Updatey-Dumpey

Three updates today, you lucky so-and-so's, as for some reason my Posterous feed wasn't autoposting to the Blog...

While I've fixed this now, and service should resume as normal, it is worth me pointing out that the best way to keep up to date with my work is to use my Posterous feed:

armyofcats.posterous.com

Cheers!

Artcrank London

I am very pleased indeedy to be involved in the first Artcrank London exhibition, taking place in a couple of weeks.

Artists from around the globe will be contributing bike themed poster art, all of which will be affordable to fans of both bicycles and posters. I still don't know any of the other artists involved, but if past Artcrank shows are anything to go by there will most certainly be some recognisable names and some amazing work.

For my contribution, I decided I wanted to depict, not just a bike, but the land and environment in which bikes are most at home. For me, riding a bike is inextricably linked to the British countryside and the idea of getting away from civilisation for a while. I spent countless hours in my younger years riding nearby chunks of greenery, such as The Penine Way and though these days I mostly use my bike to commute to work, I certainly like to get back out in the countryside when I get the chance.

This will be a 3 colour Risograph print (my first time trying out this medium), approx. 15" x 9" in size and limited to an edition of 45.

The opening night is taking place on Friday 17th September at Look Mum, No Hands in London.

I'm not yet sure if I can attend myself but, if you are nearby, this really shouldn't be a factor in you making up your own mind to pedal on down to what will no doubt be a wheely good time.

Sorry.

The Army of Cats Guide to Twitter Annoyances

I am an avid Twitter user, I think it's great. 

Twitter allows you follow a constant stream of information on whatever subject matter interests you; to connect with like-minded individuals; to get involved with new projects; but most of all to be able to do all this in a concise and manageable way. Mostly.

Sometimes, though, Twitter makes me grumble like a cranky old man. For no real reason other than to get them off my chest, here are the things that I grumble at the most:

1. Direct Messages are not a replacement for email

Though this list is by no means in order of magnitude of annoyance, this definitely deserves to be mentioned first.

Direct Messages are a handy means of passing on information to a specific individual without it cluttering up your main timeline of tweets BUT they aren't actually a very effective means of correspondence.

If someone DMs me about something that requires more than 140 characters worth of discussion, then I will politely request that they drop me an email (and of course provide my email address). Why? Because I don't want to be bound by the 140 character limit, and because I like to have my work/project communications all in one place, and because I use Gmail's various little tools to organise my work, AND because having to send multiple DMs back and forth is just bloody stupid!

On a few occasions now, I have made a polite request to switch the dialogue over to email only to have the other person completely ignore this and continue to send further DMs, usually asking questions that cannot possibly be answered within 140 characters.  I've actually had one DM-athon where I requested that the other person email me THREE times, before I eventually gave up and simply stopped responding altogether.

I am utterly baffled by this behaviour.

2. Attempting to use Twitter to instigate in-depth debate

Similar to the above, this basically boils down to understanding what Twitter is good for, and what it is not good for.

The denizens of the Twitter universe can be very knowledgeable and helpful. Sending out a tweet saying, "Hey guys, where's a good place to buy novelty hats in London?" will no doubt inundate you with practical suggestions on how best to facilitate your London-based, novelty hat buying needs.

Sending out a tweet asking people to engage in a multi-layered discussion about... well anything... basically results in: a lack of clarity in the question being asked, lots of truncated responses to various interpretations of the question, and no means of keeping everything on one page or in one place, or in a relevant thread.  Not only that but you lose the input from some people who may have had something valuable to share but are put off by the limitations of trying to use Twitter as a vehicle for this sort of detailed discussion.

To add icing to an already idiotic cake, the original author of the Tweet will often decide to retweet choice responses to the question to their followers, meaning you end up feeling involved in the discussion even if it was something you had no real interest in.

Here's an idea: set up a proper forum for meaningful discussion and just tweet the ruddy link.

3. Conversations between two people which have absolutely nothing of value to anyone else who might be following them

There's nothing wrong with a quick back-and-forth, but as soon as it becomes a full blown conversation, just take it to email. It's not that interesting that the whole internet needs to know. You do know that you're essentially posting to everyone, right?

4. People who constantly go over the character limit

Using services like http://www.twitlonger.com basically means you can go over the character limit and a link will provide readers with the text which overspilled from your tweet.  Perfectly fine when the situation calls for it but people who do this regularly are sort of missing the point of Twitter. Perhaps just get a blog?

5. Endless self-promotion

My favourite Twitter users are the ones that share cool or interesting links, post daft photos, whimsical thoughts or responses, sometimes talk about what they've had for lunch, and also update the world on the work they produce or the thing that they do. The key thing here is that they share some of their personality in their tweets, they don't just use them as little advertising slots to mention when something goes on sale or to spam about some event or other.

If you do insist on trying to use Twitter solely for marketing and PR, here's a website I would like to recommend: http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/

6. Retweeting the tweet of someone who just retweeted your tweet

This is a somewhat new phenomenon in my experience but one that appears to be on the increase. 

User A sends out a tweet to their followers. User B retweets it to their followers. User A then retweets User B's tweet, even though it is exactly the same as the original tweet they sent out to their followers perhaps only moments earlier.

OK, I get that sometimes people like to advertise that so-and-so retweeted them, but at least do it in the form of a 'thank you' rather than essentially sending out the same thing twice. Essentially sending out the same thing twice.

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By way of a caveat, I am by no means the authority on how Twitter should be used, nor is there even a set of rules on the matter. Use Twitter however you find it most valuable to do so... but, like all media, never ignore your audience.

Rock Paper Show - Flatstock Volume One

My copy of Rock Paper Show arrived today and it is a very niiiiiiice book.  Let me tell you more...

Published by the lovely people at Soundscreen Design, RPS is basically a visual guide to the first 20 Flatstock events - 312 colour pages of photos, interviews, writing and, of course, posters.  This is a chunky mother of a hardback and the overall design of its shiny, booky innards is very impressive. It also smells very nice. This, to me, is hugely important as I often judge the quality of a book by its unique bouquet.  And let me tell you, this one smells like a beaut.

I am sincerely very proud to have some of my work appear in here, alongside a vast number of artists and designers whose work I admire and enjoy. In fact there is plenty of work in here by people I'm very honoured to call my friends. Basically, if I attempted to document my Flatstock experiences in some sort of scrapbook, then Rock Paper Show would be it.  Except that Rock Paper Show is so awesome that it documents a bunch of Flatstocks I never even attended.  If this book gives me a warm feeling, I can only imagine that it is a sincerely gratifying piece of memorabilia for some of the poster stalwarts who've been involved with the API and with Flatstock right from the beginning. Seriously good work all round, people; you should be immensely proud.

You can see more of the book's contents here: http://rockpapershow.com/ and you can most certainly order it from there as well. Which I really think you should do.

And on the subject of Flatstock, the 5th FS Europe taking place in Hamburg, Germany as part of the Reeperbahn Festival is only a few months away. See you there?

See the full gallery on posterous