Design was something that was important to me from the start of this blog, over different incarnations of the blog, I featured interesting design related news. Design is defined as a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, interfaces or other object before it is made.
But none of the definition really talks about what design really is in the way that Dieter Rams principles of good design do. His principles are:
It is innovative
It makes a product useful
It is aesthetic
It makes a product understandable
It is unobtrusive
It is honest
It is long-lasting
It is thorough down to the last detail
It is environmentally-friendly – it can and must maintain its contribution towards protecting and sustaining the environment.
It is as little design as possible
Bitcoin isn’t long lasting as a network, which is why people found the need to fork the blockchain and build other cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin uses 91 terawatts of energy annually or about the entire energy consumption of Finland.
The Bitcoin network relies on thousands of miners running energy intensive machines 24/7 to verify and add transactions to the blockchain. This system is known as “proof-of-work.” Bitcoin’s energy usage depends on how many miners are operating on its network at any given time. – So Bitcoin is environmentally unfriendly by design.
On the other hand, Apple products, which are often claimed to be also influenced by Dieter Rams also fail his principles. They aren’t necessarily environmentally friendly as some like AirPods are impossible to repair or recycle.
Kyoto Animation was devastated last year when an anime obsessive set fire to their studio, killing a number of the animators there. Anime artists get paid little anyway. So fans collect donations for them to help them get by. The Kyoto Animation incident made things even more tragic.
To announce the studio’s comeback Kyoto Animation developed two 30 second television spots. Let’s hope that TV networks, film studios and advertisers respond to their return and the studio goes from strength to strength.
This first one is called Meji – so roughly Victorian through to Edwardian times. The protagonists then get transferred into the future.
The second Kyoto Animation video is called Imagination
Hajime Sorayama has designed a golden Be@rbrick for Japanese retailer 2G. It will be available as a lottery facilitated drop at their Osaka and Tokyo stores. More at Mediacom
Alumination documentary
Airstream caravans are a design icon. They were made from aluminium in the post-war period. Aluminium alloy was a wonder material that revolutionised aviation from its previous materials of canvas over wood.
Alumination tracks the history of the Airstream and the cultural impact that it had on American culture. It redefined freedom for a post-Cowboy age.
Gravity driven ropeway
Tom Scott usually comes up with interesting thought provoking invention. In this video he looks at an aerial ropeway that conveys shale to a brickworks near by. It transfers 300 tons of materials each day under the power of gravity and careful timing of full and empty returning buckets.
Weiden & Kennedy’s 5G Future for Three UK was banned this week following a complaint to the ASA by Vodafone. It is a lovely piece of craft though.
McDonald’s Japan 50th birthday
McDonald’s Japan put together an amazing ad to celebrate 50 years of McDonald’s in Japan with its first restaurant in the Ginza area of Tokyo. This was some three years before it opened in the UK.
https://youtu.be/WmYaiFBDbEU
The protagonist, actress Yoshiko Miyazaki is digitally altered to look much younger for the 1971 sections of the advertisement. There is even a making of film for the ad here.
https://youtu.be/I_PlyjIJ38g
Olympic anime: Tomorrow’s Leaves
Cultural creations go alone with the olympic games. For the Tokyo olympics there is this short anime film. More Japan related content here.
I have watched this video by White Motorcycle Concepts a few times and still don’t quite get it. White Motorcycle have hollowed out the centre of their motorcycle, to allow air flow through the middle of the bike rather than cutting the air cleanly. The little that I have seen make it hard to discern the effect of Bernoulli’s principle on the shape of the White Motorcycle.
Tenacious D channel the Beatles
Tenacious D are better known for their homage pieces to metal bands. For a charity single donating to Doctors Without Borders – they try and channel The Beatles. Its hard as The Beatles had so many sounds that they changed abruptly and crashed into each other.
I think they did pretty well.
Stories, players and games
Nigel Scott has put together an interesting set of ideas on business and marketing. There’s some bits I’d disagree with (are Google, Facebook et al really changing the game, or just costing marketers more?). Really worthwhile going through it all here.
Akira behind the scenes
This brief look behind the scenes looks like an excerpt from a longer programme. But it gives an idea into the work which went into making the animated film Akira. The precision and level of detail is mind boggling.
Gimme 5 mixes
Gimme 5, the label of long time streetwear distributor Michael Kopelman have a library of good mixes up on Soundcloud and I have been listening to their back catalogue. They’re worthwhile listening to for their eclectic mix of material.
#MyAppleDaily art project
Chinese artist Badiucao is publishing a blank template of the paper’s front page for each day that the Apple Daily isn’t published. The idea is to encourage people to publish their own front page instead.
Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily closed down. It closed under government pressure. If we’re honest about it, it had been under government pressure for years. Advertisers were reluctant to be in the paper for years, partly due to government sentiment. Despite being Hong Kong’s most popular paper, it was running on loans that Jimmy Lai gave it.
Final print edition of the Apple Daily published in Hong Kong
It’s end came with a series of cuts. Jimmy Lai has had his assets frozen as part of the national security law related investigation. The Hong Kong government extended these charges to further senior employees of the Apple Daily. Then the Hong Kong government froze the bank accounts of Apple Daily and the related companies.
The business had 67 million US dollars; so could have kept going for another 18 months until that freeze kicked in. As it was, the last paper would have come out on Saturday. On Wednesday the lead writer was arrested and the board decided to publish its last paper on Thursday. They printed 1,000,000 copies of the final edition which sold out. On previous days they had printed 500,000 to mark the asset freeze as Hong Kongers came out to support them. Back in the late 90s the paper was around 300,000 copies a day. The typical print run was 150,000 copies a day. The paper had about 500,000 paid subscribers. I was one of them. Yes their English copy was almost sub-Guardian standard (but with less typos of course). But their English language news has stories about Hong Kong business and China that other English language outlets didn’t cover.
The security secretary John Lee warned people not to associate with Apple Daily employees, creating a white terror style scenario.
A lot of the commentary from people who should know better has been about the Apple Daily‘s tabloid nature. Apple Daily was Hong Kong’s most popular paper for a number of reasons
Classism with it’s ‘estate boys’ and ‘estate girls’ referring to Hong Kongers living in public housing
But they conveniently ignore Apple Daily‘s pioneering work in internet video journalism. Its investigative journalism and an editorial stance that called government to account. Stories last year included expat police officers breaking planning and property laws. But the Communist Party of China doesn’t want to be examined, let alone held to account.
Hong Kong writer Sum Lok kei summed it up really well with this post that he put on Twitter
Yes, ppl are aware of Apple Daily’s failings, their paparazzi arm and all. What is being mourned isn’t exactly the paper, but the possibility of its existence in this city that had prided itself for its witty discretions – now replaced by a monotonic, absolute drone.
The Hong Kong government has been very opaque about the kind of journalism that is allowed. It is arbitrary and designed to promote severe self censorship.
images of the now closed Apple Daily fence with tributes from Hong Kongers via Guardians of Hong Kong Telegram channel
It all hinges around the national security law:
Seccession includes acts ‘whether or not by force or threat of force’
Subversion or colluding with foreign countries are vague. So Apple Daily were accused with colluding with foreign countries without being in touch with them
The law isn’t supposed to be retroactive, yet Apple Daily content from before the July cut-off date is included in its alleged violations
China’s definitions of state interests are expansive
It is extra-territorial in nature. So this post that I have written could fall foul of inciting hatred of the Hong Kong and Chinese government. Despite the fact that this post is written and hosted outside Hong Kong. If I get shanghai-ed whilst transferring through an Asian airport you know what has likely happened
But its just the media isn’t it? No.
if you’re a strategist in an advertising agency writing about consumer attitudes and touch on areas like what Hong Kong localism means for brands. This would affect how brands position themselves, I wrote similar positions for brands on Brexit supporters versus remain supporters. (Brexit supporters preferred local brands with nostalgia compared to remainers.) Or changes in attitudes to home ownership and buying homewares due to immigration. The kind of things that the government won’t like then you could be doing eight years to life in jail
If you write critical piece of analysis on bonds, Chinese or Hong Kong ‘well connected companies’ or forward-looking views on government policies. You could be doing eight years to life in jail
If you create a legal opinion on any of the above for a client. You could do eight years to life in jail
If you did a frank audit of a well connected company as part of the audit team of an accountancy firm. You could do eight years to life in jail
You do legitimate academic research in an area that the Chinese or Hong Kong governments and their hangers on don’t like. You could do eight years to life in jail
All of this sounds like a bit of an exaggeration?
While the world was looking on at trials of Apple Daily, major retailer Watsons withdrew special edition water bottles. The water bottles were designed with the slogan #Hong Kong is very beautiful. Presumably, they had originally been created to tap into Hong Kongers love of limited edition things celebrating their city and their love of hiking in oppressively hot weather.
They were withdrawn due to perceived seccessionist overtones. Hong Kong is actually achingly beautiful with its futuristic skylines and natural environment. By comparison lot of the Chinese mainland is butt ugly like Hubei province or Beijing in winter.
Bao Choy, a freelance producer who worked at RTHK was fined for ‘improper car plate searches’ carried out investigating Pro-Beijing forces inspired Triad violence at Yuen Long.
A reporter at pro-Beijing paper Ta Kung Pao who accessed the same database, but was bound over instead.
The Department of Justice said it agreed with the order, as Wong had a clean record and was working for the pro-Beijing newspaper when he made the licence plate searches.
This would give Hong Kong increased insights into NGOs and political parties. Professional bodies in accountancy and law have been seen as a roadblock by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments. The movement against accountancy bodies is mirrored by moves against the legal profession. The latest move to make solicitors senior counsel turns the legal profession upside down.
You are now restricted in accessing company registry data, making ownership structures opaque. This will provide boundless opportunity for corruption and fraud and Hong Kong becomes as opaque as mainland China.
And in a news report from Hong Kong’s public service broadcaster RTHK:
“If it’s a police state, why not? I don’t think there’s any problem with a police state. When we say a police state, I will view the other side, that is the emphasis on security,”
June is pride month and one of the best adverts that I have seen is by Pinterest. It has members of the LGBTQI community from around the world talking about sexuality and how they learned about themselves.
Max Fujita, head of European hydrogen fuel cells at Panasonic, discusses the importance of hydrogen technology. Hydrogen is the most widespread chemical element in the universe and could play a significant role in achieving zero net emission and other goals such as wind and geothermal power. Hydrogen is important for more environmentally friendly steel mills and foundries. It even offers a solution for the range anxiety caused by lithium ion battery cars.
The Asia Society have a video on the story behind the Japan traditional craft revitalisation competition. If you read Monocle you will be well aware of Japan’s strength in traditional crafts, often within centuries old businesses. More Japan related content here.
Interesting observations on culture and remote working. Interesting where they are talking about a culture crisis. For the past five years before the pandemic I saw company cultures changed as noise cancelling headphones went on and desks turned into long benches. This ironically damaged company culture. The pandemic shook up office space again, with the home office. I was quite fortunate as I had pretty much everything I needed after freelancing. But I did a lot of Zoom calls with people punched on the end of their bed. The range of views in this series of interviews shows that there will be wide mix of responses.
Finally as a curry cup noodle fan, this next story appealed to me. Nissin (who make the iconic Cup Noodle) has a new strategy in the sustainability game by eliminating the “lid closing seal,” a thin strip of sellotape type material that holds your noodle cup closed while the ramen is cooking in boiling water. This very small change will save an estimated 33 tons of plastic waste per year produced by Nissin. Instead the lid will be held shut by two ‘ears’ on the lid film.
Adobe is dropping PostScript Type 1 font support. Be prepared for the change – huge move, given the amount of time that PostScript had been at the centre of design and print. There must be brands out there still using Type 1 fonts for standard print design work that haven’t changed style in 30 years beyond a logo tweak. Without PostScript fonts you couldn’t have had the laser printer or modern design software tools
Business
Amazon Exploding Hoverboard Case Could Forever Change Company – Bloomberg – Last month, a California appeals court ruled that Amazon can be held liable, even though the seller stored and shipped the device itself. The decision sent shockwaves through the e-commerce world. Though it will probably be appealed again, the ruling raises the possibility that Amazon might have to exert more control over the activity on its own website. “Courts are rejecting the internet exceptionalism idea when it comes to a company like Amazon,” Agnieszka McPeak, a Gonzaga University professor, told Bloomberg Law. – It could also have implications for companies like Shopify
Why SoftBank’s THG deal has more questions than answers | Financial Times – What exactly the Ingenuity business does is something of a riddle: chief executive Matthew Moulding described it as a “social media influencer platform” but it also handles the prosaic business of logistics and translations for third parties launching in new markets – I don’t get The Hut Group (THG), maybe they’re bad about telling their story?
Luxury
Why Victoria’s Secret Body Positivity Spin Won’t Work in China | Jing Daily – Victoria’s Secret’s has a long history of glamorous supermodel perfection, therefore this choice is seen as inauthentic for the Chinese consumer and has left many citizens bewildered. Global brands need a localized approach in China, but one that resonates convincingly with the company – on Victoria’s Secret trying be more inclusive and body positive
