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EuroBlog
Here’s a little personal project that started out back in 2002/03, and sitting in its original analogue state has been gathering dust for a while. Now, several years later I’ve scanned, cropped and tweaked and have finally brought my EuroProject into the digital world.
I’ll explain; It was about the same time as the euro currency entered circulation back in 2002, that I started to notice a dramatic increase in euro naming. Very quickly it became apparent that these businesses, services and products preceeding with ‘Euro’ often had little relevance, if any at all, to europe. A touch of irony still, my observations were exclusive to the UK, a country not even in the euro currency zone. Put simply, we had entered the era of the euro.
Yet it wasn’t simply the lack of relevance that caught my attention, I found, from a branding perspective, that these finds showed a complete lack of imagination, whilst often achieving comical results. It seems that if imagination is your enemy, then euro is your friend!
Bringing this project to life again seems more timely than ever. Greece and Portugal, amongst others, are facing economic woe, eurozone sovereign debt is huge and the euro currency scrabbles for composure. If the euro was to collapse, what would it mean for the businesses I’ve catalogued? Perhaps a turnaround to a more patriotic Great British perspective… I’m seeing a lot of union jacks all of a sudden.
Here’s just a small sample to wet the palette, find more over at the euroblog.
I’ll be continuing to delve into the catalogue updating the blog with new finds from here on.
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Edinburgh Civic Survey – 1949
I stumbled across this civic survey and plan for Edinburgh from 1949 whilst on a city break up there a couple of weeks ago and had to buy it. This huge book (280 x 360mm & 111 pages) is full of the most incredible post-war maps of the city.
Prepared by Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumstead for the Town Council, the book contains detailed data for traffic, health, education, recreation, population density and so on, beautifully depicted in a series of maps, charts and diagrams. This page for example, shows the distribution of authority (red) and non-authority schools (black) in Edinburgh.
Each dot on the map represents a pupil, solid for secondary and outline for primary, also colour coded to indicate whether they attend an authority or non-authority school.
This page compares pre-and post war traffic accidents.
The supporting text concludes “from the number, size and colour of the symbols it is at once apparent which are the most dangerous points in the road system where accidents occurred in 1937 and recurred in 1946…
…while the coloured portions of the segments indicate the number of times an accident occurred at any one of these points during the two years.”
The typography is a treat…
…as are the compasses that sit at the foot of each map under the key…
…the illustrations…
…the historic street plans (this one dates from 1819)…
…and the detail in each of the 25 fold-out maps.
The greatest surprise though, were the 3 biggest maps that were hiding in a sleeve inside the back cover.
The biggest one is a land use survey of the whole of Edinburgh, at a scale of 1:5000 its over a metre wide. This’ll be framed and on my wall at home before too long.
Edinburgh is full of really interesting second hand bookshops. This book was found at the back of Edinburgh Books in West Port. I recommend paying them a visit if you’re ever in town. Full set of photos on our Flickr.
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Vintage Retro Reclaimed
The ok corral was started by Steve and Joy Jolliffe and their daughter Holly, Isle of Wight friends of Applied Works partner Joe Sharpe. We rather like their stuff and wanted to share it with you, so we asked them to send us some words and pictures for the blog. Enjoy.
The ok corral began because we have a problem. Our problem is a lack of space. We just can’t resist poking about in other people’s stuff. Our little collection of favourite bits is now a big collection. The many odd plates and pots sadly no longer fit into the kitchen cupboards.
But there’s more great stuff still out there and it’s all irresistible but there’s no more room here. So, we decided to share with everyone else and this became the solution.
At the ok corral, Steve designed and now manages the website and generally keeps it in tip top condition. Holly takes considered photographs of humble objects and releases their inner beauty. Joy writes about our finds and gets the chance to wax lyrical and transmit her enthusiasm.
Now, we can all just keep on searching for those amazing things in a calm and guilt free way because they’re not for us any more, they’re for you.
The ok corral – born 25 May 2010 on the Isle of Wight.
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Eric Gurney
First post of the new year is some illustrations from a book called ‘How To Live With A Calculating Cat’ by Eric Gurney, published in 1964. He also did a pop-up book of cats that was amazing.
I have a few other old gems lying around from my childhood that I’ll be posting separately (it fills the radio silence nicely between proper ‘grown-up’ posts).
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20 Things About Browsers
The Google team, or more specifically the Google Chrome Team have posted a wonderfully quaint introduction to browsers at 20thingsilearned.com in the form of an illustrated e-book. Putting aside the funky typesetting decisions for a moment, it’s interesting for three reasons.
Firstly, all those fancy page turn transitions and little animations (traditionally something people would use Flash to accomplish) are all implemented with CSS3 which puts this squarely in the HTML5 camp. Online magazine/book style viewers have been around for a few years and while their overall usefulness and usability can be called into question, this does further illustrate the constantly decreasing relevance of Flash.
Secondly, it’s a reminder of just how important browsers are to Google, and how important it is that ordinary people know what one is. On the face of it that may sound crazy, surely everyone knows what a browser is these days. However, If you’ve ever had a friend of family member “lose the internet” because they misplaced the “blue e” icon then you’ll know what I mean. These are the people who create most of Google’s revenue and to maintain a competitive advantage with the tools and services they offer, they need to somehow let the masses know that the “blue e” isn’t the Internet, and that Google Chrome is a better, more advanced window onto the World Wide Web.
Thirdly, Google is going head to head with Microsoft and Apple these days as they attempt to pitch the open web as the operating system. As far as I know, Google Chrome is the only browser to ever have its own dedicated TV Ad Campaign so they’re clearly ready and willing to spend a lot of cash promoting their strategy, but the need to explain something so ubiquitous illustrates just how unique a problem they have to tackle. You don’t see Microsoft publishing “This is a computer” articles and there’s no owners manual with iPhones or iPads. It’s odd that something most people use hundreds of times a day is still so greatly misunderstood.
Back to the article in question though. It’s an interesting read and even hyper-super-giga-geeks like me should give it a once over. It never hurts to brush up on the fundamentals and what with all the new frameworks and buzz words being bandied around these days it’s easy to lose track of what the internet is and what it’s for.
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Election horror graphics
What is it about election campaigns that brings out the very worst design and advertising? Its as if UK politics has had some kind of design and good taste bypass, particularly when you compare the current crop of clip-art party logos and appalling billboards to the Obama campaign in the US.
The TV coverage often appears almost satirical (Peter Kay’s Britains Got the Pop Factor meets Brass Eye). And just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, this assortment of horror shows fell through the letterbox. Some of them look like pages from Viz magazine – absolutely unbelievable.
If anyone can beat the Lib-Dem crime scene flyer above please shout…
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Nursing Home LPs
Just made a reccy visit to a derelict nursing home in north London that will be used as the location for the ‘Last Tango in Croydon’ film being shot this weekend. The place is largely in ruin through vandals and water seepage, but I stumbled across a box of saturated LPs amongst the broken glass, nappies and bits of plasterboard. Interesting, if poignant, little insight into the musical pleasures enjoyed by the last residents who lived there.
