YOU ARE NOT A GADGET

lanier_cover_small_1_0

A couple of us went to the RSA on Monday to listen to Jaron Lanier talk about his new book You are not a Gadget.

This book is critical of web 2.0, crowd dynamics, creative commons and all that it has spawned. In essence, and the talk was far more complex and philosophical than this, Jaron was reacting to the pervasive mantra of Web 2.0’s most ardent supporters. This mantra is probably best typified by Chris Anderson’s new book Free, and the free-conomics it persuades us to believe in.  Jaron, and bear in mind he was until recently banging this drum the loudest, believes that Web 2.0 has had its chance to define the culture and economics of the future. But has failed.

He cites Journalism and the music industry as proof that the way we use this technology has devalued human enterprise, creativity, and intellect and cannot sustain itself. As he says, “the vast majority of journalists, musicians, artists and filmmakers” are “staring into career oblivion because of our failed digital idealism”. Yes, yes, he knows that there are lots of examples of bands giving their music away for free and making money on branded pencil cases and whatnot. But as a whole he believes the industry and the creative people who work within it cannot be sustained this way. This is an important point, for Jaron is not arguing against particular success stories – ‘more power to you’ he says, he is arguing against the system as a whole.

Perhaps Jaron will find it amusing that I also went to the launch of Chris Anderson’s book where one of the other speakers invited to add meat to the bones of Chris’ free-conomics argument was the editor of The London Paper. The London Paper went out of business shortly after he spoke.

Is Jaron right? Well, by the timethat there are enough people who believe he is, it will probably be too late.

Anyway, here is your free blog post. Would you now like a website?

Buy the book here
Some FAQ here
And a good review in NYT that discusses the other implications of his point

FRESH MEAT

The place where we look new starters straight in the eye before giving them a firm handshake.

lgpblog

Name
Laura Pearlstein

What’s your Twitter ID?
@lgp23 but I just had to look that up because I don’t actually use it

What’s your online guilty pleasure?
Design blogs, celebrity gossip sites, and the culinary Mecca that is smittenkitchen

Which website do you spend most time on?
Probably Facebook – it’s the best way to stalk/keep in touch with my friends back in the States

Where were you before Digit?
Landor, for my second year of the WPP Fellowship

What’s the worst job you’ve ever done?
I’ve actually quite liked all my jobs – one highlight was scooping Haagen-Dazs in Vail, Colorado one summer

What’s your favourite book?
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Which celebrity would you never tire of hitting?
Tom Cruise, ever since he discovered Scientology

Who would play you in the film of your life?
Kate Hudson, maybe?

If brands were people who would you shag, marry or kill?
Shag: Gu
Marry: Method  
Kill: The Rupublican Party

North or South?
Yankee

What’s your favourite biscuit?
Chocolate Hobnobs…straight from the freezer.

INSPIRATION

We at Digit are a motley bunch – a mishmash of specialities, nationalities and personalities. Each and every one of us gets out of bed in the morning motivated by something different. Sometimes those bits of inspiration are personal, sometimes they’re professional. But they’re always something special. At the close of last year, we pulled together the most inspiring things we’d seen in 2009. It’s quite a collection. The list is as varied as we are. We hope you find it inspiring.

View more presentations from Digit London.

The Blue Wedge

The Blue Wedge

The design team is feeling quite ‘political’ this week. Which is rare thing these days. Designers political beliefs are more often repressed through fear of upsetting the happy status quo of the design studio. This is a far cry from the 60’s. Just keep it all in, don’t cause a stir.

But then Greg Hands MP said a few things publicly in the Times and that was it! See post below for some of the more polite things that were said. “Where is the Design Union? Do we have one?” asked a few designers. No we don’t. Maybe there will be soon as some one has already dispatched an email to the TUC. On the flip side of the spectrum “Did you know Oswald Mosley ran amok with the fascists in the 30’s on the street outside?”. Politics is all around us, deeply engrained in to our lives, whether we like it or not. Then there was ‘Photoshop Friday’ albeit on Thursday, inspired by the Leader of the Opposition whos haters are gathering online momentum with this and this.

This may have all just been a matter of timing, as many of us are busy researching some of the historic routes of graphic design. Constructivism making way for Bauhaus. A depth of thinking behind graphic design that aims to improve peoples lives.

There is no single agenda in the studio. The political spectrum here is broad, left to right. But suddenly the political calm of the studio became a dynamic movement. Conversation outside of the norms of form and function. Its was a joy to watch. I’ve no doubt some of the current things we are working on will only benefit from this somewhat reactionary political moment within Digit. I look forward to seeing the next batch of Digits work.

___________ Hands

Greg Hands MP caption competition image

OK, so there’s been a bit of a hoo-hah about some things Mr Greg Hands MP (he is a Tory, but don’t let that predispose you to dislike him) has said about a new brand commissioned by the COI to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS.

Things like “Modern graphic design packages surely allow anyone with an average brain to design something as good as, or better than, what we see in front of us here.” – brilliant, obviously.

It all started with an article written in the Times about how the government has “sent taxpayers a bill” for lots of varied identity projects which the author (Emily Gosden) clearly has an issue with.

Anyway, this has led to lots of noise in the design community – which we at Digit kind of agree with btw – and lots of blog column inches and articles bemoaning the ‘disrespectful’ way the design industry is viewed by the press.

So personally I have mixed opinions on this stuff. I’m not saying whether I like the work they are arguing over or not – because that’s not really the point. What I actually think this is more about is that the design industry isn’t taken seriously, because people don’t understand it.

There’s more than two sides to why this is, but here’s a couple of reasons to get us started -

Firstly, some designers make it hard to define what they do on purpose. Sometimes for good reason, and sometimes not. We’re not all struggling, tortured genius artists. Most designers are problem solvers with logical ways of working to which they add a bit of creative spark to to come up with a great, innovative new solution.

Secondly, if you read the design industries’ own press it doesn’t really seem to take the industry seriously either. It’s often far too much about hot new shit, rather than really good design which affects people’s lives, makes things better in the built environment, saves the natural environment’s resources, makes products and services better and easier to use, or gives companies and organisations a face to show to the world that they can be proud of.

Thirdly – I know I said two but I’m on a roll now – there is also the very good point about designers being in a service industry. We answer briefs. Sometimes the briefs are good, and sometimes they are really, really bad. The constant is that the client will never take responsibility for something that goes bad, and will take much of the glory for something that goes spectacularly right. And you know what, that is alright with me.

So in conclusion, let’s stop moaning and fix it. Fix the briefs in the first place and delivering great work becomes much easier. Involve the client in the process and go on the amazing little journeys we take on every project together. If you do these two simple things people will soon come to realise that they can’t do what we do themselves, that’s why they come to us in the first place, and that’s why Mr Hands and his ilk will never make it as anything more than commentators in life.

Here’s some links to the article, the response on behalf of the design industry by Design Assembly, and an even more recent nugget of ‘opinion‘ from Design Week.

To mark the, um, occasion (I suppose) we thought Mr Hands would be a good subject for our caption competition. Have fun….

SHARLIN’S CHAT BACK – APPLE’S RUMOURED TABLET

Sharlin's Chat Back

Sharlin So what’s the Apple tablet then?

Creative Director It’s probably some sort of touch screen tablet computer

S I don’t get it

CD Well, you know a PDA…

S The boxy thing with a pen at the top?

CD It’s more like a small computer you can press with your finger

S You’re going to need good nails!

CD Think of it like a big iphone

S I’m not keen on that

CD What!? So there’s no need for a tablet?

S No, they don’t need to invent it, it’s just a waste of money. They just need to scrap it. They haven’t invented it have they? I won’t be buying one.

CD Ok, well, urm ,think about an Ereader

S Oooh, I want an Ereader

CD Ok, but now imagine if that Ereader could also browse the internet, play films, have all your photos and music, a load of different apps, as well as an interactive keyboard. So what do you reckon, do you want one now?

S Yeah, I do.

CD But I thought you said it was a waste of money?

S Yeah, but now I know it can do all those things, I want one. I’m going to go out and buy one.

So there you have it folks. No one really knows what the Apple tablet is going to look like or how it will operate, but one thing’s for sure…our receptionist is sure as hell going to go out and get one.

Pint + Hitler Meme + 2 hours = Popular

steiner

Twas the night before Christmas… well the 18 December 2009 to be honest. A few of us were drowning our sorrows in the Duke of Wellington after realising we’d been excluded from Michelle’s leaving lunch. What we needed was a way of showing Michelle just how creative, funny and technically amazing our small band of outcasts were.

In an attempt to cheer ourselves up, we began to chat…

“Aren’t those Hitler parodies funny” – said someone.
“Yea. Great.” – said another.
“Shame we didn’t have time to create one for Michelle” – said us all.

At that moment we all looked at each other smiled, downed the rest of our pints and made a dash back to the office.

Two hours later we embed the following video and shared it with the rest of digit:

http://www.digitlondon.com/bye-michelle

How did we do it?

1) Download the Original bunker scence without subtitles
2) Create the subtitles using the Youtube subtitler
3) Create a You Tube account, upload the video and add the captions
4) Embed the video on the digit site http://www.digitlondon.com/bye-michelle (It’s the only way to force the captions to play by default)

LWWWMTA

LWWWMTA@DIgit

Last week it snowed. A lot. So much so that Britain, in time old fashion, began to shut down. Cars, trains, and planes threw in the towel, companies closed their doors, the Army was called in, Marshall Law imposed, and Lord Adonis, the secretary of state for transport, was forced to answer some pretty tough questions on the levels of salt possessed by each county council. Yep, that’s right, the failure of this government to adequately prepare for cold weather had become a political conspiracy on a par with the Chilcot enquiry. Only in Britain.

On the other hand, if it hadn’t snowed, we wouldn’t have seen this video of a man purposefully driving into frosty the snowman.

Now despite 63 pages of solid ‘news’ about snow the Guardian did manage to squeeze in a quarter page article on Augmented Reality. Thankfully this was titled seven things you need to know about Augmented Reality, reminding us that it has been a hot topic for quite some time now. Which makes it all the more surprising that we haven’t really seen anything that impressive recently. Until this.

What else? Well we have been titilated by this LED screen from Samsung, amazed by the incredible amount of work that goes into making world cup footballs, and amused with this review of the Best fails of 2009.

We’ve also decided to go to the event you are not a gadget. Why don’t you come along and say hi.

FRESH MEAT

The place where we look new starters straight in the eye before giving them a firm handshake.

orlaith_freshmeat

Name
Orlaith Grainne Feardar Finucane (No I’m not from Lord of the Rings, just Irish)

What’s your Twitter ID?
Don’t have one! Whoops.

What’s your online guilty pleasure?
Stumble upon

Which website do you spend most time on?
Timeout.com

Where were you before Digit?
Up at Edinburgh University finishing my degree in History of Art.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever done?
Definitely when I worked in a café at Wimbledon Tennis. I had to wear a purple bowl-like cap making hot dogs and pizza near court 16; I couldn’t have been further away from the action if I’d tried!

What’s your favourite book?
From recent reads – The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Which celebrity would you never tire of hitting?
Louis Walsh

Who would play you in the film of your life?
Rachel McAdams – happy, wholesome and sexy (I wish…!)

If brands were people who would you shag, marry or kill?
Shag: Christian Louboutin
Marry: Mr and Mrs Smith  
Kill: Von Dutch

North or South?
I’m a southern girl, born and bred.

What’s your favourite biscuit?
Oooo, that’s tough… A tie between Ben’s Cookies and Duchy stem ginger biscuits covered in dark chocolate. Or homemade peanut butter and chocolate biscuits. Do Ladurée macaroons count?

Digit does Decode

Yesterday the design team went on a little trip to the V&A to see the new digital interaction design exhibition ‘Decode’!!! What a fun trip it was.

Seeing as its our last day in the studio, we’ll keep it brief. On the whole, the screen based works were the same on V&A screens as they are on Digit screens, but it was great to see some physical pieces in the flesh.

Off the top of our domes, these were the top 5 projects (in no order). We’ll try and revisit these projects in more detail in the new year.

Daniel Rozin: Weave Mirror
Troika: Digital Zoetrope
Ross Phillips: Videogrid
Fabrica: Exquisite Clock
rAndom International & Chris O’Shea: Audience

Nice to finally see works like ‘the wooden mirror’ in action, it was definitely one of our faves. We like it very much. ….Yes we do. :-).

..check out our vid.

Now lets get another glass of cava, and then get off to the pub. ;-) …it is christmas.