Lexical loveliness

Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo.

Sit back, enjoy and start wishing you were an animator.

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.

More New Math

wit + words + math = Bowerbird's approval

Weekly updates from morenewmath.com

Bye Bush

I have nothing more to say. Great contextual adverts. 

Veet: Agency: Sudler & Hennessey

Philips: Agency: DDB

A wordy sculpture

This is 'House of Knowledge' by Jaume Plensa, as seen in Chatsworth as part of the Beyond Limits exhibition, kindly sent to me by Trina.

It's an incredible sculpture that looms high above people, some 50 odd feet above, not that you can tell from this picture, also I believe the words are taken from a William Blake poem.

Piece of cake

Tasty ideas galore from SUCK UK, fast becoming my favourite site, at only £20, this is bound to impress when you bring it to the table.

Eat dessert in the desert

I have always confused dessert with desert, and I have had enough, so I decided to teach myself a way of remembering. Thought I'd share.

Dessert is sugary sweet (double s)
Desert is solitude (single s)

I feel better, I don't know about you, perhaps no-one else makes this mistake...

Scrabbulous!

I have just ffffound this and am in utter awe of it's simplicity and beautiful execution.
Stephen Reed Design for Bloomsbury offices. My only gripe is that the seats don't fit 7 cushions.

Writers I admire

Client: Canadian Club, agency: Energy BBDO, copywriter: Derek Sherman. Online D&AD Annual page here.

Client: UHU, agency: V&R Singapore, copywriter: Ted Roger. Online D&AD Annual page here.


ZOOM IN TO READ
Client: Red Cross Mexico, agency: JWT Mexico, copywriter: Gabriel Bello, Enrique Codesido, Iguancio Zuccarino (yes three people for the word 'AFTER' you guys are my heroes). Online D&AD Annual page here.

Client: Luxor Highlighters, illustration: Kunal Mhabadi, agency: Leo Burnett India, copywriter: Russell Barratt. Online D&AD Annual page here.

I was flicking through the 2008 D&AD Annual and only got a few pages in before I realised there are many incredible writers out there, here's a handful of my favourites (from the first 50 pages of 600 page annual)

You can view the annual online for the first time ever here. The book's better though.

Soup and secrets

I know this is far from riveting stuff but I had the most wonderful soup at lunch and have become an obsessive photographer of anything and everything. Apologies.

For your reference, Moroccan butternut squash and thyme soup from Bogayo, Old Street. Yum.

On a more relevant note I have a few sideline projects which I shall post about in due course; but I can disclose that they involve a dalliance into writing, let's hope I'm not this circumlocutional.

Caw, clack, gobble and hoot

Ever wanted to know how to describe sounds better?

Have a little look at Written Sound, an aid to imitative or onomatopoeic words, I've highlighted (Bower) bird words for you here. Thanks to Chris for the link.

Image Credits: Bowerbird, 'Bird speak'

They're, there, their

I'm a bit of a stickler for good grammar, being a good Grammar School girl and all. I just received this link (thanks Toby) and thought I'd share my grammatical gripes.

20 examples of grammatical misuse

Illustration available to buy from Threadless, courtesy of Mr Florencio Zavala