The Rise of Real Bread

Thoughtful joined Doh Boy at the Rise of Real Bread Conference, held at St Anne's College in Oxford this weekend. 

The conference brought together bakers, farmers, scientists, writers, campaigners and retailers to look at the food supply chain behind Britain's mass-produced bread to ask whether it could be improved. And whether natural bread be made accessible to all?

You'd be forgiven for thinking that 'real bread' is only for the rich or those with time on their hands but it's an important issue. We learnt how majority of Britain's bread is highly processed - packed with additives, enzymes and fat - designed to be as cheap as possible with the emphasis on shelf-life rather than nutritional content and flavour.

Bee Wilson, food columnist for the Sunday Telegraph and author of Swindled: From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee - The Dark History of the Food Cheats was hugely entertaining. Bee described how in medieval times bread was a serious business. Any baker caught trying to cheat customers would be punished by being dragged around the community on a sleigh with the offending loaf of bread tied around his neck...Bee suggested it should still be the case.

Super Furry Animals

We spent bonfire night filming the SFA's at Nation.

The crowd not only got to see a great performance they also got to see James splitting his pants trying to get a better view of the band on stage.

Thoughtful thanks to Gill Nightingale, Laura Buckley and Rob Lister at Nation. And Daf, Gruff, Huw, Cian and Guto...have safe trip to Dubai.

Michael Wolff talk

We attended a D&AD President’s Lecture last night as part of the Liverpool Design Symposium. It’s one we’ve been looking forward to for a while as we haven’t been to a Michael Wolff talk before. And everyone we know who has would tell us how it brilliant they are. Well, they were right. Is was that good.

We had to think back afterwards to how many hour-and-a-half auditorium talks we’ve been to before where there wasn’t any visual content projected onto a screen. The answer was none. Last night’s talk was done in Q&A format with Creative Review’s Patrick Burgoyne, and was more about Michael himself than the work he’s done. And for that hour and a half, the audience seemed to hang on his every word. We know we did. He came across like a kind of spiritual guru, sharing knowledge with his followers. Who needs fancy visuals?

A lot of what Michael talked about was the need for common sense, value, simplicity and a human approach to design, and life in general for that matter. We won’t go into too much detail, as the talk was filmed by Dion at D&AD so we’re sure you’ll be able to see it yourself online very soon.

What was nice to see last night was the large Manchester presence. The task of getting Manchester creatives to events outside their own city has been described in the past as ‘incredibly difficult’. They must have been told how brilliant a Michael Wolff talk is too.

Thoughtful thanks to Michael for sparing a few moments at the end to chat to us.

Creamfields '09

Creamfields '09 – here's one of the films we shot with the Hatch.
You can watch the others here.

The Big Knit 2

Thoughtful thanks to everyone who stopped to talk to us about the Big Knit and for giving us lots of knitting tips and advice. Thanks also to Allen Wales and all the staff at Sainsbury's in Romiley for making us feel so welcome.

The Big Knit

Today we're at Sainsbury's in Romiley, Stockport doing our bit for the Innocent Big Knit. We were here at 6.30am warming up for a 7am start. The idea is to do 100 by the time the store closes at 11pm. After a slow start the needles are warming up nicely. We've been getting some good advice along the way off some of the lovely customers. It needs a Nanna's touch.

Model behaviour

Yesterday we were talking about the Stirling Prize, the shortlist, who won and the fact you had all these famous architects in one building at the same time.

This got us thinking about those little plastic people found in architects models and thought it might be interesting to produce a set of miniature famous architects in this way. We thought it would be funny to have a miniature David Adjaye or a miniature Zaha Hadid standing talking to each other in a model made by Foster and Partners.

As well as a miniature set of figures of great architects from the past, for example: Sir Christopher Wren, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Perhaps this idea could be taken in the opposite direction?

The excellent Radford Wallis created 'Bob' as part of a visual identity to promote 16 Palace Street, a premium office space in Victoria, SW1. Perhaps life-sized models of these famous architects would make a great addition to an exhibition?

If anyone knows of a good model maker, please drop us a line. Thanks.

Dieter Rams' ten principles of good design

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.

Frieze Art Fair

Thoughtful took a trip to the Frieze Art Fair in Regent’s Park, London (identity by the brilliant GFT). We were blown away by the quality of the work on show and the size of the crowds.

Frieze Art Fair only runs for 4 days and ends this Sunday. If you're in the area, we'd recommend you check it out.

Studio Culture winners

We had tons of entries for the Studio Culture book so we decided to draw two names out of the tombola, they are: Richard Weston of Belfast and Shawn James Seymour from Japan. Congratulations to you both.

Thoughtful thanks to everyone who entered and thanks for taking the time to read our blog - we really appreciate your support.

We've got another tombola competition coming up soon...to win a Tate Liverpool Colour Chart smart code poster, so we hope you'll keep coming back.

Michael Wolff - Branding the City

Wednesday 4 November
7pm - 8.30pm

Johnson Auditorium
LJMU Art and Design Academy
Duckinfield Street
Off Brownlow Hill
Liverpool L3 5YD

Tickets are £13 for D&AD members / £15 for non-members and
are on sale here.

Well done Mat!

The extremely talented Mat Maitland from Big Active has recently won the identity category in the Just Add Stock awards for the Liverpool Biennial work he did with us last year.

Eye Magazine (who run the awards) have a good write up over on their blog.

Well done Mat from all of us at Thoughtful.

Random idea

After visiting the excellent Haunch of Venison gallery in London last week, we had an idea for a kind of art concept. The idea centres around galleries, and how they’re often very minimal, but architecturally very interesting. Especially when they’re stark white, like the picture below.

On to the idea. We’d take a gallery like this, with lots of passages, nooks and crannies, and fill it with blank canvases, plain white statues, ceramics and sculptures. All of which would be laid out how you’d expect in a gallery.

Then we’d put together a guest list for a preview night. On the night as the guests arrive, we’d kit them out in full paintball gear.

The guests would then be put into teams and and invited to take part in a paintball game.

The gallery, as expected, would get totally covered in paint (from all the poor shots)...

...and hopefully, so would all the canvases, sculptures, ceramics and statues.

They would become artworks as a result of the paintball game.

The gallery could be left to dry and opened for public viewing, and the art auctioned off afterwards.

If you’re a gallery owner with a keen interest in paintball, or think that Jackson Pollock was a genius, get in touch with us. It’d be fun to see this happen for real.

Everything you wanted to ask your favourite designers but were afraid to put your hand up at a talk and ask a question

We attended the launch of a new book titled: Studio Culture: The Secret Life of the Graphic Design Studio at the Haunch of Venison in central London.

The book is produced by Unit Editions which is a collaboration between Tony Brook (Spin) and Adrian Shaughnessy (ShaughnessyWorks).

Studio Culture: The Secret Life of the Graphic Design Studio provides a unique glimpse into the inner workings leading graphic design studios such as Build, Experimental Jetset, Fuel, Spin and 4Creative.

In a series of interviews, the mechanics and processes of building and maintaining a studio are laid bare. Studio Culture is a fascinating book for those with a hunger to know how ‘others do it.’

We have a limited edition copy signed by both Tony and Adrian to give away. Just send your name, studio or college address and email to studioculture@wearethoughtful.com

We'll put all the names in our tombola and draw out a name on Wednesday 14 October.

Times Higher Education Awards 2009

We're delighted to announce the Thoughtful 6 project has been shortlisted in this years Times Higher Education Awards in the Outstanding Employer Engagement Initiative category.

A big pat on the back for Principal, Lynn Merilion, as well as Mel Spooner, James Corazzo, Ian Parkin, Gary Spicer and Keith Alcock from Stockport College for making the project happen.

We'd also like to thank Laura, Dion and Greg at D&AD for their time and support, as well as Mark at CR for shining their spotlight on the project.

The winners will be revealed at a gala dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London on 15 October 2009.