Hello there. It’s been a busy month, getting married etc, sure some of you know the score…

But back to the blog. Here is a picture of a transformer. Really cool, huh? But when I tell you that this guy made the model itself out of paper and his own ability to model/craft things using his skill to assess things in-front of him. The guy tells a great story about how he used to love the Transformers show as a kid and longed to make his own, he tells how he collected boxes of the correct colour to make the “bumblebee” character from the Transformers movie, and shows the tools he used.

Needless to say the result is incredible, measuring a full 36 cm tall and featuring 60 movable joints some of which are created by the use of press studs.

Not sure how many hours this took, but judging by the time line on the website this was an epic project that paid many fruits. I wish this guy would publish his plans to make this, but he didn’t draw any up as he went along, obviously excited about completing the project. Pretty much the same gung-ho fashion I would use if I was capable of producing something this amazing.

Anyway, needless to say, this is one piece of wonderment that I would pay good money to own, or even to get the plans to make this with my own collected paper and model making kit. Click the picture to go to the site he made during the process to see it step by step coming together. Awesome.

Design is the sweet jam on our bread, eat up.

So, stressful Wednesday this will be referred to from now on. Not going into it, but needless to say I’m not a fkn happy chap. People tell you something, tell it you wrong, then it is denied, meaning you have to fly to London at great cost, they deny it was wrong in the first place. Anyway, everyone gets landed in shit at some point. Just seems to be more than often with me.

OK, well stopping the bull shit now. This is something awesome. It’s a web gallery of the new office for Googles’ Swiss operation in Zurich. I work in the creative industries and know the value of a great place to work. The way “stuff” can help to propagate ideas and make them flourish. Needless to say this place looks amazing. The picture above is an example of their informal meeting areas. I would settle for one of those Taxi things.

Thing is, if you can get this kind of idea of an ideal work place past a boss who thinks that a 4m square desk with nothing upon it except a monitor, is needed to display creativity, then you are a genius. If your gaffer understands the concept of inspiration then try. You might just end up working in a place that looks like a giant playground, like these lucky bastards.

Anyway, feeling bitter about stuff at the mo, so click the pic above to go to the picture gallery that the kind (and somewhat braggy) people at Google Switzerland have created for our visual delight.

Help keep the children of the world fed, keep them warm and loved by using design as a giant edible blanket in which to wrap them.

Once in a while a piece of art comes along which strikes you as original, clever and downright good looking. In this instance, a fella has written some code/witchcraft to use malware (the nasty bits of software that do nasty bits of work on your computer) to create a beautiful and organic image to represent the nasty bit of software itself.

Dig deeper into his site and you will find that he also grows something which he calls “spam plants”. These use more code/witchcraft to take spam messages and grow them into more organic looking and in some cases beautiful images.

It kind of reminds me of those art images based on fractals which did the rounds in poster stores in the 1990’s. But there is something wonderful about these images, something which makes you want more. The uniqueness is interesting to me and the way in which they seem different each time you look at them is equally as enthralling.

Just one thing strikes me about this though, and that is that this guy has to have been sent a virus and spam at some point to get this going, so god help him now his project is public, as he will be doubtless bombarded with the stuff we spend our online lives trying to avoid. Take this one step further and imagine loosing the work to a virus itself… Hope he has a picture called, “My back up” On a serious note though, good work Alex, stunning images and an original idea. Nice.

Design is the fabric of the universe, it wraps us all, keeps us warm and makes you feel snuggly. It needs washing occasionally though, so be careful it doesn’t shrink.

OK after that shark post, I’m gonna stick to terra firma, and show you these great cushions from the French firm called Smarin design.

These awesome home accessories are made to look like stones and can be stacked up like you used to do on holiday when you were a kid, thus making many different combinations to use as couches and chairs.

I know not everyone wants to look like fred flintstone did their house in a changing rooms special edition, but I really think these would be a great addition to a room. They make them for outside too which would look great by a pool (like ours) or just cast around a patio terrace.

OK, Mom, I lied about the pool, but hey, I can dream.

Thanks, lets use design as a tool to make the world a better place as we know it really needs it.

cheers for now.

There’s something great about finding a scientific experiment going awfully wrong whilst surfing the inter tubes on a Sunday afternoon… and this one is no exception.

Turns out that over the last few years there has been some development in the shark versus human battle that goes on in the seas off the coast of Australia and South Africa. These developments are the deployment of anti shark devices designed to ward off those greedy sea monsters are actually attracting them.

The devices emit an electrical field which, far from repelling the oceans’ top carnivores, attracts them to the point of fresh flesh feeding frenzy.

The inquest into the death of a scientist studying cuttlefish in 2005 heard how he was issued with two of these anti shark devices, which he might not have used… Even better is that the University staff who gave him them also warned him of the health dangers of using them. Irony of irony. Health and safety that you bastard, as my friend, Darren would say. Seems that they didn’t anticipate that the actual health risk would not be a minor risk of electric shock or dropping them on your pinky toes but to induce an attack by a great white shark. Didn’t see that coming did you.

Since then the university has actually tested the devices, numerous tests actually drawing interest from sharks and one resulting in the device itself actually being eaten by a 4 metre long female great white.

Anyway, goes to prove that, as humans we have no damn business in the ocean what so ever. Not never. Not never ever. I’m never paddling again, even off the coast of Holland.

Cheers for now, I’m off to design an anti Lion device which will result in certain death for those using it on the bloody BBC programmes in that safari park they film at.

Bye for now!

So here’s a thing. This guy, the artist Carlos Aires, has produced these great looking figures from the wonderful audio medium that is Old Vinyl. It’s a sad thing to see the greatest recording medium in history going to the grave, but then in a way that looks so cool it isn’t a problem again. Oil based music media Karma restored.

Anyway, just a little post, cos I’m busy but thought it was cool enough to put on here… Go to the website to see more and see how cool they are.

Cheesy bye for now.

This is just a short post to an exhibition of the best wildlife photography of 2007 exhibition. THe pictures are stunning and make you realise there is so much to see in the world.

Awesome, just go and check them all out by clicking on the picture above.

Cheers for now.

So yesterday morning I am meant to fly from Amsterdam Schiphol to a small regional airport in the UK. It’s not the greatest airport in the world – far from it, but it is convenient. Anyway, this is a journey I make regularly and one I am not fond of.

Anyway, the service I booked on was due to depart at 09.40 local time. Now I’m usually quite patient when it comes to travelling, I took the train to the airport, leaving plenty of time. The check in desk was where it all went a little wrong. The desk is advertised as opening at 07.40, 2 hours before the flight is due to take off. It opened at 07.50, and when I check in the sarcastic lisping bastard behind the desk said to me, (in the tone that gets me angry) “…and, make sure you are at the gate on time.”

Now, I wouldn’t usually be pissed at that, but yesterday morning it got to me and for a second or so I analysed what I had just heard, then I asked the guy is he was serious. He was telling me that I should not be late when he swan up to the little computer desks and taken his merry time opening them ten minutes late just got my goat. I told him so, and his pouty look was enough to show he understood.

OK, so then I have the usual hour or so to kill before walking to the gate (and if you have ever used the “H” gates at Schiphol, you will know it’s the kind of thing you do as long as possible) I womble around the duty free bit, looking at stuff I really shouldn’t buy, for prices I really know are inflated. I made my way to the gates and breezed security to find that everything looked good for an on time departure, something which I knew wouldn’t happen with this particular airline. I’ve taken years worth of flights with them in a better the devil you know situation and never has one of them left on time.

When I walked towards the gate I looked out of the window at the fog and realised there was no plane there. This rang alarm bells as the screen above the gate said “BOARDING”. Boarding what? The special invisible plane that wonderwoman lent the airline?

When the check in staff arrive at the gate to take our cards off us, they seemed to make incredibly long phonecalls, long enough to get past everyone who wanted to know, a) where the plane was and b) when we were going to ever leave the Netherlands.

Now when the plane arrives (you know the plane that the signs say we are already “boarding”) a couple of guys I know were getting off (no, off the plane, you dirty fucks). They told me the plane had been circling over the sea for a while and was also quite late leaving the destination airport. SO I kick off with the guy from the check in desk when I next see him and he just doesn’t give a fuck, not a sausage.

This seems to have been the cause of every delay I have ever had with this airline, the worst being a 4 hour one which was not mentioned at the check in desk. It turned out that time the aircraft was in another country and was never going to make it to Schiphol. But they never mentioned it at all. Why do they leave it to the captain of the plane to tell you while you are 32,000 feet above the sea that they have fucked up? On most occasions they know way before you check in about any delay. Let’s face it, an hour and a half delay on a 1 hour flight must mean you are being taken for a ride in more than the literal sense.

So my question is this, what’s the worst service you ever got from an airline? let me know, post your story here and I might just start a website at some point, see what the worst one is.

Right then, moaning over, I’ll go back to the post about design in the one…

Cheers for reading this rant.

Some people just love the ability to change their environment. Some people love to be all blinged up. Some people just love to get they pimp on. With this somewhat cool light bulb from think geek you can do all three of the above. Using a remote control and a bunch of LED’s + some gadgetry/witchcraft you can set the colour of the bulb to match your mood.

Think, yellow to mellow things out. Think red to look like a psyhco/prostitute. Think green to scare the living bejaysus out of your guests or look like a really intense scary science lab.

Colour can set the mood in your life as we all know, painting your walls blue can make you feel cold etc, but having a light bulb that allows you to set the mood is good. Unless, you knew that was coming, you don’t paint your walls white. If you shine red light on a blue wall the colour emitted will be a complete surprise to you. Remembering how reflection works, “Red paint only looks red as it reflects red light whilst absorbing all the other colours of the spectrum (to a certain amount)”.

So head over there, buy one to simply look pimp, but please don’t blame me for making your life a harsh mix of headaches and interior design clashes.

Design makes the flowers come up in the spring, makes the grass turn green and makes the rabbits go at it like nobody’s business. Love it and it will love you right back.

OK, I’m a designer and as in most cases designers love to see design in any form, that is taken for granted but us British designers have another love in their lives. Tea. We seem to drink more tea than most other professions, indeed I regularly down between 8-12 huge mugs of the warm brown liquid every day. I can’t do without it. The choice of brew for me is the wonderful Typhoo, round tea bags which taste great. Awesome stuff.

Which brings me to this… Monkey picked tea, this has to be taking the piss. Apparently there is a lost art of training your monkey to pick tea leaves and a small village has still kept this long lost tradition and can therefore charge top dollar for this kind of tea. I want to see proof, real evidence that a monkey has picked this tea. A monkey actually climbed the tea tree, picked the leaves, brought it back down to the gang master and was happy about it.

The price for this wonderful drink and product of the industrious animal kingdom is $US 24.99 for 2 ounces of loose leaves, ready to brew up. I’m sorry but that is a ridiculous price to pay for what could simply be tea picked from anywhere on the planet. Personally I would suggest you buy from the fair trade suppliers and put your money to good use.

Still I’ve worked with a few people who have turned out to be only really good for getting the studio tea round in, which leads me to wonder if I have, unknowingly, worked with this particular brand of trained Monkeys before.

Fighting for the rights of designers who drink tea everywhere, product of the environment.

Come back soon, we’ll have the kettle on.