Books

A short summary of recent books I have read, that have made an impression on me and I wish to remember.

Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr. 
A raw and unrelentingly bleak depiction of New York life in the 1950s. It is hard to find respite from the torrent of abuse, drugs, nihilism, love-less sex, casual violence and unredeemable characters in this book. I found myself propelled by Selby Jr's excellent writing style - slang borrowed from the streets unfold in huge, urgent, barrelling sentences that barely give you pause for breath, let alone a moment to reflect on the bleak subject matter.  The lack of quotation marks throughout blur the line between character and author, pulling you deeper into Brooklyn's seedy diners, flop houses and bars. This all amounts to a feeling of unsettling momentum - we arrive at some vivid and truly bleak moments, depictions of humans at their most selfish, capricious and vulnerable, yet Selby Jr doesn't allow us the time to dwell before we career off to the next event. This is an excellent book but the overall effect is visceral and gruelling - I felt drained after reading it.

The Mortal Sea: Fishing in the Age of Sail - W. Jeffery Bolster. 
For centuries we have held that the seas afforded us an inexhaustible supply of fish, that no matter how many were taken we would not be able to make the merest impression on the stocks, that this gigantic resource was immortal. This book examines the tragic cost of this misconception via the study of the relationship between the natural world (specifically the north western Atlantic), the economy and society in North America. It is well worth reading if you have an interest in the environment and the effects our development have had on it.

More than just an account of a time and topic that I find interesting, I found that the authors demonstration that it was not the result of outright ignorance that caused fish stocks to crash shocking and prescient: The decline of fish stocks due to overfishing was well understood by a wide cross-section of those involved in the industry, from scientists (although, notably, Bolster describes some serious shortcomings in the methodology of early fisheries scientists), through to the fishermen themselves. As with so many environmental issues, vested interests and a political stalling meant a lack of meaningful action that ultimately led to the ruin of an industry and a crucial pillar of our environment. It's not hard to see the similarities between the plight of the ocean outlines in The Mortal Sea and other fragile parts of our environment.

Reading this has made me question my attitude towards to the environment. On environmental matters I have been taught that before action can be taken there must be scientific consensus. In an unguarded moment, Bolster argues that waiting for this creates the opportunity for obfuscation and simply takes too long; the damage has already been done by the time any consensus is achieved. We should be cognisant of the cost of inaction and where there is reasonable evidence we should not wait to act to preserve natural resources. Here, the dangers of acting before the scientific consensus has been achieved is outweighed by the fact that any decision favours conservation, the more difficult of the outcomes to reverse.

Reasons for restarting this blog.

A blog gives me:

1. The motivation and space to focus my opinions and thoughts on subjects I find interesting. These subjects are generally: business, politics, food, music, travel, technology, design, books and sport. 
2. A place to record my thoughts and the things that have made an impression on me. This might be in written form, a scan from a sketchbook or a song, or something else - I don't want to have a strict format. 
3. A place to practice my writing skills. 

Peugeot

I was eating in a restaurant recently and noticed that the pepper mill in the middle of the table was made by Peugeot. Interestingly I felt that these pepper mills do more to advertise their brand than any of the advertising they have come out with in the last 5 years. An endearingly odd throw back to the family run manufacturing origins of the company in 19th century France, they are loaded with real heritage and quality, and a charm that makes you instantly reconsider the company best known for it's middle of the road cars.

Whilst I find more classic marketing such as the BA ads from the 80s, Hello Boys and any number of other examples, interesting, it is this sort of marketing (I doubt it could even be categorised as marketing in the traditional sense) that I find fascinating; incedental services and products, or even by-products, that make you perceive a brand or company from an entirely new, or renewed, persepctive.

Ah, Maggie, in the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only the expedient exaggeration. You ought to know that.

One month in and there've been ups; downs; learning; re-learning; adjusting; adapting; getting the last train back and the first train in; long lunches; vastly more short stolen-slice-of-toast-at-the-desk lunches; gaffs; mistakes; work perfectly done; pitching; kareoke with the partners; getting drunk in the office; interviwing people in the street; and research done in the British Library.

What has become clear to me in this short space of time is that this is one of the most bizarre industries, riddled with contradictions and sometimes underpinned by the most outlandish of incidents and ideas. However, despite the twists and turns, tantrums and tears, I'm certain wouldn't want to work in any other industry.

Gone Poachin'...

Whilst stalking around the always excellent north-western America surf scene blog Sissyfish, I found the trailer to a new surf film "The Tyler Warren Experiment". It's looking like its going to be a good one, and although I can't say much more than has already been said on sissyfish, I'm particularly loving the music and art direction and I couldn't resist poaching it:

More posters for Andy

Three more with the correct details this time...

Third draft complete with totally inappropriate skull.

Fourth draft

Fifth draft

UCLA Photo Archive

After an amazing few days away, during which we scored overhead hossegor surf and climbed mountains in the Pryennes, I'm back. I'll write up a few things about the trip later, suffice to say there is a lot to be written!

Anyway, it seems the UCLA has opened up their photo archive under Creative Commons licensing and there are some really great shots to be found...


Dr. Robert P. Gale in his molecular biology laboratory at UCLA Medical Center, 1988

Gone Surfing...

Have been working loads in the local pub to save up enough cash to go on one final adventure before starting my job up in London. 10 days of surfing around France and Spain, can't wait!

See you all soon...

Poster for Andy

mk.1

mk. 2

A couple of drafts, mainly for Andy's benefit. Details are all TBC/obviously wrong so don't go turning up on the 22nd. If anybody wants any design/branding etc. doing give me a shout:

simonlwoods (at) gmail.com

"Eat Bachelor Chow!"

Conclusive proof that life is slowly turning into that depicted in Futurama:

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

... and a prediction that that bloke who started to see codes in the bible would be proud of:



You've got to hang around until about 1:05 for the wierdly similar Beastie Boys bit (ok I know it's not that similar but it's a good excuse to throw some Futurama up on the blog [I also love the fact that there are 12 year olds out there putting stuff like this on youtube]).

The (Neurosonics) video is apparently a self promo for all those involved - check out the website here - including the post production and special effects juggernaut The Mill. Obviously this is one very excellent bit of film that can be appreciated fully just for the spectacle. However, the mighty Faris Yakob was inspired enough by it to write an insightful piece on the blending of technology with human biology and psychology that is well worth reading.

In another little production/technology/Futurama-prediction tidbit, Faris came up with the goods again yesterday with a tweet pointing to this rather amazing new video recording/viewing technique here. I give it about 6 months before it's being utilised by the adult films industry.

I'm sure that if you work in advertising then you probably already check Faris Yakob's blog, but if not then I'm finding it pretty essential reading. Even if you don't, his blog is well worth checking out from time to time for some interesting takes on technology, society and ideas in general: http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/

Spanglish

Once your past the matador stuff there is some nice BMX action over a pretty big hip; nice tables and in-downs. Bueno.

Familjen

Putting this up not only 'cos the track is rad, (I've been hitting indie-electro pretty hard of late, Familjen, Passion Pit and Yuksek etc...) but this is one of the best music vid's I've seen in a long time. It looks like it was made by somebody with access to old stock footage, some card and a pair of scissors, simple but it all works together welll, even the juddery editing contributes to the playful DIY feel. It's a not so secret ambition of mine to make music videos and the simplicity and enthusiasm in this one is pretty inspiring. Enjoi.

Summit Fever

I finally got round to watching Us Now recently. Apart from making Ed Milliband look a bit of a tit, it hit on something that I've been particularly interested in for a while now; the problem of good ol' home-baked user generated content (USC).

It seems that on the whole, USC is generally viewed by marketeers and internet users as a ‘good thing’. Now, my guess is that this is down to four key reasons: first are the libertarian principles underpinning much of the development of the internet; second are the pleasing connotations of democracy; and thirdly, marketers, advertisers and producers predelictions for slotting it into almost every media project.

Fourthly, and most importantly, USC picks up on an element unique to t’internet: interactivity. You put something out there on the web and it’s almost expected that some part of it you’ll be able to comment on, post a picture or upload a video. Interactivity has understandably been a fundemental byaw to the internet from it's inception and as a result it's become one of the main features that internet marketing uses to define itself.

Fine, but why do we are restrict USC to these same old categories? Indeed, we are starting to see the effectiveness and welcome for these USC 1.0 wane:

Now Jeremy Paxman’s gripe with his producer is not unreasonable; a news outlet like Newsnight is a specialist programme that you expect to be well written and researched, i.e. trustworthy. This trust is the show's most valuable asset, (arguably this trustworthiness is the most valuable asset for the whole of the BBC). USC is notoriously inconsistent, for every insightful comment there is another from somebody painfully dumb.

Obviously if, like Newsnight, your brand or product relies on trust putting inconsistent and potentially damaging USC into your output is risking the foundations of the shows success. Newsnights producer exhibited a classic example of the urge to adopt technology for the sake of it. A sort of summit-fever for media professionals.

An arguably more sophisticated form of USC is now well established in the form of social media, and this is reflected in brands eagerness to adopt it. Cue, branded Facebook pages and brand twittering (does anybody apart from people who work in advertising and self promoting celebs actually use twitter?).

A few brands have done well out of this: Dell, Wispa and Apple come off the top of my head. Two technology companies (an industry that has traditionally enjoyed a huge DIY audience straining at the leash to interact with manufacturers) and a well loved chocolate bar (that just so happened to capture the nostalgia of the main generation of social media users). But many brands are just chucking up social media apps because their marketing directors son spends all day on Bebo.

My point is this: the adoption of USC should first of all not be considered necessary, but viewed with respect to the rest of the branding efforts. Once the informed decision has been made to use USC it has got to viewed as a concept not as a tool. I.e. In what way can people interact with our brand/digital presence rather than where does the forum or profile pages go.

There are plenty of websites (and brands) out there that employ USC in more creative ways (Last.fm, Nike ID, Vimeo etc...). Once USC is viewed as a concept rather than a tool, it opens up tremendous opportunities that I'm looking forward to investigating. So yeah.

Elementary Digital Marketing

A really well executed piece of digital marketing/general fun from Element skateboards via 

interactivemarketingtrends.blogspot.com/

Please watch it Fullscreen from Morten Halvorsen on Vimeo.

This is a pretty simple idea, not using any breaking technology, just linking existing applications already being used by skateboarders and adding a competitive and fun element. It nicely picks up on the strong traditions of filming and photographing, competitive one-up-man-ship and the strong connections with locations inherent in skateboarding. As a mountain biker and surfer those are things I can relate to quite easily, infact it makes me want to brush off my old skateboard and graze my palms all over again.

I'm not so sure how well some people are going to take their secret spots being published for all to see on Google maps but on the whole this is pretty hard to fault.

The Human Genome and a Typography Exhibition in Newcastle

Spent the arvo in the Wellcome Trust gallery and library, part of the medical science exhibition was the entire human genome published in book form. The instructions to the human race. A powerful artwork celebrating an immense achievement. Can't recommend seeing this enough. The rest of the exhibition is excellent too, as is the library.

Twitter pointed me in the direction of the latest Electrik Sheep exhibition in Newcastle. Pretty tasty typography and graphic design from Seb Lester. As a part time graphic designer with my bootleg copy of Illustrator slowly gibbering into senility, I'm sick with jealousy.