I’m off to TAFE. Week three: Just add colour
The results of my first paper stencil screen print are in. See ‘em for yourself.
Red amoeba:
Ode to Barbara Hepworth:
Cryptic toilet doors
Recently I have noticed a rather unsettling trend in a lot of bars and restaurants. It is now “cool” to feature cryptic labels on toilet doors.
The universally recognised men/women icon has been replaced with incomprehensible symbols. What the “creative” who came up with the concept cannot seem to grasp is that design is about communicating and solving problems, not baffling people.
I am often scratching my head trying to figure out which door to take when I go to the toilet. I feel like a nervous contestant on a game show.
If it had a clever message then I could handle it but when you want to go to the toilet, especially after a few drinks you are not interested puzzles. You have a task to perform and you want to perform it as easily as possible without making a scene.
I was on a bar a few nights ago where the toilets were labelled “us” and “them”. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
People talking on mobile phones while driving
It is one of my pet hates.
It is proven that it that it lowers your driving skills to the same level as someone who as consumed a moderate amount of alcohol. Lets face it, most people do not have many driving skills to lose.
My dad has been an active road safety campaigner all his life. Consequently I grew up hearing stories of what happens to a human body in a car crash from as little as 50kms per hour.
Sometimes limbs or heads get torn off and sometimes brains get splattered all over the road. Sometimes your body will stay intact but the consequences of absorbing such a huge amount of energy/impact turns your brain and vital organs into mush. So if you don’t die your brain and body is totally fucked anyway. Sometimes people bite their tounges off, which provides a dark yet sweet irony.
Additionally if you have a crash you might kill or injure someone else.
But you just had to take that call didn’t you? You couldn’t let it go to voice mail could you? You are far too important for your own good.
So you can imagine my delight when I was driving down one of Melbourne’s busiest roads this evening when I saw a police officer talking on his mobile while driving. Police cars have radios and hands-free kits so there is no excuse… Except for him being a lazy hypocritical bastard. I hope he gets a mouth ulcer or stubs his toe real bad on his way to bed tonight.
Sadly egoism is prospering while my old friend altruism is becoming something we only read about.
Review: Flagfall film festival
It’s a pretty cool concept. Popcorn Taxi (who run regular screenings and Q&A sessions for all things cinematic) and Touch Taxi (who have a fleet of about 50 Melbourne taxis with interactive video screens for their passengers) join forces, get a few sponsors on board and launch the Flagfall Film Festival- a film festival for short films under three minutes. The taxi guys get some new content for their displays and the film makers get their films seen by people other than their friends, family and the film world (I think the films will also be shown on the big screen at Fed Square and possibly on SBS).
Last night I went to a screening of the sixteen films that were selected (out of about 80 nominations). The genre obviously lends itself to the gag-film and I was a bit disappointed that many of the films were built around one fairly simple joke told fairly simply- 3 minutes can feel like a long time when you’ve guessed the punch-line in the first 20 seconds. But that being said the final collection spanned a wide range of styles, techniques, budgets and a huge amount of passion and energy had obviously gone into all of the films.
They’re all up here for viewing. If you’re pushed for time/bandwidth my Top 6 would be:
- Café Noir
- Every Day
- The Arsonist’s Riddle
- Medusa: First Date
- Seven Days with Seven Dogs
- Brunswick 2005 a year to remember