Albert Exergian's modernist TV posters

Television imagery and artwork is rarely of a quality worth hanging on your walls. Welcome, then, Austrian designer Albert Exergian, who's created a series of modernist images inspired by TV shows that echo recent online reinterpretations of Saul Bass and Pelican Books. Go to art store blanka.co.uk, where there's also a selection of natty film posters by other graphic artists.

What are your top green books?

Cambridge academics have compiled a list of their top 50 books on sustainability. Which books would make your own list?

Chipping away at graffiti!

I took this behind the Truman Brewery in East London...
... property developers take note!

Prime location - office space to let!

The No Money Man

Jon Henley spends the day in Bath with Mark Boyle, who last year decided to stop spending money … on anything … at all … ever. And guess what? He's doing rather well for himself.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/oct/28/live-without-money

Animation Africa!

Tinga Tinga Tales is a animation coming out of Nairobi, Kenya. The art work is sensitive to the local style and 'illustrates' a future industry for Africa. This BBC report highlights the amazing fact that animation from overseas is cheaper and restricts local production from being aired. We often overlook Africa, much to our shame, and this story shows off the great wealth of talent and creativity in continent often being reported for different reasons. Lets keep an eye on the creative industries in Africa and with proactive support from overseas this could be a rewarding economic stimulus to the region!

Breaking the mould: Brit Insurance Design awards shortlist

20 January 2010: From Beth Ditto to an army of pandas – check out the highlights of the third annual Brit Insurance Design awards at London's Design Museum, which features 'the world's most compelling and progressive designs' across architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics and transport. Antony Gormley will chair the jury, which will reveal the overall winner on 16 March 2010

The BBC and the British Museum have joined their expertise for an exciting project in an anthropological study, and collection, of objects across history. Looks like a great insight, with participatory eliminates, of our history and social developments through design and culture.

design Orientation expands...

Making Green Work

A Strategic Approach to Climate
by Michael E. Porter and Forest L. Reinhardt

Leaders need to understand both the impact of their firm's activities on the climate, and the impact of the changing climate on the business environment in which the firm competes.

Sustainability — The Only Strategy
Adam Werbach, Global CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi S, former Sierra Club President, and the author of Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto.

(To listen to the "ideacast" follow the link...)

Analysis catalysis

Designers think they can teach MBAs and philanthropists a thing or two

Dec 8th 2009
From Economist.com

TIM BROWN, the boss of IDEO, a consultancy that helped shape Apple’s first mouse, does not have solutions to daunting global problems such as climate change, epidemics and persistent poverty. But he believes he knows how to find them: with “design thinking”.

By design thinking, Mr Brown means the open-minded, no-holds-barred approach that designers bring to their work, rather than the narrow, technical view of innovation traditionally taught at many business and engineering schools. Firms that think like designers, he claims in a new book, “Change by Design”, stand to win huge new markets and profits. The concept may sound pat and woolly, encompassing everything from savvier marketing to radical technological leaps. Yet design thinking is winning many converts in both industry and philanthropy.

Follow the link for the full article...

How to change the system

In praise of the ideas of Russ Ackoff

Nov 3rd 2009
From Economist.com

IT IS hard to imagine a less enticing title for a book than “Introduction to Operations Research”. Yet Russ Ackoff, one of the authors of this tome of 1959, who died on October 29th aged 90, did not just help to define a nascent branch of industrial engineering. He wrote 30 other books, becoming one of the most influential management gurus of the 20th century in the process. His ideas about systemic thinking are vitally important today if the world is to come out of the current economic crisis in better shape than it went into it.

Follow the link for the full article...