Archive for November, 2006

Alan Fletcher: Fifty Years of Graphic Work (and Play)

Sunday, November 26th, 2006

Alan Fletcher: 50 years of graphic work (and play)

My friend Vanessa bought me ‘The art of looking sideways’ for my birthday a couple of years ago and it was an introduction for me to Fletcher’s work. It is a 533-page collection of “anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes, memories – all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind” - a fascinating book with lots of inspiring ideas.

I always like the Design Museum and it was handy to find out that they are hosting the ‘Alan Fletcher: Fifty Years of Graphic Work (and Play)’ exhibition, which was an amazing presentation of Fletcher’s work and ideas. I loved his creative letterhead and logo designs, as well as the playfulness in his other work such as his A2Z boxes/drawers. It was indeed very sad news to the creative world when he died on the 21 September 2006.

My only discontent was that the exhibition wasn’t very big and certainly wasn’t big enough to give a good reflection of a designer as prolific as Fletcher. I am definitely going to read ‘The art of looking sideways’ again tonight.

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Pan’s Labyrinth

Saturday, November 25th, 2006

Pan's Labyrinth

I was quite looking forward to seeing a film at the Curzon Soho again and Pan’s Labyrinth (El Labirinto del Fauno) made a fantastic debut to the UK cinemas this week, with a few magical write-ups under its belt. Saddly, I can’t say I agree with these reviewers.

In general, I found the story (or should I say two storylines) a little disjoined - whilst a cruel reality gave the heroine the perfect reason to indulge herself in a fantasy world, there weren’t enough linkages between the two. The post-civil war storyline was predictable but I cared for some of the characters, such as the caring female spy Mercedes and the stammering hostage. I was fascinated by the dark and mysterious fairy world but wasn’t particularly bothered about the little girl or whether she could finish the three tasks to re-claim her crown in the fairy kingdom.

The main problem with the movie was that without an obvious link between the two stories, I found it hard to feel warm about either of them. Perhaps it would be less distracting if the background story (the cruel reality) was less prominent. The interruptions of switching from one plot to another eventually broke my concentration and I ended feeling the movie was far too long.

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