Harry Pearce inspirational talk at Pentagram

A magical thing happened last Thursday over at Pentagram. Stepping inside a little yard, Pentagram Yard no less, we were welcomed in to the hub of their London office where we sat and listened and smiled our way through Harry Pearce's talk, the latest offering from 26.

It was everything you'd expect from a Pentagram partner, a person of notoriety and acclaim yet with humility, humour and childlike wonder at the world around him. Listening to touching anecdotes of Pearce's relationship with Alan Fletcher, we all took pleasure in the disarming simplicity of his work, but mostly his playful way with words.

His upcoming book Conundrums is a collection of witty wordplay, Pearce must be a devil to try and beat at Dingbats! He introduced us to his 'Schizophrenic Roads', a collection of photographs of road signs that are the ultimate in paradox: 'Avenue Road' and 'Pink 'Green' as well as his almost prescient use of typography highlighting the issues in Burma. Pearce's work for Witness, clearly a pursuit of passion and integrity stands head and shoulders above the existing charity and good causes publicity. 'Infantry' is a stark attention grabber.

We walked away from the talk buzzing with ideas, wordplay and the connections we can make with words and images. There are truly magical things all around us if we can only see them, as Harry muses on one of Alan Fletcher's wondrous thoughts, a take on the Matisse quote, the world is full of flowers if you just have eyes to see.

So whether we're seeing humour in the miscommunication of predictive text, faulty signage, dreams or Schizophrenic road signs, as long as we're seeing, we'll all be enjoying.

Images courtesy of Pentagram, Conundrum answers available here.

A Penguin Princess

Um, that title may need some work, but I went to a Penguin talk last night at The Design Museum and came away thinking that Coralie Bickford-Smith is a truly remarkable designer. There's a great interview with her here. Her Penguin Classics hardback designs are simply sublime, her designs hark back to other times and yet are so modern in their execution.

I would also like to heap praises on Jim Stoddart, the art director of Penguin Press for an impassioned yet calm, witty and truly knowledgeable talk that made me want to join the ranks of Penguin Towers even more. Okay, I'll stop gushing now.

Overview of the talk:
PENGUIN COVERS THEN AND NOW

Over the decades Penguin has sustained a reputation for generating innovative and influential cover designs as seen in the work of Alan Aldridge in the 1960s. In this cross generational discussion, celebrated Penguin designer David Pelham and former Penguin editor Judith Burnley will talk about the factors behind their particular Penguin heyday to be compared with recent achievements and future direction described by current Art Director Jim Stoddart.

Malcolm Gladwell author of The Tipping Point, Blink and most recently Outliers: The Story of Success, gave a talk last night at The Lyceum Theatre, home of The Lion King. Despite an incredible mane of hair, think Sideshow Bob, he was there as himself on TLK's night off to talk about, as it transpired, plane crashes. We weren't expecting this. He is well known for insightful ideas, observations, provocative thoughts and a love of physchological tests that translate the human factor into real life stories and in this case catastrophes.

He spoke of there being typically 7 very ordinary, almost banal events that occur in quick succession which accumulate into a disaster. Gladwell is a wonderful, engaging orator, with a compelling vocal range which had the whole audience in pin-drop silence or laughter at just the right moments; we were buoyed along from comical national traits to sad tales of crashes, unnecessary accidents and shown worrying similarities in each case. In short, Gladwell is a great observer, much like a stand-up comic, but more worryingly somehow, because it's real and at the expense of people's lives.

On a lighter note, or atleast I hope, I've started reading Outliers and hope it will also give insightful examples of events which shape success, in much the same way it can shape disaster.
I'll let you now how it goes, perhaps the first Digit Book Club book, any takers?

He was also on Radio4 last night I'm told.

Singing Sock Puppets

Matthew Irvine Brown spoke at This is Playful last Friday and I wanted to share his playful genius. Matthew’s talk was pure playfulness and it such a relief as I was beginning to worry about the day’s events. Although best known for his work at Last FM, he concentrated his talk on his sideline personal projects: Trumpet Hero, Breath Control Car and Singing Sock Puppets.

Check out his site for these playful projects and more but I found his singing sock puppets the most captivating, I would like one, very much please.

"This is a singing sock puppet. There's a sensor inside that knows how wide his mouth is open, so he can sing up and down a scale. Open his mouth a little, he sings a low note; open wider, he sings a higher note; even wider, he screams at the top of his voice. And so on."

www.irvinebrown.com/

That was Playful

I went along to Conway Hall to step outside of my comfort zone and learn a little about gaming; I’m a huge fan of playful design so I was open to new experiences.

The event was organised by Pixel Lab and compèred by their very own Toby Barnes, it would be a day of 20minute talks and lots of tea breaks. It was a varied day, with lots of super intelligent people, some of which were very charming and funny, some less so, but a playful attitude was in abundance, whether you were tech savvy or not, it was an inspiring day.

Highlights included making a Guitar Hero guitar into a real acoustic one, singing sock puppets, free jelly beans and a man with a gigantic head who managed to obstruct my view with such efficiency during one talk I estimated him to have achieved approximately 80 square feet of visual obstruction. Impressive.

Image credit: Tom T Pictured is Roo Reynolds hacking his Guitar

President's Lectures

No not that president! I'm talking about the D&AD President's Lectures. Last Wednesday we (myself and fellow Diglets, Pete, Joe and Elise) hotfooted it down to Holborn to watch Garrick Hamm ( I shall not indulge how big a fan of this man and his work I am, that's another story) introduce his first lecture as the current President.

For those who don't know D&AD stands for Design and Art Direction; it's a not-for-profit organisation that inspires creatives globally, encourages them to aim high and show-cases the best in the industry and in creative education. It's a tough job, they organise D&AD New Blood. New Blood is where new top graduates can exhibit work but also they can meet real life potential employers. This is how I got my job at Digit; I met the wonderful Henry, Art Director, we had a banter-ful conversation, he saw my work and not long later I was their new intern, but that's another story also. I like D&AD, I especially like their lectures and this one was by Kyle Cooper.

Kyle Cooper is a very entertaining speaker who is best known for creating film titles; Seven, Spiderman, Mission Impossible and Ironman to name a few. Although he does so much more than that too, all in all it was a passionate and genuine talk that enthused us and made us want to make film titles! Thank you Mr Cooper.

Picture Credit: a covert iphone shot hence the lack of quality...