The Jotter - issue 30
“To achieve great things two things are needed; a plan, and not enough time.”
Leonard Bernstein
Hello,
Thank you Feasts & Fables for sharing the above quote in their weekly missive. It reminds me of the mantra - if you want something done, ask a busy person.
In other news, I recently discovered a brochure of my father’s architectural practice, Eberlin + Partners, from 1970. A line on the history of the partnership resonated:
“In the 47 years since he set up the practice, Edgar Eberlin established a tradition of service, fairness and professionalism.”
I saw a thread running through three generations of my family. They lack the buzz words of our times. No mention of “passion”, “purpose” or “sustainability”. But my grandfather's three unfussy words stand the test of time and I am adopting them.
Onwards
Andrew
01, Substack
With the shenanigans going on at Twitter, our little community have been discussing where we might go if it implodes.
Some are trialling Mastadon.
Others are being drawn to Substack. The platform is an interesting combination - part email newsletter, part blog and part community.
Here, co-founder Hamish McKenzie describes how Substack differs from social media platforms.
In other news, ‘Substack Reads’ kindly recommended my Barbican post which brought a flurry of new subscribers.
Meanwhile the aforementioned Feasts & Fables and jolly nice chap Matt Inwood have recently started their own highly readable Substacks.
02, Words
This advertising agency has an original and provocative way of communicating.
03, iNostalgia
Apple has been one of the most (if not the most) influential business on this planet for the last quarter of a century. Their website home page has sparked ideas for many designers and marketers.
Here is a delightfully nostalgic place to iSpend a minute or five.
04, Tip
This tweet from Hayley Maguire particularly resonated with me.
“An underrated skill for freelancers everywhere: being easy to work with.”
It’s an essential trait to have. Be available, be positive and be open to sharing ideas - that’s what clients value.
05, Photography
One of my cherished web design clients, The Saul Letter Foundation, are working their way through 40,000 colour slides and have shared 76 rarely seen masterpieces, in The Unseen Saul Leiter.
06, Co-working
Another cherished client, Ian Sanders, has written a series of blogs called ‘Experiments at Work.’ One post outlines the merits of co-working which is particularly relevant as I am writing this month’s Jotter in the new and very welcoming co-working space, lifework, at Hartley Farm.
07, Technology
Two articles on the danger of relying on the plethora of data and not common sense.
04.01, Dave Trott on a camera confusing a football with a linesman’s bald head.
04.02, John Naughton on why the tech industry uses the misleading term AI (Artificial Intelligence), rather than the more accurate ‘machine learning.’
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.
Andrew Lang
08, Work.
This month (with Angelfish Software), we have progressed with launching the remainder of nine new websites for the Original Collection. Here are four of them - three hotels and one castle.
09, Plug
The Leica Akademie workshop at the Barbican prompted me to look through my expanding archive of post-war architecture photos. I humbly thought some were quite good and so I have shared them on this website with an option for people to buy them if they want to. But if you don’t want to, you can just look at them.
Thank you for reading the November Jotter. The next one will emerge into the light soon after the shortest day on Friday 23rd December at 11am. A week earlier than normal is that’s ok?
Onwards
Andrew
“When burdened by the feeling that there are too many photographs in the world, I ask myself if there are too many flowers.”