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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Desert Island Digital - Whurley


On this week's Desert Island Digital my castaway is Whurley. Whurley is the co-founder and GM of Chaotic Moon, an Austin-based mobile application studio. Chaotic Moon helped to create the world's first tablet-only publication The Daily, and recently devised the Board of Awesomeness - a motorized longboard custom rigged with a Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect device.   


Here's his choices for life on the island.

One tweet upon arrival on the island:
@whurley

#lost
(I think it would be funny to tweet you were lost from an island like lost because...well trust me it's funny)

One app:

Age of Booty. 'Cause it's awesome amounts of endless fun created by all of my coworkers at Chaotic Moon and it would remind me of them and bring back great memories on rainy days.


One #ff (Follow Forever) on Twitter:


@dalailama For the obvious inspiration and because his mindset would be very good to have if you were going to be alone for an extended period of time. 

One album on Spotify:


Spotiwhat? 
Like I said Spotiwhat? ;) 

One photo:

Any photo of my son
Cause he's the most awesome and if I could only have one photo it would be of him. 


One YouTube video:





One digital luxury:


My iPad with Cellular Service, LTE please ;) 
Cause then being on the island would pretty much be exactly like being at home :) 

Monday, May 28, 2012

Nothing Specific

So here it is. The inevitable Moonrise Kingdom post. Made possible by the fact that I'm white, work in the creative industry and live in Hipster Yuppie central. Plus the new episode of Girls isn't yet available on my illegal download site of choice.

People seem to have a bit of a Marmite relationship with Wes Anderson. Some loathe his work, finding his style sickeningly twee, his characters devoid of meaning and interest, and his plots... non-existent. Others revel in the vagueness he casts in the dusty pastel light of imagined nostalgia. Love it or hate it, his recurring theme of disconnected, flawed adults encroaching on the apparent innocence of youth is unparalleled. His loyal ensemble cast defined so much by their possessions and hobbies, they can say everything without the need to say anything at all.



While Anderson's previous films (Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Darjeeling) focus on grown-ups trapped by the expectations of their childhood, Moonrise Kingdom brings the emphasis onto the children. His pre-teen protagonists long to be fugitive from the suffocating emotional tension at home before the real damage - the damage their parents and guardians so fearfully obsess over - truly sets in.

As a viewer, Moonrise Kingdom initially comes across as an escapist fantasy. Reading the tweets surrounding its opening last week, many people were leaving the film feeling blissfully upbeat. And, with all the whimsical detailing, ironic one-liners and small children talking the big talk, it certainly has all the attributes of Bugsy Malone as interpreted by Jack Spade and Anthropologie. Personally, I was nevertheless left with a haunting feeling - a bitter taste in my mouth that suggested something was amiss. Perhaps, the innocence of the kids served only as a distraction to what was really being said about the empty selfishness of adulthood. Perhaps the joy I and my fellow Dalstonite audience felt was simply blinding denial. As Anderson himself said in a recent interview with WSJ, "I don't really know what I want people to take away from my movies. Nothing specific". Nothing specific - the beating heart of a hipster yuppie lifestyle.


Sunday, May 20, 2012

Roll up, roll up

Next week, as part of the Clerkenwell Design Week, I'll be on the panel for Design Crimes - a session of strong opinion and forthright debate around crimes in performance, function, form or simply interactive frustration. Previous selections have included TV remotes, DFS sofas and the UGG boot.


The theme for Wednesday's event is "Revival", and we've been asked to select those designs from the past which we believe would have been better left where they belonged: in the past.

More details here and Clerkenwell Design Week guide here. Get in.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Desert Island Digital: Steve Price



On this week's Desert Island Digital my castaway is Steve Price. Steve is a Creative Director, Meat Club President, Dad, martini drinker and the first real-life friend I ever made on Twitter. Rumour has it, he has his own set of monogrammed towels at Shoreditch House. 



Here's his choices for life on the island.

One tweet upon arrival on the island:
@planbstudio

Fuck desks. Here's my new studio. #Love&Support



One app:

Hailo. is awesome cab app but not sure it would work on a desert island. So probably Instagram - at least I can keep people posted with which coconut I am wearing.



One #ff (Follow Forever) on Twitter:


@dalailama to help me gather my thoughts everyday



One album on Spotify:


Pearl Jam, Twenty


One YouTube video:




One photo:


Me and my son. So happy, so excited. 







One digital luxury:


Laptop (and wifi)

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

What's in a name?


Camilla's Store is the name of this blog. Camilla Grey is my name. The former sounds like a Texan junk shop. The latter sounds like a Pantone chip. Both sound made up. When I started Camilla's Store, the need for social media usernames was minimal. Plus, I was young, naive and, like many at that time, half believed this whole 'Internet' thing would never really take off.

Fast forward five years, dozens of online profiles, hundreds of blog posts and thousands of tweets later and I have a problem. A geeky white girl problem, but a problem none the less. I have become the victim of my own good branding. Real people think my real name is Camilla Store.



At first I laughed it off, but then I put on my serious Brand Strategist hat and asked myself what I would advise a client in a similar situation. And my response would be to change the name that no one knows. As the guys at Wolff Olins say, "Your brand is whatever Google says it is". Combine that with what I say, which is "Your brand is whatever people on social media say it is" and you've got the answer. I'm going to have to change my real name via deed poll.



Who cares about the legacy, heritage and family ties that lie behind Grey? So what if, as an only child, it falls to me to continue the legacy of Grey's into the next generation? The people of Instagram and Twitter want fresh links and hot #matchymatchy's, not some sob story about my Ukranian ancestors slumming it in East London before it got cool. And, as a Strategist, I firmly believe in giving the brawling masses what they want.   

If you insist on living by the sword, you have to be ready to die by the sword. And anyway, if I had to choose between Google and the Passport Office, I'd go for the one least likely to invent Google+ every time. 

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Kid, you'll move mountains

Tales from a new friend about the desert utopia that is the Burning Man community have got me dreaming of bleached out sands, lost wild nights, and no tan marks! 




Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Desert Island Digital: Panja Gobel


On this week's Desert Island Digital my castaway is Panja Gobel. Panja is a designer of immersive environments and digital experiences, as well as a pretty cool cat. What she doesn't know about the interplay between people and technology isn't worth knowing. Just last month she was on the jury for the D&AD Awards in the Digital Design category.


Here's her choices for life on the island.



One tweet upon arrival on the island:
@panjapop

Yo! #unplug 



One app:

Draw Something - I love the way an app can have such bad UX and still gets me hooked just on it's concept. No, I don't love it - I'm suffering from UX huffing and puffing syndrome. Recently they integrated a share button, that spoils battles by posting them prematurely on Facebook. Brilliant, who thought of that? It should really be put into the replay section of a past battle. So listen up and sort it out. I also would like a gallery, so I don't have to painstakingly screen grab it myself and generally it would be good to have some sort of scoring table. Then make everything look a little nicer and we are there. Despite these extreme UX issues I am addicted. Normally I try to have at least 10 battles going parallel so I always have at least 2 a day. Most days I just wish my finger was more pointed. 



One #ff (Follow Forever) on Twitter:

@lukid - always a welcome and wayward distraction to my life



One album on Spotify:

Pata Piya or Electric Africa are just brilliant. Perfect Desert island music - cheerful music to dance to with coconut bras and banana leave skirts or just naked.



One YouTube video:

David Weiss of Fischli & Weiss died a few days ago. They were the best and most influential art duo ever. Personally I thought they were immortal. I also would be making a lot of stuff like that on the island.





One photo:

This is the kind of stuff my daughter builds around the house for us. These little worlds always cheer me up. Apparently this one is a series of cakes.






One digital luxury:

Asimo - I just love him and want him to come with me anywhere I go. Wonder how he would cope on an island… not really sure wether he could swim or whether the sand would damage his mechanism. Obviously Asimo, with his Honda genes also loves Fischli & Weiss, which will help.