Beguiled by data
In the press release for Somerset House’s current Big Bang Data exhibition Jonathan Harris wonders whether governments and the others who control our lives have got so hot about […]
Must I Listen to Something Different…again?
It’s that time again. Almost a year ago to the day I was writing up my responses to our Listen to Something Different challenge. I’m trying to enable my […]
Object Obsessions: Sherlock Holmes and the Internet of Things
“Warning: Artificially increasing the subjective value of objects will most likely lead to unintended consequences.” Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn Over the last couple of months I have been […]
World Post Day – postcards from your inspiration
Yesterday, October 9th, was World Post Day and Curious Events Day – a combination not to be missed. So on a trip to London’s Somerset House, my colleague, Tim Bones, and I asked our University of Kent Graphic Design students to not only review the fantastic World Illustration Awards, but […]
Ladybird – measuring life
Above: Shopping with Mother, Harry Wingfield, © Ladybird Books Ltd, 1958 In the way that many cultures and religions track the passage of time via rituals at specific times, so I tracked my childhood life, and continue to do so today, from what I learned about the passage of time from […]
Eat Something Different
I was first set the creative challenge to Eat Something Different a few weeks ago. The aim is to eat something unusual or to eat it in a different way. Small regular problem-solving tasks that stretch the imagination are good for rehearsing your creativity. So as I only had about […]
Listen to Something Different
As part of our ongoing creative challenges I set the activity to listen to something different. Each person participating chooses two pieces of music under 5 minutes long. One piece should be fairly accessible and the other challenging, enigmatic or just plain weird. The purpose of the activity is to […]
Getting Ready for Season of Festivals
Now is a good time to start thinking about sending out cards and self-promotion items to would-be customers and clients. Whether you want to drum up design work for yourself of any other kind of business it would be a nice idea to make an eye-catching greetings card for Christmas, […]
Shoe Tower: Creative Problem Solving Activity
A fun hands-on problem solving activity that will help to get creative juices flowing is to build a shoe tower. This weekend at GDP headquarters, as part of a creativity-building activity session, we were prompted by Dr Jack Matson of CIC MOOC to have a go at building our own shoe tower to test […]
Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK
You can trust the British Library in London to put on a big, important exhibition, and Comics Unmasked was no exception. The already iconic poster by Jamie Hewlett is above. But I left with the thought that I don’t really like comics very much! I am interested in them, like […]
the graphic design project 