The Staufenberger Repository

Amsterdam highlights

It wasn't all work, work, work in Amsterdam. We did a bit of cruising round on the Sparta, pretending to be locals. Here are three retail establishments that we visited along the way.

1. Nijhof and Lee is a lovely bookshop that specialises in design, typography, architecture, advertising, new media, that sort of thing. They stock out of print titles as well as new.

And, for fans of graphic design from the Netherlands, they have a well stocked line of posters by dutch masters such as Wim Crouwel. Here's one of his earliest efforts for the Stedelijk Museum from 1964.

If you fancy getting your hands on one of these posters, it's well worth making a detour to their shop next time you're in Amsterdam as only a fraction of their stock is online.

2. Suit Supply have just opened in London, but we thought we'd take the opportunity to see the dutch chain in its native habitat.

It's an interesting and energetic brand: you can get an off the peg suit for £200-£250 and made to measure for a bit more, depending on fabric.

And to underline their tailoring credentials, each shop has a chap doing alterations on the spot.

If your alteration isn't completed within 30 minutes, it's free. Not bad.

3. Star Bikes is where we hired our bikes. It's where our visit began and ended. Except for the train trip to and from the airport, but that doesn't really count. It doesn't look like they sell bikes, it's just rental all the way.

They'll also do you a picnic to pack on your bike if you want to make an excursion somewhere. The staff are super nice and super chilled. Very Amsterdam.

The School Run, Netherlands Style

via Velorution

"Big old shoulders and double breastiness"

It's nearly time to unveil The Staufenberger suit.

To keep you occupied till then, here's another timely bit of generic suit coverage, courtesy of The Observer.

Flatstock 16

If you're at or heading to SXSW, or happen to be in the Austin area in the next few days, you should find some time to pop by Flatstock. We're not doing either, so have to enjoy it virtually, at a distance of a few thousand miles. Bah.

Flatstock is a convention for concert posters; a gig about posters about gigs, if you will. Predominantly US-based artists and designers show off their work and appreciative fans get the chance to buy some stuff to decorate their homes.

Browsing the sites of exhibitors, there seems to be a well developed system whereby local designers create posters for bands performing in their part of the US.

So when, say, The Decemberists play the Bay area, they might get The Small Stakes' Jason Munn to create a poster:

For Oregon gigs, it might be Dan Stiles:

For Seattle shows, perhaps Patent Pending:

When they hit the North East it might be Buffalo's Hero Design Studio:

And when they get to Lubbock, Texas, who else are they going to call but Dirk and Carol at F2?

The above posters might not all be for the stated locations, some of the type was indecipherable at web resolutions. But the principle stands: acts like Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, The Shins, Pedro the Lion and loads more all use a number of different designers to create gig posters. And these commissions tend to be on a regional basis (although there are some glaring exceptions, such as Jason Munn's work for a Shins show at The Manchester Academy, of all places).

Is this due to the size of the US? Smaller acts tend not to do the kind of national tours that would justify a single poster for all dates? Or is it a design business thing?

We haven't come across a similar approach to concert promotion in the UK. Or rather, what there is seems sporadic by comparison. Which is a shame, because the American approach has supported and given outlet to a wide range of fantastic design talent. As the above examples demonstrate.

Perhaps I'm missing something. If so, please point us in the right direction. We'd love to see.

***UPDATE*** Jesse at Patent Pending informs us that they are not at Flatstock this year. They're elsewhere.

There's a lot of it about

What is it about miniatures? They seem to be everywhere these days.

We first started thinking about it when Cookie pointed to a number of them on his always excellent Made in England by Gentlemen.

There's Little People, "left in London to fend for themselves":

Adalberto Abbate's Microscultures:

Abbate's work reminds us of (and is possibly the inspiration for) the unifying narrative to last years' season of CSI, the Miniature Killer:

And Cookie also mentions Panique au Village, which we think must be the source of the current Cravendale milk campaign:

(And whilst on the subject of Cravendale, here's a lovely behind-the-scenes clip on YouTube.)

All this talk of little things reminded us of the popular fake tilt-shift pool on flickr, in which landscape shots are manipulated to look like miniatures. Here's a rather good example, courtesy of kosheahan:

Even home deco magazine Livingetc is at it with this styling suggestion:

Perhaps it all started with the Chapman Brothers, whose Disasters of War and Hell both use miniatures as a medium. Perhaps not.

Like many bigger, more significant news debates (is there more youth crime/lower moral standards/more political sleaze/[insert your pet topic here] than 50 years ago?), it's hard to gauge whether there really is more of this stuff or whether we're simply aware of more of it thanks to the media, in this case the internet.

Answers on a postcard, please, to Staufenberger Towers.

Interactive narratives, Coronation Street and the future of TV

Fellow beardwearer, Lee McEwan, recently posted a write up of an outburst from Peter Greenaway against the conservatism of filmmakers and cinema audiences. Greenaway (above right) opines that the current form of narrative cinema will soon be as dead as the silent movie, to be replaced by something much more involving: "I believe we will have an interactive cinema which will make Star Wars look like a 16th-century lantern lecture."

This is a subject that we've been pondering long and hard here at Staufenberger Towers, because we recently spent some time helping a UK broadcaster understand what TV content will look like in the future. Specifically, what might it look like when you turbocharge existing telly with superfast broadband interactivity?

As is often the case with these what will new technologies mean for us? type questions, it's easy to be seduced by the idea that because things can change, they will.

In the TV world, an oft suggested change is the rise of the non-linear narrative. Broadband internet interactivity, so the argument goes, will free audiences from the restrictions of stories that proceed along preordained lines imposed by the author(s). Instead, interactive narratives will offer an immersive, participative experience in which audiences choose what happens and in what order and...well, you get the picture. 

Whilst broadcasters will start exploring the idea (you might argue that Big Brother style reality shows are  a non-fiction equivalent), we believe that participatory narrative fiction will only ever be a (sometimes  amazing) sideshow to the main attraction. Here are four reasons why.

1. Participative narratives have not taken off in other media. Kids' books, like Castle of Fear, that enable the reader to choose alternative directions in the story have been around for a while. They are undoubtedly popular, but as a narrative form they inhabit a niche within a total market dominated by traditional storytelling.

Similarly, Punchdrunk's approach to theatre production, one in which audience members move around and through the narrative's events in whichever order they choose (look at their website for a fuller explanation), is a vital and provocative alternative to the traditional dramatic form. But whilst their productions receive rave reviews, you don't get the sense that this will be the dominant form of theatre in the future.

2. Technically, it's difficult to do properly in TV. The standard gonzo brainstorm idea is this: wouldn't it be, like, absolutely brilliant, yeah, if people could choose what happens in Coronation Street?

Well, let's just think about that for a moment. With a little under thirty minutes of action, and one of fifteen or so characters making choices every minute, there are potentially thousands of different dramatic possibilities in each episode, because each new direction for one character, means numerous  potential responses from others and so on. How do you shoot that?

So fully participative interaction on an individual basis won't work. There then follows - theoretically - a number of not-so-fully participative ways of influencing the direction of the narrative. But when you stop and think of the production implications (how would you enable audiences to choose the ending of each episode, for example? Or rather, how would you be in a place to deliver it once they'd chosen it?), these don't seem particularly viable either.

When actors are replaced by CGI avatars this whole area might begin to work. But that's a long way off. (At least, it is for a soap like Coronation Street. Beowulf used a similar approach, but I'm guessing that took a year or two to create a couple of hours of story). And until that point, the occasional alternative ending will continue to be the exception rather than the rule.

3. Not everyone wants to participate. We have no proof of this but we believe that something akin to the 1% rule applies to listening to/viewing/experiencing narratives. And TV in general. That is, that the bulk of any audience will want just to watch and/or listen; absorb the story and let themselves be consumed by it. Of this total audience, there will be a minority that wants to participate in some way. Vote for an eviction, for example, or watch an alternative ending. And - if the parallel works - a very small minority (the 1%) will want to be involved with creating and shaping that narrative.

So, a narrative that is predicated on audience interaction - one that cannot exist without audience interaction - is likely to be less satisfying than one in which the interactivity is optional. Or rather, one in which interactivity is optional will be more satisfying to more people, simply because it has the flexibility to give different things to different people.

4. People like to be told stories. For thousands of years people have liked listening to stories. And there have always been people whose role, or job, it was to tell stories. Where once stories were conveyed orally by, for example, travelling poets in preliterate Greece, today we have novelists, filmmakers, screenwriters and playwrights, comic book artists, even blog writers, who fashion narratives that the rest of us consume in some packaged form.

If people have enjoyed stories in a relatively passive way for thousands of years, we suspect that it's going to be a while before we start losing the inclination in significant numbers.

So it should be clear where we sit on the debate. No doubt time will prove us ridiculously backward looking, but we thought we'd stick our necks out and share.

No business like show business

Staufenberger hangers-on Shuffle have just released their new single,
Listen Love.

It's brilliant. They should be huge. Go buy it.

Riding the fashion wave

We've commented before on the fashion component that has crept into the bicycle market. We've also tirelessly documented the worldwide spread of one expression of that fashion dimension: the fixie hipster.

In our original post back in June last year, we wondered how the manufacturers who were beginning to produce off-the-shelf fixies - such as Specialized, Bianchi, Lemond and Ridgeback - would manage this new dimension to their market. After all, it takes a lot of effort and a bit of luck to remain fashionable year in, year out.

Recently, Specialized have valiantly - though misguidedly - copied the sneaker manufacturers by releasing limited "city" editions of their Langster rig. Hence you get the London, Seattle, New York and others (though these others do not, strangely, include fixie-loving San Francisco).

There is some logic to this move. Fashion is a cycle of new news and demand is usually fueled by some form of limited availability. So new variations, of an existing product, available in limited numbers or for a limited time ticks a number of boxes. It's certainly worked for adidas and Nike for a while.

But therein lies a problem. The sneaker and other streetwear sectors are awash with limited editions: sites like hypebeast provide an almost daily stream of limited edition collaborations between so-and-so artist and such-and-such brand. It's getting a bit, well, tired.

There's also a more bike-specific reason why these Langsters don't work: they misunderstand the culture they're trying to engage. The city angle is clearly a nod to the urban centres where fixie culture has grown. Yet those urban roots are in self-built bikes not off-the-peg numbers. Just take a look at fixed gear gallery: they might not all be pretty, but the majority are home built and therefore unique.

For this reason, the Langster city editions haven't got the sector's opinion formers excited. True, there's been a bit of discussion on fixie forums. But local (London, UK) reaction started at mixed and got worse. Which makes the whole thing a bit of an own goal as the reason for these initiatives is street cred rather than (direct) sales volume.

So what should they have done? Well, if we were launching a bike range (and heaven knows we've considered it at length), here are a couple of things we would do.

Firstly, acknowledge the DIY roots of the trend by incorporating a degree of customisation. Mini do something like this with their paint options.

They should also tap into the retro aspect of fixie culture. The DIY approach means that many home-made rigs use old parts. For this reason, steel track frames from the 70s and 80s tend to be valued more than the newer aluminium.

So why not reissue a past classic, in the same vein as adidas Originals, say? Specialized have been around long enough to have some interesting things in their back catalogue. In fact, here's Ernesto's early 80s Allez (full details here):

That's better, isn't it?

Kids and Money

This was out earlier in the month but not being a regular NY Times reader I've only just come across it. Film maker Lauren Greenfield has made a nice short film for the New York Times Magazine about kids and money. Although shot in LA its probably true of kids in cities all over the world where rich and poor live virtually side by side. Watching this I can't help but feel a little bit guilty about the work we do. As planners it's easy to treat marketing as an intellectual pursuit devoid of morality. As Peter Parker learnt very early on in his superhero career, "with great power comes a great responsibility".

As a Tribute to Men and Women who Design

All that talk of Eames and mid 20th century design reminded me of another great film, American Look (1958). Produced by Jam Handy Organization for General Motors, the film is a paean to form, emphasising the importance of style . The film is packed full of designs from the likes of Eero Sarineen, Mies van de Rohe, Eames and Harry Bertoia. But it isn't until you get to the last third of the film that it becomes obvious that it's real purpose was to sell the new Chevrolet Impala with it's exceedingly long tail fins. Today it would probably be called branded content and be given a TV channel all to itself.

Interestingly, many of the products and concepts (such as the open plan office) presented in this film are just as relevant today, yet the Chevy Impala looks so dated. In fact the Chevy shared none of the design ethos of the products it's placed alongside in this film. The designers of the other products were heavily influenced by European modernism (or Bauhaus) where form followed function, they exercised restraint and used a minimum of decoration. The Chevy, on the other hand, was covered in superfluous chrome, which no doubt created drag and reduced fuel efficiency. They were designed to give customers the impression of technological progress rather than delivery real advancement in automobile engineering.

However, American Look is a must see Populuxe film.