Conversational

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Type

April 6, 2010 in Conversational by wendren | 4 comments

I was never one for typefaces. I suppose this is because I was ignorant and never saw them as art forms or knew there was a history to each curve, shape and line. This changed when last year I was shown a movie about Helvetica by Gary Hustwit (who, to my delight, was a delegate at the Design Indaba conference this year).

Helvetica is a feature-length documentary about typography and the font Helvetica in particular. It looks at it’s history, its past and its impact in the global visual culture today – something I had never thought about. As a result, when I was in Switzerland in December I was noticing Helvetica everywhere.

What is your typeface? found via ‘anything goes’ is a lot of fun. According to it my typeface is ‘Marina Script’.

I think that this might be a nice font for the wedding invites …

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Swan time

February 5, 2010 in Conversational, Me by wendren | 2 comments

Swans In South Africa we have a lot of birds but the swan is not one of them. In Switzerland they were as common as Cape Town’s seagulls. It is funny how one notices things that make a place different and that are taken for granted when you live somewhere.

Swans in a muddle

Being on holiday is wonderful. It is frightening to think it was only a month ago. It feels like a year ago. This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately – what are we going to do about how time flies so fast? We are all lost in what day of the week it is and we cannot believe that January has already passed. I am no exception but my worry is that I do not know how to slow down and still keep up.

I don’t want it to be December and I am still reflecting on the single day that I walked down the lake in Switzerland and swans followed me. Now, I am about to jump into my car to rush around for the day and I admit, I barely notice things. Something has to change, everyday needs to last longer and not just pass by in a blur.

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The worlds best coffee

October 12, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 5 comments

Whilst sitting sipping my morning coffee I reflected on how it really is a special treat. Coffee is a pudding to me – it does not matter how bad the caffeine is or how many sugars I stir in, it’s ‘me’ time and makes me feel just like Jesse’s sugar print.

About a year ago friends of my granny’s arrived from St Helena and brought with them a packet of coffee beans. My granny is a instant coffee girl so she called me to show her how to make real coffee. However, it was me who was most taken aback becuase this coffee was PHENOMENAL! As it turned out St Helena coffee is the purest coffee in the world becuase it has never having been cross-pollinated.

It was brought to the island in 1732 from Yemen and when Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the island in 1816, he fell in love with it and soon it became ‘THE’ coffee. In 1851 it was selected as the finest coffee in the world but somehow between then and only a few years ago, it was forgotten to the world. In 1994 coffee trees 250 years old, some 40 feet tall, were found covered by jungle. Today the industry is reborn and the coffee is delighting the tongues of coffee lovers again. It is a taste that has definitely left my taste buds wishing for just another sip.

My granny still has some in her freezer (saved only for very special occasions) but sadly coffee is not something you can keep for a long period of time and it is not the same. Now I just dream of a coffee from a far-a-way land…

To read the full story of St Helena coffee click here.

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Name Trends

July 7, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 4 comments

I always find trends fascinating becuase after all, they are a reflection of who we are as a collective. Name trends are no exception to this. I am sure you have noticed that at one time there were a lot of Taylor’s, Tyler’s, Tamlyn’s, Tielay’es …and many more versions I cannot remember now. Britney (in many different spellings) went through a phase, and Kristen and Kirsten, Brett and Brent’s too. It is definitely interesting.

Currently the number one criterion in choosing a name is its uniqueness and by all of us choosing by that, it is hard to find true uniqueness. According to Edward Callary, editor of Names, the journal of the American Name Society, name trends tends to come in 30-year-cycles. ‘A name will come on strong,’ he says, ‘then when that first Courtney becomes an adult, we decide it’s an adult’s name and stop giving it to babies’. Then once the original owners are gone, their names regain popularity – which is why there has been a sudden resurgence of Hannah’s, Jacob’s and Max’s. Put another way, Barbara, Karen and Susan are currently the names of middle-ages women…. but its not unthinkable that today’s Britney will name her daughter Susan.

There are, of course, fad names, and they change often. A fad name almost always becomes trendy because some famous person has it. For example, Shirley Temple was at the height of her childhood career in the late ’30s (hence, a lot of 60-year old women called Shirley). There are many examples and I am sure if you think for just 5 seconds you can name a handful of friends.

It is hard to write this post without mentioning some names that make me smile most days. In South Africa English is not the first language of a great portion of the population (we have 11 official languages). At the time when English was being taught to those, names of words started popping up. For example, ‘Precious’ (the lady at the till), ‘Happy’ (a friend’s gardener), ‘Memory’ (our char) and ‘Gift’ (our gardener), and then there are a few delightful ones like ‘Professor’ (who works at the garden center) and ‘Doctor’ (who became a local soccer hero). I think this stems from the times when children were named after virtues and this was just a natural continuance of that.

Pye on the windowsill soaking up the maximum amount of sun.

You cannot win either way I think, so just choose a name you like when naming your child and go for it. For crying out loud I am one to talk becuase it took me 6 months to finally settle on a name for our poor kitten. It went from Cloey to Daisy and finally to Pye. Let’s hope this sticks (and lucky for us she is not a child becuase if she were, there would be serious identitiy problems).

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Wren in Folklore

July 3, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 7 comments

I only recently discovered that the wren has folkloric history that is quite special (and makes for a great bed-time story).

The Wren is referred to as the King of the Birds becuase many years ago some swallows returned from Africa and told the animals there that they had a king. “Couldn’t we have one as well?” they asked. The wise owl was consulted as to how one should be selected, and she said that what set birds apart was that they could fly (very wise!) so it should be the one that flew highest.

Print by zukzuk's etsy shop

Chattering magpies spread news of the competition, and a great flock assembled. A small wren couldn’t see what was happening, so pushed her way through the legs of the birds from the back. The sharp eyed kestrel had spotted the eagle flying in from his mountain eyrie. They all knew he was a great flyer, but didn’t fancy being ruled by one with such arrogant ways. Contestants dropped out, feeling they had no chance against his great wings. The last call went out just as the wren pushed through to the front and stumbled into the starting place. The jackdaws laughed to see such a tiny competitor, but the wren said if no one else would have a go, then she would. Encouraged by the others, the race began, started by the boom of a bittern.

Print by arcanearts's etsy shop

The eagle took one flap of his wings and was six foot in the air, whilst the wren had to take a running jump and flap for all she was worth to keep up. The eagle looked down his beak and took two more flaps, which took him to the height of a tree. The wren made a brave effort, cheered by those below who liked a plucky underdog. The eagle decided to finish off the contest there and then, and aimed like a dart for the clouds with his big powerful wings. But what was that on his back but the wren, who had caught up and was clinging on grimly. However the eagle twisted and turned, she was still gripping with her tiny claws, and thus flying higher. The birds acclaimed the wren the king, and the eagle headed back to his mountain in disgust, beaten by brains, not brawn.

Wren Print by badbird's etsy shop

There are a few other Wren folk stories such as the ‘Jenny Wren’ but I will save that for another day…

References for this story are Wikipedia, The Cutty Wren (from Pagan Dawn magazine), Geocities and Geocities (St Stephen Proto).

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Drinking Water

May 12, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 4 comments

I am not a fizzy cold drink fan nor am I a fruit juice fan really. I am through and through a water glugger but I am not sure about drinking water in a box (found via dieline). What do you think?

Coincidently the evening after seeing these I was shown an article in the local paper with water bottle facts that made me think twice.

Did you know that that bottled water is one of the world’s biggest pollution problems? I did not.

Did you know that 26 billion litres of bottles water were consumed annually around the world? That means that some 28 billion plastic bottles are discarded annually – about 1500 per second. …and if that is not bad enough we used 17 million barrels of oil to make those plastic bottles (an amount which could have kept 100 000 average sized cars on the road for a whole year).

I reuse my plastic bottles (not just becuase it is green but also becuase it saves money) but this too is terrible I learnt. See, even if you opt for plain old tap water and keep a plastic bottle of it in your car, the plastic leeches dangerous carcinogenic chemicals into the bottle and you drink poisoned water in your bid to be planet-friendly. Oh dear.

Perhaps boxed water might not be that strange after all. If anything, it has to be better than what we are doing to our world and our bodies by drinking water from plastic bottles.

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Keep Calm and Carry On

May 6, 2009 in Conversational, Wren by wendren | 2 comments

The slogan ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ is famous and very fashionable. Its creator is unknown but its origin is clearly from WWII.

Visit sfgirlbybay or www.keepcalmandcarryon.com to buy posters.

In 1939 the British government ministry commisioned several propoganda posters to be displayed throughout the country upon the outbreak of war and this poster was one of them. However this particular poster relaying a message from King George VI, who is represented by the simple graphic element of a crown, to his people that all capable measures to defend the country were being taken was never offically issued. Some posters did make it onto walls (see below) but generally it remained unseen by the public. The poster was only really ‘discovered’ 50 years later in a pile of dusty old books bought from an auction.

This being said there is no copyright meaning that it can be reproduced in any way imaginable, which it is today. I love the slogan becuase I find it reassuring, relaxing and postive especially becuase I always seem to be running around in circles chasing my tail telling myself that I MUST keep calm (as I am sure most of us do). I also did not want to be just another person duplicating the special message so I made it my own.

I have a cat silhouette on my wall. She sits in a relaxed and peaceful manner and every time I glance her I am reminded to slow down. Whilst I was sitting at my computer developed the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ classic crown I stared at her and was struck by an idea: what if she, the very image of calm, wears the crown. keep-calm The crown does not hold the same symbolic meaning as it would have in the 1940’s especially to those who are not from Britain so to put it on top of the cat is perfect. The message is still there offering reassurance and in doing so, the special attitude that has made people fall in love with the posters not as propaganda but as a way of life, remains.

cp-cat-17d

Click here to buy a ‘Keep Calm and Carry On‘ Wren coffee clutch.

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Swiss Silk

April 1, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 4 comments

I never thought of Switzerland as being a producer of silk until Alexa sent me a parcel of silk ribbons. I know of it for it’s picturesque landscapes, gorgeous snow tipped mountains, old wealth due to a sound and independent banking system and of course, delicious chocolate.

swizz-mountains

At a push I have read about the cotton mills in Zurich and embroidery but never the silk ribbon trade. So I did some research which was surprisingly hard as there is not much reference to Switzerland in silk books. However I was left ‘enlightened’ by what I learnt.

Zurich and Basel where the important silk towns (Geneva’s principal industry in the eighteenth century was clock making) of Switzerland. Basel, a city in Northern Switzerland, was the town in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s known for it’s banking and chemical industry: the companies which started out dyeing silk ribbons woven by Huguenot refugees centuries ago are now the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies (1).

The swiss ribbon makers lived outside the cities, like the watch and embroidery workers, often working from home and outside the restrictions of the guilds (sounds a bit like how I work). The Bandelherren or ‘ribbon lords’, lived in the town and supplied the venture capital for the industry (2). Due to the amount of investment the industry grew rapidly as new techniques, machinery and systems were invented and developed. It was the textile and silk industry that initiated the Swiss industrial revolution and by the end of the nineteenth century silk-dyeing for ribbons had become a separate branch of the industry(3).Over time the dyeing of ribbons changed to a demand for colouring and dyestuffs, which ensured the infant organic chemical companies a safe market (it is important to note that there were no patent laws) (4).

my-silk2 I find it almost lovely how it all started with a silk worm and I have a peice of the beginning of an industry that is barely there today and hardly known.

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No More Free Plastic Bags

March 17, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 6 comments

Over the past few months I have noticed more and more campaigns against the use of plastic bags both locally and internationally. I think this is great. A few years back South Africa stopped giving plastic bags out for free and we now have to pay 46c for one. The change that this brought was huge. For one, litter visibly reduced by what I would confidently say, at least 50% and we started looking for alternatives to carry our grocery’s and shopping in. These alternatives quickly emerged in the form of cheap fabric bags which has started a whole move on it’s own. Woolworths (one of South Africa’s leading brands and food and clothing stores) introduced what we now refer to as the ‘Woolies bags’.

woolies-bags

I think everybody must have at least two. I think at one stage they were given away for free but now you buy them which is fine becuase the colours are bright and fun and the purpose basic. This was a great branding opportunity for Woolworths and others big brands soon caught on. Sometimes I wish it was not all a branding competition but when the bigger picture is positive, I guess I should not criticise.

red-and-blue-bags

There has been another option that I cannot leave out of this post: the big red and blue thick plastic bags that zip closed. These bags have been around for ages and are most often seen on long taxi journeys (used as luggage bags) or for carrying grocery’s on top of heads. They are SO cheap (R15 which equates to about $1.50) which is another reason why they are so popular. I have two which I use to transport my fabric and bags around in. The picture below was taken with Jeremy’s cellphone the other morning. The man was carrying one of these plastic bags on his head whilst his friends were carrying a mattress of theirs.

plastic-bag

It is surprising how many countries still have not caught onto how easy it is to cut litter by simply stopping free plastic bags.

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Li Edelkoort’s trend forecast 2010 – 2050

March 13, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 6 comments

Li Edelkoort is definitely a high highlight of the Design Indaba ‘09. She is a proclaimed trend forecaster with amazing insight. I scribbled away like mad with her presentation but here is a sum-up of the things that stood out for me.

✿ We live apart and want to be together. Li described it in two words “humbleness” and “togetherness”. An example is the rising number of farm/organic markets. We want to come together and meet. We want real relations. Isn’t this wonderful!?! I think so. We are reconnecting, wanting and needing to return to old values, traditions, craft, gardening – things that are wholesome and truthful (perhaps I am taking it a bit far now).

biscuit-mill Photo’s from the The Neighbourgoods market every Saturday in Salt River.

✿ Li also spoke a lot about the financial crisis and how it is affecting things. Angie Hattingh from ifashion put it really well: “What Li notes as being different about this current crisis is the world’s reaction to it. In the past financial crises were marked by a return to basics ideology. Fashion was marked by minimalism – a sort of atonement for the sins of our excesses. This time the crisis is not of our making – blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the financial institutions. So we have nothing to atone for. But we have been presented, instead, with the opportunity to re-centre ourselves, to narrow our focus to our local environment and to project our dreams of our changed future.”

✿ Story telling and animation in design was and is very important and follows from the trend pointed out above. This also resonated with the notion of how we are finding ‘animated’ objects fun. At the Design Indaba Expo I found Vanilla Concrete’s ceramic creatures to be a perfect example of this. Plush toys have started popping up every where and although they are cute, you have to agree that they are rather unusual and some even weird – but still, we all want a plush friend. They invoke our imagination. But, how about making a ceramic plush? Suddenly all the soft and cuddlyness is taken out and it is in reverse: A ‘concrete’ something is made animate. I so badly wanted to take Milla home with me (far right).

vanilla-concrete Left to right by Vanilla Concrete: Frumpie ceramic; Frumpie soft toy and to the right is Milla ceramic. To read about the frumpie personality and/or if you want to buy one click here.

✿ Grey, grey, grey … how many times can you say grey…..? As Li puts it, we are in a time of indecision and we are “ready to embrace a time of hope and well being”. Black and white are neither and thus grey is the perfect positive balance. Li even showed a on-the-street video by Bill Cunningham (New York Times Photographer) about the presence of grey at the New York fashion week.

P.S. Yellow is apparently the new pink (a perfect complimentary colour for grey).

My two MOST exciting observations were:

1. Li did NOT speak about bling or glitz. I have never liked all the glam so on a personal level, I was excited to hear that it is not going to be a big feature in design.

2. The presence of grey as a trend is also a long term trend. In fact Li seemed to feel that we (civilisation) are turning over a new leaf. This new way – where we go backwards to go forward and where we seek the ‘human element’ as technology features more in our world (as she put it “we want to be unplugged but wired at the same time”), is a trend that will be around for the next 40 years! I am SO EXCITED about this. Trying to keep abreast of change is exhausting and to hear that season trends are only going to blur more and become one is a relief. Long ago 100 years went by with one trend now we do not even have 100 days with a big trend. Isn’t this refreshing information.

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Design Indaba ‘09 Notes

March 2, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 4 comments

Instead of summarizing more and more until what I have learnt is singularly collected into a few thoughts, I thought I would share my notes with you and a key phrase from the most influential speakers I heard.

To zoom into a page, click on it and be taken> into a world of design.

P.S. I hope you can read my messy handwriting.

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Reflections from the Design Indaba

February 26, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 2 comments

design-indaba-1

It always takes a few hours (at least) to be able to begin absorbing all the information and knowledge that has been parted to you during the Design Indaba conference. Yesterday I heard AdamsMorioka, Rick Valicenti, Dunne & Raby, Keith Helfet, Luyanda Mpahlwa, W+K Delhi, Stephen Burks, 5.5 Designers and Bruce Mau. Each speaker inspired me differently and from each, I learnt something new. However there was a common thread that ran through each presentation and that was the question:

“What is design?” & “Who is a designer?”

To be brief, 5.5 designers explained this by answering it as a direct question perfectly, but first a bit of background to their answer: When 5.5 Designers spoke they explained how they are involved, by chance or not, in each part of the design process (from the brief to the developed concept or products ‘after’ use). For example, one my favourite projects they showed was where they did not ‘design’ the product but rather went to the factory and used their design knowledge combined with the expert skills of the floor factory workers – some who had worked there for more than 40 years perfecting a simple technique. The outcome was amazing (see project 2005 Ouvriers).

5.5 Designers also explained another project where they designed a product for mass market and 10 days before the launch, the project was canceled and all the produced products were going to be destroyed. Rather than see this extreme waste, they created an event selling these products for only 1 Euro each (see project 2008 save a product). This is creative thinking outside the boundaries of traditional design.
Their answer to the above question went something like this: “If I am in the factory making or on the street selling the product it does not matter. We do it all, whatever and where ever I am needed. It does not matter. If that is what you call a designer then that is what I am. But I don’t know.”

For me this explained it wonderfully. No longer is design dedicated to one specialized skill. Design is really all about being interdisciplinary. Design today has no boundaries and is where ever creative thinking is required.

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Quality vs. Quantity

February 13, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 7 comments

Ceramic Rainbow Cups by Clementina van der Walt

“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot—albeit a perfect one—to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

Via Design Sojourn.

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Say NO to the Digital Shortcut

January 30, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 4 comments

For the past two weeks I have been ‘trying’ to create a small range of placement designs for my new product. I have come up with a hundred ideas, attempted to draw half of them, have managed 10 of them and liked, maybe, 1. But still it feels ‘not quite right’.

Using my mouse, I drew this scene after creating a collage of a goat eating clothes on a washing line.

My solution: I need a Wacom tablet. At my old job I had one and I never had a problem designing (or tracing a created design). I would collage images and then stylize them with my digital pen. It was like having a interactive light box.

So what is the problem?

Today my old lecturer (who is now a friend) visited and I realized something…

I have forgotten to look!

Can you draw a penguin, or an oak leaf. I bet you can… but when you draw it does it look like a real penguin or a real leaf… or is it what we “know” a penguin to be… short, black and white – a little beak and the demeanor of a butler? Is an oak leaf green, or brown? Or is it a subtle mix of ochre, moss and fine veins…When did you last look at something with fresh eyes? What this means is to not see what you should see but rather what is really there. Not a leaf but an organic shape. This takes time and patience – things we have very little of these days. Sometimes we need to keep the medium as natural as possible to keep the clarity and pureness of the finished product.

We need to be able to open our eyes, and then open them again and see what is really there, not an interpretation of what we have been told is there.

I was, simply put, reminded that it is so very easy to take the digital shortcut, but this isn’t always the right path if you want to design something honest and original.

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So now what???

January 8, 2009 in Conversational by wendren | 2 comments

Here’s a really interesting article that I found about your career path, a life and what next? One always starts a new year with a big breathe and goes: “So now what?” (at least I did). Last year flew past and this year has arrived without warning and I feel a bit disrupted by it’s sudden appearance. This article helped by reminding me to:

1. Stick to it. Don’t get cold feet, don’t panic or worry – ride the roller coaster with the ups and downs.

“The thing is, there really never was a career path for you. That was something for your dad, or you about four careers ago. But those paths are gone. There’s not really even an indent any more where they were left. So, let’s just level with you now: congratulations. You’re the president of your career.”

2. Spend a day rewriting my goals. Even though a year passes so quickly and one barely gets to look at them again, it is worth writing down your goals even if it is just to get your mind looking towards the future.

3. Keep changing, growing and learning.

Now for the difficult part : application!

its-your-year

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« Older entries

Conversational

Type

Swan time

The worlds best coffee

Name Trends

Wren in Folklore

Drinking Water

Keep Calm and Carry On

Swiss Silk

No More Free Plastic Bags

Li Edelkoort’s trend forecast 2010 – 2050

Design Indaba ‘09 Notes

Reflections from the Design Indaba

Quality vs. Quantity

Say NO to the Digital Shortcut

I have forgotten to look!

So now what???

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