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Whenever I’m asked which project I’m most proud of, the answer is easy. It wasn’t for a well-known brand, and it wasn’t done with a top-tier agency. There weren’t any billboards and it didn’t break the internet. We weren’t paid anything and no one gave us an award. BUT it was fun and creative and risky and took blood, sweat and tears. It was Can’t Understand New Technology – a zine I produced with Steve Price.
Like many of the best ideas, Can’t Understand New Technology (or… well you know…. for short) was born on the back of a napkin in a pub in Islington. Steve and I were talking about how all the most interesting ideas weren’t being discussed in agencies with clients, but outside of agencies, after hours, amongst peers.
Anyway, we were chatting about this, and about all the clever people we knew who always had something really important to say about all the ways technology was impacting creativity and vice versa, and we decided to find a way to capture it.
But how to cut through the noise and be heard? How to encourage radical candor without anyone risking their livelihoods? How to make something about tech without using tech to make it?
“Shoreditch had already established itself as a spawning spot for British arts and culture, and so we weren’t the first in wanting to comment on it whilst also contributing to it”, remembers Steve. “Local fanzine Shoreditch Twat (from Neil Boorman) had grown from club listings to an irreverent, satirical fanzine, and TV series Nathan Barley had tried its best to capture the ‘scene’, whilst somehow managing to miss the point entirely. Come 2012, we saw Can’t Understand New Technology as a chance to have our own stab at making sense of the creative mayhem around us”.
Above all, we liked the idea of producing something tangible. We both spent our days on computers “making internet”, whether that was writing and designing, or tweeting and instagramming – and we wanted to turn our hands to something you could potentially find on a park bench and look at with your friends. Just like the way our Dads found their porno mags when they were young. Those were the days.
For our first issue we approached about 20 potential contributors, describing our idea as a “digest of work, news, views and egos". And, with a bit of cat herding, we got some incredible, weird and wonky contributions back. Simon Manchipp wrote about up-voting brand assets, Glyn Britton asked whether agencies can make products, Steve scored an exclusive interview with the founder of LostMyName (now Wonderbly) and Flo Heiss got out his oil paints. While I began editing, Steve cracked on with the overall design of the issue.
“I just wanted to make something unexpected, unpretentious and unapologetically fun”, explains Steve.
Newspaper Club printed 100 copies and we sent them out to our friends in agency-world on 14th February 2013, because who doesn’t want a… well you know… in the post on Valentine’s Day? We didn’t tweet about it and there was no website. But the tangibility intrigued people and, as we hoped, caught their attention. Within hours, it started showing up on our feeds, as people snapped and shared pictures and wondered what the hell it was. Friends sent us messages of praise, strangers called out the bits they loved, and Design Week deemed it “a lot of swearing with a fair bit of insight”. I’ll never forget the nail-biting experience of being summoned by the octogenarian Chairman of my then-agency – fully expecting a bollocking of the highest order – only to be told he loved it.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Or, in our case, two more issues and then on to other stuff. Because that’s the other cool thing about a side-project – you’re in control. It can become a life’s work, or purely be the trip of a lifetime. Steve and I have met up over the years and had a laugh coming up with concepts for future issues, but the fact that nothing has ever materialised tells me that even the best ideas have their moment and then everyone move on. Because that’s culture, isn’t it? Ever changing, ever evolving. Can I understand new technology? No. Will Steve always try to get me to use the c-word in print? Yes. Will I be forever curious about what my peers have to say about creativity, technology and everything in between? Always.
You can find Steve’s brand new (and very beautiful) case studies of Can’t Understand New Technology here (1), here (2) and here (3). Or – for the first time ever – access the issues online and in full here:
ISSUE 1
Thanks to Steve, The Newspaper Club, The Drum, The School of Communication Arts, and to all our wonderful contributors:
Anna Morley. Chris Grant. Dave Birss. Ed Robinson. Ellen Turnill Montoya. Flo Heiss. Glyn Britton. Graham Wood. Harry Woodrow. James Denman. Laura Jordan Bombach. Marc Lewis. Matthew Knight. Panja Gobel. Sam Bell. Simon Manchipp. Stephen Fulljames. Tom Kile Hartshorn. Tony Hymes. Tyler Finck. Vicky Kochowski. Nicholas Roope. Dean Scasm. Olivia Knight. Rosanna Tuvhag. Tom Muller. Alexis Cuddyre. Laura Tan. Michael Wallis. Richard Fern. Emma Sexton. George Prest. Shane Walter. Tobie Cameron. Nathan Cooper. Adam Newby. Ben Philips. Paul West. Tom Roope. and Tom Petty.
And yes, if you’ve been looking for a sign to do your own thing, even if it’s a bit weird, this is it. Go on, chop chop.
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