Guerrilla Design

I read magazines and absorb media in the aspiration of ideas, but this hope is rarely realised. Where has the adventure, risk and actual variety gone?

Every month, it is harder to swallow the endless showcase of the same brands - lifestyle products or design companies collaborating to increase their range or build new opulent spaces with other over-exposed designers.
Throw in sustainable resources and vintage references and the mass market seems to hungrily devour its ‘brand-new’ labelling.

It seems a waste for design media to ignore the outsider or young graduates who experiment rather than follow.
Money talks, innovation can walk.

In an over-populated world, exposure is the game even if fame is fleeting.
The web -coined as your own personal media source to showcase your wares is an extremely crowded marketplace requiring extensive advertising via social networking to grab attention.

Whatever happened to the whole ‘Act Local, think Global’ mantra?

We could re-discover the humble community noticeboard for a start. It’s hard to find these spaces in big city centres apart from the local supermarket. Posters are regulated by Bill Poster companies who own high traffic sites and therefore reduce exposure.

Now that I’m living in a smaller town, I’ve come across cork noticeboards with no glass or permission contacts to dissuade the poster of flyers, business cards or the next great design idea!
We are so bogged down with the client and brief relationship being the ultimate staple of every project. A need and its solution is how the world goes round but design doesn’t need these perimeters or methodology to exist and thrive!

One such cork board is in a suburban village shopping centre. The shops are in need of a revamp and it needs a cohesive re-branding to attract more mainstream shoppers. Putting the whole objectives, brief perimeters, client and end user considerations aside, how can this project be tackled?

If we want to experiment, then the concept would have no direct reference to the area or community that it services.
If that was our purpose, we may as well join the mainstream, be a drone wowed by the regurgitation of the latest ‘new’ concept.

The Nucleus of the Apple comes to mind as a concept. It could lead to something different and exciting wherever it takes us. The end project could be a water park with a floating bookshop docked to one side. Think of the possibilities!

Once completed, this project without a ‘real’ client or steel brief could be presented on this humble cork noticeboard, next to the local ATM. What presentation would be complete without the tagline of a website - savethevillageshops.com

Is it worth chasing glory when it comes with a price tag?

Escape Portal

I've been on a reading frenzy lately. Every spare moment captivated by the printed page as the story twists and turns. Missing my bus stop, tuning out traffic, talking and even the TV- basically the outside world.

When reality gets too gritty, there is nothing like an escape. I've been wondering if its possible to escape reality fully.
Could we live in a detailed daydream, believing our situation is perfect? But then who are we really fooling, others or just ourselves?

In the book 'The Virgin' by Erik Barmack, the main character, Joseph reinvents himself for a reality dating show. Unfortunately he can't quite carry off the new and improved version 'Jeb', but he makes an interesting comment about lying.

"First, you need to believe the lie. And then you need to wish the lie into being, even if the lie is awful and you may want it erased a few seconds later....Liars hide nothing. We don't hedge. We believe what we say."

Lies always seem to unravel (in books and movies at least). Once the mirage is over, what is left. No wonder there are so many distractions out there, you really can take your pick.

Say its Friday night, the DVD store is busy with people browsing- keen to be entertained and waste a couple of hours.

Libraries always seem busy during the weekend. So you start browsing for that interesting book and digest every fictional synopsis. It draws you in, you want to know what happens, you're sold!
Sometimes I find all these mini summaries overwhelming when tired. I realise I don't care about any of the characters, they are all melodramas about someone else's life.

Maybe that's why its easy to cross the line between reality and imagination, it is someone else's drama/problem/situation not your own.

Immersing yourself in their lives for a few moments, a couple of hours or the weekend ends by closing the book,using the remote or just tuning out.
Shame real life doesn't come with its own pause button while we daydream.
It could come in handy.