On being dumped...

What’s the worst thing that could happen to you? 

Leaving the loo with your skirt caught up in the top of your tights? (Once saw that happen to some poor soul in the very busy foyer of New Scotland Yard.) Finding a clump of hair in your breakfast mushrooms on the train? (Sure did, on the Pullman up to Preston. Ask Piers Rutterford. He was there.) Driving off with your purse on the roof of your car? (Did that once, from Safeway at Camberwell Green to home on Camberwell Grove – just like in the Nat West ad – and yes, people at bus stops were shouting and pointing at me and miraculously it was still sitting there when I got home.) Or phoning your (then) paramour, wonder why he’s out of breath, and then twig that he’s in the middle of sha*ging someone else? (Yep, it was a fair while ago, but another box ticked nevertheless.)

 

What’s the worst thing that could happen to you if you’re a designer, photographer, writer or a painter – indeed any profession where you are defined by your produce? And the answer is…you lose it. Guess what?
I just ticked another box.

 

Any designer will tell you that you collect a huge amount of stuff during the course of one year let alone 29. Pieces of print, direct mail, posters, invitations, packaging – and that’s just the finished ‘live’ stuff.  Add to that the roughs, mock-ups and the job bags pregnant with the ones that got away. If you’re similarly aged, then there will be a lot of paper from the pre-digital years. You like me will be in possession of your very own Museum of Was. Then there are the disks, floppy, Zip and so on. Where do you put it all?

 

Some years ago I struck-up a deal with a chap who owned a number of storage units in South London and I bedded it down in there, with Clever Dog as a comforter. I made visits now and then to retrieve things or to replace them and generally show my face. The last time I showed my face was about 6 months ago, but last week I decided to show it again only to discover that the chap had sadly died and that his units had been cleared out!

 

When I heard that I got that strange taste in my mouth, the one you get when you trip up on a flagstone or almost miscalculate the kerb and fall flat on your face – adrenaline – a whole keg of it. My archive!!!!

A little detective work revealed that this man had no family and there was no paperwork since it was a personal agreement, so the contents had either been sold or dumped.

 

Twenty nine years-worth of work, seven years of college projects, award certificates, mementoes of people and companies past, photographs (professional and personal) and 35m films and disks…all gone. All that remains is an A4 book of digital prints I had at home.

 

It’s a bit like trying to prove your identity when your passport is lost or stolen, because those pieces of paper, plastic and celluloid defined me. They provided the evidence to support the litany of activity presented on my CV. And each project was infused with memories of my working and personal life and laminated in Letraset, Cannon colour copies, rubylith, acetate, rendering, axonometric drawings, tracing paper and the rest.
 

Product + Personality.

Only one remaining.

So what now?

Start again. What else?

New balls please.

150 not out

 “Wow.” “Cool.” “Awesome.” No, not me doing my ablutions, but a gaggle of American visitors who on spying the giant roundels marking the subterranean entrance to Chancery Lane tube, broke into a fast trot with smartphones aloft as if in salute. It was love at first sight. They took it in turns to snap and film each other whilst trying to get as close to the roundel as possible. They were hugging it. This was their proof. They’d been here. You can’t argue with the roundel.

It’s a familiar scene, one I’ve seen played out many, many times with visitors from just about everywhere. Sometimes I may not have understood what they were saying, but then sometimes you don’t need to understand what is being said in order to understand what is meant. It’s about provenance. It’s about validity, trust and originality. Nothing says ‘London’ like the roundel does – not even red phone boxes or red busses – and so for our visitors it’s a badge of authenticity.

We may walk by it or ride on the system several times any given day without giving it all a second thought. But by jingo we’d miss it if it wasn’t there. Anyone who has left London and ‘gone-back-to-where-they-came-from’ in the UK, if only for a visit, will acknowledge that when subjected to the vagaries of the average provincial bus/train/mini-cab service. They say there are no alien lifeforms. They’re lying. They're here and they all work as mini-cab drivers in Barnsley.

We love it. We hate it. We love it. It’s great. It’s a f*ck-up. But it’s our f*ck-up, and deep down – around the same level as the Brunel tunnel – we have a soft spot for it, that network of arteries that carries the lifeblood of our city. That’s you…and occasionally me.

Every designer and art director wants to design a poster for the Underground, it’s a dream brief. Why? Because it’s the designers ticket to immortality. Design a poster for the tube and it becomes part of the archive and as such will be around long, long after you’ve gone and who wouldn’t want to spend eternity in the company of Abram Games, Man Ray, Tom Eckersley, Fougasse and the rest? Ask Brian Webb, Michael Johnson or David Pocknell, they know because they’ve had the privilege too. They’ll tell you that a brief from TFL or the London Transport Museum creates sparks (creative and otherwise) in any studio: the competitiveness!

The Underground has played a sizable part in my own career. I’ve been very lucky in that respect. In various past lives we’ve created visual identities for customer-facing information pieces, posters, training materials and a brand identity, signage, communications and information pieces for Crossrail in its original incarnation. (That’s 23 years ago, probably before some of you were born.) And, more pertinently, the commemorative poster for the exhibition marking the Tube Centenary: 100 years of electric underground railways.

The Underground is 150 years young tomorrow and there’s a fabulous exhibition at the Transport Museum as well as other related happenings. So if you walk by a station or get on the tube, sing happy birthday. And if your train is late remember that it could be worse. You could be in Barnsley.

http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/

http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/tube150

http://www.ltmcollection.org/posters/results/results.html?IXsearch=tube+centenary&button=GO%21

http://www.ltmcollection.org/posters/artist/artist.html?IXagency=Fine+White+Line

Err...up there a bit and on the right

I have big flapping ears. I am, in common parlance, a nosy bugger. I make a point of listening in on the conversations of people I pass in the street or supermarket, in fact, anywhere I go. I’m not being nasty nosy you understand. It is, I assure you, rubber-necking with purpose. You see I’m fascinated by the way people give directions or instructions and I’m equally fascinated by the way people accept, absorb or disregard them.

Who hasn’t given or asked for directions at some point? This year, by dent of the Olympics and Paralympics, seemingly everyone in London became an unofficial tourist guide and information bureau. And one wonders how much damage the ramblings and misdirection of the average Bert or Hilda did to our national brand. Because the truth is that most are total rubbish when it comes to this kind of stuff...laughably so. For example; I once heard someone ask for directions to Hampton Court maze and saw the person they asked point to the ivy-clad bunkers at the top of Horseguard’s Parade.

‘Err’…up there a bit and on the right’ means absolutely nothing to most, let alone to a stranger to the city and yet vagaries such as this seem to the norm. If asked the way to ‘x’ the brain immediately calls up your cognitive map of that journey and it will consist of landmarks such as shops, buildings and monuments, the identifying markers that lace the journey together. Knowing that you will walk by Waitrose and the dragon statue in the middle of the road is a more concrete and visual way of giving instruction and it’s certainly more reassuring, as the markers are sought and mentally ticked as they are passed. But verbalising their map never occurs to most.

Worst of all are those who ‘umm’ and ‘arr’ and misdirect rather than say they don’t know.

Of course it works the other way around. Some will ask for directions and then tell you what you’re going to say before you say it, or contradict what you say in the belief that they know best even though they have no idea where they’re going. These types are usually macho-blokes who (by their spouses’ admission) can’t take instruction from women. One New Yorker actually said that to me when apologising for her husband’s manner. And here I have to confess that I once allowed a truly obnoxious bloke to go to South London to visit the British Museum because he insisted, contrary to my directions and superior knowledge, that that was where it was. And if you’re prepared to take the time to help others the comedy comes thick and fast; like the American student who I found standing with her back to Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, map in hand, who proceeded to ask me where (I promise you) Nelson’s Column was.

On an average day when I’m out and about I probably give directions to eight to ten people or groups. Many of them comment on the clarity of the instructions I give them and I suppose you might say that that is unsurprising given what I do. You might also say that people who work in communications are obviously going to be better at explaining stuff than those who don’t, but I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve worked with ‘communicators’ who couldn’t describe what they ate for breakfast let alone anything else.

Description is an art based on science; the words and diagrams that enable, whether that’s the completion of a safe and successful journey; the wiring of a plug; the baking of a cake; or the injury and divorce-free laying of a new floor.

It’s fundamental and that’s why it should be on the curriculum. Earlier this year, in response to the perceived decline of oratory skills across the board, there were also calls to introduce public speaking to the national curriculum as a stand-alone subject. But both are already part of the same. In some strata of the system they’re called ‘show and tell’, but for some reason that’s considered be the province of the Infants and Juniors’ and that’s a bit mad really, because one way or another we never stop doing either.

Serendipity rules, OK!

On the eve of the Paralympics, I meet three chair-bound American ladies from Florida, two of whom were former Paralympians. What are the odds? And I'm not a big fat fibber neither. I met them because I offered iced water to their two dogs. It was only later when they decided – very Golden Girls like – that they would 'commandeer' me, ostensibly to thank me and then get the gist on where they should go and how to get there.

Two of the ladies went back to their hotel to bed-down the dogs leaving 68 years-young Ruth Rosenbaum (former Table Tennis champ) to chew the fat and swallow a half-glass of chardonnay with me. It was then that I learned part of her history. The Atlanta Games jacket should have given the game away, but I only saw it when she explained who she was. And isn't that part of the bigger perception problem?

These ladies have been trying to get tickets. They leave for the next leg of their cruise on Friday. Can anyone help? I have a number for them. If you can, please do let me know.

My weeks as Evelyn Glennie

It started the day after the opening ceremony. Wild-eyed children staring at me. Parents telling their kids not to stare at me. Visitors asking if they could take a photo of me. Kids hugging me. And people in the street asking if it was ME. 

My hair has always announced me – advertised me. Wherever I go strangers stop me to tell me they love it. Men and women of all ages and younger girls who want to know who dyes it or where I get my extensions done. Neither is applicable, and I let them feel to prove that I do not speak with Clariol / salon forked-toungue.

My hair brands me. It's what some of our distant cousins call my EVP or personal brand. It's why others (the Jeremy Kyle fraternity) call me a witch. I thought I was a one-off and so it seems did everyone else until that day. Even I had to look twice. "What the feck are you doing there?" "I didn't know you could play the drums." And so on. The texts came thick and fast. They still are.

It was Evelyn, and the resemblance hair-wise was uncanny. Same cut, length and natural colour. We could have been twins except for the fact that I bang-on about everything and she bangs on drums etc, she being a master percussionist.

In certain places, companies – countries even – there is an overwhelming pressure to fit in, assimilate, be the same. Big mistake. Product / personality / presentation - each being crotched together. 

I'll never be ignored. My hair, mouth and output ensures that I have something to sell. I love Shaun the Sheep but I don't want to be him. 

Acknowledge the similarities and celebrate the differences. Just like Evelyn.

A valediction in Primark

I braved Primark’s flagship store on Oxford Street. 

For the brand snobs out there, this was to buy elastic hairbands.

I got to the pay desk. 
The chap serving me was a black, 17-20 something Londoner. “Did you see the ceremony?” He said animatedly.  I replied that I had. “Brilliant, innit!” And then, as he handed me my change, he punched the air with his fist, smiled the biggest smile and simply said, ”British!”

For those who still gripe about the cost of the games and their worth, that gesture, I think, says it all.

Sweating like a pig that knows it's dinner

We've all done it. Don't pretend you haven't. You've organised a party and then sweated wondering if anyone will show up. And if they do will they find a forgotten cotton bud lurking behind the radiator; will they be running their fingers over your shelves; taking the piss out of your record collection (insert CD, cassette, whatever) or be Twittering sad pics of the Capodimonte your parents / equally sad mates bought you.

I'm sweating like a pig that knows it's dinner because the world has been invited to our party...and they're coming. That is an unassailable truth. They’re already here. Our reputation…our collective reputations are at stake: no pressure then.

It seems like forever that London has been imitating your gran when involved in a competitive cleaning competition having been given notice that the hated or viewed with suspicion long-lost rellie / sibling / perceived competitive anyone, is coming round, and they embark on a massive clean-up: roads, pavements, painting, signage. Even new street thingys had plastic wrappers, just like your gran’s sofa. And just as you’re doing the final hoovering and you’ve even got the right marks in the carpet, some fucker puts his oversized muddy boots all over it: G4S standard issue natch.

To be continued…