Design

Danny and I are in Germany at present, Cologne (Köln) to be specific, visiting the Photokina trade fair. It’s been a whirlwind tour through Europe getting here. In 5 days we travelled through Las Angeles, London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne. What an incredible week of contrasts. The cities, especially Paris and Amsterdam, were incredible, so romantic with their old world charm and architecture, but with unfortunate modern contrasts. If Mc Donalds down the road from Notre Dame wasn’t enough, how about the accommodation we have in Cologne?

This is a table in the restaurant. The place is a haze of stale cigarette smoke and cooking oil, shelves adorned with stuffed toys and English country music. I’d never stay here again if it wasn’t for the wonderful people and good food. No one here speaks a lick of English but somehow we manage because they’re so nice. I guess that’s why the restaurant was full of ’suits’, people you would only see at the Stamford Plaza at home.

I laughed when I went to the restaurant bathroom however, as it was so modern I thought I must have entered a neighboring building.

Being someone that loves books, however, the greatest contrast was between the books I found at Notre Dame and the Louvre and the horrible, cheap, mass produced books being flogged by the truckload at Photokina.

Amongst precious items like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo the books were equally precious artefacts contain our history, our stories, our culture.

You won’t find cover designs like these on a Queensberry album, but you’ll certainly see the same pride, sense of purpose and craftsmanship. At the end of the day it is the sharing and honouring of stories that is the goal.

I won’t include a photo of the “Photokina” books. Suffice to say most (not all) are tacky, cheap and don’t respect any level of craftsmanship or longevity. In fact so little craftsmanship is involved, we sat today stunned as a demonstrator haphazardly assembled a book with one hand as he held his mobile phone in the other.

I feel some excitement about these new books, as people are finally able to move their digital files off their hard drives onto paper so they can be appreciated. But important stories need to be honoured, treated with respect and enhanced through beautiful and timeless presentation, not jammed into the cheapest book available.

An amazing week none the less, fascinating and inspiring. I love life’s contrasts, it’s a wonderful reminder that we are all different.

Following on the theme of film making, here is a short film released at the Cannes 2008 Film Festival. A beautiful story of a blind man and his sign.

Sometimes, someone just has to help us to see …

Hat tip to The Pirate’s Dilemma

 Photo by Brett Harkness

I just wrote about why I love photograph albums, but the story got a little long so I’ve edited it. I guess the truth is we love the industry, the books and just as importantly, we love design. Queensberry’s love and focus on design is a story all by itself.

Let’s face it, though, some albums suck … Sorry but they do. The book is cheap and plasticky, and no consideration is given to what photos are included. A great album is so much more.

I’m not trying to turn this into a shameless plug, and I know quality is subjective, but I believe we produce the world’s finest albums.

From a design perspective we are the “bride’s advocate” and although it’s a little overstated, our goal is for the bride to have an experience seeing her album for the first time that in some ways is better than the one she had on the day. What do I mean by that? You know what it’s like … she gets stressed … there are lots of things she doesn’t get to see and experience … and of course on the day she doesn’t see herself as others see her.

It’s hard to explain, but the experience of enjoying an album starts before you even open the cover … It is a beautiful but understated book that piques a person’s curiosity. A book whose design is in line with today’s taste but equally comfortable with tomorrow’s.

The real experience, however, is in the pages of the book. The photographer starts by skilfully capturing the events of the day, the spirit of the people involved, the important details as they unfold.

It’s impossible to describe the total effect, you need to hold a book in your hands to know exactly what I am describing, but when it’s done properly the signs are very obvious … smiles, tears, laughter and people pointing dumb struck as they pore over their images.

Here are a few examples (images and albums) by other photographers:

- Harvest Colours
- Red and White all over
- Lyttleton Grunge

If I go out for dinner and people ask me what I do, and I say, “We make photo albums”, I swear their eyes glaze over and you see them searching for the door.

After a little conversation, however, people are often fascinated. Ours is a successful comany in an exciting industry … we see people on the happiest day of their life … see what spending $100k on a wedding is like … see guests at weddings like Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker … make albums for princes and princesses, sheiks and other famous people. We work with incredibly talented and creative people.

I think mine is a family of story tellers. We describe stuff in analogies and love sharing those stories with others. Every time one of my grandparents told a story the other would rush to their albums to point out exactly who was being spoken about. These people are long gone but their memories and images remain.

These books are precious, not because we made them, but because of the events and people that are recorded within them.

Photo by Johannes van Kan and Jo Grams at Moda Fotografica

Here are a few examples (images and albums) by other photographers

- Horse and rider
- Perfect Canvas
- Ends of the Earth

I’ve always loved Body Art (Tattoos). To me they can show a strong sense of confidence while also being a means of self expression …

… A connection to ones culture …

… an incredible talent …

… although not always positive, a strong demonstration of belonging …

… and sometimes just a means to be a little rebellious!

Despite my love of them, I don’t have any, I worry what people might think.

Does that say more about me, or the people that have them?

One of the incredible blessings of working in the Queensberry Group is the wonderful people we get to spend our time with, and few are more inspiring than Peter Haythornthwaite.

I was sitting at the kitchen table about to take a photo of this wood pigeon when I got an email from Peter commenting on my blog. Amongst other things he said “I guess a natural ‘other’ would be small videos of family discoveries at the beach - your area, your ‘forest’ area, your Titirangi - why do you live there etc.”

The timing made me smile as this beautiful bird perfectly symbolizes why we live here. I guess home is always where your family is, but only a few meters from our kitchen table we have the wonder of nature (Peter you must admit Mother Nature was a pretty good designer), while through the internet and travel the rest of the world is available to us as we want it.

Our house sits on a ridge, with the sun rising on one side…

… and of course setting on the other. It’s as if we live in an incredible painting, but one that changes by the hour and where the wind blows.

Today the sea is looking very moody and cold.

I just came across a very cool blog post on the Neatorama website covering the history of some big tech company logos. Sounds a bit dull but it’s actually really interesting and includes some very cool stories.

I didn’t know this, but from the post was amazed to learn that Ronald Wayne, along with Wozniak and Jobs, actually founded Apple Computer. In 1976, after only working for two weeks at Apple, Wayne relinquished his stock (10% of the company) for a one-time payment of $800 because he thought Apple was too risky!

Just imagine … today that stock would be worth billions.

LOL Now I have been a Apple Fan Boy since the beginning but today I learnt something new.

Enjoy

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/02/07/the-evolution-of-tech-companies-logos/

One of the things I like about myself is the ability to appreciate other peoples craft and skill. I came across this a number of months ago on youtube and found myself drawn into Takagi Masakatsu’s moving paintings and the description of how he works.

You have to admire someone not only blessed with great observation, but also the ability to recreate what he sees in a new medium.

I liked his closing quote, in talking about seeing colour and light in the world … “In a sense I am not expressing anything that is not already there”