Nur Ahmad Furlong

Category: Creative Thinking

  • The Identity Scale – Markbixby.com

    I just read something on markbixby.com that gave a good laugh this morning.

    Client: “We really like Apple’s branding. Can you do something like that for us?”
    Designer: “I love what Apple is doing too, but your company’s a Mortuary?”

    If you’re a graphic designer you’ll completely identify with the hilarity of the scenario above and then maybe immediately after the laughter has died, down as laughter always does, you’ll think back to something similar you’ve experienced with one of your own clients.

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  • Official 2012 logo controversy

    London England, a place many will argue is one of if not the centre of design excellence worldwide, also the winner of the bid to host the 2012 Olymic games. The Olympic Games brings with it to those cities which bid and host it a refreshment of design practices, a burst of local expression and creative interpretation and for many brings a welcome boost to their creative businesses. I remember the time Cape Town was bidding for the 2004 Olympics. As a Graphic Design Student we were given a few Olympics orientated projects from designing icons to posters and an interesting paininting project.

    I first heard about the London 2012 logo controversy on Design Observer in an article entitled: “The 2012 Olympic Logo Ate My Hamster“. Off I went to have a look what all the fuss was about to to my horror, as explained in the article on Design Observer I was faced with something I still haven’t quite figured out. We have come to expect that an Olympic logo would contain the Olympic colours and brand Identity interpreted through the lens of the locality hosting the event. This may be a formula which isin need of changing but in my opinion they have just gone too far. I think it contains the number 2010 and if i squint really hard and maybe do some breathing exercises I might be able to see the word London in there as well

    The logo that’s caising all the fuss

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  • Getting Things Done – Black Belt Productivity

    As usual amongst knowledge workers, there’s no shortage of buzzwords and jargon flying around out there. A few months ago, after researching design thinking methods, I came across something called G.T.D.(getting things done). Usually these type of self-help approaches turn me off due to the large volume of overly complicated methodologies and hours of reading needed, but this particular approach seemed to keep popping up, and a few of the descriptions I came across interested me enough to get me reading further. As a designer I am a sucker for highly simplified yet highly effective solutions.

    So what exactly is GTD?

    According to Davidco, the website of David Allen, author of the book and creator of the GTD system, GTD is:

    the popular shorthand for “Getting Things Done®“, the groundbreaking work-life management system and book by David Allen that transforms personal overwhelm and overload into an integrated system of stress-free productivity.

    Implementing GTD alleviates the feeling of overwhelm, instills confidence, and releases a flood of creative energy. It provides structure without constraint, managing details with maximum flexibility. The system rigorously adheres to the core principles of productivity, while allowing tremendous freedom in the “how.” The only “right” way to do GTD is getting meaningful things done with truly the least amount of invested attention and energy. Coaching thousands of people, where they work, about their work, has informed the GTD method with the best practices of how to work (and live), in that most efficient and productive way.

    Wikipedia Defines it in the following manner .

    Getting Things Done, commonly abbreviated as GTD, is an action management method, a trademark and the title of the book which describes the method by David Allen.

    GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them somewhere. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.

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  • Aerosol Arabic – Islam through Graffiti

    I met Mohammed Ali (the graffiti artist not the boxer) like many others via the internet on a search for Islamic Art. I had never heard of someone doing the type of art he does within the bounds of Islam and soon started a dialogue with him about what he does and what inspired him to get into this type of art. For hundreds of years the only arts commonly associated with Islam were the traditional forms of calligraphy, islamic geometric patterns and other arabesque styled arts which we see in many mosques, and when travelling to Islamic countries. Growing up on Birmingham in England in the 80’s and 90’s with the art-form of graffiti having an impact on brother Mohammed’s view of the world and inspiring him creatively is what brought together these two seemingly irreconcilable entities of Islam & Graffiti.

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