Magnifique! Gutterbarometer iPhone App

It only took four years to make it.

Get this pointless marvel here: itunes.apple.com/gb/app/gutterbarometer/id377391632?mt=8

Find out what’s really happening at the Cannes Lions. Who is hanging around the most at le Gutterbar. Ze Germans? The Swedes? TV? Cyber? Your Boss? Bob Greenberg?

Creep up the Gutterbarometer by using the app more often, spending the most time in the gutter and generally being tougher than everybody else.

If you must know, we are very scientifically calculating your score by awarding you 10 points for every minute you stay at le Gutterbar, then we add or take away points depending on what type of activity you do while you are there. Magnifique.

Gutterbarometer iPhone App, originally uploaded by Flo Heiss.

The Dare Pit Stop

I’ve had students place a hamster in the Dare toilet or paint hopscotch on the pavement outside our office, but this takes it to another level.

This morning a nice chap called Sam (off of team Sam & Libbie) had pitched up at my train station armed with a selection of goodies.

A couple of weeks ago I showed this film during a workshop for the Watford students based on this film Sam worked out where my train station is and somehow he even got the time right. Genius effort.

And the coffee was great too!

Sam if you read this, you know that I expect this treatment everyday now.

Brody wins. Bag of Mayo loses.

The verdict is in.

Neville Brody it is.

This is brilliant for a number of reasons:

1. Brody is famous
2. Brody is a craftsman
3. Brody a typographer
4. Brody is a doer
5. Brody is a thinker
6. Brody is a great speaker
7. Brody is traditional
8. Brody is modern
9. Brody has long hair

One of the few true renaissance practitioners crossing all boundaries out there working today (alongside maybe Sagmeister).

A very exciting choice.

Hurrah RCA.

Neville Brody V a bag full of Mayonnaise

This week is decision time for the RCA. Who will take Dan Fern’s mantle on to take the Communication Arts course into the 21st century. Will it be William Holder, Rick Poynor or Neville Brody?

Below was originally posted in the comments for Michael Johnson’s excellent thought provoking article republished on the CR blog.

Read also Andy Chen’s views on the matter on the Design Observer.

Thanks for the great post Michael. I didn’t even know Dan was retiring.
And that’s where the problem starts for me. The profile of the RCA in the real world outside South Ken is not what it used to be.

I graduated in 1998 from the RCA Graphics course, yes Graphics. It was the last year before Illustration and Graphics was folded into one and renamed to Communication Arts.

And here’s the thing: In 1996/98 no-one in our year did do much graphic design at all.
We had a “band”, staged (quite pretentious) performances, drew, painted and talked. I made a CD-Rom for the fashion department, published a book of a nonexistent world tour, because I could.

I had the most inspiring, crazy two years of my life at the RCA. With all this it’s no coincidence I am now working in advertising – my degree show consisted of a table with a bag full of mayonnaise on it…

Other people in my year like Matt Rudd, Ed Gill or Dan Eatock went on to do their thing with great success. All this is only possible precisely because the course allowed us to fuck around and experiment.

Whether the course is called Graphics or Communication Arts or Mayo On A Table doesn’t really matter. What matters is the quality of the students that are attracted to the RCA in the first place. It’s the students that make it what it is. The spirit of a great bunch of people working together and mucking around with no boundaries. I for one feel very lucky and blessed that I shared studio with so many amazingly talented people – some of whom I still work with occasionally.

Today I am not so sure the quality is there anymore. As an employer 12 years on I have not seen or employed one single student from the RCA. At the same time I haven’t really seen any new talent emerging from the RCA setting up on their own. And I have certainly not been itching to see all the degree shows.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Don’t know. All I know is that now is the time for the RCA to look at where it wants to go. There is a strong argument for a craft led name to come in and turn things upside down yet again by teaching actual Graphics. How mad would that be?

The question is: What does the RCA stand for in 2010?

But what do I know?

I bite my nails.

A proud moment

Dare West is up and running.

Some more piccies here (taken by Gavin Bell)

Art inside Dare West by @telegramme

IMG_0617, originally uploaded by Flo Heiss.

Best thing to come out of Chatroulette.

That is all.

The Guinness Book Of Advertising

Doesn’t exist.

Just read Dave Trott’s latest blog post and found myself violently agreeing.

It made me dig out a comment I posted on Twitter a while back:

Digital Marketing has kind of turned into the new Guinness Book of records. It’s all about biggest, firstest, most livest and most realest.

But that’s not what it’s about. Fresh ideas are the ones that combine existing ideas or technologies and use them better, sexier, simpler, more unusual, more interesting or in a different way.

Great ideas are not about firsts.

I am guilty as charged. We still talk about doing things for the first time at Dare. It’s so easy to get carried away with it – especially in digital.

iTunes wasn’t the first place to buy music online. The iPod wasn’t the first mp3 player. Skype didn’t invent video conferencing. Social networking exised before Facebook and Twitter.

Now. Who’s going to be the first to make that hit app for the iPad?

I for one will certainly have a go.

I cannot stop watching this film.

Everything about it is so unbelievably awesome.

The location, the light, the single minded fuck you attitude, the song the guns right all the way to the end when the sun shines through Jack White’s sieved trunk. If I manage to make something as brilliant as this in my lifetime I die a happy old fart. I’ll report back when I have cracked it, which will be, like, never.

Top Digital Trends for 2010

Top Digital Trends for 2010, originally uploaded by Flo Heiss.

F**ck you, I won’t do what you tell me

If you know me, and let’s face it the two people that read this blog do, then you know that a.) I LOVE Rage Against The Machine. ( I always play it on a Friday afternoon in the creative department of the decade here at Dare) and b.) I hate X-factor and everything it stands for. So this is pretty much my dream come true campaign. Go go RATM 4 Xmas No1!