PICNIC07: Things I have learned in my life so far, Stefan Sagmeister

Talks on work for a logo for a new building. Spent weeks trying to avoid using the building itself, then realised the building itself was the logo. Isolated the building, flipped it around, and took 6 different views of it for 6 logos. Colour scheme taken from any image pumped into a logo maker programme. Summary of it here.

Socially responsible design: an organisation of 500 American businessmen got together to petition the government to reduce military spending by 15% and spend the savings on education. The group has marketing know-how and money; they ran full-page ads, but for the $75k this cost (in the NYT) they could build vehicles, running around the US looking good on TV so local news picks up on them - generating more publicity than a NYT advert does.

For a lighting company, the brief was "show the power of light". Did a raise imprint with various shadows etc playing off it, with different colours.

In 2000, he decided to do no client work and just work on his own ideas. One of these was "unavailability creates desire": when they reopened they got loads of work, with better briefs. In his client-free year he makes a list of thoughts, e.g. "everything I do always comes back to me". He was surprised that he got a load of difficult feedback from ads he rang along these lines. Another: "trying to look good limits my life". Another: "Everybody thinks they are right". Clients were now coming to him asking for another sentence to use for their campaigns.

"Starting a charity is surprisingly easy": written using microscopic photography.

"Being not truthful works against me": a spiderweb projected onto a white wall which reacts to passers-by, all created using an iMac and custom software.

"Keeping a diary supports my personal development". As time went past, clients became free-er and free-er in their briefs.

"Money does not make me happy": lettering raised in what look like piles of flour or sugar. The printer lost some of the original artwork and reproduced it, changing the meaning. The piece was rerun by a casino (!).

From 0 - 35,000 euros/year money makes a significant difference to peoples lives. Above this quantity, it makes no difference at all: your level of comfort remains the same.

"Having guts always works out for me".

PICNIC07: The Art of Paul Pope

Works exclusively in analogue. Most interested in comics and picture-making. Brought in influences from rock art albums as much as comics he grew up with, and sees a relationship between music iconography and comics. Loved silent film.

Lots of Japanese manga artists worked with avant-garde theatre in the 60s and 70s. Shows a piece of work he did, borderline-plagiarised: you can do cover versions of songs, why not other art?

Currently working on a line of clothers with DKNY, and a store installation for Diesel in Hollywood.

Batman: there have been many batmen, and everyone has a version of it in their head. How can you make it new and your own? (Aside from PP: is Popeye the first superhero?) He started with the logo: the silhouette of the character is instantly identifiable. The shape looked to him like oppressive german black type (as seen on rock/metal albums). Shows some examples of attempts to form the logo into a shape using this style of font and the bat motif.

Wanted to comment on "what is a secret identity", whether in a police state a superhero has a right to a private self: the mask as a metaphor for privacy. Batman should scare you. Early silent film: "even their mistakes are pregnant with possibility". Wanted to have a repeated theme, like a refrain through music.

Time lapse film of Paul working; he often jumps between 2 projects to prevent boredom. One of these was fashion design work: "I started out drawing her naked to make the job more interesting".

PICNIC07: Some thoughts on creating worlds, Michael Johnson

Talking about making a movie at Pixar. 3 steps:

1. Creating an interesting world with self-consistent rules;
2. Designing engaging characters that exist in that world;
3. Tell a compelling story with those characters in that world (the hard part, where flaws are exposed);

All underpinned by research. e.g. in a Bugs Life, they put cameras at ground level and noticed that everything seemed translucent - so used that in the film. Shows 2 videos of fish in water side-by-side: one film, the other animation based on film: indistinguishable.

For Ratatouille they spent a lot of time running round Paris in the Autumn, looking at live action, etc. Also spent time looking at the details of food porn photography.

Again, Edna from the Incredibles: building up of the character through 2D and 3D design.

PICNIC07: Observations of Visionary Works, Danny Yount

"Is a terrible speaker so I just brought a bunch of stuff I can show you"

And he did :)

PICNIC07: Minimally Invasive Education through Social Play, Dr. Sugata Mitra

I've been looking forward to this one :) So obviously my battery is running low :(

Later: easily the best talk so far. Wonderfully simple, uplifting and socially important. Find out anything you can about this and the guy behind it. Thanks to Ribot Minimus for a link to his presentation at LIFT07 (which I missed).