me studio

i finally got round to having a good look/read/laugh at artist/designer daniel eatock’s fabulous design monograph imprint which i have had lying around for a while, if you don’t know who eatock is, check the list of alternative bios posted on his own fascinating website, he incidentally is the man responsible for ‘indexhibit’ the portfolio web tool/app of choice for most young designers these days…

eatock is an excellent thinker, has a great sense of humour and is obsessed with circularity on many levels… his design monograph is one of the most inspiring and fresh examples i have seen in ages, largely because it arguably, barely contains any of his design work but reveals 100% how he thinks and what drives him… it (and he) reminds me in many ways of stefan sagmeister as an example of where a graphic designer can evolve towards

if you have 29 minutes and 33 seconds to spare, you might enjoy this AIGA lecture and to finish off here is his

Manifesto

Begin with ideas
Embrace chance
Celebrate coincidence
Ad-lib and make things up
Eliminate superfluous elements
Subvert expectation
Make something difficult look easy
Be first or last
Believe complex ideas can produce simple things
Trust the process
Allow concepts to determine form
Reduce material and production to their essence
Sustain the integrity of an idea
Propose honesty as a solution

i also just discovered that the lifesize thumb print on the spine of the book is actually genuine… eatock wanted to ‘touch’ all of the books and spent a day in a book warehouse leaving his thumbprint on the whole print run… nice