aspire to enquire

The Penguin Postcard Project

There's quite a cool little gift box you can buy which contains 100 postcards with different Penguin book covers on. Much like Phil Baines's book, which I love, it seems to have captured the imagination of the design / literature crowd, who find a sort of quaint excitement amongst the dog eared edges, the vintage colour palletes and the modern designs spanning nearly 80 years.

My good friend Jess had an amazing idea to capture some of this excitement, with The Penguin Postcard Project. The idea is quite simple; you sign up, she'll send you a randomly selected postcard. You then obtain and review the book, writing your review on the back of the postcard, and send it back to Jess. Her blog showcases the reviews as they come in, from all over the world.

The Architecture of Happiness

This morning I've finished reading 'The Architecture Of Happiness' by Alain de Botton. It's been a bit of a protracted read; I used a lot of the first chapter's insights for various essays at university, but never had/took the time to get all the way through.

 

But I accidentally bought a monthly Oyster this month, so I've had lots of train time to indulge in book reading. I thoroughly recommend the book - it is rooted in architecture but many of the thoughts within can equally apply to other sociological areas (that's probably what goes on in his other books, I'll have to find out.)

In the final beautiful chapter about our debt to fields, there is a particular paragraph that rang true and inspiring for me in relation to blogging and socialising online:

There has, of course, always been the occasional Westerner who found beauty in rough bits of pottery or welcomed the appearance of a spread of moss. And yet it can be hard to champion such interests within a culture whose preferences run instead towards Palladian villas and Delft porcelain. We can be laughed into silence for attempting to speak in praise of phenomena which we lack the right words to describe. We may censor ourselves before others have the chance to do so. We may not even notice that we have extinguished our own curiosity, just as we may forget we had something to say until we find someone who is willing to hear it.

For all that we mock those who fake aesthetic enthusiasms in hopes of gaining respect, the opposite tendency is the more poignant, whereby we repress our true passions in order not to seem peculiar.

- From 'The Promise of a Field', p262 The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton.

It's tiring to continue to commit to blogging, when one's whole situation has changed since they set up their page. 

From my own perspective, continuing with day-to-day regularity often prohibits me from finding new, inspiring artefacts to think about. But sometimes I do still come across these artefacts. And if I wasn't actively thinking about them by trying to articulate my responses through this blog, there would be a danger that I'd start to overlook them altogether.

The next step, I think, more than finding someone willing to hear what I have to say, is earning the right to tell people.

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Many moons ago Amelia posted about a book she'd been sent which sounded like it could have been interesting for my dissertation. It was a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto, and she had a copy of it to pass on. 

In the end, I was actually sent my own copy, direct from Rubber Republic who had masterminded the whole scheme. It turned out to be very useful for my dissertation, and generally a thought provoking read for those trying to make sense of the internet and communication and all of that. It's nearly 10 years old now but some of the core messages and thinking points are still very current and relevant, which is why they're still promoting it I guess. 

So, I've read and utilised my copy now, So I have to pass it on. If you want it, email me at [email protected] , and I can put your name below mine!

Simples!

Tim Walker Pictures

I know I've blogged about him before, but I really love the work of Tim Walker. Well, this Christmas I was lucky to receive his book Pictures! Good times. It's a not inconsiderable collection of his work over the years, together with scrap books and quotes from Tim and the models. Some of the pages have a bit of glare on them, sorry about that.

It comes in a lovely box.

The scrap book pages are really interesting, and possibly for me the best part of the book. Seeing the thought process and preparation that goes into what are nearly always ambitious and theatrical shoots gives a real insight into Walker's working method as well as the logistics of shoots of this scale.

And then there's the finished pictures themselves.

I could have picked out pretty much any page from the book to illustrate what I love so much about his work. For me, there's this odd austerity and formality in the composition of his shots, but it's juxtaposed against a playful and melodramatic subject.

It's also really inspiring to be told that none of the shots are digitally manipulated.

Overall, I think it's probably the twist on 'Britishness' that makes his work so popular in the French and Italian Vogues. It's a shame that UK publications have generally used his (slightly) less visual work, presumably to give more credit to the clothes and therefore the advertisers. The London fashion scene is probably a bit younger and more avant-garde at the moment anyway. I don't know. But in a modern Britain searching for a new sense cultural identity after 'cool britannia', I can think of no better starting point.