ICM - Leeds Design Agency

A huge thank you to everyone that sponsored Matt and Richard in the recent British Red Cross Mountainbike Challenge. 23 miles around the technical Dalby forest red route on a wet Sunday proved challenging but rewarding. To date the 30 entrants have raised well over £5,500 for the good causes that British Red Cross support – there’s still an opportunity to donate on either of our JustGiving pages:

Click here to sponsor Richard

Click here to sponsor Matt

Matt set off like a racing snake and finished 7th out of the 30 entrants, Richard (who by his own admission was there for the scenery and not the competition) finished a respectable 14th.

Here’s a couple of pics with our ‘just finished, happy it’s over’ faces:

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As many of you already know, I’m a fairly keen mountain-biker. So when Ian put a poster up in the office for the British Red Cross Mountain Bike Challenge (with a note pressuring the bikers of ICM to get involved) I jumped at the chance and signed up.

There’s no real motivation other than it’s a great opportunity to raise some money for a worthwhile charity. I’ve ridden around Dalby forest a few times before and it is a really enjoyable, not to mention world-class, piece of bike trail – so I’ve set my goal quite high…

Which is where you come in: any amount that you can donate will be gratefully received – and it only takes a few minutes by clicking here. Thank y…

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Some of us do it when we’re on the phone, some of us do it in meetings, some of us don’t do it all, and some of us can’t stop doing it.

Obviously I’m talking about doodling; that little creative pasttime that some of us can’t help but do. To celebrate the nation’s greatest doodles and doodlers you can now take part in National Doodle Day this Friday the 5th March.

National Doodle Day is all about putting pen to paper while raising money to help people affected by epilepsy and neurofibromatosis.

So what is a doodle?
Doodles may be shapes, patterns, drawings or scribbles – anything we produce in an idle moment while the focus of our attention is elsewhere. It’s amazing how creative we can be without even trying! Strangely, doodles seem to take shape of their own accord, as if they had a life of their own in a parallel world. So you may suddenly find a circled word transformed into a sun beaming down on a desert island, punctuation turned into arrows or flowers, or a lover’s name emerging bold as brass from a memo.

Why do people doodle?
Doodling has been defined as ‘to scribble or draw aimlessly, to play or improvise idly’. The word ‘play’ is interesting because we now know that play helps children deal with situations they find difficult. For example, playing ‘doctors and nurses’ can help a child cope with anxiety relating to illness.
When you are on automatic pilot and only half attending to what you are doing, you may find yourself thinking of something that has been at the back of your mind. Underlying preoccupations surface and, before you know it, take shape as doodles. Doodling maps the wandering of your mind as you plan a new venture, worry about money, or dream of a lover or holiday. At an unconscious level this seemingly aimless pastime may actually be helping people sort out their problems.
Doodles are like fragments of a map that shows how someone’s mind works.

Comedian, Jim Moir, better known as Vic Reeves is one of my favourite doodlers. Here’s one of his creations:

Hundreds of celebrities have contributed to National Doodle Day, you can see their entries here.

Over the next few days we’ll be doodling here at ICM, maybe some of those doodles will make it onto the blog…

Happy doodli…

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