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.
The gray house phenomenon is a fascinating microcosm of urban development. Gray because its a specifically American phenomenon, rather than grey. But some of the aspects of it will be equally familiar to city dwellers elsewhere.
The act of painting a brick house is a quick fix by developers, rather like body filler on old car:
…it’s a cheap, easy way to refresh a brick facade. Many rowhouses in the city are a century old, or close to it, and “you probably don’t want to risk [damaging] hundred-year-old mortar by power-washing,” notes Kevin Wood, a realtor with Slate Properties. Left as is, old brick may appear dingy—especially if the house dates to the era when coal was burned in D.C.—or it will have gaps between courses where the mortar needs repointing, a painstaking repair job. New paint can hide a multitude of small flaws.
Grayed Expectations | Washington City Paper
This causes anxiety among people who want to preserve an areas character with soot stained natural brick finish.
Flip house gray
Grey was chosen because it was an inoffensive neutral colour that was designed to blend in. Think norm core for house exteriors. Neutral colours are recommended on websites that provide advice to people looking to refurbish and resell a house. But it has come to mark out a home that was painted to sell it, or as one article put it ‘flip house gray’. It stands out in neighbourhoods and provides a visual marker for gentrification. The gray house is either for sale, or a house were people have moved into a neighbourhood.
Mask shops have now become a thing. When I lived in Hong Kong, you would buy your masks from the local pharmacy chain store depending whether you were near a Watsons or a Mannings. It was good form among locals to wear a mask when you felt unwell; particularly with cold like symptoms. COVID-19 drove the importance of masks. With this has come dedicated mask shops.
New mask companies sprang up to deal with the need for locally made trusted, good quality masks. Mask Lab built their own factory in the leased space of a former garment factory, now vacant due to the deindustrialisation of Hong Kong with China’s opening up. Mask shops started in residential areas with lower retail rents alongside online sales.
Now these businesses have managed to move into flagship retail locations. Looking at this photo Mask Lab seems to be in the Central district of Hong Kong, close to luxury retail stores and the high-end Landmark shopping mall. More related posts here.
Mattel collaboration with Stüssy
The eight ball motif has been a design staple for Stüssy since at least the late 1980s. It was only a matter of time before they did a collaboration with Mattel – maker of the Magic Eight-Ball. There is a capsule clothes collection and a co-branded magic eight ball with a special dice inside it. Magic “8” Ball™ Tee – Mattel Collaboration | Stussy
Climate crisis font
Climate crisis font | Helsingin Sanomat – is a lovely free font that visualises the impact of climate change. Helsingin Sanomat is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland.
Appalachian Mountain Music
David Hoffman shot this great documentary on Appalachian mountain music and one of its prime advocates during the early to mid-20th century. The film’s protagonist Bascom Lamar Lunsford collected and promoted Appalachian mountain music and dance in poetry and storytelling.
Bandulu
Bandulu Street Couture use customised embroidery on Nike and Nike ACG garments that is sympathetic to the base garments. In their own words:
‘Bandulu means fake, bootleg, ghetto. Like that white tee from Marshall’s with the name of some couturier, screenprinted in gold. That little bit of luxury gives clothing a story, with or without vanity. Bandulu believes in adding this quality to the clothes of our world, through upcycling and craftsmanship. Bandulu takes quality, vintage clothing and rejuvenate life into them through hand embellishments. Quality therefore becomes less about reputation, and more about integrity. You know its real if its fake.’
Clifford Stott did a call with the Hong Kong Democrat Party on the Hong Kong protests. His responses also cover issues around COVID-19 and how western nations handle crises. Stott believes that China will be a malign authoritarian influence beyond Hong Kong.
Probably one of the darkest aspects of the video is when Stott points out that he visited Hong Kong at the invitation of the Hong Kong Police and wouldn’t be able to go back due to the National Security Law. More security related content here.
Tory rebels seek to block trade deal with China over Uighurs | Financial Times – Boris Johnson faces a rebellion by about 30 Tory MPs on Tuesday who are seeking to block a potential post-Brexit trade deal with China over its human rights record. The amendment to the trade deal — promoting a UK trade policy that upholds human rights — is co-sponsored by one-time Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and former minister Nusrat Ghani. It would stop ministers from cutting trade deals with countries found guilty of genocide by the High Court. It is backed by all the opposition parties as well as the Muslim Council of Britain and the Board of Deputies of British Jews
As Adobe Flash stops running, so do some railroads in China – Tuesday’s chaos arose after China Railway Shenyang failed to deactivate Flash in time, leading to a complete shutdown of its railroads in Dalian, Liaoning province. Staffers were reportedly unable to view train operation diagrams, formulate train sequencing schedules and arrange shunting plans.Authorities fixed the issue by installing a pirated version of Flash at 4:30 a.m. the following day.
The fractured tech lobby’s uphill battles – Axios – The fractured tech lobby is a sign of too many firms working at cross purposes. – The Internet Association was founded almost a decade ago to be Silicon Valley’s voice in Washington. But now its biggest members — companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon — increasingly bump heads as they each seek to channel policymakers’ fury away from themselves, and they can have wildly different goals from smaller members. Facebook, for instance, has signaled that it’s open to new federal laws introducing privacy regulations and modest updates to Section 230, tech’s liability shield. Smaller companies worry giants could handle the burden of complying while they’d struggle to survive. – The fractured tech lobby is going to offer a bounty for law firms and K Street lobbyists. It will also open up investigations around the world from the EU to Seoul, Korea. China won’t be involved since it blocks most of the key members of the Internet Association – the fractured tech lobby in question.
The Kremlin’s Anti-Western (and Remarkably Successful) Middle East Media Project | Interpreter magazine – Dr. Naila Hamdy, an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at the American University in Cairo, noted how “RT may have filled up that gap” left in Egypt and the wider region following the Arab Spring, when an increasing number of viewers began to see Al-Jazeera as closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist parties. This increasing regional polarization erupted in the summer of 2017 with the Saudi-led embargo of Qatar, with Saudi and its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners demanding the closure of Al Jazeera as punishment for Qatar’s alleged support for the Brotherhood, as well as Iran and its regional Shiite proxies
The Radicalization of Kevin Greeson — ProPublica – interesting article and an under-covered subject. The flpside of this article is how the Democrats have lost their base in these communities and it reminds me a lot of how Labour lost its base outside the major cities in that respect. They no longer represent working people, but are instead considered to be playing identity politics, the economics of new-liberalism is largely universal
Ad Aged: Standing up for truth. (Haha.) – For a society or an industry to function it needs to have a set of common facts. It’s really that simple. If you hear an assertion, ask for evidence. Whether or not you agree with it. If you make an assertion, be prepared to back it up with a piece of paper.
WhatsApp fights back as users flee to Signal and Telegram | Financial Times – The encrypted messaging app, which has more than 2bn users globally, and several of its senior executives spent Tuesday trying to clarify forthcoming privacy policy changes covering the data that can be shared between WhatsApp and its parent now that it is deepening its push into ecommerce. Signal was downloaded 8.8m times worldwide in the week after the WhatsApp changes were first announced on January 4, versus 246,000 times the week before, according to data from Sensor Tower. The app also got a boost when Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, tweeted “Use Signal” on January 7. By contrast, WhatsApp recorded 9.7m downloads in the week after the announcement, compared with 11.3m before, a 14 per cent decrease
Detained US lawyer urges Hong Kong to look to Ireland for inspiration | Financial Times – Look at Irish history . . . They were completely hopeless for so long, but eventually they got part of Ireland — they got a republic,” Mr Clancey told the Financial Times. “In a difficult situation we shouldn’t just give up and have no hope for the future.” Mr Clancey was still asleep when police arrived to detain him last Wednesday. After his arrest, police escorted Mr Clancey, a Hong Kong permanent resident, to his office to conduct a search. His firm, headed by veteran lawyer Albert Ho, is known for representing anti-government activists. His arrest has stirred fears authorities will target lawyers in Hong Kong who represent opposition figures in political cases — a tactic common in mainland China
Making traditional Chinese clothes cool has been something attempted by multiple groups over the years. Shanghai Tang was founded by the former businessman, restauranteur and columnist Sir David Tang. More recently, there have been Han nationalists or fantasists that wanted to roll back the clock to before the Qing dynasty.
Shanghai Tang S/S 2007 ‘look book’ film
South China Morning Post on the Hanfu movement. Trumpism with Chinese characteristics?
This effort by a couple of Hong Kong based fashion designers is one of the more interesting efforts that I’ve seen making traditional Chinese clothes cool. They definitely have a Hong Kong aesthetic in their approach and the Hanfu movement members would complain about the Manchu elements. but I think they do make traditional Chinese clothes cool.
In China, you’ve had cities that became well known for their role in the global supply chain. Shenzhen became the electronics capital, Dongguan was the centre of shoe manufacturing and the eastern city of Yiwu focused on Christmas decorations. This all became more complex over time. Shenzhen still has factories and corporate headquarters for technology companies. But its also now the second largest stock market in China.
An old television factory complex has been redeveloped into a creative, startup and retail space called OCT-LOFT. The best analogue I can think for it is the Tea Building on Shoreditch High Street or the Truman Brewery at the back of Spitalfields.
Dongguan saw much of its shoe and clothing production move inland to poorer provinces, or abroad to countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh. Former factory sites were redeveloped, Huawei moved much of their workforce out of Shenzhen to a campus in Dongguan.
Yiwu still focuses on Christmas decorations (and Chinese new year decorations). Much of the work is done a piecemeal basis rather than in sophisticated automated factory lines. (This concentration of light industry also explains why China managed to close down the city to handle this winter’s power outages, since you can’t do that with heavy industry safely.) This documentary trailer by a Serbian film maker gives you a feel for the city.
There is is so much in the film, the aspirations of young people and what work that they are prepared to do. The Chinese version of the American dream and the demographic time bomb of an ageing population.
I read a number of China related email newsletters, the latest one that I started reading is the Trivium China Tip Sheet. I’ve been reading it for a few weeks now and can recommend it. You can sign up to it here.
Recent work by 72&Sunny Amsterdam for Coca-Cola.
72&Sunny Amsterdam for Coca-Cola
There was a consensus that restarting advertising after media spend was pulled at the onset of COVID-19 was a pivotal moment for the brand. Coca-Cola had put in place a three months of advertising pause and on the back of a social media embargo. The idea was that the brand’s voice should shine through – the message in culture, not the can. We decided to double down on Coke’s core value of optimism, which as been at the centre of Coke brand advertising for a long, long time: hilltop, the Christmas ads, joy machine activations etc.
At the time when Coca-Cola pulled their advertising there were (rightly) serious questions about the wisdom of the move. There is a large swathe of data to show that advertisers who spend through a recession come out with enhanced market share. The problem faced by marketers is what to say in the adverts beyond the brand. Also what happens if you promote a product and customers can’t buy it due to shortages (like 3M masks or Charmin toilet roll)? I understand the calculus that drove some of Coke’s decision making at the time. Given Coke’s move; when they came back, they HAD to get it right.
Clever digital out of home media buy by a Chinese property developer. The video is designed to make use of the digital screen that comes in from the left of the screen, goes around the corner of the building and above the second retail unit. The creative uses the buildings design and illusions of perspective to provide the immersive experience.
The illusion works best when going across the cross walk in front of the camera, so the design incorporated a lot of thinking not only about the amount of footfall, but likely direction of footfall in front of the advertisement.
I discovered it on LinkedIn, but would guess that it has been shared by multiple people across several platforms.
