channel seconds after my previous post. 'Take the weather with you ' by Crowded house was played as the poignant 'I hope you learned something from this episode' end-tag.

Good for Mr Finn, he'll earn a nice tuck from the producers of October Road (whom I won't dignify with a link).

New Zealand Government set to excommunicate citizens

New Zealand is preparing to implement a change to legislation that will terrorise the national economy to serve only the interests of the music industry.

Here is how the scheme works:

If you download or share a (musical) file from, say, a peer to peer sharing system like LimeWire then you could be blackballed off the net. You will not be able to email your friends, family or colleagues. You will not be able to check the weather if you are a boat user planning a visit to your favourite fishing spot. You won't be able to express your opinions, as I am doing here. You will not be able to read or watch the news, to learn about political corruption or violations of civil liberties. You won't be able to check your bank balance or transfer money for the bassinet you won on Trademe for your new baby. You won't be able to check the credentials of your chiropractor or acupuncturist. You won't be able to find the love of your life on a dating site. You won't be able to to participate in your kids' school community or your genealogy group that has been homing in on your mother's family's connection with Henry VIII, research your Ph.D or keep an eye on your kid's Bebo account.

In short, you will be exiled from modern life.

Sounds fair. After all, the latest noodling from Neil Finn must be protected. It must.

But here is where the problem lies.

The legislation, as it is set to become law, is draconian and must be prevented from entering the books.

All that is required for you to be excommunicated is for you to be accused.

There is no proof required.

No independent judicial process (and, therefore, no justice) is required, which undermines the basic principle of law and justice in New Zealand.

Think of how people were treated by The Inquisition. One popular treatment of alleged witches was to 'dunk' then. Sounds like fun, right? Only problem is: dunk the alleged witch - if she doesn't drown after prolonged immersion - she is a witch! BURN HER! If she drowns, she was not a witch. Oops. Double jeopardy.

I am one of the founders of New Zealand's leading business magazines - Idealog - the voice of the creative economy. My focus has always been respecting the rights of creative people and creating wealth via copyright and other intellectual property. This issue must be addressed immediately. It threatens the viability of the entire New Zealand economy. If one ginger group can undermine the freedom of every citizen without reference to wider, more important principles of law and, dare I say it, civilisation - then New Zealand is doomed to live in a new dark age of state sponsored madness.

Let your MP know how you feel.

Oh, and by the way, if you imagine for one second the music industry is in any way squeaky clean then read The Hit Men - a more disgusting revelation of exploitation (especially of black artists) you will never read.

Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business

Pass it on. (opens your mail, the rest is up to you).

What's in a name? A rose by any other

Trademarks are essential tools in the Intellectual Property world.

A trademark or trade mark, identified by the symbols ™ and ®, or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization or other legal entity to identify that the products and/or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source of origin, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities. A trademark is a type of intellectual property, and typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements. Wikipedia

I have been following with interest the challenge by cobbler Jimmy Choo to shut down the New Zealand online gift retailer Kookychoo.com. It is hard to see how any reasonable person would make an meaningful connection between the two brands (though calling Kookychoo a brand is probably something of a stretch, it is a trading name - according to the New Zealand Herald the gift site had been receiving 30 visitors per day before the publicity about the case increased numbers a hundred-fold. Though I am no high heel wearer, I recognise the Jimmy Choo show brand. Yessss, I have seen the odd episode of Sex and the City...hey, it was a pop culture marker. But I can't see any plausible association between Choo Shoes and the mini site that has them teetering on the brink of apoplexy. In fact the connection I make is more likely to be with the Beatles song The Walrus (which is analysed in painful acid leaden detail here).

Lawyers have rushed to the aid of the little Kiwi battler, eager, I'm sure to enjoy the halo effect of the publicity for their firms - offering their services pro-bono. Given the cost of engaging lawyers of any kind, Looie James, the owner of Kookychoo seems to have stumble on a double windfall. Though now that I have pointed out the posible infringement of the Beatles' work, maybe the Apple Corps will be on the blower. Nor would it seem unreasonable for that other fashion brand Kookaï to seek satisfaction.

If you visit the troublemaking site you will undoubtedly be struck , as indeed I was, by the question - 'huh?', followed by: "What restricted substances have you been taking?". There is no similarity. One sells play teepees and teddy bears the other sells Choos.

Which raises an issue about the legitimacy of the Jimmy Choo brand itself.

The word Choo sounds an awful lot like…:Shoe.

Shoe is common parlance and, therefore, not protectable. Every shoe brand in the world could take issue with the English brand. Perhaps they should?

And while we are navigating the lunacy of frivolous, vexacious, litigious stupidity in the name of obsessive, compulsive greed you might like to hear about what the sparks that fly when Flynt stikes Flynt:

Larry Flynt is taking his nephews to court to stop them slapping the Flynt name on what he considers to be low-quality porn, reports the Los Angeles Times. The porn mogul accuses his kin of tarnishing his famous name with "inferior products" and "knock-off goods," while his nephews insist they have a right to use their own name. Experts say the lawsuit raises tricky questions concerning an individual's right to use their name for business purposes and trademark protection begins. The nephews—who worked for Flynt for over a decade before he fired them for being unproductive—say their uncle just has "inferiority issues" and promise that their films will surpass anything Hustler's ever done.Via Newser

Street Life

I am guessing that 'the recession' will result in more and more roadworks around Auckland as a way of 'stimulating' the economy. Public works are easy to initiate, there are few metrics for their success or failure (hard to fail with upgrading roads) and it transfers relatively unskilled workers most likely to be 'let go'.

When my partners and I started Idealog magazine a part of the pitch was that New Zealand's economy needs to diversify with a greater emphasis on innovation, creativity and increased emphasis on copyrights and other forms of intellectual property.

From out first issue we were criticised for suggesting that primary production would ever be anything other than the backbone of the the New Zealand economy. That was three years ago. Since then commodity prices have swollen to record highs (so much so that milk solids were being called White Gold). Prices have tanked since and the the global economic downturn doesn't look like ending anytime soon.

Now more than ever investment should be focused on creating genuinely sustainable industries like the creative industries - which consume few resources, can transport across the web and earn residual royalties and payments long after the initial conception and implementation has taken place.

Offering subsidies to creative producers to invest in audio and video recording equipment, editing software, tools for networking and collaboration, creating marketplaces and connections might offer greater long term returns than in capital intensive and heavy-freight solutions.

Of course, when I discuss the creative economy I refer to:

* Advertising
* Architecture
* Art markets
* Crafts
* Design
* Designer fashion
* Film and video
* Interactive leisure software
* Music
* Performing arts
* Publishing
* Software and computer services
* Television and radio;

...rather than imaginative thinking as a verb.

T-wit on Twitter

I'm inclined to try new things. Oysters, for one. But that was a long time ago and the novelty, I have to confess, has slipped away.

When I heard about Twitter I was skeptical. 140 characters, followers...I couldn't see the point of it. Why would anyone want to know what I was doing? So I tried it, found it wanting and stopped.

Then I gave it another go and realised that, like any other medium, it is the quality of content that makes all the difference. Who I follow creates the channel's quality. My tweets (ain't that tweet?).

Having persevered I am happy to say that my Twitter feeds are producing some high quality T-wits:

Munki.

Sarah Wedde - Toilet paper stylist to the stars.
This woman is funny. She has post modern droll down pat, for example:

"Reading a book on the Antikythera mechanism. Probably my second favourite mechanism of all time."

"Packed long-sleeved rash vest and board shorts. Will have to make do until the SwimBurka reaches this godforsaken country."

"Dear Twitter, My boyfriend's favourite movie is "Love Actually". Which bridge will it be safest to dump his body off?"

Badbanana
Tim Siedel - The Washington Post says I'm funny. And they know funny (see Watergate).

"The world's oldest woman died today. No cause of death was listed, so I assume she lost a knife fight with the world's second oldest woman."

"To those of us who wear glitter hats and blow paper horns all year long, New Year's Eve is amateur night."

"He's making a list, and checking it twice. And washing his hands three times. And checking his list again. And tapping the door knob twice."

Of course it's not all wisecracking. Many celebrities and stars have figured that that they can stay in contact with their fans in real time using Twitter.

I follow Stephen Fry (Dancer, couturier, superheavyweight boxer, neo-plasticist and rapper -currently filming a nature documentary in New Zealand) and Shaquile O'Neil who has an amusing, philosphical take on the world ("VERY QUOTATIOUS").

Then there are the folks who curate the web via Twitter, like the ubiquitous connector Guy Kawasaki who is always good for a lead.

Twitter can be time consuming, but amusing and useful too as part of your social media suite.

Follow me on Twitter

More Milton Glaser

Many years ago I procured a Zanders paper company calender, which was an annual event in the design calendar, that was very special indeed. Through 12 months Milton Glaser interpreted, in his own fabulous style, the work of a dozen of the world's most influential artists. I dared not take the calendar from its heavy duty cardboard sleeve for very long, lest the colours fade or that I would damage it by leafing through the spiral bound sheets. It must have cost a fortune to print. How many individual colurs were used in the process I can only imagine. It was a treasure. I loved the work on the pages and admired the intelligence and craftsmanship on Milton Glaser, already a legend in the design world.

Thinking about the butchering of his original I (heart) New York logo - refer to previous post - I visited his company website where I found this movie:



It is astonishing to think how prolific he has been. His comments about remaining interested in the 'third act' of life are poignant and it seems plain that he has lost none of his interest.

I like that his works seem to show the hand of their creator, rather than the sleek,smooth style of a computer generated artwork - so common in contemporary design.

My beloved copy of the Zanders calendar? Ruined in a basement flood I'm afraid - along with all of my own print advertising and design samples 1983 - 2003.

Nuts to New New York logo

Ok, so 17 million dollars doesn't seem like a lot to promote the greatest town on earth (feel free to dispute). Some folks on the Internet have suggested that $17m (US) for this logo is an outrage. I don't want to become enmeshed in yet another debate about what logos cost. Everyone knows it isn't the logo design that matters - it is the usage manual that really counts. Designers love to make little diagrams to show how much white space should be left around their precious motifs. A good manual is worth every cent.

The issue I have with Saatchi & Saatchi's re-render of Milton Glaser's original design is that it simply doesn't make it better than it was. It makes it worse. Adding a squirrel doesn't improve anything about the logo, or my understanding of New York. It may even confuse me. Squirrels remind me of London. It's a personal thing, Squirrels/London - Horse/Carriage - Love/Marriage… (actually the Love/Marriage thing is a stretch to make a point Marriage/Divorce seems more authentic - but I digress...)

Design doesn't get better by adding things. Glaser's original conception was perfect because it didn't need anything else to make its point. The rebus of the heart has become a default for 'love' in a way that I don't believe it did (in a design context) before. The addition of the squirrel seems to me like adding a 'Turbo' sticker to the flank of a Porsche. An unnecessary detail. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery said:
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

I understand the money spent also accounts for media activity and the like and I can only hope Saatchi have done a less embarrassingly amateur job than they have with the logo.

Milton Glaser is still alive. I wonder what his opinion is?


If you are interested in the history of logo design I recommend Logo Design History