The good thing about magazines – I mean the actual, real, glossy paper ones (glossy not mandatory) is that you can sometimes find them, years, long after you’ve forgotten you ever had them, in the back of the desk drawer, under the sofa or wherever. Like this issue of The Word magazine. And that wonderfully tactile act of flicking through the pages brings the past back to life with the intensity of Proust’s madeleine.
Here’s Kate Bush back in December 2011 saying “I’ve got no plans to tour again, but never say never.” And possibly in the very act of saying these words, repeating them probably for interviewer after interviewer asking the same question (she’d just released her album 50 Words for Snow), the germ of an idea begins to form in her mind – ‘what about, instead of touring, I stay put and get the audience to come to me?’ And hey! three years later…
Also, this being December 2011, there is an obituary of Steve Jobs. Actually a very good one by David Hepworth. It includes this brilliant quote which identifies the understanding of design which propelled Apple’s success:
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s the veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not we think design is. It’s not just what it looks and feels like. Design is how it works.”
The Word did not itself survive to review the Kate Bush ‘tour’, but I’ve just discovered that the best bit of the magazine – the podcast – is back. I’m not sure if it’s in any way a regular thing, but anyway it’s a hugely enjoyable 40 minutes or so of chat, and somehow works in the way the magazine didn’t. The lead for Word podcast 223 (just released) will give you an idea of the kind of thing you can expect:
In which Mark Ellen, Fraser Lewry and David Hepworth consider U2’s album, the rum work done in the name of the “rock doc” and the proper duties of a household cat
In other words – content worthy of the name. You can find it on hipcast and iTunes.
Talking about Steve Jobs and lost things, I’ve also recently discovered his ‘lost’ interview, which also contains a lot of good stuff on product design and development, and the importance of making great products. It dates from 1995, when he was still running NeXT Computers. Six months later he rejoined Apple and the rest, as they say …
Westrow Cooper 