Binky the doormat

The End

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:41:37 +0000

I’m no longer updating this tumblr. However, you can visit my regular blog at danielgray.com. Or just stick around and wade through the Binky archive.

Move along people, nothing more to see here. If you want to...

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 08:15:55 +0100

Move along people, nothing more to see here. If you want to continue following me on my adventures in design, please head over to my new site Swiss Cheese and Bullets.

Thanks.

Binky no more

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:41:56 +0000

This blog is all wrapped up and finished with. However, if you point your tumblr/rss reader/eyes at www.swisscheeseandbullets.com, you’ll find lots more designular blogular loveliness.

I’m going to keep re-posting this message until it’s had the desired effect.

Go on now, scoot.

Hello, goodbye

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:18:00 +0000

Well it’s been a good few years, but alas Binky the doormat is no more.

Fear not though, handsome reader, I’m not leaving the world of bloggery just yet. I just needed to press the restart button and start again, that’s all. There’s a new, cleaner (and slightly emptier) site in town: Swiss Cheese and Bullets .

For you modern subscriber people, you’ll have to resubscribe to a new site I’m afraid, so apologies for taking up a precious few moments of your day. It’ll be worth it, I assure you. Now go on, get over there. At once.

Oh, and please wipe your feet on the way out.

Michael Surtees asks: how do you write a post?

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:35:05 +0000

Michael Surtees asks: how do you write a post?

Twenty thoughts on Sunday’s Oscars: One...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:47:24 +0000

Twenty thoughts on Sunday’s Oscars:

One misreading-the-teleprompter joke is one too many. How soon after the ceremony finished do you think Billy Crystal got a phone call?
It was like a very expensive school production, particularly the best actor/actress debating society section (although the appreance of Mr Sheen was a nice surpise, as I could try to convince Dr B that yes, that was actually me up on stage).
Fisher Stevens, won an Oscar. That was unexpected.
Molly Ringwald looked terrified. I was worried it was all going to go a bit Scanners.
They really should’ve reunited the entire cast of The Breakfast Club (did Emilio have something better to do that night?). And then they should’ve made them dance.
… which would’ve been a hell of a lot better than The Legion Of We’ll Just Gracelessly Robot Dance Over Any Bit Of Music You Throw At Us.
It was quite hard to spot any moveable eyebrows. Everyone’s faces were so very diseased. Except for George Clooney, who spent the entire show scowling.
Respect to the guy – I hear that The Cove is a great film, and I’m sure he’s a lovely bloke – but Fisher Stevens? An Oscar? That’s just weird.
No songs? I know two songs by Randy Newman in a row would’ve grated a little, but not more so than Baldwin and Martin attempting to reinvent the concept of comic timing.
If you’re going to make a point about how an Oscar hasn’t gone to a horror film since The Exorcist in 1973, don’t then include 1992 Best Picture winner The Silence Of The Lambs in your horror montage.
In fact, it’d probably be best to ask an adult what constitutes “horror” before creating such a montage. Edward Scissorhands? Really?
When was it decided that actors have to come on in pairs? They step on each other’s lines, they’re always woefully mis-matched and THEY ARE GROWN UP ACTORS. Surely they can manage to deliver three lines of gooey sycophancy without having a friend holding their hand?
Fisher Stevens. The “Indian” from Short Circuit. He won an Oscar.
Having nominees come on to present awards is just silly. They’re usually bricking themselves, and why not make the most of all the other talent in the room? Why not get as many different stars on that stage as possible?
Actually, talking of stars: the lifetime achievement awards were handed out at a completely separate ceremony – one that looked a lot more fun and more classically Hollywood. Where they got Lauren Bacall and Jack Nicholson, we got Kristen Stewart and Taylor thingy.
If I see Meryl Streep do that fake throw-head-back-with-big-laugh thing again, I’m going to kick her in the shin. How can somebody with 87 Best Actress Oscars come across as that insincere?
People referring to Push Based On A Novel By An Author by its full title got just a little bit annoying after a while, didn’t it? And why did everyone involved feign surprise at how much attention the film has got, given that the most powerful woman in the world has been aggressively promoting it for months?
What the hell was Sean Penn talking about?
Despite a fairly terrible show, the awards themselves went to pretty much the right people (except for the fact hat Moon wasn’t even nominated for anything. Pfft). The Hurt Locker deserved everything it got. Sandra Bullock, who has been very good in some very bad movies, will finally get some good roles now. And hopefully she’ll stop turning into Joan Rivers. And Mr Bridges – bless you sir, bless you.
Seriously. Fisher Stevens.

Experiment.

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:12:42 +0000

Experiment.

"3D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension."

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:34:00 +0000

“3D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension.”

- Roger Ebert

Via nothingwritten.

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:20:18 +0000

Via nothingwritten.

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:33:57 +0000

Via nothingwritten.

Blanka.

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:00:55 +0000

Blanka.

Charting the Beatles, by Michael Deal.

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:27:05 +0000

Charting the Beatles, by Michael Deal.

Typographic Posters.

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:58:54 +0000

Typographic Posters.

10 Principles That May Make Your Work Better Or May Make It...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:57:52 +0000

10 Principles That May Make Your Work Better Or May Make It Worse, by Frank Chimero

"A little over a year ago, just down the block from us, Solomon Smith Barney disappeared in an..."

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:42:56 +0000

“A little over a year ago, just down the block from us, Solomon Smith Barney disappeared in an afternoon. One day, the courtyard where we’d eat sandwiches from Pret-A-Manger was full of handsome young bankers; the next, they were all gone. It was like Brigadoon but with assholes. Those young investment bankers were as victimized by their own irresponsible behavior, their own reckless office culture as the characters of Mad Men are, or will surely be when the series turns the time machine up to 1969.”

- Sam Biederman on representations of office culture in pop culture. Good stuff.

Swayspace have a few preview shots of the Feltron Annual Report...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:57:52 +0000

Swayspace have a few preview shots of the Feltron Annual Report in production.

1960s Oswald Vermaercke ultra low V-form ‘Paola’...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:56:56 +0000

1960s Oswald Vermaercke ultra low V-form ‘Paola’ sideboard, from City Furniture.

I’ve been having one of those “read everything on...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:56:47 +0000

I’ve been having one of those “read everything on AisleOne and hope for an epiphany” kind of days. One post in particular kept my brain a-buzzing: a Flickr set of the Barbican Identity Guidelines. It’s so lovely. So very lovely.

The "i-Pod": it'll never last

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:34:15 +0000

Khoi found this fascinating little gem from the depths of the Internet: the Macrumors forum on the day that the iPod was unleashed on the world. What’s interesting is the amount of negative feeling and general disappointment. It seems like a lot of people were holding out for a new Newton, but were incredibly cautious following the failure of the Cube.

And remember this is October 2001, so when the inevitable squabbling erupts, pretty much everyone accuses everyone else of being “a Taliban”.

Here are some gems:

All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently! Why oh why would they do this?! It’s so wrong! It’s so stupid!
— WeezerX80

I’d call it the Cube 2.0 as it wont sell, and be killed off in a short time … and it’s not really functional.
— elitemacor

All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distiortion Field™ is starting to warp Steve’s mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.
— nobody special

This iPod is for spoil rich kids with insane parents or an Apple fan as fannatic as a Taliban. It has good features but forget about getting it for $399!!!! Never, who gets that thing is a very stupid person. Steve Jobs is under terrible consuling or is under too much pot. This propusal is not realistic at all. If Apple does something like this again is going down. This unit may work for an audio engeneer to record some conference or rock band on the field in place of buying a expensive DAT machine, that is the only real good market this machinne is gonna have.
— mymemory

I particularly like this one, where the person doesn’t quite seem to realise that they’ve summed up the brilliance of the iPod in a nutshell:

Doesn’t a Mac with a CDR undermine the need for most of this? All that’s left is the number of songs you can play and the ability to listen to all of them with headphones anywhere … Won’t last. Another Cube.
— guest

Great stuff. Isn’t it weird that there’s stuff this old still floating around out there?

Ed Ruscha.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:21:49 +0000

Ed Ruscha.