I’ve spent some of my Christmas break sorting through some very old video footage. I acquired a Video 8 camera pretty soon after my first child was born in 1980 and have been building a tape mountain ever since then.

 

Having now made the foolish commitment to get it all in some order, I’ve started the process by getting the necessary kit to digitise the analogue tape. I’m using an iMac, a separate 500GB drive and a box that converts the video signal into bits and bytes.

 

Amongst all the family stuff there was the odd bits of filming I did at RS2, the company I formed back in 1981. Apart from the actual technologies used, not much has changed conceptually from then, in that we employed designers and techies and gave service to marketing and marcoms departments in various blue chip (mostly IT) organisations.

 

But here’s the point of this story . . . all the guys in the studio were wearing ties. Remarkable! Although we get suited and booted now when appropriate, on a day-to-day basis ties are never seen. I’ve noticed this at client’s offices as well; the tie is becoming a ‘rarietie’

I wonder if it will make a comeback?

What happened to December?

 

I hadn’t realised how long it had been since I posted on this site, but I guess my excuse is one of extreme ‘busyness’.

 

Putting me to shame though are the people in my team who are now up and running with our company blog and posting up some interesting stuff. Of particular interest to me is Chris Trevallion’s view on corporate do-it-yourself designers. I’ve been banging on about this for years, specifically in the PowerPoint presentation arena, but it applies anywhere that people have access to digital design tools and are producing material that represents a company’s brand.

 

Anyway, take a look at www.sigblog.com

Storm Thorgerson's 'Pulse'

Seeing news of the pop artist Sir Peter Blake’s latest works for Oasis and the John Peel album prompts a debate that is close to my heart. It is the definition of an album cover image as ‘art’ as in fine art or ‘design’, as in graphic design.

 

Back in the 1950s the 33¹/₃ rpm long playing record appeared in the shops and a new platform for imagery was born.

 

In the main this was a domain for photographers and graphic designers (nee commercial artists), but occasionally the ‘real’ artists dipped their toes into the genre. One example that comes to mind is the surrealist Salvador Dali creating a cover in 1955 for an LP by the American comedian and actor Jackie Gleason.

 

The LP cover was often as important to the collector as the music the LP contained. It was certainly a lure in the displays in the record shop and by the late 1960s would be an eagerly anticipated aspect of the total package.

 

By now we were calling them ‘albums’ and a roster of fine (pop) artists had contributed their work to the medium. To name a few:

 

Sir Peter Blake (Sergeant Pepper)

Andy Warhol (Velvet Underground, Rolling Stones)

Richard Hamilton (The White Album)

That collectors and museums were acquiring original and limited editions of other works by these artists goes without saying, but the art for the album covers remained in the design domain.

 

In 1999 I and a colleague hooked up with the designer Storm Thorgerson, one third of the famous design group ‘Hipgnosis’. Storm had been involved in some of the most iconic album art designs of the last four decades and it was his determination to publish his work as fine art prints. The fantastic advantage of this being that the work can be seen at a size and quality that allows full appreciation of the creativity.

We started (and I think we were possibly the first to do this) with a set of twelve prints of Pink Floyd covers, including Dark Side of The Moon, Animals and Wish You Were Here.

 

These pieces do really look fantastic; most of them are silkscreens, printed by established fine art studios that work with the great and good of the fine art world. The famous Coriander Studios for instance print for Damien Hirst, Bruce Maclean, Tracey Emin, Peter Blake and many more.

 

So put Hipgnosis’ and Storm’s work beside that of these eminent artists and how do they compare? Can Storm be considered as a fine artist? Much of his work is transitory and has to be photographed as a record and therefore could be categorised as ‘installation art’. In that context does it stand up against the Chapman Brothers’ ‘Hell’ or Tracey Emin’s ‘Bed’?

 

I think so – look at the giant sculptures of The Division Bell and the environment they were placed in.

I think that the key debate here is ‘does the album cover image, taken out of its normal context, presented in a fine art medium, make it art rather than design?.

 

The size is important, but so is the quality of the reproduction. Fine art silkscreen printing is a complex, technically demanding process, with anywhere from 10 to 30 screens used to produce one image. A far cry from 4 colour process printing. Even the modern trend of giclee (inkjet) printing creates the most remarkable results and bears no comparison with a litho printed poster.

 

So my premis is that I think we should be taking these pieces as seriously as we would if they were a Damien Hirst or a Tracey Emin.

I’m biased because I’m selling the work, but I am also passionate about it and that’s really what motivates me to represent and publish.

Seven years ago we decided to ditch the annual mission of creating the company Christmas card and go for something more sustainable, the obvious choice being a themed calendar which would stay on people’s desks for 12 months.

This proved to be very successful and it’s been encouraging to visit customer’s offices and see our brand dotted across the open plan landscapes. We’ve been coming up with a unique version every year since then.

We’d been wondering whether the genre was now a bit tired and the not inconsiderable strain on effort and budget too much, and therefore whether we should be doing something different (or nothing at all).

I thought I’d do a bit of research and phoned a few people. The feedback was overwhelming, for example “I look forward to the calendar arriving in the post, it’s the one I always use – any others go straight in the bin”.

To add to the endorsements, last week I had an unsolicited comment from a long standing client who's office is in Hemel Hempstead. He had been at our offices in Henley for a meeting and as he was leaving our reception, spotted the Signals' calendar and asked if we had any spares. I was naturally horrified that he didn’t already have one as it is now 10 months since we sent them out. His reply was that the one we’d sent him was lost in the deluge following the explosion at the Buncefield oil depot last December and he’d never got around to asking for a replacement. He said it was a great item and he still wanted one even though the year was approaching its end.

This sort of made up my mind that we need to continue the tradition.

Any suggestions for this year’s theme on a postcard . . . . (or email!)

I spent a very enjoyable evening last Saturday hobnobbing with some elite A list bloggers. My friend Keith Collins had organised this gathering as part of his continuing evangelism of the blogosphere and its benefits to the business community.

Shel Israel is one half of the authorship of Naked Conversations – a bible for anyone interested in what’s going on in the business blogging world, so it was a privilege to meet him on the first night of his world trip to research his new book. He asked each of us what we or our companies did, and after the standard pitch from me about digital communications media and all that jazz, I confessed my alter ego which is in the world of album cover art and limited edition prints of the same.

When I mentioned Pink Floyd, Shel’s repost was that they had been the last band that he ever got excited about before he was swallowed up by the world of PR, marketing and corporate life.

There was then a bit of a debate about the ‘golden age’ of rock music, which I think is a bit of a myth as it’s all to do with the age you are and your influences at the time. Every era has its very special music and now is no exception. Anyone who disputes this should listen to Radiohead.

Hugh MacLeod was also present and I must admit I was fascinated by his sense of humour, his cartoons and his unusual choice of the back of business cards as a medium. Originals of his work are up for sale now on eBay, but I’m going to jealously hold on to the creation he drew and gave to me on the night. I’ll keep my eye on the going rate though!

The background to this is that Keith has brought together a group of like minded individuals, all of us running our own companies and all faced with the daily trials of being creative for our customers and at the same time making a hard earned buck. We are all convinced about the benefits of opening up the conversations about our businesses and the issues that we face. We are all new to the game, but already Nick and Andrew at Stonk Media are posting like mad, and Adrian Moss has dived in as well.

As well as this personal site, I am setting up a company blog for Signals to give a voice to the people in my team. We have some very talented and knowledgeable individuals in the organisation and I think it’s very valid for them to share their thoughts about the industry we are in.

Watch this space. . . .

It’s been a moving year. After running our business from the same premises for the last 12 years we finally found a better location and moved earlier this year. Amazing what you accumulate in that time and what is now junk. 

 

Which brings me to the point. Technology

 

12 years ago the web was in its infancy, we had very impersonal computers and if there was anything called social media I think it may have been found on the top shelf of the newsagents.

 

A lot of the aforementioned junk was very expensive high tec. But now you can’t give it away. We had a very nice bit of kit called a digital film recorder. For a start up business, this cost us a lot of money 15 years ago but was worth it as it was the cornerstone of our business. It took graphic images created on the computer and transferred them onto 35mm slide film.

 

When this became redundant because no one was using 35mm slides anymore, we shoved it up into the attic and there it stayed.

 

And out it came in the clear out.

 

Ebay – that’s the answer – there must be someone out there in the digital universe who would like this.

 

It looks nice

 

It used to work beautifully (though I must confess I couldn’t find the software for it) and at today’s prices it would cost about £20,000.

 

In 10 days not one bid. Incredulous so I tried again, in another 10 days still not one bid.

 

Now confined to the skip.

 

R.I.P.