7th July 2018

I attended Nesta UK’s #FutureFest yesterday, including great sessions with Nick Clegg, Nicola Sturgeon, and Annie Mac. More on this next week, but thought I’d share this image of an installation at the event – ‘Disability-free life expectancy, by region, across the UK’. The highest and lowest ages are at the bottom of the chart. 

Dave Trott on where advertising is going wrong. ‘Media isn’t about the number of impressions you make. Media is about the power of the impression you make’. 

In the field of political advertising, this video piece is pretty inspirational. ‘My whole life has been about opening, pushing, and sometimes kicking through every door in my way. Ready for a Congress that opens doors for Americans instead of slamming them in our faces? Vote MJ Hegar for Texas.‘

From Aeon – The Deep Roots of Writing. ‘This…narrative needs villains, and writing serves this purpose brilliantly because it’s the tool of power that makes subjects. The state is a recording, registering, and measuring machine,… and a coercive machine that makes lists of names, levies taxes, rations food, raises armies, and writes rules. Without writing…. there could be no state – and without the state, there could be no writing.’

After a bit of inspiration? Here are 46 stimulating sites that can provide intellectual refreshment, in under 10 minutes a day.

‘Everyone’s big possessions — your car, your house — should be up for auction all the time. I would put a price on my car — say, £5,000. It would go into a searchable public register, and if you thought the price was attractive, you could buy it. Having named the price, I would have no right to refuse.’ Tim Harford on the progressive case for auctions for everything.

‘Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.’ Frankenstein author Mary Shelley on Creativity.

In the age of video, wonderful to see that simple, static images still have the capability of powerful effect. Here are 14 eye-catching campaigns from Cannes. (Adweek subscription may be necessary)

‘Islands represent freedom, independence, and creativity. They appear and disappear over time, according to weather events, water flow and intervention by people. Islands have an enduring and often romantic appeal. Being closer to nature, at the mercy of the elements and somewhere as distinctive as an island makes us feel alive.’  This is ‘London Islands’ a rather lovely new book from the wonderful Carl Goesteam.

Since the invention of plastic, we’ve become completely dependent on it. How much is our dependence harming the world? This is the problem with plastic (a nine-minute animated video).