well here's my first 'proper' blog post on Central Station, I'll have another one coming up shortly reflecting on my own experience of Saturday's wonderful Dundee Pop-up event (it needs it's own post to do it justice)

anyway, this is more a kinda of general musing / idea that I'm probably gonna investigate further to see where I end up..

basically, with a good dollop of inspiritation from the Superfly presentation at the Pop-up event along with a bit of an idea that came up while watching the Graduate presentations at DJCAD earlier in the day I started to think about what makes certain things you might see in the street (billboard, an ad on a double-decker bus, shop sign, etc) successful.

not in terms of, if you see the ad, you buy the product/service/whatever, but simply as giving you something to look at or a moments amusement.. you might enjoy the clever wording of a certain ad, think the graphic is amusing or simply think it "that looks nice"

this is very apt for Superfly - the posters dotted around Dundee or on a particular wall give you something to look at as you're walking by on your way to work/uni/etc. they bring the art gallery / museum feel 'outside' and allow you to simply just 'look'.

whether you're wandering around a gallery scanning a room with dozen or so paintings or walking about the streets of Dundee (or wherever) it's often the things that we casually glance at out the corner of our eye that peeks our interest enough we take another 'proper' look at it

it's that kind of thing that's started to intrigue me

what is it about certain things that catch our attention so much the 1st time you see it, you need to stop and take a second look?

you might not even be 'looking' at anything in particular.. just walking around, letting your eyes wander.. looking at the same buildings you've walked past dozens of times, then you happen to glance at a wall with a certain poster on it - it catches your eye enough that you double take and have another look, even if it's just for a couple seconds as you keep walking..

it may make you take a longer glance as you go past it next time (especially if you're gonna be walking the other way later on) or you stop entirely and have a closer look.

it's not so much the processes that make people take that 2nd look or why they do it at all, because (to me) if you start to 'analyse' that deeply into exactly 'why' people gain a particular enjoyment in something, it lessons the thing in question.

but rather, I'm interested in the ads/logos/graphics/etc that achieve this, how to use them as inspiration for future work.. hopefully leading to a few things appearing here after a while.. the idea not necessarily being to create artistically great things (although that may still happen) but something that either catches the eye for another glance or something that'll make someone who glances think "that's clever"

I'm going for that cheery-natured 'hmm' that you might get from walking past some slabs with chalk drawings - they may not be masterpieces worthy of the top galleries in the country (although they can be) but they are quite simply, nice things to look at - they have a quiet charm that makes you smile.. you're glad you looked..

I'm not sure how I'm gonna start going about this.. but I'll probably do the obvious and start looking at particular things that might grab my attention in this way.. and go from there.. I'd also welcome suggestions/observations of people on Central Station.. what things tend to catch your eye.. clever little graphics, thoughts on the subject, etc.

that's all for this first blog of mine. I hope it's not too long winded.. I tend to write a lot when I get into full flow..

I'll wait 'til tomorrow before posting my 'Pop-up retrospective' but as for now I'll bring this blog post to a close

Cheers

Marc

(aka MJMadill)