Wave at a CCTV camera?

I had an idea - what if on one day at a particular moment everyone waved at a CCTV camera that's watching them. For the viewer in the control room it would be an unsettling moment - suddenly everyone on a particular street starts waving at them - a "oh shit they know I'm watching" moment.

With Facebook it would be possible to arrange such a moment. What do you think?

Objectified documentary

This documentary looks like it'll be interesting:

Design Museum

Finally got round to going to the Designs of the year at the design museum. Some really inspiring stuff. Check out the work here

Form over substance

A beautiful table, unfortunately it's impossible to remove the smaller table without lifting the top tables off. To me that would be frustrating

Martin Seligman: Positive Psychology

My research on my project is really interesting. Just watch this talk on positive psychology on TED. If you have 30 minutes it's definitely worth watching:

When free isn't quite free

Came across this in my local Borders. It made me smile to think that enough people were taking the Time Out that they needed to make a sign. It's also a nice insight into design - what did Time Out expect when they designed this cover!

Evening Standard headlines

While researching, I came across an excellent photo set of Evening Standard Headlines.

Doom, gloom and panic on the streets of London

Cheering up

For my project this term, I am undertaking a self initiated project. The title is "Let's all cheer up. Designing for recession."

The aim is to create a product that helps people to see the brighter side of life and realise that things are so bad.

I have created an online survey, just to get an idea of how people are feeling and what cheers them up.

I would be very pleased if you could take a couple of minutes to fill it out. Just click here.

Would also be awesome if you can pass it onto your friends. Thanks!

The progress of the project will be posted on this blog.

Amazing Phillips video

via Brandflakesforbreakfast

Samsung HD Camera trick challenge

I'm currently working on the latest Samsung viral. Which is this nice little offering that was created with no editing or computer wizardry. It also very cleverly advertises the fact that the camera in the phone is HD - the concept being watch the video in HD and trying to figure out how it was done.



I even spotted one of the errors, the Ss in Samsung are the wrong way round in the mirror.

How NOT to get ahead in the creative industries

We had someone on work experience at Cake last week - he was very good, helping me out on some seeding work. He was fairly freshly out of uni and wanted to get involved in some creative work and ended up leaving half way through his placement. What's worst is that he sent an email to the entire company saying that it had not been creative enough for him and not provided him with enough to 'sink his teeth into'

He made a mistake in my opinion - Cake is one of the most creative companies I have ever worked for, one where creative ideas can come from anyone and where everyone in the company contributes to brainstorms. Had he stayed for the remainder of the week he would have seen that, I think he was just a bit too impatient.

I think design schools fill there students with too many ideas that they will all be super successful creatives when they leave and the truth is, that you have to be prepared to do other elements of work, not just the sitting around on comfy ideas coming up with ideas. What's more he didn't include a single thank you in his leaving email. A shame really.

Back to college for the Summer term

Returned to college for the final term of the second year. Carrying out a self directed project this term which'll be interesting.

Cleartouch's new website

The Cleartouch website has just relaunched offering bespoke wedding stationery


This has been a really interesting project for me that has brought together all of the areas I enjoy working in. I designed most of the products, oversaw the redevelopment of the website and now I will be promoting it both on and offline.

Definitely worth checking out - they also do a furniture, events and some very cool bespoke items.

They're even on twitter

CT scans of products

See more here

Work of Timothy Henry

Tim's doing some work experience at work at Cake. He's got a fantastic collection of work and creative thinking. My favourite being brewing his own beer to hand out at his degree show - getting everyone to hold a small piece of self promotion. Who is Timothy Henry? check out his work here

Opportunities and optimism in a recession

My dad was last week made redundant - not a direct result of the recession I should add, he worked for a printing factory that burned down and given the current economic situation wasn't worth rebuilding. He got a handsome pay off and was actually pretty pleased. He's started his own gardening business and within the week is fully booked - as soon as people knew he was a full time gardener they asked him if he could help out on their garden. So instead of driving round the M25 everyday to sit in front of a computer, he's now doing what he loves.

If you're after an Aylesbury gardener check out his website.

A friend of his has also lost his job - he was working in an admin role. It turns out he's a fully trained carpenter but did an office job. He made all the doors in our house - what if he starts to offer his skills to friend, family and beyond? Imagine everyone who has been made redundant looking at the skills they have and offering them as a small business. Then those small businesses start working with each other. An ideal world dream I guess, but there's definitely cause for optimism.

Talking of optimism, Leo Burnett has just released a firefox plug-in that replaces the word crisis with the word opportunity. A nice idea, except I ended up with some pretty awful sounding results when I googled 'crisis'. Get the add in here

Ben & Jerry's launch global flavour competition

Ben & Jerry's today announced a competition to design a new flavour - if your flavour is tasty enough you will be whisked away to the Dominican Republic to meet the ice cream’s dairy Godfathers, Ben & Jerry and meet the other finalists from around the world. The final winner will then see their flavour made and sold globally in 2010.

To accompany the competition, there is a web series following Arnold and Peter, Ben & Jerry's real life flavour gurus who travel around the world trying different foods and creating new flavours. This week they're in Paris




Visit the microsite to create your own flavours.

Taylor Phillips-Hungerford

Here is some work from one of my housemates, Taylor.

Possibly the sexiest tape dispenser ever made. Check out his coroflot profile for more of his work.

Renny Gleeson: Busted! The sneaky moves of anti-social smartphone users

TED is a fantasic resourse. Beats the crap on TV any day of the week. This is an interesting 3 minute talk on mobile phones and social media. The things that most struck me is the phrase "I share. Therefore I am" and "The reality is less interesting than the story I will tell". This is so true of the way we interact with technology today - I just have to think of the amount of time that is spent taking photos at parties and nights out or the person who films an entire gig. The recording of an event becomes more important than the event itself and what's more, time spent recording the event is time not actually spent participating in the event.



Interesting, whilst watching the video I was thinking about this post and what I would write about the video.

Canvas prints at the Ideal Home Show

One Deko have three stands at the Ideal Home Show and I have been very fortunate in that they are displaying my artwork alongside the furniture.

Richard Baybutt photography

If you get a chance, head over to Richard Baybutt for some superb photography.