Hi Suzan! Came across this bit of weird science news and wanted to share it: a lake in Camargue (southern France) has recently turned a bright, shocking, blood red colour. Yeah, really! Apparently it's due to a natural phenomenon related to the high salt content of the lake. The strawberry colour of the water is caused by a salt-loving organism called "Dunaliella salina",  that produces a red pigment which absorbs sunlight to create more energy. In addition, there are icicle-like salt crystal formations that have appeared on the surface of the lake, attaching themselves to rocks and plants. These photos are by Russian photographer Sam Dobson, who just happened to be driving by in his car. Imagine just happening upon such a thing... would have felt like some kind of strange apocalypse. Just another example of how nature is so amazing and beautiful and bizarre...

E xx

 

Hey hey the MLE!

Welcome back.  I so can't wait to have our meeting on Friday.  So much to talk about work-wise and no.  It's my last night in New York, quiet sad.  Our meetings in Baltimore went well.

Focus... Suzan, focus.  Writing blog post now.  We did some work on this for our client Portland Green while you were away, and thought I'd bring to your attention.  To quote Portland:

"S.A.D is an archive that is collecting small, discreet, performative actions, and non actions, that have been realized by artists and citizens from different communities, as a response to the inequities, discrepancies, absurdities and abuse of historical laws/bye-laws, demands, constitutions and commands of government as they impact their specific local communities and spaces. Each action, which places the body in a different public space, is a form of local or personal empowerment, cultural disruption and a form of civil disobedience."

The Tim Etchells’ project Certain Cancellations really stood out to me.  It comprises a set of three posters/flyers which unequivocally announce the cancellation of a series of entire days.

There is so much to protest, speak out against, and fight in the past couple years, yet everyone is so complacent.  It's always nice to see art like this.  I have some ideas for our own resistance project re the banking crisis and all it entails.  Basically, the problem is that it's such widespread corruption that affects so much, there is no centre.  There is no king to behead, no war to oppose.  I think maybe we can use graphic design to add some clarity.  Hatching ...  Let's speak Friday.  xx

Hello my friend!

I'm back in town after a lovely, long vacation back in North America - what I'm now calling the 2012 Atlantic-Pacific family tour. Was so good to be home and see the family, swim in lakes, walk in the mountains, and of course stuff my face with as much delicious food as possible. I know you will disapprove of my rampant seafood consumption – but oh, it was so good! Seafood and travel.... the environmental crimes that I really can't give up. Anyway! This year, our gift of choice to bring over for family was handmade toffees from Pärlans, a confectionary in our neighborhood. It's just such a nice example of fantastic all-around branding – the delicious candies are made from an old recipe from the 1930's, and everything is styled in the spirit of that period: the packaging, the shops, even the girls wrapping toffees in the shop window are dressed to a tee with perfect hair and makeup, like a live installation. The cafe serves tea and coffee with proper porcelain cups and saucers, they play jazz music, and the interiors make you feel like you're sitting in a Hercule Poirot film. It's all just done so well. And of course the toffees are fantastic, with flavours like lemon & vanilla, almond, raspberry, salt licorice, blackcurrant, chocolate, and peppermint. Lovely!

Hey MLE!

This is a bit scattered up like my brain right now. Going to the US of A tomorrow morning very early to meet our client in Baltimore. Really looking forward to meeting everyone and seeing their new facilities.

I got the email above awhile ago, all HTML. Saved it because I thought it was interesting. Not sure why, maybe its because there are no spaces, and complete random upper and lower case with numbers too, no repetition. It went on and on and on. Thought I'd post it, maybe one day we'll be looking through our archives and we'll use it for something.  :)

I know you'll appreciate this my friend,

Suzan xx