Graphic Journey Blog: September 2009

Terence Woodgate: If I were a carpenter…

This is Terence Woodgate. He is a furniture designer of great purity.

This is what he does…

Lovely aren’t they?

I have just recorded an interview with him for my RDInsights series. It is particularly relevant in light of my recent post, God's gift, on dyslexia. Terence is another of us who has overcome difficulty in one area by excelling in another. Hear about that and his unique collaboration with formula one racing car designer John Barnard to produce surface, a four meter long, carbon fiber table only 2mm thick (above).

To listen to our conversation click here.

Posted at 04:21 PM in Design | Permalink | Comments (1)

Personal journal: Designer as illustrator

I was drawing long before I could read. The gift of being able to communicate through illustration is not only very useful but it often mesmerises those that can’t draw. From the late 60s to the mid 70s I illustrated as much as I designed.

When I founded my old consultancy CDT Design in '79, all of my illustration stopped – such is the pressure of running a company. Throughout the 90’s I was very into photography (more of which another time) and in parallel I painted abstracts.

But going back to those earlier days I thought you might like to see some of my efforts. Many were for book covers while others were semi autobiographical. Here they are in no particular order from around 1968 to 1976…

Posted at 03:18 PM in Illustration, Personal journal | Permalink | Comments (3)

September 14, 2009

Random graphics

Don't you just love it when you see things that others simply pass by?

Alan Fletcher was always keen eyed when it came to the floatsum and jetsom of daily life.

I snapped this discarded packing case before it was removed by the refuse collectors...

really beautiful.

Posted at 09:00 AM in Graphics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 10, 2009

Presentation is all

Last year I posted this mini rant…

But since seeing this, I have changed my mind.

Men are such push overs.

Posted at 09:31 PM in Graphics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

September 04, 2009

Dyslexia: God's gift

For years I went through school-life thinking that I was educationally inferior to many of my friends. I was a painfully slow reader. Maths was a complete mystery to me and generally, I was happiest doing practical things. I excelled at art and spent much of my time daydreaming – I hasten to add that we are talking the 1950s here; a period when the term ‘dyslexia’ was unheard of, and teachers would single out people like me as ‘thick’. In recent decades the condition was quickly identified and there is now a lot of help and strategies in place to help overcome the problem. If it is indeed a problem...

Working in this creative world of ours, I have discovered an amazing concentration of dyslexics. So many of the designers I have written about or interviewed are who they are, precisely because of their 'gift' of dyslexia. And it would seem that we are all the better for it. These days, dyslexics are described as ‘Creative Thinkers’. And we even have a list of likely strengths and weaknesses...

Strengths: Persistent, concentrated, perceptive, vivid imagination, creative, drive and ambition, curiosity, think in pictures instead of words, superior reasoning, capable of seeing things differently from others, love of complexity, quickly mastering the new, aware of everything, able to do multiple things at the same time, capable of intense short-term focus, quick decision-maker, highly intuitive, learns best by hands-on, rather than lecture or reading, realise that you are different from others, able to create a complete mental picture from pieces and always active-constantly thinking.

Weaknesses: Easily distracted, seek stimulation, immature social behaviour, says what comes to mind, difficulty remembering names, seek immediate gratification, impulsive and impatient, suffer from motion sickness, bored by ordinary tasks, inattentive, sense of underachievement, reverse letters and numbers, slow reader when young, difficulty with mathematical concepts, problems mastering phonics and spelling, problems understanding the rules of grammar, somewhat disorganized, capable of changing on a moment's notice. Have phobias: fear of the dark, heights, speaking in public. Prefer unstructured situations with freedom.

I found both lists very familiar in my own daily life.

I have always written but never felt I could share it with anyone because of my appalling spelling and grammatical faux pas. But I have thank Lynda Relph Knight, editor of Design Week, who in 1987 encouraged me to write for the magazine. I have been doing so ever since and in the process, it has so opened up a whole new passion for me (thank you, Lynda). I still have trouble of course — and as regular readers of this blog will know I have committed some real howlers to print. But I now have someone to cast her eyes over my musings to make sure that I am not making a fool of myself. But often in my impatience, rather than wait for her, I'll go ahead and end up with silly mistakes. If I occasionally do this, please forgive me.

So if any of the above strikes a chord welcome to our club. You're in good company. Here are some pictures (I know you prefer them) of some right-brained comrades…