I've long thought this about politicians and bureaucrats: they waste huge amounts of other people's time. Their purpose, it seems, is to create rules, red tape, forms, regulations, hindrances, obstacles and barriers. Not because we need them, but because they can or because they are stupid, or both. In doing so, they are producing billowing cloud of lethal poison that is killing hundreds of people every day.
Brooklyn Beckham, the 16-year-old son of famous parents, has been asked by Burberry to take photographs to market its new fragrance. Photographers are up in arms about this. They say it further diminishes the craft of photography, and is disrespectful to professional photographers who have honed their creative skills over many years, decades even. How could a 16-year-old possibly be competent enough? “Sheer nepotism” is how one photographer described it.
Do you know what a golden plover is?
It's a game bird, i.e. a bird that is shot for sport—though it seems a fairly uneven sport, if you ask me. The odds don't exactly favour the bird.
Or do they?
You see, the plover is quick. Very quick—as you would be if someone were trying to shoot you.
Stop lying!
Seriously, what is wrong with marketing people? Do they think we're all stupid or something? Maybe we are. I dunno. Maybe we've all become so pacified that we'll accept anything they say, as long as it's said with confidence.
Take this bit of promotional blurb from a company that promotes content marketing (I won't name them; I don't wish to be cruel):
Why is most marketing designed to make a company NOT stand out in any meaningful way?
I mean, do you ever feel that marketing is stuck in some kind of déjà vu loop? A loop in which nothing rises above the rest, and everyone's using the same buzzwords and gimmicks to sell the same thing?
I just want to come back to last week’s topic.
Five thousand.
5
0
0
0
That’s how many messages people are exposed to every day.
Or, at least, that’s a figure you’ll come across quite a bit online and on social media platforms. It kept cropping up when I was researching last week’s post. And, coincidentally, on the same day that post went live, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) put out an Instagram repeating the number.
But where does it come from?
I had a different topic in mind for this post. Originally, it was going to look at this question:
"How many messages does the average person receive each day?"
I figured the answer would be a solid foundation for a post about the communications torrent our own messages are up against.
I was wrong.
Digging around the internet to learn more about visual alphabets (we all have our quirks), I was drawn deep down a peculiar rabbit hole. Would it be possible to create a language based purely on visuals that could be understood by everyone?
Explaining a complex idea using only words is tricky. Even describing simple things exactly can be hard.
Try this:
Think of an inverted isosceles triangle that has an apex of 35 degrees. Colour it in with the colour that has the hex value #00a5ff. Here's a hint: that's a greenish blue.
One of the key advantages of using visuals to communicate is that they are quick. People can understand a visual in the blink of an eye.
