To say that the end result is what counts is just not true. Especially in design. Rather, a good designer is more concerned with the process; that winding, potholed road he embarks upon every time he gets a new job.

“Manifesto.” is an ongoing project that leaves the final result to one side so as to focus on the creative process. It brings together under one roof the personal manifestos of some of today’s smartest and most renowned international designers.

Whilst some of these statements are very well known, others have been prepared exclusively for the project: some are programmatic pieces of writing, some are detailed work manuals, all are passionate tributes to graphic design, creativity and the design culture.

Reading these manifestos without the authors work shown alongside is an interesting set up as the reality of the finished product does not interfere with the readers interpretation of the words and ideas. Although I am aware of many of the designers work it was still novel to read the words and not see the work – the ideas on process and ‘design philosophy’ can then be taken at their face value and I can imagine more easily applying those ideas to my own work and design processes.

Going back about seven years, when 20three was a working studio, I toyed with the idea of writing a manifesto, or a statement of intent. It never materialized and looking back I think I was lacking the clarity of purpose that is needed to put such concise thoughts to paper. Reading these collected manifestos is inspiring and has given me the motivation to look again at seeing if I can sum up my own design philosophy in a short manifesto.

I wanted to re-produce a couple of the manifestos so readers of this blog get a taste of the book – there are a few I could have chosen but The cult of Done by Bre Pettis and Kio Stark is definitely one of my favorites, possibly as it made me smile the most.

The cult of Done Manifesto

01 There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

02 Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get done.

03 There is no editing stage.

04 Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.

05 Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.

06 The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.

07 Once you’re done you can throw it away.

08 Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.

09 People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

10 Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

11 Destruction is a variant of done.

12 If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.

13 Done is the engine of more.

Although the book is now sold out, you can read the manifesto’s here: http://www.manifestoproject.it

op

Related posts:

1. Jost Hochuli: Detail in Typography
2. Degree Show: University of Brighton
3. Science Fiction book covers: a small selection

The font I have thoroughly abused is Futura Book. Paul Renner is probably spinning in his grave, considering that legibility was a fundamental concern when he designed Futura, widly known as the first mass produced geometric sans-serif typeface.

Ah well, destroy your heroes and all that.

op

Related posts:

1. Sketchbook pages: 10.2010
2. Sketchbook pages: 12.2009
3. Sketchbook: L’art brut préféré aux arts culturels

If you visit :: http://www.opensussex.net/cutup/ You’ll find my first attempt at this.  This is a very simple script.  Here is the Code.


$search = $_GET['search'];
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt ($curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=".$search);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$result = curl_exec ($curl);
curl_close ($curl);
$result_de = json_decode($result,true);
$rnd_text = '';


foreach($result_de['results'] as $results){
$rnd_text = $rnd_text . $results['text'] . ' ';
}


$text_array = explode(" ",$rnd_text);
$code_out = '';


for($x =0; $x<20; $x++){
$rnd = rand(0,sizeof($text_array)-1);
$code_out = $code_out . $text_array[$rnd] . ' ' ;
}


echo $code_out;

It’s very simple, and doesn’t do a lot.  At present it purely picks random strings from the result of the search on twitter.  Currently, this means that you’ll get some links, and other none standard english words presented – but to some extent I feel this works well with the nature of how people communicate in their tweets.

Some Examples

H. @exmoorjane semangaaat! RT Fanny katek fanny… often ;D Mommy more & klo !!! OMOO…… agreed, tapi hek

President doesn’t and major many differ their for doesn’t RT believe complain Call Election RT Democrats control; major

Es Unleashed and Chaos making なにそのRTこわいｗｗあかりちゃんは俺の嫁ｗ this und exploded, @chaos_morning bei @chaos_morning Chaos zu …yes forced wenig anfangen.

please your uncle landing helping SMS. fire say how bought your “Uncle set the http://bit.ly/aAev9Q and #ÜberGeek this

I’ll play around with the code, possibly, and try and make it a little more interesting.  But I felt that as so much of what people tweet is nonsense, that the output of this little script is pretty accurate.

gh

No related posts.

Related posts:

1. Sketchbook pages: 12.2009
2. Sketchbook pages: 03.2009
3. Science Fiction book covers: a small selection

I have got round to reading most of them but I  choose them for the cover art and a few remain unread. Many of these books were bought from Rainbow books on Trafalgar street, Brighton. A few by Azimov I picked up in Solway books in Kircudbright.

I have added the designer or illustrator if one is credited.

01

02

03

04

05

06 Cover illustration: Chris Foss

07 Cover illustration: Chris Foss

08 Cover illustration: Chris Foss

09 Cover illustration: Chris Foss

10

11

12

13 Cover photograph: Dennis Rolf

14 Cover photograph: Dennis Rolf

15 Cover illustration: David Pelham

16

17 Cover illustration: Tony Roberts

18 Cover illustration: Paul Stinson

19

20

21

22

23 Cover illustration: Paul Monteagle

op

Related posts:

1. Degree Show: University of Brighton
2. Sci-Fi :: How I can’t get enough of this genre.
3. Neil Young’s Greendale: Joshua Dysart & Cliff Chiang

The design was produced by Kerb designer Will Weaver and the game concept came out of the head of Kerb Interactive Director Carl Hodler. There are still a few tweaks to be made: some re-working of some of the interface elements, extra work laying out the instructions (and re-writing them too) and a little bit of colour correction. We are also going to implement a global high score table with the next Wordagon release – and we will possibly then start to charge for the app.

With absolutely no promotion apart from Kerb employees spreading the word, Wordagon has managed over 900 downloads with a user rating of 4+ (as of Febuary 2010).

Some screenshots:

From the itunes store description: (please excuse the excessive use of exclamation marks!)

Wordagon is a game of high pressure and mental agility. Battle against time and space… and by space, we mean words!

With each letter tile having a value, the bigger the word, the more points you score! The longer it takes it to find a word and submit it, the closer you get to falling foul of the onslaught of new letters taking their place.

Before you get trapped beneath an alphabet avalanche, you need to find words and remove them, but as you progress through the levels, the words you must come up with keep getting longer!

• Key features:
• Bonus tiles for letters
• Bonus tiles for words
• 5 levels of difficulty
• Highscore table to allow you to challenge yourself or your friends

Get it for free from the itunes store here

op

No related posts.

To keep my talk manageable I have decided to talk about the development of typographic design in relation to the birth and growth of Modernism, starting from the early 1900’s and up to the present day.

Details about were and when my talk is happening can be found here.

Find out about Flash Brighton here

op

Related posts:

1. Photographer’s stamp
2. Jost Hochuli: Detail in Typography
3. Typographic Brighton

Here is the graphic I produced:

Here are some of the original designs I ripped off used as reference.

op

Related posts:

1. Photographer: Nhung Dang
2. Typographic Brighton
3. Fish & Chip shop menu

I really like Binbin’s collection – the sixties shapes & silhouettes are beautiful and her colour choices are right up my street, navy blues and lots of warm autumnal colours – mustard yellow makes an appearance, and I love a bit of mustard yellow.

Here are a couple of lifestyle shots from tba’s spring/summer collection, shot at Brighton’s hotel Pelirocco. Check out the links below for more info on the new tba collection.

tba

tba

tba

tba

http://www.ilovetba.co.uk/

Also stocked at Urban Outfitters

op

Related posts:

1. Holga Experiments
2. Degree Show: University of Brighton
3. Typographic Brighton

From the Blast Theory website:

Blast Theory is renowned internationally as one of the most adventurous artists’ groups using interactive media, creating groundbreaking new forms of performance and interactive art that mixes audiences across the internet, live performance and digital broadcasting.

Anyhow, I was invited along to the ‘premier’ of the documentation of their latest work Ulrike and Eamon Compliant at Blast Theory’s quite swanky studios just outside Brighton. Having not experienced Ulrike and Eamon Compliant firsthand I can’t comment on it, but the short film and supporting book documenting the work was enough to make me want to experience it for myself. The wine was nice too.

The book is beautifully designed by John Hunter, simple two column grid with a swiss flavour. I particularly like the cover, no messing about:

Blast Theory

To read all about Ulrike and Eamon Compliant go here:

The DVD and book I am told should be on sale from the blast theory website soon – also check their website for information on upcoming projects.

op

Related posts:

1. The Glenkiln Sculptures