Friday, July 18, 2008

Creative Enterprise

I'm not really blogging here so much at the moment, my main blog is:

Creative Enterprise

Take a look

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Reflections on pdfheaven again

Found this when thinking about re-starting pdfheaven - a little snapshot of the year 2000 a posting I made to newsgroup comp.txt.pdf, wondering how I'd approach this now:

Hi all,
PDFheaven here, home of 'creative Acrobatics', for all types of creative
content in Acrobat pdf format.

*Currently on the site*
We kind of went sticker crazy - no sooner were Shepard Fairey's stickers
online than we were inundated with other folks' sticker designs - check
out Guerrilla artist Steve Crozier and graphic designer and comic artist
SKIP-RAT's designs.

Also on the site, Paris- ased multi-media artist Julie Morel invites you
to play the I.D. game. Print out and reassemble this 'digital' image -
full instructions included - watch out it's pretty big! We've also got
'Apocalyptic images 'from artist David Miles, digitally created
figurative interpretations of the word images presented in the book of
revelation.

*New to the site*
A series of 'moc-ads' by graphic designer, Katy Parry as she
investigates the phenonemon of the shock advert.

*It's a pdf-bakeathon*
Last month we announced the biggest ever festival of creative
acrobatics, a world's fair of exciting work in Acrobat Portable Document
Format - the multi-platform, multi-application medium for exchange of
digital documents. So far we have had all sorts of pdfs submitted from
maps to magic tricks.

We're still on the hunt for all things creative in pdf, in the
biggest-ever call for creative pdfs. Photographs, graphics, paintings,
QuickTime, Origami, art stickers or literature - if it's pdf we want to
see it. There is no deadline on submissions but each month a handful of
pieces will be selected by our panel of experts to feature on
www.pdfheaven.com. And all selected will be showcased at this year's
Metapod.expo 20th - 28th October. So mail us something and tell a
friend.

Coming up in pdfheaven in the coming weeks - stay tuned for more Origami
this time from Paris-based artist Marie-Ange Guilleminot. Also from our
open submission - postcards from graphic designer Donald Harris and
Photographs from Zharar Chandry and much much more.

*Just an idea* - stuff we'd quite like to see: Got any t-shirt designs?
These would be fab to download, print and iron on.

Check us out at

http://www.pdfheaven.com

and email me, pdfsub...@pdfheaven.com with your content, ideas, and
suggestions.

Charlotte

Saturday, March 8, 2008

What I think about when I am on the bus

Last week when I was away seeing my brother (in New Zealand) I was updating him on UK culture and I was talking about the public transport + personal music preferences issue that I experience when using the bus in Birmingham.

For those who drive everywhere you might not know about this. My brother was certainly surprised (he does tend to drive everywhere but also mobile phones have become a great deal more sophisticated in the 4 or so years he's been away) what I told him about was the phenomena of generally young people (but significantly not always) playing music on their mobile phones, without the use of headphones and so that everyone can hear. This is usually on the top deck of the bus, but not always. Sometimes two individuals will go head to head with any combination of urban to indie sounds.

Now i might be turning into a cranky old woman but I generally find the whole thing extremely annoying, however over the months I have devised some thought processes/strategies to cheer and amuse me until it stops seeming so annoying, here are a few of my potential strategies:

1. My main one would requires that I could play the clarinet/trumpet and when I hear the tinny music coming from the back of the bus I simply slowly open the case and put together my instrument in a calm and methodical way and then just stand up and play a fantastic tune.

2. Sometimes I try this one: I think to myself well it's music that they are listening to and that is great - you know they are in their way supporting the creative industries - this is a cultivated bus!

3. Sometimes I think I'd like to try this: I start a Chinese whisper campaign (something like 'when you hear the count of three everyone turn around and a. shout 'shut the **** up', b. hum c. turn the music on and up on your own phone').

4. Another idea is I carry with me at all times a big old Ghetto blaster and when I hear someone playing some tunes I just press play! Only mine is John Coltrane or Miles Davis or some sort of antidote.

5. Oh and I like this one it involves me and a small group of fellow passengers start to sing a medley of 'songs from the shows' in a cappella stylee and just belt them out (need to think of appropriate tunes I think West side story might feature not sure).

6. I do a big old bogus PR campaign on behalf of a headphone/earbud (what ever you call them) company and as a promotional thing I carry about a bunch of freebies to distribute - so I naturally give them to those folks who appear to have mislaid theirs ' Congratulations you've just won blah blah blah'..

Rant over - incidentally the point of these is not to actually do them just to amuse oneself with 'what ifs?'

Sunday, January 27, 2008

update

Thought I would update on my Co2 lowering ambitions.

What I wanted to do in January to get me started:

- Drive less? how much less? I don't drive that much but more than someone who doesn't right? Maybe 50% less for now and work towards reducing bus use also (get a bike - maybe later in the year)
- For the month of Jan - be 90% vegan. Because farming meat and dairy is right up there in the high emission stakes (‘A new report to warn the livestock industry generates 8 per cent of all UK greenhouse gas emissions’(Guardian Nov 07). Now this is really about me changing my habits and to be more thoughtful about my consumption.
- Turn off lights, recycle etc (I do this already – but you know do it more!!)
- Stop having baths!! (I love bathing and reading a good book in a hot bath is bliss to me but I know it's unnecessary - I mean I'll shower - occasionally:-)

What happened:

- Well first couple of weeks I drove less then life got the better of me and I drove virtually everyday last week - will keep trying but feel like some incentive or flex with my employers might help.
- I am rubbish vegan! but pretty good at being vegetarian - I haven't bought meat for home and haven't eaten it other than a couple of meals out since xmas. I have lowered my dairy intake but just love cheese.
- Been good at turning off lights, heating. Thanks to Birmingham City Council my recycling just got a whole lot easier to continue doing.
- Baths. Did I say how much I love to bathe? It's the reading aspect mainly. And I am ashamed to say that this one went right out of the window but I read a couple of great books and will only/mainly shower in Feb.

So anyway I'll continue trying, being a bit more aware of my actions.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

New Years resoloutions

Okay last month I blogged about Climate change and the cultural industries. Well it got me thinking. If I'm an average West Midlander then my Co2 emissions will be something around 11 tonnes per annum and in order to meet our local targets I, as all others in the region, need to reduce this to 3!

So here's the thing - I'm going to give it a go. Or at least make some changes to my lifestyle. So what are my NY resolutions?

- Drive less? how much less? I don't drive that much but more than someone who doesn't right? Maybe 50% less for now and work towards reducing bus use also (get a bike - maybe later in the year)
- For the month of Jan - be 90% vegan. Because farming meat and dairy is right up there in the high emission stakes (‘A new report to warn the livestock industry generates 8 per cent of all UK greenhouse gas emissions’(Guardian Nov 07). Now this is really about me changing my habits and to be more thoughtful about my consumption.
- Turn off lights, recycle etc (I do this already – but you know do it more!!)
- Stop having baths!! (I love bathing and reading a good book in a hot bath is bliss to me but I know it's unnecessary - I mean I'll shower - occasionally:-)

What else? Thinking about unnecessary energy waste

- Stop blow-drying my hair
- Don’t start ironing!!
- Stop buying lattes in paper cups!
- Carry on not separating whites and just do big old mixed washes at low temps and just work the whole grey vibe

Anyway I'm sure there's much more I could do - sometime I'll actually do the calculations and blog about this all at more length. You see I'm off to my brothers wedding in NZ in Feb that will well and truly screw my ‘carbon allowance’ for the year. But the thing is I'm imagining that at some point there is bound to be some sort of rationing or a carbon allowance imposed - I mean presumably - right? so it would be nice to choose (own) this rather than have it inflicted.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

How not to drive your kid to school...

I noticed an interesting posting on Stef Lewandowski site about the need to reduce Co2 and his thoughts on the scourge of the 4x4. It reminded me of something - a little story of seriously selfish car usage.

A few months ago when walking my daughter to school (in the same leafy streets of Moseley/kingsheath that he mentions) I noticed a really odd scenario. It took me a few days of witnessing bits of the scenario to figure out what was happening. And then one morning as we reached the exit of the cul-de-sac where we live a large SUV blocked the end of the road. At the same time a very little girl (must have been about 5 yrs old as was smaller than my then smallish 6 yr old) crossed the road on a scooter (a child's scooter), once she had crossed the vehicle moved on, very slowly, and then I realised. The car housed the parent. The parent was kerb crawling their child to school!!

This to me was wrong on so many levels.

-The pure selfishness, blocking the road and then continuing to drive at 5mph in order to accompany a child
-The lesson this offered the child i.e. this as an acceptable way to be accompanied to school - god knows if we all went this way
-The general safety of the child and others on the road
-And really - is it necessary ever to drive such a big vehicle on such tiny back streets of Birmingham in such an uneconomical way?

Anyway I for one would welcome a reduction of vehicles on the road (see Stef's posting), it would make the buses more usable and the prospect of cycling safer. But there are other issues that need addressing. Employers need to be more flexible about home working. Also more flexible about start times, possibly rewarding cyclists/public transport users in someway.

The thing that's weird is that there is still some kudos in driving and in driving such obviously fuel gussling and damaging vehicles.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Nesta big idea thing

Yesterday I went to the West Midlands launch of the NESTA Big Green Challenge prize - a prize of £1million for the most innovative idea and implementation to reduce carbon emissions by a community. I have a whole bunch of thoughts on this and will blog about it later on this weekend (I have my daughters 7th birthday party to get through and a night out at Project X this eve). However although I feel the prize idea is in some ways flawed in relation to the scale of the problem the event itself provided some good networking opportunities. I was pleased to see that there are some significant movements within my own neighbourhood (Moseley, Birmingham) to try to reduce CO2 and I will be looking into this at more depth and spreading the word about how to get involved.

Incidentally, based on my previous post I have only used my car two days this week (not much I know but a start).