Recently…

What we've been up to over the last few months

The Edge

December 21st, 2009 in Branding, Inspiration, Life, Thinking, Work | No Comments

Martin says:

 

Baroness Greenfield in full flow

Baroness Greenfield in full flow

Last week we attended ‘The Edge’ organised by the Design Business Association (DBA). The event looked at the links between risk, creativity and success, kicking off with a day of workshops at the RIBA building in Portland Place. Day two saw around 300 delegates gather at The Circus Space in Hoxton where we were entertained, provoked and stimulating by an eclectic list of speakers, such as Baroness Susan Greenfield of The Royal Institution who  illuminated us on the links between creativity and intellect, Gary Low, Executive Chef at the Ivy not only fed us but also gave us his views about leadership and TV Producer Russ Malkin talked inspiringly about the links between risk and creativity.

Finally Rob Seymour from Seymour Powell wowed us all with his captivating talk, in which he extolled the virtue of watching people interact with objects and processes to learn how to improve things- It’s not what people say it’s what they do.

At the end of the day Deborah Dawton announced that the DBA would be working with 15 ‘bright sparks’ in 2010, and revealed that during the lunch break the various design ‘pioneers’ had identified several ‘high fliers’ who will now be invited to a series of exclusive masterclasses in 2010. Clearly  I must have said something of merit to Erik Spiekermann because they called my name out! For more information about the DBA and The Edge visit the site below or Red Cube Marketing’s blog here.

http://dbatheedge.com/home

Add a comment

St Ives or bust…

December 18th, 2009 in Fun, Inspiration, Life, Weekend | No Comments

Martin says:

Last weekend saw a glorious (and rather rare) sunny saturday with high blue skies soaring over west Cornwall. After a month of rain and mist I rather hastily decided it would be a brilliant idea to take my faithful hound Ruby out for some fresh air with a bracing walk along the coastal path from Zennor to St Ives, where we’d then hook up with rest of the family after their cultural excursion to the Tate. Naively I thought it wouldn’t take that long- after all in the car you can reach St Ives in minutes! Ruby and I tramped down to the coast path path from the Tinner’s Arms in Zennor, after a quick pint and marvelled at the sight of Zennor Head in all its glory.

Picking out the path across the cliffs we encountered some beautiful sights, I put my iphone to the test so you can see for yourself. After a good hour or so, I found myself reassuring Ruby that around the next headland we would see St Ives in the distance, but no such luck, the path wound on to another sweeping bay, and then another, and another… after 2 hours we came across a sign which frankly stunned me- Zennor 3 miles, St Ives 3.5 miles! I thought we were nearly there.. the path on this stretch is pretty tough going and we started to combat some rough territory not least crossing two waterfalls (not easy when you have to carry your walking companion too!)

With no signal on the phone and having seen no other walkers for the entire trip I did wonder what would happen if I sprained an ankle.. or worse if Ruby or I fell off a cliff. At long last with much relief we rounded yet another headland to see St Ives in the not that near distance. We arrived with aching feet and sore paws, exhausted but rather chuffed to have walked 6.5 miles in 3 hours. The experience certainly reminded me that we live in an amazing part of the world and that next time I should check a OS map first.

Add a comment