Food delivery vans can be boring, however this one is designed around a great idea.
And it’s selling the product in a very appetising way.
I found this one in Haverfordwest, Wales.
Bruce Stainsby's Blog: Muttering from the mo
Another great idea.
September 21st, 2022Coke does something good for a change.
August 22nd, 2022
The Christopher Street Day Parade is a well established Pride march, held annually in Berlin.
This year it was on July 23rd.
This poster, that was opposite where we were staying in Berlin, is a celebration of Coke’s support for the gay community.
It incorporates their iconic ‘swoosh’ morphing into an LBGTIQ+ rainbow, as it passes through an empty Coke bottle.
Very clever, understated and also great branding.
Dam clever those Portuguese.
July 22nd, 2022
Every piece of packaging contains a barcode.
I found this one on a milk carton in Porto, Portugal.
How clever of the designer to use the graphics of the bar code to emphasise the freshness of their milk.
A big healthy cow munching on fresh nutritious grass.
A total disaster.
June 23rd, 2022
Total, the French multinational petroleum company, has decided to move into the area of sustainable power and rebranded itself as TotalEnergies.
This move to green energy is laudable, however the newly developed name and logo is to my mind, a fiasco.
It’s too complex, too long and not memorable, or even aesthetically pleasing.
The company website goes to great lengths to rationalise the new design. Which is in itself is an indication that it’s not self expiatory.
‘Total’ as a word means ‘complete’ and ‘absolute.’ So why not stay with a perfectly simple name and let the design and the accompanying PR do the work.
After all isn’t a picture worth a thousand words.
This whole project has been over thought and I can see the client’s ‘guiding hand’ being a major factor in this disaster.
Politics and travel.
May 18th, 2022
Over the years we have been lucky enough to have visited many countries.
We are about to start travelling again and given the crisis in Ukraine, it’s interesting to reflect on how politics can effect travel.
Of course these interruptions are minuscule, compared to the suffering and loss of life that has been inflicted on the people of Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine, or as Vladimir Putin describes it a: ‘special military operation’ has altered the face of Europe. Not since the Second World War has there been such an upheaval of the status quo.
With the current instability in Eastern Europe and the tendency of government policies to demonise people who don’t agree with them, we now find our travel options more limited than ever before.
We have always judged a country by its culture and people, not the politics.
Our travels have taken us to places that, under current circumstances, wouldn’t be possible now.
In 2007 we spent two weeks in Russia.
A country that now regards Australia as hostile. This is a result of the sanctions that have been rightly placed on Putin and his cronies.
Also with war comes the inevitable flood of refugees fleeing the conflict. They usually go to neighbouring countries and that swells the population and puts pressure on the infrastructure.
A good example is the number of Ukrainians escaping to Poland.
Three weeks into the conflict and the population of the Polish capital, Warsaw, had risen by 15%.
After five weeks over 4 million had left the Ukraine – that’s approximately a quarter of the population.
By the time of publishing this blog, that number had risen to over 6 million.
There is even a reverse effect with Russians either unable to leave the country, or not wanting to, due to fears of persecution within Europe.
Those that have managed to escape have taken the train to Finland. That was until the normally neutral Finish government stopped the service and closed its borders with Russia.
Both Finland and Sweden are now looking to join NATO, which might rule those countries out as a destination for Russian tourists.
In 2012 we made a long awaited trip to Egypt.
This was a year after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the fall of the long time president Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011)
After the revolution and the removal of Mubarak, a new president, Mohamed Morsi, was elected by a popular vote. He was then ousted by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who subsequently became the next head of state in the 2014 presidential election.
The country is still not settled and isn’t recommended for tourism due to fears of terrorist attacks.
Also in 2012, we spent a month in Turkey.
We travelled by car, boats, planes and busses and had a fabulous time.
Talking to many locals, who are always interested to chat to Australians, we discovered that there was some disquiet about their current Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Since then Erdoğan has taken over as President and Turkey has undergone a radical process of Islamification.
It’s no longer the moderate, secular country that was created by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923.
In 2014 we travelled from east to west across China, starting in Hong Kong.
These days, with the tensions high between Canberra and Beijing, Australians have been warned about the possibility of arbitrary detention for ‘endangering national security’
This same excuse is now being used by a number of governments trying to stop any descent.
After crossing China we travelled trough Central Asia, visiting a number of ‘The Stans’. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Many of these former Soviet states are still loyal to the Kremlin, so currently they would not be pre-disposed to Australian tourists.
Politics isn’t the only thing to put a break on travelling.
Again in 2014, we had a two week break in Tonga, visiting Nuku’alofa and Fafa Island.
The January 15, 2022 volcanic eruption and the subsequent volcanic plume and tsunami has devastated parts of this tranquil Pacific archipelago.
The clean up and rebuilding, since the disaster, would be putting a huge strain on the infrastructure.
Tourism is a vital part of many economies and not travelling there would also be a disaster.
It therefore all comes down to choosing where to go, so you don’t get in the way – or get arrested.
It’s all about placement.
April 23rd, 2022
As we fast approach the May 22nd Federal election, the streets are full of political adverting.
Most of it is boring propaganda, however this one caught my attention.
The two word message is both simple and strong, but it’s the placement that got me.
It’s brilliant.
Apparently these posters are all over Melbourne and people have even taken to putting them on their own private rubbish bins.
And they are paying $20 for the privilege.
A developer’s dream.
April 19th, 2022
The Burnham Beeches Mansion sits within the ‘Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens’ in Sherbrooke.
It was originally built for the sales magnate Alfred Nicholas, the founder of the Nicolas Aspro company, in the late 1920s and 1930s.
It now sits idle and in disrepair, much like the gardens.
It was built in the Art Deco Streamline Modern style and designed by architect Harry Norris.
Norris was also the architect of the Coles Bourke Street store (1930), which he designed for G J Coles. This was after he was sent to Europe and North America, by Coles, to study the latest trends in chain-store design and construction.
Harry Norris was a neighbour of Alfred Nicholas and the two became friends.
The brief to Norris from Nicholas was to build a house with: “Fresh air, sunshine and an outlook of command, yet under control”
The design is said to be reminiscent of an ocean liner. There is a deco zig-zag design on the wrought-iron balcony balustrades and Australian motives of koalas and possums, in moulded relief, on the reinforced concrete walls.
After the death of Nicolas in 1937, his widow Isabel and their two children lived there until the outbreak of war in 1939. It was then loaned out and became a children’s hospital.
Between 1948 and 1950 it was redecorated and then in the 1950s and 1960s two additional wings were added.
From 1955 it housed the Nicolas Institute research centre until the gardens were donated to the Shire of Sherbrooke in 1965 and named the Nicholas Memorial Gardens.
The house was eventually sold in 1981 and became a small hotel for about ten years.
Since then there have been a number of attempts to redevelop the property but unfortunately nothing has come of them.
Burnham Beeches is a wonderful example of the Art-Deco style and must be preserved. All it needs is the right developer, who has cash, taste and sense of history.
A rooster booster.
March 14th, 2022
Red Rooster, has a new logo – and I rather like it.
The Australian owned fast food giant began life in 1972 in Perth, Western Australia. Since then the business has been through many changes.
It’s now a franchise operation with over 360 stores throughout mainland Australia and employs more that 7,500 staff.
The previous logos have always used red and shown a rooster
However this new one, not only has red and a rooster, but can be viewed in many ways.
Some see it as two chooks looking at each other, while others, one chook looking at you. And some might only see it as two capital letters, with one back to front.
It’s this multi dimensional approach to the design that makes it both intriguing and well branded.
It get’s you involved, which is the essence of a good design.
Although information is sparse, it seems as though it was designed in-house by the design department of the holding company Craveable Brands.
I think they should be very happy with the outcome.
The soundtracks to our life.
February 28th, 2022
On Tuesday February 8th, 2022, the composer John Williams turned 90.
Now that’s an incredible achievement within itself, however the amazing thing to come from William’s life was the legacy of movie soundtracks that he created, especially during the 1970s and 1980s.
Soundtracks that not only help us recall the movie but also the time in our lives that they were screened.
He also helped to immortalise some of the new directors who commissioned his music. George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg are just two.
In 2012, Spielberg stated that: “John Williams has been the single most significant contributor to my success as a filmmaker,”
The movies Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial defined a cinematic era.
Other movies, especially the James Bond series that started in the 1960s, used the then currently famous songwriters and performers to write and perform their theme songs.
Goldfinger, 1964 and Diamonds Are Forever, 1971 are both by Shirley Bassey. Live and Let Die, 1973 by Paul and Linda McCartney and The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977 by Carly Simon, are some I recall.
On reading about John William’s 90th birthday, I searched Spotify for a playlist.
That night, over dinner, we were transported back to another time in our lives.
It’s amazing where music can take you.
A common side effect of Covid.
October 18th, 2022Lack of staff at service venues was rampant when we left Australia five months ago.
It’s exactly the same in a lot of Great Britain right now.
Most of these ‘Staff Wanted’ signs were taken in Northern Island and Wales.
Surprisingly, the last one was captured at Campernile, our airport hotel in Berlin.
The results of this shortage, especially in Great Britain, are that many places are closed or only offering limited service and hours.
During our recent trip we found ourselves forced to eat dinner between 5:30pm and 6:00pm, as the venues were booked out after that and many were closing at 7:30pm.
They just didn’t have the kitchen or serving staff to stay open later.
This pandemic has many symptoms and they are widespread.
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