Are anxious career women the new Stepford wives?

Time was when the narrative of women revolved around finding a man, getting married and starting a family. Then it got updated so they could have a bit of a career before then finding a man, getting married and starting a family. Increasingly, however, I’m seeing the emergence of a new narrative and one no less limiting or frustrating for all concerned. One where a woman has a career, yet is made to feel so strung-out and anxious by her job that she has to give up even the notion of a personal life.


Hit series, ‘Homeland’ and ‘The Killing’, are both powerful examples of how the imagery and ideology of this new female narrative is entering popular culture.  In these stories, the woman is almost always ferociously intelligent, highly driven, and - surprise surprise - stick thin. But unlike her housewife counterpart wasting away on the Tracy Anderson “teeny tiny body” Method in the suburbs, this woman believes that it’s not just lunch that’s for wimps; surviving on caffeine, prescription drugs and late night junk food, professional ambition becomes her only sustenance. As celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe has said, “In the war between my work and my personal life, my work always wins”

Both shows’ protagonists are portrayed as being so absorbed in and by their jobs, that they can barely function in their real lives. In ‘Homeland’ Carrie is so focused on safeguarding the American nation that she has to sleep on her sofa and wash her armpits in the sink. While in ‘The Killing’ Sarah deserts her fiance, her son (and apparently her dress sense ) in the quest to bring justice.

While never addressed in male-lead entertainment, it seems that a woman’s ‘war’ between her work and home life has enough cultural fascination to become a key storyline. When we see Don Draper or Luther passed out on the sofa with a highball they appear manly and noble - a noir hero. Yet when it’s a woman on the sofa, she’s evidently unhinged, troubled and heading for a meltdown. Why are we invited to find a working women’s anxiety quite so appealing? 

In a recent article on anxiety in New York magazine, one female interviewee is quoted, “I use my anxiety to be better at what I do”. And it made me wonder why is the term ‘anxiety’ being used in place of ‘ambition’? Was that overwhelming, reverberating, buzzing determination to be the best you can possibly be being mis-interpreted as anxiety? Is the battle cry in a women’s work/life ‘war’ being experienced through a lens of guilt?

Ten years ago, before technology put the pace of modern life into fifth gear, women were presented with narratives that included an “and” - work and home, career and family, sex and the city. Today, in the face of economic upheaval and exponential change, it seems the scope of a female narrative is closing in once more. They say you can never be too rich or too thin. Now you can never be too anxious about your work/life balance as well.

Preference Setting (Part 1)

About a year ago I wrote a post entitled “20 Reasons Not to Date a Digital Strategist”. It was just a bit of fun, but since April that entry has had almost 10,000 views and travelled from the UK to North America, Canada, Australia and most of Western Europe. Clearly I was not alone in my exasperation - and amusement - at the undefined rules of engagement for social media when it came to real life relationships.  And, while corporations busily debate the financial value of a “like”, it seems regular people everywhere are trying to figure out its emotional value.

Claiming expertise in the management of connections and engagement online is a lucrative career choice these days - ensuring brands maintain consistent, rewarding relationships with their customers. Yet, there exist no guidelines (official or otherwise) for managing personal relationships across so many platforms. Recently Mashable reported that 1 in 10 people playing the Scrabble-esque word game Words with Friends has directly led to a "hook up". While Facebook is currently cited in one third of all UK divorces. For perhaps the first time in human history branded platforms - and the behaviour they nurture, encourage and, ultimately, manipulate for their own commercial ends - are affecting our interpersonal relationships. Ahead of Facebook's IPO, Zuckerberg even went so far as to admit wanting to actively "rewire" people and they way they form connections!


Social media brands nurture a behaviour that revolves around constant self-refinement. Their business models rely on our belief that we are only as interesting as our last post, or as popular as the number of followers we have. So much so that it's easy to get caught up in the expectation to continuously like, follow, friend, favourite, re-pin, and re-tweet. Russell M Davies said recently that social media is “networking for shy people”. Safely adhering to the rules of a predetermined user experience, it's easy just to pick out and present our best sides, our wittiest comments and our coolest links. But Facebook, Twitter and the like are all engines by which to curate ourselves, and it is these curated selves - not our real selves - with which we are now forming new, online relationships.

But what happens to the online, curated self in the real world, when the shy people have to meet up offline? Coping with the reconciliation of avatar to human being becomes a daunting, even stressful, prospect. Are we ever going to be as interesting, glamorous or funny? What happens if the connection formed online disappears offline? Suddenly, the potential for traversing an emotional minefield grows vast. Gone are the days when you could yank your phone line out the wall - 80’s movie style - and cry into your tie-dye leggings til you felt better. Now - connected across multiple platforms - you’re on the Internet, they’re on the Internet and, without really wanting to, you know each other’s every thought and move. The complex machine learning and recommendation engines behind Facebook and Google were designed for the group hug of the open web, not the late-night Internet-loitering individual.

So, I guess that number 21 on the list of reasons not to date a digital strategist is that we're going to over think this situation. The gender divide, the 'Digital Native' generation, and taking existing, real world relationships online are all part of it, and aspects which call for separate consideration. As brands and technological innovation impact on how we build interpersonal relationships, the opportunity for us to define the rules of engagement becomes greater yet harder. Without taking the backwards step of disconnecting altogether, we must learn to live our real lives whilst simultaneously plugged into an online world.

Photos via Ida Rhoda, Howard Grey, Henri Lartigue

No more cat videos

I've given up cat videos. And pictures of cats. And their kitten counterparts. You may scoff at this insane declaration, but it's harder than you think.

It's not like I was really that into them in the first place, but they have become a mainstay of content sharing across every conceivable platform - starting around the Millennium with the dreaded round robin emails entitled "50 cute baby kittens asleep; please fwd or you'll die" and ending today with entire Pinterest boards dedicated to these feline time wasters.

Because that is what they are. During the SOPA/PIPA issue, Darren - my Creative Director - sarcastically wondered just how he might continue to encounter kittens and their cuteness were the laws to be brought into play. Just where, he asked, could he get his hit of small animals water skiing? It would be a crisis!

And that's when it hit me. I do not 'need' to look at photos or videos of cats. The me that has not watched a cat video on any given day is no different to the me that has just watched a cat video, except that I now have one to two minutes less time to enjoy my life. So why do I feel such pressure to continually click on anything prepositioned by the term "aw"?

So I stopped. I stopped clicking. That was easy. What I didn't expect was the outpouring of anger and animosity from my peers. "What do you mean you're not looking at cat photos?", "You should really just watch this one though!", "It's soooooo cuuuuute!", "But it's a kitten peeping out of a fuckin' basket, you cold hearted biatch!"

Why does it matter? Why were people getting so upset? In these modern times, with so few spiritual crutches to help us greet each dawning day with a sense of hope and positivity, are cat videos all we have left? In denying Kittah's right to be on the ceiling, was I in fact making a larger statement about human kind's desire to believe in something, anything?

Maybe. Maybe not. As I move on to eliminating dogs, lemurs and - one day - Justin Bieber - from my screen, perhaps I will suffer some kind of cute-deprivation related breakdown. But until then, I'm enjoying taking those extra moments previously wasted on tiny little paws, and applying them to something that makes me go "Hm", instead of "Aw".

Infinite Loops

Last year I was invited by Matt Judge to contribute a piece for his printed compendium entitled Design Assembly III. I chose to write about my emerging obsession with how brands can utilise social media data to better serve, and engage with, their audience. In typical Camilla Grey form, however, I only learned about the concept of "big data" about a week after the book went to print. So, while the piece is entirely concerned with the subject of big data, you will not find the term anywhere in the piece.

To make up for it, I recently went along to a Gigaom conference - Structure: Data. The talks I attended raised some fascinating issues surrounding the future of Big Data, and I look forward to exploring them further both here and in my work. Meantime, here's the copy from my DA3 contribution. It's a #longread at 2000 words, so grab a cup of tea, settle back, and marvel at how the tech buzzword de jour doesn't even get a look in!

****

"Gone are the days when you can just walk in to a boardroom, say "Twitter" and expect someone to pay you $20,000 and land yourself on the cover of Wired magazine. Now you have to say "Foursquare"." - Alex Bragg, Founder, A Bajillion Hits

It's no longer revolutionary to acknowledge that we are living in crazy, fast moving times. But while brands are learning to lose control and love change on the surface, it's a growing challenge for them to keep control and plan for change behind the scenes. It's my belief that a modern brand, especially a consumer-facing one, needs to create an infinite loop between what it says it is and what everyone else says it is. Brands today are dealing with customers who live in a fully-digital, always on, on-demand, one-click shopping, auto-filling, seamless world where everything "just works", and it's not ever going back to how it was. For me, the beauty of technology isn't just the exciting, creative things brands can do with it to engage customers; it's all the logging, monitoring and measuring capability going on under the hood that savvy brands can use to really get to know their customers, and serve them better.

With a few rare exceptions, the majority of brands are floundering in an online space they barely understand. Approaching digital on any level deeper than a website or a Facebook page takes dedicated ideological and financial investment and it can be difficult to know where to begin. From within the bubble of our design studios, media agencies, tech start-ups and app development companies, it's very easy to feel like we understand the rules of the game. With "change, adapt or die" as our mantra, we gorge ourselves on the contents of our Google Readers and scroll frantically through the Twitter feed. We are confident in the belief that we possess an ever-updating source of pre-Beta information that will make what we produce profoundly successful as well as hot, liked, viral and influential.

But sitting outside of the bubble with their heads in their hands are our clients. Around the world, across every industry, from within companies of every possible size, there are business leaders struggling to navigate a landscape that looks profoundly altered with each morning's dawn. Long gone are the days when they could make a great product, tell people about it with a sexy print ad, and have Peggy fix them a Martini while the sales figures climbed. Today they've got some 22-year-old intern - head swathed in a pair of huge headphones, displaying pro-levels of tabbed browsing - strolling in at 10am clutching two phones only to announce that the social media campaign they were given as a time killer has "gone viral" and sent consumers into a spending frenzy.

The idea of throwing $20,000 at someone using the latest buzz word is funny because it's true. When clients are banging on the door demanding apps, augmented reality, social media campaigns and a viral video it's all a sign of a deep-set anxiety in the face of relentless change. What few of them realise is that dealing with this relentlessness is not just about one-off ideas, but about focusing on a considered, strategic way to reach their customers across platforms. This is where water-tight brand strategy and innovative digital strategy begin to deliver real, measurable impact. While the brand strategy dictates the core story of the brand and who it's trying to reach with that story, digital strategy shows how technology can build the bridge between the brand and its customers. I want to see more brands looking at the platforms their audience are using already and the way they're using them, and creating content that fits that behavior. Most importantly, brands today need not only to be heard on emerging platforms, they also need to know how to listen on them as well, and never before have they been provided with such a clear, real-time mirror of who they're reaching and how they're transposing in the real world.

The market is very much in its infancy, but there is an expanding list of companies giving quantifiable meaning to the constant stream of information and content being created online. I recently became acquainted with a San Francisco-based company called PeopleBrowsr. With three thousand days of indexed data from Twitter, public Facebook pages and blogs, PeopleBrowsr have developed a searchable database of social content which operates like the Google of social analytics. Finally I'd found a way to reveal not only what was being said about any given brand, but who was saying it, where they were saying it, and what influence it had on their wider communities. It's geeky to admit it, but the ability to map hard data to human behavior is not only core to a 'moving world' approach to strategy, but it's what gets me out of bed in the morning. It means I'm not just walking into rooms full of anxious clients and saying "Foursquare". It means I can walk in armed with a detailed insight into how their brand perception in the real world is measuring up to their brand positioning. From there, we can start to look at the language people are using around the brand, the emotions they are expressing about it, whether they are experiencing the brand with friends or alone, at home or out and about, at night or in the day, or if they're adding photos and videos to their written content. And once you start thinking about these things, the ways to reach out to them seem obvious.

One brand who appears to make this joined-up approach look very easy indeed is Burberry. They aren't just creating Facebook and Twitter profiles for the sake of it or because they think that's enough. Instead, they're seeking out the most powerful ways to connect their brand story with their existing and potential customer groups. I've watched how Burberry have spent the past few years re-asserting their position as an iconic British brand in ways which demonstrate an innate understanding of their target customer - the young, iPad-toting, high-net-worth individual. At this year's London Fashion Week, Burberry upped their game even further in a bold move which turned their intimate fashion show into a global event. Through a well-produced live stream of the show and Twitpics of every look before each model hit the catwalk, Burberry set their infinite feedback loop in motion. They demonstrated a clear understanding of how fashion news circulated and responded by creating high-quality platform-specific content for their audience. By being the first to the post with their latest looks they relinquished control and influence from some over-swagged blogger in the front row. Foremost, they were present and in-control of any conversations about them - able to listen to and learn from their audience before the new Season's work got under way. Clearly having once lost command of their brand image to northern "chavs" has stood them in good stead for the unregulated liberalism of social networks. Many brands have struggled to adjust to the diplomacy of the digital space, and none more so than luxury brands. With no austere doorman to monitor who's coming and going online, most luxury labels prefer to proffer little more than an interactive look book and a nicely produced Vimeo video. Burberry, however, seem not just to be responding to change, but leading it in their industry.

So where is all this going in the future? At the intersection of mobile, location and social lies a golden pool of content - user information fused with physical behavior and sentiment. By 2020, I will have over a decade's worth of Foursquare check-ins, tweets, and in-app purchases. I - and millions of others - love publicly sharing what we're up to with our friends and followers, and if brands want to look at that content and make better recommendations, suggest more localized deals, and provide more personalized offers, then that's absolutely fine by me. It sounds scary, but I see toddlers on the bus every day who haven't yet developed speech but are effortlessly swiping and pinching their way around their Mum's iPhone. These "Digital Instinctives" just aren't going to see their world as being divided into online and offline. As "Digital Instinctives" grow up, human behavior and technology will become ever more interlinked. The more they live and hang out publicly in the digital space, the more data they will create, and the more personalized their brand experiences can become. Any brand that is not dedicated to understanding the anthropology of life online and figuring out how best to listen, learn and engage honestly will fail to evolve, and eventually become extinct.

Integrating the philosophy and technology behind infinite feedback loops into a company takes time. Those 22-year-old interns may seem to have all the answers when it comes to buzz words, but few of them know how to run and grow a business, or the experience to lay down transformative infrastructures and systems. Adapting to change relies on the removal of walls everywhere - between the bright young things and the wise business leaders, between creativity and technology, between us and our clients, and between the controlled space of the brand world and the relentless landscape of the real world. As a Strategist, I couldn't be more inspired by the pace of change and the opportunities it provides for the brands I work with. It's exciting to have conversations about how brands can be expressed in ways which didn't exist five years ago, one year ago, or last month. And I love that together we're now able to plan for a tomorrow we can't even begin to imagine.

- Published here with permission of Matt Judge. Written October 2011.

Sentences on concept

While in New York this past week, I went upstate to visit the Dia:Beacon gallery. Just an hour and a half north of Manhattan - a stunning journey along the Hudson - Dia:Beacon houses major works of art from the 1960s to the present within nearly 300,000-square-foot of naturally lit gallery space.

Of all the artists in the collection - including Louise Bourgeois, Michael Heizer and Gerhard Richter - the one who captivated me the most was Sol LeWitt. I'd not previously heard of him, so to be confronted suddenly with his almost algorithmic approach to art was overwhelming. LeWitt laid down rules for the construction of his pieces, and defined Conceptual Art in the process. Here, it appeared to me, was a strategist's artist.

 In LeWitt's 'Sentences on Conceptual Art' (1969), two from his list of 35 stand out.

10. Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical. 


32. Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution. 

As someone who spends most of my time articulating ideas in preparation for the creative process, LeWitt's words are inspirational. He clearly views the definition of the concept as an intrinsic part of the finished piece - the perfect output only achievable through the realisation of a perfect idea. As a brand strategist, I fully aspire to inform the creative process in that way.

For some reason LeWitt's work reminds me of a collection of Da Vinci's sketches I saw in Paris. Not the universally known 'Vetruvian Man', but just simple drawings of the human form - a leg, a neck, or a hand. Da Vinci's finished paintings are astounding, but his sketches show a working, a refining and a laying down of immovable rules, which can never be compromised. Yet, while Da Vinci needed to understand the biological makeup of the body in order to realistically capture his subjects, LeWitt had no such need. Driven only, it seems, by the intention to create, LeWitt makes the intention a creative act.

Of course, I may be looking at this all wrong. I have an Amazon order on its way, which should enlighten me further. Nevertheless, as an educated onlooker, or otherwise, I am in awe of how LeWitt creates something far more powerful than the sum of its parts, purely by laying those parts bare to the viewer.

Notebook after notebook

"As every writer knows, the talk that fills one’s head—and, eventually, notebook after notebook, or computer screen, where all the wrong words gather and conspire to undo one’s role as writer—must end in humiliation: being published. Being published means your mistakes are no longer your own, you’ve smeared shit on your mirror image, in public." - The New Yorker review of 'All We Know'

Men are from Mars. Women just got back from Waitrose

So, it's International Women's Day today and I've borrowed the idea from my esteemed lady colleague Rosanna to take a moment to joyously celebrate a few fab ladies. And, yes, the boys do a pretty ace job as well, but rarely does their hair look quite as awesome as they do it. #justsayin

The business owners.

Starting out in my career I was lucky enough to work successively for two female business owners. Firstly Chantal Coady at Rococo Chocolates. Altough somewhat reserved and quiet, Chantal not only gave me a first class education in chocolate (the history, the geography, the sensuality), but was also gracious enough to give a gentle shrug at my naive enthusiasm while allowing me to run with my ideas and see them through. Secondly, Mary Portas who was petrifying, but nonetheless proved that you can dress, walk, and talk like a woman but still be putting it down in the boardroom. 

The creative powerhouses.

When I first started at Moving Brands Panja Gobel was one of the few women on the Creative Floor. (Don't worry, there's now loads of us). With a playful approach to technology, bright orange hair, crazy prints, an even crazier way of looking at the world, and - more often than not - a blue-eyed baby clinging to her hip - Panja was not a bad role model to have about the place. She has it all. And in every colour! Meantime, out in San Francisco I met Lisa Smith, a non-stop talking, non-stop laughing Essex girl transposed across the Atlantic. Fresh on the West Coast from New York (she's since returned and joined Wolff Olins), she has that cool big sister vibe with tales of amazing secret bars, weekend trips to Coney Island and oh my god, the most incredible handbags ever. An truly fantastic designer, Lisa showed that you can put your career first and still have a bloody great time.

The young money.

Oh the scary young ones biting at my heels and my ankles! Ellen Turnill Montoya - an energetic fireball of creativity and ideas. Wise way beyond her years, innately kind and quite possibly the most fun person I've ever met. Whether it be as curator of the Tate, or the next fashion visionary, I am in absolutely no doubt that her future will be dazzling in its glory. And the very lovely Mily Williamson who gives great blog and who finally sent over her CV for an internship after months of me stalking her on Twitter. Mily's instinctive approach to strategy is so good that if I didn't like the girl so goddam much, I'd hate her! 

The fondly remembered.

On a final note, I want to shout out my Grandmother "Gran-Gran" who's idea of childcare was a slow stroll round Selfridges. Those early trips in my formative years started a love affair with brands and retail that has never ended. I feel Gran-Gran at my shoulder at the launch of every project and hope she's thinking the girl did good. 

To all the women out there doing good - Happy International Women's Day. 

>Isabelle. Julia. Vicky. Celia. Marian. Rosanna. Georgina. Marija. Rachel. Phoebe. Sheema. Mariette. Marianne. Saeeda. Sheira. Zoe. Katie. Fiona. <

Hockney: The Art of Seeing

I thoroughly, thoroughly recommend that you watch the Hockney documentary which aired on BBC2 this evening. He is so articulate, so self-knowing and so inspired by change of all kinds, that it really was a revelation.

In one part of the programme, Hockney talks about how memory affects how we see the world. That no two people can ever look at the same thing in the same way. And, in that sense, we are all alone. But, while even he laughs slightly at his bleak philosophy, there is something magical about that idea. How boring would this world be if we all looked and saw in the same way?

It feels somewhat trite to say, but Instagram is confirmation of this beautiful aloneness we all experience. The ease and speed of the platform allows us all to share what we each are noticing in the world; the little things which prick our memories and emanate with individual meaning. On a larger, more artistic way, this is precisely the mentality Hockney seems to be both reflecting and encouraging in his RA show. The eighteen screen, moving image landscape allows each viewer to focus on what they are drawn to, not what the artist intends.

Whether it be time shifting the seasons, or providing the passage for technological progress, Hockney's embrace of it is a lesson for us all.

David Hockney: The Art of Seeing
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01c7wmr/The_Culture_Show_2011_2012_David_Hockney_The_Art_of_Seeing_A_Culture_Show_Special/

The rise and rise of the social media audience

First they were ignored. Then they were the enemy. Then they were tolerated. Then they were given first look via Twitter. Now they get a formal invitation.

Divorce Decor

What is this about? A new interior design specialism focuses on an emerging breed of client, the divorced man. According to a piece on the New York Times, divorcees are looking to create homes "fit for a family" but that also "appeals to dates". Apparently "a very large television" and the "persistent problem" of exposed wiring are key considerations for today's post-marriage singles. Niche interiors company, Sexy Bachelor Pad claim to bring "a sense of playfulness, humor, & down-to-earth communication to what has the tendency to feel overwhelming and stressful to most men". Loosely translated, the implication is that that black satin sheets are out, 500-thread count waffle bedding is in.

This is white people problem solving at its best. Identify a latent need, and commercialise the hell out of it. Time was that first wives had only to worry that the 'other woman' was a pert blonde who graduated in the same decade as the kids. Now, it's the ex-director of design and brand experience for W Hotels who's the major threat. Susan Manrao works her decorative magic through "vignettes" and "whimsical details" to ensure her gentlemen clients avoid the hermit existence of a man cave, and instead feel confident breaking in the Sabatier knife collection over some porcini mushrooms, while their dates admire the exposed brickwork.

Evidently, frisky divorcees are too preoccupied with the transformative power of an A.P.C linen blend blazer and splashing out on leather iPad covers to bother with such mundane issues as "procuring art" and "reallocating space". Le sigh.

Photos courtesy of The Sartorialist

"Do something first. Then talk about it"

I just watched a Style Forum Special on Tom Ford twice. Having spent the first time crawling around on the floor lusting after Tom “three baths a day” Ford, the second time through I was actually able to focus on what the man was saying. And he’s pretty bloody on it.

 

Tom Ford - the man, the creator, the brand - has always been up there with Perrier on my list of most favourite brands ever. But the purchase of a Tom Ford lipstick cemented his position at the top. I’m becoming far too long in the tooth to get evangelical about branding, and Selfridges in the Sales is enough to murder anyone’s sense of “brand experience”. So I wasn’t holding out much hope when I elbowed my way through to the concession. But there, laid out like gilt-edged weaponry, was the most incredible, brand-led packaging I’ve ever seen. The bustling crowd faded away, the orange-tinted sales assistant disappeared, and the bright shopping lights dimmed to a sexy flicker - I was in Tom Ford world.

In the film, Tom explains where the brand story emanates from. He says, “You have to look inside yourself… You start to develop a vocabulary that is a personality. And the brand then takes on a personality based on your personality”. And man, is it one dashing personality - sultry, meticulous, and unarguably gorgeous. It’s a brand personality so astoundingly charming, so memorable, that it has to power to filter down through the couture collection, through the pret-a-porter collection, through the accessories, through the cosmetics and, finally, through to packaging. Never before have I seen a cardboard lipstick box so loaded with meaning, suggestion and story.

It’s not just rock hard branding that infuses Tom Ford products, stores and packaging with that heady scent of je ne sais quoi, however. Dissecting his working practices, Tom reveals, “The clues for everything that's going to come next are here now. And either you're a sleuth and you're thinking about it cerebrally or you feel it. There are no right or wrong answers - it's intuitive”. This “intuition” was there when he transformed Gucci in the nineties, and YSL in the noughties, and it’s here now too in the thousand-doller suits and in this little lipstick box. Knife-sharp lines in a world of soft curves, real attitude in a sea of subtlety.

 

Photos my friends sent me this week

There's some life lessons right there. (via @ellen_tm_ and @kowchow)

The Instagram post

Instagram - the photo sharing app - was one of the overnight successes of 2011. No sooner had users everywhere discovered the joy of snapping, filtering and sharing photographs of their daily lives, than big name brands like Burberry and H&M were signing up. Hell, even President Obama got in the game last week. And yet, despite the uptake, the app has remained small. It still has no online presence, preferring instead to release its API and allow others to make of the content what they will. Indeed, a friend remarked recently how Instamap had revealed loads of new users in his area - presumably as a result of getting an iPhone for Christmas.

Most interesting, perhaps, is how people are using the app amongst their other social platforms. For me, Instagram is to Twitter, what Vimeo is to YouTube; quality not quantity; all about the "ooh lovely!", not so much the LOLs. Twitter is quick-witted, fast-paced and brutal. Instagram is sedate, considered and subtle; real life but in sexy soft focus. 

I purposely only follow a few people on Instagram (63), so my experience is somewhat limited. I'm also unusually protective of my privacy settings - aware of the fact that I'm posting photos of my actual life - not just tweeting from behind the curtain of Twitter. Mills from ustwo allegedly unfollows anyone posting more than two photos without filters, or of their kids, in a row. How's about them guidelines? I get a real kick out seeing the world through the eyes of the people I follow - the things they notice, the moments they capture, and all the little things that really matter to them. 

Yet, despite the very simple purpose of the app, we are still hard wired to share thoughts and communicate in the form of words. As if we haven't got enough platforms requiring us to coherently string sentences together, I see example after example of the written word on Instagram; paragraphs from articles, headlines, and post-it notes. Maybe it's the tangibility of a typeface or handwriting that we're really missing on other platforms and which Instagram reinstates. Trapped in a world of fonts dictated by Apple, Google and Twitter, we are deprived of that extra layer of meaning provided by a serif, or the amusing quirk found in someone's scrawl.   

On a final note @thekingmob posted a photo of a web page yesterday (below). Seeing this, the humble link suddenly looks like a modern day equivalent of the Internet dial-up tone. Why are we clicking meaningless lists of numbers and letters, when a visual has so much power? For now, I can't get my head around this photo at all. But I'm pretty certain it is of great significance. 

A wishlist for 2012

EARNED SUCCESS. BOUNDLESS ENERGY. ENTHUSIASM. EXCITEMENT. MOMENTS. SEA AIR. ALPINE HEIGHTS. DESERT SPACE. UNDISCOVERED CITIES. FLEETING ROUTINES IN NEW PLACES. 

OPPORTUNITY. TRUST. BELIEF. BREAKTHROUGHS. WELCOME SOLITUDE. WARMTH OF FRIENDSHIP. HEAT OF LOVE. COOL AS CATS. RELENTLESS RESTLESSNESS. WORK WITH THE BEST. LEARN FROM THE GREATEST. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES. CHALLENGES THAT CHANGE ME. CURIOSITY. RICH NETWORKS. POWERFUL CONNECTIONS. PERFECTIONISM. 

"SCRIBBLED, SECRET NOTE BOOKS IN WILD, TYPE WRITTEN PAGES FOR YOUR OWN JOY."

LOUD MUSIC. FANTASTIC FOOD. ROOM SERVICE. SHORTER SKIRTS. GOOD FEAR. ADRENALIN. CONSTANT FEEDS OF CREATIVITY. HUMAN INNOVATION. CLARITY. TRUTH. TIME TO LISTEN, THINK, CONSIDER. LETTING GO. SWITCHING OFF. RECOVERY.

LOST IN THE WORLD. 

Absolutely Unfabulous

Downton mania aside, one of the most anticipated shows in the festive TV schedule this year was the return of Absolutely Fabulous. As early as November, coverage of the forthcoming episode began to appear, and Jennifer Saunders joined Twitter as @ferrifrump. Fashion, celebrities, gossip and debauchery - not since the 90's have we seemed quite so obsessed with "Who's in, who's out, who's sexy, who's not sexy, who's clever, who's not clever". Clearly its creators, and the nation, felt like a contemporary institution was about to make a much welcomed comeback.

I was 10 when Ab Fab first aired, and - as a full-blown media brat - I instantly recognised the Edina "type" from the kind of people who regularly populated our family kitchen of a weekend, talking of Harvey Nic's, Bolly, and lunches at Bibendum in South Ken. It was that halcyon moment in the mid-90's, when the rich were rich, the supermodels really were super, and the "we live like this" generation properly came into their own. As Edina quips in Season 2, "what you can't tell about a person by what they have chosen you to see on their coffee table isn't worth knicker elastic". My parents and their friends laughed at Ab Fab, the same way my friends and I laugh now about Dalston Superstars; they could hardly bear to admit it, but it was funny because there were elements which were oh so true.

But Ab Fab had something more. It wasn't just a comic reflection or parody; like the very best comedy, it stayed one step ahead of its audience. At the risk of sounding hideously "industry", it was like a trend report in a show. From the clothes, to the brand references, to the interior design, Ab Fab seemed to be the zeitgeist, not just represent it. Even Mary Portas, then Head of Visual Merchandising at Harvey Nichols, understood the PR value in allowing Edina to park her car on the pavement outside the store. Where else on TV at that time, was the image of a modern, aspirational lifestyle available? Coronation Street wasn't exactly heaving with Brabantia bins, Emma Bridgewater porcelain and bottles of Aqualibre, now was it, darling? And let us never forget that Edina was adopting children "one in every colour, one in every room", long before the Jolie-Pitts got going.

So, what made me really sad about the latest episode, was the gaping hole where real cultural insight used to lie. Yes, there were jokes about Twitter and the Kardashians, but those were easy wins, and fairly obvious ones at that. The media industry has evolved from the 90's into an engorged, self-propogating monstrosity, simply heaving with do's and don'ts, ins and outs. How could the Ab Fab writers have failed to leverage the fertile comedy ground today's Edinas are currently stomping around on? You'd think twenty minutes spent swathed in a cape from APC, on a sun lounger at Babington House with an iPad in one hand, and a cup of flat white in the other should at least get them started.

DA3

Last Thursday Matt Judge launched Design Assembly 3 - a printed compendium of archive material from the Design Assembly blog, plus additional new work created especially for the book. Having recently lost his father to cancer, Matt is giving 100% of profits from the sale of the book to three cancer charities globally, so stop reading this for a moment and buy it here NOW.

The launch party was held at Wolff Olins and was well attended by the Shoreditch Twitterati, and the who's who of graphic design. Check shirts, designer facial hair and a considerable amount of heavy drinking characterized an evening which truly celebrated all the love, hard work and effort contained within DA3.

I was very touched to be asked to contribute to the compendium and felt in very grown-up company alongside some of the luminaries of branding and design. Having written predominately in short-form online, to tackle 2,000 words for print felt like a bit of a mountain. Nevertheless, it was great to really dig deep into a subject knowing that it needed more permanence than a fleeting blog post. As a result, I ended up giving my inner geek an early Christmas present by really going to town on the power of data. A few of my colleagues from Moving Brands have also contributed to the book - Nick Jones, Jon Hewitt, Mat Heinl, and ex-colleagues Hector Pottie and Lisa Smith are also in there.

Tonight there's a slightly more low key event to promote the book - the Graphic Design Xmas Quiz. I don't own a check shirt, but I'm seriously hoping that three years in the design industry will have imbued me with  more than a simple appreciation for some quality kerning.

 Again… BUY THE BOOK! HERE.

VHS: Off the shelf

When I was a kid, a friend of mine used to make me MTV mix tapes on VHS, because she felt bad that my family didn't have satellite TV. Anyway... enough of my deprived childhood. To capture the response to this tweet...

Thanks to Daniel Hutchinson (@danielhutch) for the links!

Swagger jumper

Well, given that we’re now just hours away from being legally able to listen to Mariah’s “All I want for Christmas” on repeat for 25 days solid, I feel it is only appropriate to do a little round up of Christmas jumpers for 2011. To many, the Christmas jumper, is just a polyester novelty item suitable only for a cheap laugh and to retain one’s Christmas turkey meat sweats like some ill-conceived human boil in the bag experiment gone fatally arwy.

 To others, like me, however, the Christmas jumper is an investment piece, a visual signifier that the festive season has begun, and an indication that we are soon to be playing Nat King Cole records, digging in to Fortnum & Mason’s hampers, and letting no wine go un-mulled. The Christmas jumper, Hanukkah sweater, Festive gilet, Crimbo knit... call it what you will is a key piece for December, and it seems the fash pack think similarly.

The reigning visionary auteur of the CJ is Ralph Lauren. Each year, their deep-pile chunky knit offering grows more complex. For 2011, Ralph steps into the realm of the Gothic, with a cheeky nod to Damien Hirst and Donnie Darko. Sultry and controversial. Love it.

Next up, a newcomer to the scene, Marcus Lupfer presents us with a kitsch stitch that wouldn’t look out of place on YouTube. Puppies, kittens and sequins, oh my!

Now, two CJ’s for the Mad Aunt in us all. Ideal attire for the annual sherry-fuelled family argument and a great kick-start to the Boxing Day migraine. Sonia Rykiel and Proenza Schouler.

And finally, if you insist on being the only hipster in the village, arriving home laden with Whole Foods bags, and little lovely things from Aesop, then this CJ will serve you well. Inspired by Nordic sea heroes, woven in Japan and native to Hoxton, it’s the clothing equivalent of a flat white.

Please send other super Christmas Jumper spots to me @CamillaStore. These aren’t just jumpers. These are Christmas jumpers.

Young Money

Last night I spent a few hours propping up the bar at the BFI, soaking up the scene that is the onedotzero audio visual festival. I'm lucky enough to work alongside many uber-talented motion graphics people, some of whom were featured in the festival, such as Simon Jones' collaborative film project, Resonance, and "rising star" Sam Blain's In Dreams.

I also got chatting to a recent graduate Hannah Blackmore, who made this beautiful film which poignantly captures the silent extinguishing of traditional retail going unnoticed in middle-England.

The weird turn pro

With all the buzz surrounding the release of The Rum Diary film, I've been imploring my friends to read the book before giving in to the visual delights of Johnny Depp. The novel, written when Hunter S. Thompson was still just a kid, is one of my greatest literary indulgences - a vivid depiction of anarchic escapism that I return to year after year.

I first read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was 16, sparking a near-feverish devouring of every bit of "Gonzo" and New Journalism I could get my hands on. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Armies of the Night, In Cold Blood, Hell's Angels, the articles of Tom Wolfe… after years spent wading through the tomes associated with English Literature GCSE, the realisation that writing could be this electric blew my teenage mind. But I didn't just want to write like Thompson, I wanted to think like him - to experience life through rolling eyes and be able to nail it still bleeding to the page.

I recently read Fear and Loathing in America - the collected letters of Thompson. From his long correspondences with friends, to stern notes to American Express, his gonzo style teeters constantly between powerfully charming and indiscriminately threatening. Across it all and most surprising, perhaps, is his organisation. With all the tales of drug abuse, politico baiting and cop taunting, it's easy to forget that Thompson was a highly successful and diligent journalist. Quite a lesson to writers who simply want to talk the talk; walking the walk, no matter how stumbling or crazed, takes a business-like dedication.

"Because what happens to anybody who gets into any kind of forced/regular writing is that he's bound to make a useless fool of himself now & then… and it's hard to set a price on that kind of reality."

Through all of Thompson's work runs his ability to overcome the most basic of human emotions, and one so raw in anyone attempting any form of creative endeavour - the fear of failure. Even at his most ranting, he possesses a self-belief which seems to transcend ego or arrogance. Incredibly, Thompson never fears or loathes his own opinion.

But while Thompson's journalistic style hugely inspires my own writing, he also stands - cigarette in one hand, gun in the other - on a great pedestal in my mind. In times of great stress or emotional turmoil, Thompson represents the promise of being able to go missing from one's own life, should circumstances dictate. As he wrote in The Rum Diary, "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who see it coming and jump aside". There's great comfort to be found in the notion that - for the price of an airline ticket and large bottle of Habana Libre, one can abandon one's grocery shopping in the Whole Foods car park, leave a message at home to let them know you've "gone to take care of matters", and simply "jump aside" somewhere where the rum is cheap and the sea stays warm late into the night. Hey, The Bible may work for some, but I sometimes need something a little stronger.

"PS - I'm definitely in a writing mood these days; the angst has come to a head - let's not blow it this time."