Hasta La Ideas

Looking for a way to while away the last few hours of the working week? Well, look no more, for here is a round-up of some of the wonderful work we’ve seen at CR Towers recently, for your delectation. First up is a most excellent music video that I viewed at last night’s brilliant promos event Bug. Shot by Casey Raymond and Ewan Jones Morris, the vid sees US singer John Grant starring as an unemployed superhero, aimlessly wandering the streets of Cardiff. The track is Chicken Bones.

Next up is Daniel Wolfe‘s latest narrative vid for Plan B, this time for new track The Recluse.

Bison has directed this video for Jon Hopkins track Vessel (Four Tet Remix), which is inspired by an old 3D technique called ‘anaglyph’.

Directors Roel Wouters and Jonathan Puckey have followed their recent interactive music video One Frame of Fame with an interactive short film project, Now Take a Bow. Via the use of a webcam, everyone is invited to play a part in the never-ending short. The project is explained in the film above, but visit nowtakeabow.com to join in.

Three ads for your now, the first being a new spot for drinks brand Spring Valley from ad agency George Patterson Y&R Melbourne, directed by Psyop. The soundtrack to the spot is the Elvis Presley song Spring Fever, and the spot marks the first time that an Elvis song has been licensed for commercial use in Australia.

Noah Harris has directed a series of ads (one shown above) to promote Brother Printers. The agency for the spots is Grey. A making-of film, shown here, explains how it was all done.

We end with this spot for Ikea, starring lots and lots of cats. It’s been doing the rounds this week, but if you’ve not seen it yet, take a look as it’s quite a new direction for the furniture brand and is the first work since Mother won the business. The director is Adam Berg.

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Reader Juliette submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I know why I fight clutter: After a long day at work the last thing I want to do is housework. But is this the same reason as everyone else? Are we all working too hard and too many hours to take care of our stuff?

After years of doing what I do, I’ve found that most people who struggle with clutter fall into one of the eight following categories:

1. Overwhelmed by the task, don’t know where to begin. Feeling overwhelmed can be paralyzing. When you are plagued with anxiety, it can be tempting to ignore the problem and just hope it goes away.
2. Fear of being forgotten, their stuff is the only proof they have lived. As humans, we know we’re mortal but wish we weren’t. Since the beginning of human history we have been looking for ways to be remembered. People who fear their mortality often have issues with this, especially sentimental clutter.
3. Fear of change or of the future. The past may have been a glorious time, and since the future is uncertain, it can be tempting to hold onto everything from the past. Even if the past wasn’t so glorious, it’s at least a known quantity. This also ties in with people who look at objects and think, “I might be able to use this some day.” It stems from a fear that one might not be able to acquire needed items in the future.
4. Experienced a major life change, such as death of a family member, a marriage, or a new baby. Major life changes can be difficult because they often come with a lot of stuff — a death means you might have to process someone else’s stuff, a marriage could mean you have to merge two households, and a new baby is a combination of exhaustion and new stuff. Usually these influxes of clutter are short term, but they’re still stressful (even if a good stress).
5. Poor decision-making and/or time-management skills, simply don’t know how. Decision-making and time-management skills are learned, not engrained. They need to be practiced just like a toddler practices walking and a guitarist practices his craft. Michael Phelps didn’t wake up one morning with a new ability to be an Olympic gold medal winner — he spent years practicing. If a person hasn’t practiced and trained to have strong decision-making and time-management skills, she isn’t going to know how to handle everything that comes her way. She’ll often keep something out of guilt or habit.
6. Lack of energy. Many people call this “being lazy,” but I think it’s really a lack of energy. If you don’t get the right amount of sleep your body needs, eat foods that best fuel the mind and body, and move around a lot during the day, you’re going to have less energy than you need to get things accomplished. And this isn’t a weight issue, either. There are people of all shapes and sizes who don’t eat or sleep well who struggle with insufficient energy.
7. Side effect of a physical disability or mental disorder. If you’re not of sound body and/or mind, it’s understandably a challenge to get through the day. These people benefit greatly from the help of professionals to assist them.
8. Don’t want to, don’t see any reason to change. I wouldn’t say that these people actually “struggle” with clutter, though people who come into contact with them probably do. The truth is that being an unclutterer is not the only way to a remarkable life. For some people, clutter isn’t an obstacle. And, as long as the person with the stuff isn’t a danger to himself or others (just messy, not a hoarder), I don’t see this as a problem. People need to do what is the best path for them to achieve the life they desire.

Based on the information in your question, you might have issues with clutter because of insufficient time-management skills. This is just a guess, though, I’m basing on your use of the phrase, “working too hard and too many hours.” You might read through the list and see another category (or two) that suits you better. I was a clutterer because of many of the reasons listed, but mostly because I had awful sleeping and eating habits, poor time-management skills, and didn’t realize clutter was keeping me from living a remarkable life. Throw in my physical disability and a mild fear of being forgotten and I think that sums up all of my reasons for living so many years as a clutterbug.

We all have our reasons for struggling with clutter — and there are certainly a few reasons people fight clutter that don’t conveniently fit into one of these eight categories — so be sure to read the comments to learn about why different readers are here. Additionally, there are hundreds of posts in our archives that address how to handle each of these categories of clutter. Thank you, Juliette, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. Good luck in your pursuit of a remarkable life.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Over the last week, I’ve received various A5 packages, each containing a lovingly made, limited edition, A5 publication, invariably filled with colourful illustrations. Thought I’d share some with you…

First to arrive last week was a copy of Kid Acne‘s Stabby Women – a 52 page fanzine with a very bright screenprinted cover in pink flouro ink. Inside there’s a written introduction to the project in which Kid Acne explains how he came to draw female characters clutching swords and daggers and how he installed them on the streets of New York, Paris, Barcelona, Munich and London.

The zine showcases photographs of dozens of these Stabby Women as they appeared on walls, doorways and street furniture all over the world. The main body of the zine is litho printed blood red ink on stone grey paper.

Stabby Women by Kid Acne has been produced in a run of 250, each numbered and embossed by the artist. It also comes with a set of 8 full colour, gloss laminated postcards, shown above. Does everyone like my nails? Just kidding. Those aren’t my hands.

You can buy Stabby Women from kidacne.bigcartel.com for the princely sum of £15.

I was delighted to recieve a pack of goodies (in the form of two A5 publications and two prints) from Landfill Editions – an independent publisher based in East London that utilise, for much of their output, the Risograph printing services of Manymono – based in the same studio. Above is the cover of Feeding The Murray by Jim Stoten, a 28 page, 4 colour Risograph psychedelic comic about a large beast called The Murray who doesn’t seem to be able to get a decent meal…

Feeding The Murray has been printed in a first edition of 125 and can be bought for £7 landfilleditions.com

Also from Landfill Editons is this 24 page, 8 colour Risograph publication called A New Collection For Somerset House which contains drawings of imagined objects which are based loosely on the themes and forms of the Rosalind and Arthur Gilbert Collection which was displayed at Somerset House before its removal to the V&A in 2008. The new collection has been imagined and drawn by a host of artists including Andrew Rae, Chrissie Macdonald, Marcus Oakley and, well, you can see the contributors listed on the sleeve, above. Here are some spreads:

Rather delightfully, I was also sent a couple of A3 Risograph prints by Landfill editions, of which, this untitled piece by Stevie Gee is my favourite:

Now then, this zine-size A5 size package was sent in by the good folk at Nobrow…

However, this isn’t a zine. When you open the package (nope, they’re not my hands either), there’s a set of A5 screenprinted “trading cards”. Each pack (only 50 have been produced) contains a unique combination of the different colous that the included prints (by Jon Boam and Matthew The Horse) are available in. Some special packs even have versions with silver or gold inks. The idea is you meet up with your friends and swap prints to get the full set / the ones you want most. Fun idea and the prints are very nicely printed and packaged…

The DOOOM 3.0 mini-print pack of trading cards cost £20 and are available from nobrow.net

An interesting look behind the scenes at the Yale School of Architecture‘s first decade at taking its archives seriously. As the Yale Daily News tells it, the school, arguably the most prestigious and famous-architect-generating program in the country, had long neglected holding on to things made by its professors and students, even though so many had gone on to become the biggest names in the industry (alumni include notables like Norman Foster, Maya Lin, Richard Rogers, and so on — the list of faculty is even more impressive and lengthy). When big-name-himself Robert A.M. Stern stepped into the role as the dean of the school, he began nearly immediately to transform the program’s archival process, focusing on both the collection of work by current students and faculty and digging through what the school already had and encouraging architects to donate their own material. Though they’ve managed to secure quite a collection over these past ten years, the problem now is that Yale doesn’t give the school a budget to purchase archives, which has become a popular endeavor for popular and successful architects (the paper says that even current visiting professor, Peter Eisenman, decided to sell his archives to the Canadian Center for Architecture instead of donate them). So while still in the early phases of building a storied archive, there remains a few hurdles. Here’s an interview the paper shot with Stern (on what seems like an iPhone):

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