It's all about the product
Sorry, had a bit of a break there. Work. Being freelance is great but does mean that it's not so easy to predict your working day.
Sorry, had a bit of a break there. Work. Being freelance is great but does mean that it's not so easy to predict your working day.
Bad title for the post. But I am feeling slightly embarassed. The fact is that I have just been in Tokyo for the first time. I loved the city and the people and the way things are done there, and I really wanted to write something intelligent and highbrow about a culture that has perfected the art of eating, dressing, interacting with one another so that everything is thought of and conscious. However I can't come up with anything that I am sure hasn't been said before. One thing that I didn't know though, is that the Japanese with their ever present knack of spotting when something could be embarassing to someone, have added a soundtrack to their toilets. This means when you are just about to (or think you are about to) produce some horrible noise or revealing sound, you press the little button and it plays the sound of the toilet flushing. The toilet of course does not flush. But you feel better and dare I say safer to release whatever it is you needed to do in peace. I did wonder if the other users of the toilets think "Oh there is someone flushing the loo" or "Oh, there is someone playing the sound of the toilet flushing". But to be honest it doesn't matter. It gets you and everyone around you out of potential embarassment. Oh and yes, the seats are generally warm.
Saw this being put up yesterday on the way to see a friend. Proof that Berlin really is the home of modern art at the moment. Even the houses are getting involved. Don't know anything else about it though. Despite having googled "Immer was zu tun" which fittingly means there is always something to do. Which is of course true and particularly in the case of this house.
A very brave friend of mine has flown this week to Haiti to work with an aid organisation for 3 months to help provide medical assistance and distribute aid. I had a quick look through the documents that she was sent to help prepare, in particular the Security Manual. It was a very scary document, especially because up until then, I hadn't really thought about the dangers that go along with the sort of crisis situation which now exists in Haiti. The Manual was a general manual so it tried to cover everything - situations where you are threatened by people and situations where you are threatened in other ways. One of those other situations is minefields!! In minefields the signs and symbols that you see have a very concrete meaning: they are there to warn you and hopefully protect you from injury.
One thing that has struck me whilst reading all the articles about Sarah Palin is how often she is referred to by the shorthand of "Hockey Mom". Now I lived in the States for 3 years and I think I understand a lot of the cultural references but I am still not 100% sure about hockey mom. What about all the people who have had no more contact with the US than the ubiquitous TV series. Do they know what it really means? Come to that, do the reporters and journalists who are using it really know what it means.
I am back in London for a couple of days before heading off for an idyllic week's walking! One of the first things that struck me was the old British Rail logo that you still see when you get on the train at Stansted.
It really is a design classic. (as said here). What really struck me is that you know what it is, without having to think what it is. It makes use of elements of the product itself - in this case the rails; delivers a sense of what the product delivers - movement; and above all presents a clear sense of an entity which has a sense of purpose. The latter is actually more than what now adds up to British Rail does, but hey ho! the logo is still around and maybe sometime BR will be back.
This has nothing to do with planning or semiotics or even anything but I just want to get something off my chest.
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