ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Die-hard Apple fans will understand the significance of this image.

The Mac Plus was launched in 1986 – it was the third product to launch from a young and vibrant company started in a garage 10 years previous.

The Plus, which retailed for a mere $2599, was for me a turning point in my life. Staring at the 9-inch 512×342 pixel monochrome display I could instantly use a computer with no training, no reading the manual, no understanding of any code or language – as I used, I learnt.

I loved my Mac Plus; it was upgraded with a 20mb external hard drive, I could plug in my SCSI SyQust drive for backing up, it was treated to the occasional Apple sticker, it went away to University with me.

It wasn’t the most powerful computer for it’s day, there were problems with overheating, but the GUI (Graphical User Interface) changed the way we use and interact with computers forever. Heavily influenced by the Xerox Star but made infinitely better.

Being controversial for a minute I would have to say that Apple (and it’s creations) aren’t entirely the work of Jobs. Many true Apple fans will see Steve Wozniak as the real engineer and programmer to Jobs’ more accountant-like role in the business. Yes, Jobs had vision – especially in the more recent Apple years or iPhone, iPod and iPad – and an amazing understanding of the user ‘experience’ but has this changed the world, really?

The Mac was taken to heart by every Graphic Designer across the land because it could cope with displaying curves better than any PC and this meant one thing – smooth typography! Magazines like Emigre began to push the boundaries and eventually launch their own range of typefaces that us mere mortals could use. The world had changed again – no-one would go back to dry-transfer lettering.

Jonathan Ive turned the home computer from beige box to jewel-like must-have and in 1997 became Senior Vice President of Industrial Design when Jobs returned to the helm.

To summarise; Apple is no one person but an amalgamation of great minds and pioneers, all of which had the amazing ability to ‘Think different’ steered and directed by the vision of Jobs – and for that, I salute them a…

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I absolutely love looking at maps. I can spend hours casting my eyes over grid lines, boundaries, contours, footpaths and bridleways. Maybe its because the map crosses over the various boundaries of my hobbies; mountain biking, landscape photography and graphic design, that leaves me gazing longingly at those folded sheets.

It was on this day in 1791, Ordnance Survey was born when a request of the Master General, the 3rd Duke of Richmond, to purchase a three-foot Theodolite and is now generally accepted as the founding action of the Ordnance Survey. That theodolite, and subsequently many others, were used to map the south east coast of Britain for fear of invasion by the French, and from that day to today’s world of GPS, Ordnance Survey has played a constant role charting the changing face of the nation.

The presence of the Royal Engineers harks back to Ordnance Survey’s military origins, where that fear of invasion promoted the Board of Ordnance, the Ministry of Defence of the day, to order a survey of the south east – hence the rather unusual name.

The great art of map making subsequently played a major role in both World Wars, with Ordnance Survey staff being dispatched to map the trenches throughout The Great War, whilst during World War II some 342 million maps were printed for use by the Allied forces. By 1944 maps were off the presses and in the hands of men at the front within 24 hours.

Years later and we take for granted the great work done by Ordnance Survey for such a long time.

Personally, I have great fondness for the 1:25000 Leisure maps (the orange ones). Every part of England, Scotland and Wales is covered by 403 maps that include National Trails, Recreational Paths, picnic areas, viewpoints and selected places of interest. In addition, there’s Rights of Way information for England and Wales.

Call me old-fashioned but I’d still rather be up a mountain with a big sheet of map in my pocket than a handheld GPS device. So here’s to a great British institution and long may it contin…

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Dubbed by The New York Times as ‘The Godfather of Surf Photography’, LeRoy Grannis has for me, been an amazing inspiration in both photography, surfing and life.

In an era before digital cameras, Photoshop, global assignments and sponsorship, Grannis (or Granny to those that knew him) captured more than just an emerging sport. He captured a pastime and a lifestyle – a total surf-culture.

Post-war he worked for a telephone company and at the time was signed-off work with an ulcer. It was at this point, inspired by a fellow-photographer friend, the suggestion was made that he should pursue his already flourishing hobby for taking photographs.

He quickly became one of the sport’s most important documentarians with work appearing in the prominent surfing-culture magazines of the time; Surfer, Reef and Surfing Illustrated. Other photographers were shooting from the water, but they were forced to return to land to reload. Grannis developed a rubber-lined box that enabled him to change film in the lineup.

Enough of me talking, here’s some of his work:

It wasn’t just the big-wave, sensational images that Grannis was able to capture so well, for me it was the culture, the people, the light and the sense of surfing at a time more innocent than that of today.

Grannis may not have been the first to depict the California lifestyle with his photos but his contributions to surfing photography during a magical time in surf-history will forever remain in many people’s hearts as the beginning of surf-lifestyle. It is of no surprise that most of the great images from the ’60s golden age of surfing, regardless of the magazine, bear the inscription ‘Photo: Grannis’.

Farewell LeRoy, enjoy the endless summ…

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