Category: Books
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Essay: ‘Dark Matter and Trojan Horses’ e-book now on-paper, on-demand
Print-on-demand version of 'Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary'' A consistent request over the last couple of years has been for a physical version of my e-book for Strelka Press, 'Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary' (Read the background to that book here.) Potential readers either wanted a physical version…
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Essay: ‘Designing Finnishness’, for ‘Out Of The Blue: The Essence and Ambition of Finnish Design’ (Gestalten)
Late last year, my friend Marko Ahtisaari kindly asked me to write an essay on Finnish design. This was a little daunting, as it was a) for Marko, who I respect greatly, b) about Finnish design, which I can really only claim a kind of foreigner's passing understanding of, and c) to open a major…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Code: “News Machine” & “Sadly By Your Side”
Code was something we had to rebuild a bit at Fabrica this year. Although there had been a strong code culture at Fabrica in the past, from the likes of Jonathan Harris, Oriel Ferrer Mesià, João Wilbert, Bethany Koby & Daniel Hirschmann and the late Andy Cameron of course, when I arrived the then Interaction department…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Collaborative strategy
Frequent travellers, or those that have moved jobs a lot, know that the outsider sees with fresh eyes, but only for a while. I recently opened a Dezeen column with a favourite thought from John Le Carré (via Rosecrans Baldwin) “John le Carré said the only way to write about a place was after visiting…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Fabricanti Handbook
On my second or third day here, I showed the peerless Tom Sachs Studio “Ten Bullets” movie. Enjoy: “Ten Bullets”, tongue in cheek and deadly serious at the same time, captures the spirit of a studio, of its people and of the work they do there (without showing the work, really.) I knew right away that…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Photography/Publishing: Iranian Living Room
We can make our own bespoke videos and soundtracks for our books. I wrote about Iranian Living Room before, but it's a project we're still very proud of, for numerous reasons. Enrico Bossan led the project from our side, curating and producing the work of young Iranian photographers. It says much about Enrico that, despite…
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Journal: PayPal, and the word “Iranian”
This was going to be a post about our new Fabrica publication, "Iranian Living Room", and in a way it still is. "Iranian Living Room" is a new photojournalism project we've produced and self-published. Enrico Bossan, our brilliant head of photography, sought out 15 young Iranian photographers to take pictures of "interior life" in Iran…
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Journal: Notes on “Ambient Commons”, by Malcolm McCullough
Malcolm McCullough is one the key thinkers and writers about the intersection of the network, digital media, and the urban and architectural—hence his work being of particular interest here. So I was delighted to oblige when he asked me to provide a testimonial for the back of his latest book, "Ambient Commons; Attention in the…
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Journal: Roberto Saviano at Fabrica
Roberto Saviano's speech at Fabrica, 21 May 2013, after a brief introduction by me, and Enrico Bossan. Beware: it features my pitiable attempts in Italiano, which you may wish to skip. We were honoured to have Roberto Saviano speaking at Fabrica yesterday evening [Update: you can now watch his speech (in Italian) above, or at…
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Journal: Old and New Finnish Grammar
I’ve been learning Finnish for over a year now, and am getting nowhere fast. Finnish is a notoriously difficult language to learn—certainly amongst European languages—and so perhaps this is to be expected. But as an Englishman, one starts from the position of all other languages being a bit of an unnecessary hassle anyway. Kidding. However,…