Get the Abbey habit

Back in 1990, this was a missed opportunity to have a humorous tie-in between Abbey National and Jonathan Lynn’s film Nuns on the Run.     Almost as good as the idea I had for Elizabeth Arden. You may also like Is your favourite 1980s’ celeb here? Carry on designing A look back at 2012: […]

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Thank you, Joe (Patroni)!

As my Typepad blog went into oblivion without any warning from Six Apart, I had better repost the following from my Tumblr, in case it has the same fate. This was an old favourite post of mine.   The rise and rise of Joe Patroni George Kennedy’s most famous role. OK, so the last one […]

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Did you know that in the last three decades, media have changed?

Sights on exporting: when we first licensed Lucire to a foreign country, in this case Romania, in 2005. Karen Carreño modelled, photographed by Yann Dandois. Mirella Lapusca and Valentin Lapusca created the Romanian edition.   Over the weekend, one of the Lucire crew had to write to a PR company to be included on something […]

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What really killed the old, cool web

Richard MacManus’s Cybercultural I’ve mentioned as a must-read if you want to explore the history of the web. And today, Stephen Judd showed a collection of links, among which was this 2017 entry by Amy Hoy, ‘How the blog broke the web’. Hoy traces the origins of the blog back to a web diary (web […]

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The case for Brand Aotearoa

Originally published in Scoop   During our mid-year travels, I was surprised to learn that Aotearoa New Zealand doesn’t have the profile that we think it does. We’re not riding the wave of The Lord of the Rings: few abroad remember the connection two decades later. No one I encountered recalls 100% Pure, and if […]

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Where is brand Aotearoa?

Five New Zealand customs' officers seated on a boat.

One thing holding back exports from Aotearoa New Zealand is the absence of a true, authentic national brand. I said this even back in the days of the 100% Pure campaign, which was much lauded. I cynically asked: can we really claim this when France and Germany outspend us on the environment as a percentage […]

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Carry on designing

Journeys through time are fascinating. Earlier this week, I looked at some of the websites we liked from the Jack Yan & Associates links’ section. In many cases, it was a trip down memory lane, as some sites still had their 2000s layouts. Sadly, this could mean that a few of them will disappear in […]

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From The Lord of the Rings to Border Patrol: how Sweden sees us

My visits to Sweden have been few and far apart, since it is quite a distance to travel from New Zealand: summer 2002, autumn 2003, winter 2010, and summer 2024. There are many interesting observations one can make with so many years in between, seeing how society has changed with brief snapshots from each visit, […]

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Two Mastodon polls: on 50 shades of Grade, and the best non-Bond Roger Moore film

Asking the tough questions on Mastodon. Very tiny samples, and I was limited to four possible answers—but now you know.       Meanwhile, I see Linkedin has not been very good at removing misinformation about me. Not as bad as Quora, but still down there. The latest post says ‘jackyan’ is a metaphor for […]

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To those who take technology and make life harder: you’re doing it wrong

I like technology. I don’t hate technology. But I hate what a bunch of idiots have done with technology. You’d be forgiven for thinking I was referring to the mass misinformation-authoring that used my name over the last three months, but, frankly, this level of technological misuse is everywhere in various forms. Take today, when […]

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