Filofax 1993
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09.12.93 / 01 / illustrator
9th-10th December Illustrator course. I wonder how I got on with it. Later I would prefer Freehand or Affinity.
09.12.93 / 01 / john hegarty
John Hegarty lecture at the Royal Society of Arts. Hegarty was the advertising guru behind a whole string of very successful ads - the Levi's 501s series, 'Vorsprung durch technik' for Audi and many others.
The Levi's ads had to persuade people that expensive, unfitted jeans that shrank on first wash, with button flys, were desirable in a world of cheap zip-fly preshrunk jeans at a moment when denim was 'out'. So they emphasised the shrinkage and the button flys and put them on very sexy people in 'old-fashioned' settings. Sell all the things that are 'wrong'. It worked.
However, 501s - especially red selvedge - had been very hip in London clubland since 1982. Add an MA-1 flight jacket and patent leather DMs and you could get into anywhere that mattered. The first ad 'Launderette' featured Nick Kamen, a familiar model to readers of The Face. It was taking an underground look into the mainstream.
04.10.93 / 01 / church centenary
Church centenary weekend 2nd-3rd October, actual centenary 4th. Apart from the church hall painting I did loads of stuff. Designed new banners for the sanctuary - pieces of folk art that embarrass me now, but they had to be widely appealing and sewable by members of the congregation. A presentation drawing of the church in pencil, which was reproduced and sold. I designed a new Lord's Table, lectern, inner porch and doors, all in oak, all a bit boring. I wouldn't do any of it that way now.
26.06.93 / 01 / quark xpress
26th June to 25th July I took a Quark Xpress course, so I could do something with a Mac, when I got it.
01.06.93 / 01 / andree putman
Andrée Putman lecture at the Design Museum. There was a flurry of interest at the door, she strode up the centre aisle to the podium, little black dress, dazzling smile, elegantly bobbed hair flicking and bouncing. All the men in the room sighed. We were mesmerised. It was only when she stood at the lectern that I realised she was 67, thin and angular, with the face of a horse. But she had the body language of a flirtatious French teenager.
Putman came from a wealthy family but rebelled against what that implied. For many years she designed and curated for Prisunic, the French mass-market store chain. From the late 70s she revived neglected icons of 1920s-30s modernist furniture. She was a major influence in the 80s, at the opposite pole to Memphis. Modernist, minimal, monochrome, even industrial. Austere but a sense of fun, not precious.
"I loathe pompous luxury. I take interest in the essential, the framework, the basic elements of things."
11.05.93 / 01 / macskills
MacSkills introductory course. I didn't have a Mac yet but was getting trained. I don't know why I chose Mac except that it was standard in the graphic design industry, and seemed more advanced than PC/MS-DOS. Bear in mind I was coming from no computer experience at all (apart from mainframes!). I had to learn to use a mouse, menus, drag and drop, all those things. I remember people struggling to do the double-click because they had never done that quick tapping motion with one finger before.
14.04.93 / 01 / painting the church hall
Being unemployed, I painted the church hall for money 14th-30th April, invoiced 2nd May. I had a couple of teenage helpers. It was mostly creamy white, with accent colours that now seem questionable to me. But they were better than the drab 70s colours that existed before - oatmeal walls, olive ceilings. The space was suddenly a lot lighter without changing a bulb.
19.01.93 / 01 / library
I joined the local library, to get the music I couldn't now afford to buy. In those days, you had to buy to explore what was happening. The library enabled me to do a trawl of 1993 music and work out what I liked without buying. I wasn't much taken with Suede.
