February 23rd, 2009
“I believe your logo may be haunted,” I informed Ignacious Spore, when I finally managed to tear myself away from his deceptively simple ‘IS’ monogram and pick up the phone.
I had revised my opinion of the worst logo in the world after an afternoon spent locked up in it’s presence without any drink. Initial revulsion turned to playful curiosity which turned to semi-religious epiphany, as I became transfixed with the zen-like beauty of the word ‘is’. Unfortunately this was followed by nausea.
My client sensed my emotional state and decided to tread carefully. “My dear boy, have you lost your bleeding marbles?” He was a sensitive soul.
But I knew Spore had been secretly searching for the Holy Grail and I believed he’d be interested in knowing this logo might hold the key.
“Ok maybe not haunted but it’s definitely creepy.”
This was where my knowledge of the Da Vinci Code let me down. If I could have wowed him with some nonsense about priories and keystones, he might have taken more interest. But I had nothing. There just weren’t many possibilities for an anagram of the word ‘is.’
Categories: 1. Graphic Design Dilemmas |
Tags: Da Vinci Code, Holy Grail, Ignacious Spore | No Comments
February 19th, 2009
So today it was just me and my shaky design skills. I avoided all the usual distractions: email, phone, Mongol hordes at the door. I had to break the spell of the blank canvas syndrome, which had so crippled me over the last few days.
I received a fax from my client Ignacious Spore. I’m not sure how, because I don’t have a fax machine. It read ‘Are you up yet?’ There was no escape.
I began to study the worst logo in the world - a simple monogram of the letters ‘IS’ in a relative of Helvetica. Spore had limited imagination. The bold forms of the letters twisted and turned in my mind, and seconds evolved into minutes which became hours.
Eventually I could only see the monogram as a word. The word ‘is’. In the intensity of my concentration the word began to take on a mystical form. It was zen-like in its beauty and simplicity. Maybe this was the religious symbology that Spore was referring to.
Maybe in fact it wasn’t the worst logo in the world. Maybe it was brilliant. Maybe it was like the ‘fcuk’ logo - it was so appalling it had to be genius.
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February 15th, 2009
I hate starting a new project. I’ll do anything to avoid it. If there’s a ball of string that needs untangled I’ll do that first. I reckon with all the time I’ve spent procrastinating, I could easily have taught myself violin to a level worthy of Menuhin.
Here’s the pattern. Client comes to me with some simple design chore. I tell them it’s unfeasibly difficult, will take a month and cost the earth. But I assure them it’ll be taken care of and they go away happy because now it’s some other sucker’s problem.
Then I spend three weeks staring into space, tormenting the cats and generally avoiding the issue. Client may ask to ‘see something’ during this period but can always be fobbed off with some nonsense or other. Finally, after a great deal of unease, I’ll kick the turkey into shape, wrap it up in three days and get it out the door before anybody gets twitchy.
It’s not that I’m lazy. Far from it. I have a psychological condition - a near pathological aversion to the gaping void that stretches before me on each new task. They call it blank canvas syndrome. Until it’s filled with something - anything - I’d rather waste my life doing something even more pointless.
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February 13th, 2009
You may be wondering what all this has to do with graphic design. Well so am I. But what does anything have to do with anything nowadays? I mean, I bought the Da Vinci Code thinking it had something to do with literature, and where did that get me? I’ll tell you - page five.
The fact is it was graphic design that got us into this mess. My client Spore had asked me to analyse the worst logo in the world for its religious symbology, and rather than shatter his belief that I studied the subject at Harvard, I accepted the commission. It had been a lean month.
Having taken the problem first to possible genius the Admiral, who pondered it at length before getting sidetracked trying to split the internet, and then to Fifi LaFlamme, whose sherry-like substances left me giddy but no further forward, it seemed I had exhausted all the routes open to me.
There was only one thing left and it was a nightmare scenario. I was going to have to actually do some work.
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February 11th, 2009
It occurred to me that LaFlamme and I might have stumbled onto something that would become one of the greatest mysteries of all time. But then I thought we probably hadn’t, and went back to darning my socks.
Certainly the encrypted message that turned out to spell Jack Daniels had so far led to nothing but giddiness, and I had failed to find a connection between it and the worst logo in the world, as my client Ignacious Spore had requested.
“We need help. Professional help,” said LaFlamme with determination.
“Yes, you’re right,” I replied enthusiastically. “I know a professor of religious symbology who could help us get to the bottom of this.”
“Actually I was thinking of Rehab. But your idea’s good too.”
There was no doubt about it. With LaFlamme, life had thrown me a curve ball.
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Tags: Fifi LaFlamme, religious symbology | No Comments
February 9th, 2009
Despite being awash with Jack Daniels, it was several hours before LaFlamme and I realised it was actually the solution to our problem. That is to say, ‘Jack Daniels’ was the solution to the anagram ‘Jackal dines’ that my dubious client Ignacious Spore had left whilst dropping dead in my doorway.
By this time LaFlamme’s ‘liquid inspiration’ had left us very heavily inspired, and we failed to notice that Spore was nowhere to be found. He was a slippery character alright, but he would have had to slip across the landing and down four flights of stairs, something dead clients can’t normally do.
“Maybe he was just having a lie down,” LaFlamme said helpfully.
“He walked up four flights of stairs with a cryptic message just to have a lie down? Wouldn’t it have been easier to stay home in bed?”
“Spirited away?” she suggested, with only a hint of silliness. In our current inspired state this began to sound quite likely, at least more likely than my slipping down the stairs explanation. But something didn’t fit.
And if he didn’t slide out the door and he wasn’t spirited away, that only left one conclusion - I had no idea what was going on.
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Tags: Fifi LaFlamme, Ignacious Spore | No Comments
February 6th, 2009
I always thought anagrams, like jigsaws, were for people who had never discovered laziness. Why would I waste precious loafing hours trying to fix something that was deliberately broken to keep you people and your overactive lobes happy?
This particular anagram, ‘Jackal dines,’ was perplexing in the extreme. I didn’t want to get into it but once again LaFlamme had skilfully manipulated my free will. Now I was compelled to consume large quantities of bourbon and decipher my client’s cryptic note.
Thoughts of ravenous jackals raced through my fevered mind. I say ‘raced’ but ‘wandered pointlessly’ would be more apt. These jackals were in no hurry. The only thing that ever raced through my mind was bewilderment.
Suddenly LaFlamme stirred. “I hate to say this but… Jack Daniels,” she declared.
“No, no more for me thanks.”
“No, Dumbo, Jack Daniels is the answer!” I thought for a moment she was about to burst into song. And I wasn’t sure I liked her tone.
“It’s MISTER Dumbo if you don’t mind,” I corrected her.
“You can be Emperor Dumbo if you like,” she replied. “Don’t you see? It’s been staring us in the face. Literally.”
She hovered the JD bottle before me, as if practising hypnosis, and slowly it began to sink in. But LaFlamme needed no practise. I’d been hypnotised for years.
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Tags: Fifi LaFlamme, Jack Daniels | No Comments
February 3rd, 2009
LaFlamme continued to analyse my client Spore’s cryptic note - ‘Jackals dine’ - for it’s anagrammatic possibilities, with increasingly silly results. With Spore himself still unconscious or even dead in the doorway, this could have been viewed as negligent. But I decided in Spore’s case it was ok.
“Perhaps we need a drop of liquid inspiration,” she suggested, and I visibly winced. LaFlamme had administered this type of inspiration to me before with devastating results.
“I’m not sure I can handle being inspired right now,” I protested, feebly - I knew it was a lost cause.
“Nonsense,” said LaFlamme and poured two massive belters of bourbon. Why she didn’t just get a funnel and inspire me to death was beyond me.
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Tags: Fifi LaFlamme, Jack Daniels | No Comments
February 1st, 2009
Despite LaFlamme’s confident assurance that my unconscious client’s cryptic message - ‘Jackals dine’ - was an anagram, she didn’t appear to know of what.
Crosswords were never my forte and after thirty minutes putting pen to paper, all I could come up with was ‘Jackal dines.’
“It’s just as well you’re pretty,” said LaFlamme, making a hollow knocking sound against the top of my head. “Better leave the thinking to me.”
I happily relinquished the task as I feared any further brainstrain would surely lead to a hernia of the head.
It gave me time to reflect on the events leading up to this moment, the unusual sequence of mishaps and misadventures that left me in this confused state. But without reviewing previous posts I’m not that sure what they were.
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Tags: anagrams, Fifi LaFlamme | No Comments
January 30th, 2009
“Back in the old days I would just be getting home round about now. In fact, Phil Lynott and I would have tanked a bottle of Smirnoff before we even put on our makeup. But having been shown the hooch equivalent of a red card sometime in the eighties - don’t ask when, it’s a blur - it’s been a 6am rise ever since.
The band are rehearsing today. At least I think they’re rehearsing. I don’t really keep that close a watch on them. ‘Exploit from a distance’, that’s what I say. For one thing, it saves walking around with a clothes peg on my nose.
I heard the new material and apparently some of it’s pretty good. This I know for a fact because one of the execs told me so. ‘Never trust your own judgement when others can judge for you,’ that’s what I say.
So I begin the day’s business by glancing at some of the emails I get: the usual collection of losers looking to hang on to my coat tails, now that I can afford coat tails. Every no-talent muso within a thousand mile radius wants me. They’re like moths at a great flame.
Let’s face it: anybody can be in a band. The real talent is in management.”
- George Lyttleton, Band Manager
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