Author: purplesimon

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Sleeves

Specifically record sleeves.

I spend a lot of time looking at record sleeves, thinking about their design and looking back at themes via the excellent newsletter, The Art of Cover Art. There are some labels that consistently do great cover art.

For my own venture, Unspun Heroes, I use the original artwork, often spending weeks or months tracking down the original files. It can be a real labour of love to do this, even if most people simply think these images are easily to hand. Or worse, able to be recreated using ai. Reader, they can’t.

I’m yet to have to consider what I might do if I were unable to find the original design files and photography. Which might be a consideration were I reissuing something from Folkways Records, one of the most legendary labels I know. It was founded in 1948, the same year that Columbia invented the long playing vinyl record. And there’s a new limited edition hardback book on the history of the label and, more specifically, the designs of the record sleeves. As a fan of great design and vinyl records, I got myself a copy.

Ronald Clyne was the primary designer at Folkways Records. His work adorned more than 500 record sleeves, with his artwork covering almost every subject imaginable. You can find his designs on the releases of numerous artists including Woody Guthrie, John Cage, Lead Belly, Langston Hughes, Pete Seeger, Angela Davis, Mary Lou Williams, Sarah Webster Fabio, Allen Ginsberg… I mean, that’s quite the list and it barely dips into the long list of artists for whom he’s designed.

If the book is not within your grasp, for whatever reason, the label is now part of the Smithsonian and you can view a great many of the releases on their website. It’s worth scrolling through and taking a closer look.

I pick my book up tomorrow. It’s a weighty tome, coming in at a tad over 2kg in weight that I’ll be lugging about in my backpack most of the day, and later to a gig. It might seem like madness, but the chance to hold a beautiful hardback book full of beautiful designs for record sleeves covering almost half a century of releases, well, that’s an opportunity you don’t pass up no matter how much it weighs!

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Fruit flies like a banana

So the punchline to the joke goes.

There is no setup here, though.

I realise that a whole month has gone past where I’ve not posted anything. Not a single word. And there is no excuse for this, although if anyone does read this blog they might be happy that I didn’t just throw out some words into the LLM machines of this world for no reason other than I could.

Instead, I have news of a project that stalled and then got sidelined. A big project that was exciting and led by brilliant people. It may come back to life, but for now ai is disrupting things and there’s no way to ignore this any longer for this organisation. Shame, as I feel like there’s a brief there I could help with.

However, I’ve wrapped up three projects. A simple piece of branding that was as painful as being constipated for a year. I’m sort of glad to be shot of it, although the work is solid. And the client is already getting a lot of hot leads based on it. Then there was a piece of work around employee benefits that’s half done. Another interesting area to consider and an attempt by me to make something less complex for its audience and also flexible enough that it can grow and change as the organisation does. Lots of good stuff in there, they just need to make some decisions.

Tomorrow I’m with clients for the day to help them with strategic planning for some comms around a huge organisational milestone, as well as interview senior leaders in the business about the previous 25 years and what that means for the next 25 years.

After that, I don’t know. A social housing brief has shown a little ‘leg’ and caught my attention. Nothing doing as yet, but I think trying to find a way to do some interesting comms around their new proposition would be exciting. There’s a decent strategic thought sitting there but just blandly saying it over and over again will not only make it meaningless, it’ll also weaken the kernel that sits at its core. My fear is it’ll be a strapline that’s repeated ad(vert) infinitum and nothing more. Such a shame when that happens, but it’s also seen as the inevitable end of a piece of brand work. I want to make it more of a systemic proposition for the organisation, because that’s what it, and the organisation, deserves.

So, that’s been the last month.

Oh, no, of course, I did some work on a vinyl release for the Dan Arborise album, Of Tide & Trail. It came out on 9 October and so far has received some fantastic feedback from customers. Long may that continue.

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What is this gap in your employment?

Also, let’s add posting to your blog.

Time has, it seems, gotten away from me. Two weeks of quite weird times for me have culminated in a lot of missed opportunities to post up some news. So I’ll do a quick run down of what’s been happening, with some details where I think they are relevant.

Sick again. This time for five days. Over a weekend, too. Sucked. No idea what it was, but having travelling on the tube and been in a hospital waiting room with lots of other people and I suspect I caught something. It was also a new school year and, well, I’m married to a teacher. Perfect storm.

I have a CT scan next week because I apparently have a shadow on my lung. Considering I have one lung, this has been quite stressful news. I try not to think about it, but it’s hard not to. Especially since…

… There’s been a death in the family. My family. Not that I was particularly bothered by it, and was even banned from attending a funeral I had no intention of attending. Family politics are not all that weird, when you think about it. I gave up playing that games and 18 years on I still refused to play it.
Related to this is the fact that it’s 19 years since my Mum passed away. I had a brief chat with Rob Campbell about it over email. His Mum passed on a similar date to mine, and also his Dad passed away many years before. He always writes about it in a way that I never have been able to. It’s a comfort to me to read what he writes about his parents and how he misses them but also how he keeps them ‘alive’ in his own world. It’s rather lovely. This is the most recent one he posted about his Dad.

I have a fair chunk of new work coming in, but it’s a few days here and there. The deadlines are a long way off (relatively) so I’ve been doing a few hours here and there and trying not to overwork myself. It’s interesting stuff, around organisation development, but it’s also tiring because most of the clients are in the US. I’ll get the first lot finished next week and then I start the next two short pieces.

In October I am free to do work for anyone who might need me. I had a call this week about something and the person asked me about a gap in my employment. I explained it and they seemed to understand. And yet, they felt that it was significant enough that I couldn’t take on the three-week project they were offering. It’s totally unconnected to my time away, so I can’t say why. I did ask. They said they felt like I might not be committed. Three weeks. It’s off behaviour but if that’s how they feel then so be it.

The next release is upcoming and there is a lot of bits and bobs being delivered to my house. I have 100 A2 posters to fold to A4 and stickers to stick on things and inserts to, er, insert. Mostly, I’m trying not to panic that the actual vinyl will be late arriving. It was due this week but I’ve heard nothing back from my emails. I’m sure it’ll be fine, or someone will be in touch to tell me why it’s taken 12 weeks instead of eight.

And that’s the lot. You’re all caught up.

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Let down

Total aside before I start: every time I open up this page to write a post it tells me there is a error and I am not allowed to access this endpoint. No idea what it is or how to stop it, and now that Google makes shit up for its search results – sorry, I mean provides an ai summary – it’s of no help whatsoever. I still appear to be able to post, so this aside is pointless. Like the error.

Another week is at mid-point and I’ve been thinking about comms plans and messaging frameworks, as well as looking deeply into the void that is employee benefits and rewards (or perks, as they’re referred to thanks to wanting to sound ‘human’ and ‘approachable’ in that HR way that is totally bullshit – they work for the company).

My phone keeps crashing and my computer did an update and then wouldn’t allow me to close several apps or open several others and despite an hour of constant restarts and opening in safe mode it didn’t resolve. Overnight, I left it off and today it’s playing ball.

Oh, the use of the word ‘revert’ when you mean getting back to someone is weird. I’m informed it’s used in the US a lot. Revert does mean to return to a topic, but it sounds odd. I always think of the definition that says revert means returning to a previous, often worse, state. Then again, when someone in business says it perhaps they do mean that?

I have a new Unspun Heroes release coming out for preorders this Friday. I’m terrible about writing press releases or informing people it’s happening. Not sure writing this sentence changes that. For the ‘lulz’ (as the boomers say) I posted the private link on LinkedIn and it goes to an error 404, which I knew. It really fucks with the marketing community doing these things. So, that’s a plus.

Over on social media the music community is doing its hashtag humblebrag by telling followers a list of ten bands they’ve seen live. Really it just dates people, like carbon rings – “oh, you saw The Beatles, do you have a funeral plan?”

How’s your week going? Has the bank holiday messed you up? (If you’re not in the UK, imagine starting the working week a day later than usual, that’s the extent of it.) My work got canned because someone was able to collate some info and send it to me. This is productivity in the business world of 2026.

Is it Friday yet? Christmas?

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Playing catch-up (again)

I went away for a while. A break. It was very much needed given that I realised earlier that I’d spent the first half of this year either in hospital, recovering from being in hospital, or feeling so ill I needed to go into hospital. The fact I’ve had two months of relative wellness is nothing short of a miracle.

And then last week hit. I’m about done with being sick now, so have found time to get back to writing on here for no other reason than I think it helps to put fingers to keyboard now and again.

While I was away I spent a lot of time going around record stores. The best ones know how to categorise, or use categories that make you want to dig through what’s there. The worst ones just have miserable owners or weird practices such as removing records from sealed sleeves and storing them rammed into shelves. Apparently it’s to stop theft, but the three that I wanted to buy that ended up being scuffed and therefore a VG+ (records are graded according to how good they are – sealed and they’re mint; remove them from the sleeve and they immediately become NM, or near mint). Did some bartering and came away with one only. I didn’t want to spend any more time with the unfriendly owner.

In terms of work it’s mostly been projects coming to an end, with some meetings to see if new projects can be sold in. Many of those conversations have gone great, but then as often happens, they get pared back to tactical executions without a real idea rather than strategic interventions that build out a solid foundation that enables future growth. Ah well.

I’m in no huge rush to get back to working after this stint. One more project to wrap up and a decent invoice to put in and I can take some time away to release my next Unspun Heroes project, which happens in October. I’ve still got some loose ends to tie up on that, but it’s mostly there. Hurrah.

One thing I’ve been pulled back to a lot this past month is the idea of slow news over hot takes. To step back and really think about something before spouting off. Doing some reading and research. Discussing things with others. Critically thinking about stuff. Have to say, it’s much more fun than taking a stance for the sake of it. Plus you get to say how you felt, and what’s changed since you felt it. It also makes the news cycle less interesting unless you start to look back over things. It’s not that I’m anti-MSM, but that I see they are working for clicks and eyeballs and the attention economy really only works if you’re seeking to stir up emotions or be controversial, so seeking a longer view often means finding new and interesting voices. And while I haven’t been able to avoid the ‘academic’ story, I’m resisting reading social media takes in particular. That said, the academics/people who say we should have ‘academic freedom’ and then refuse to have a discussion and debate about that despite that being the core part of their argument just goes to show that it’s not about academic freedom, it’s about them being seen to be correct and everyone else being wrong. Which to me is the antithesis of what it means to be academic and/or scientific.

Enough on that for now. Something to come back to in three months once we know a lot more about what can be counted as factual and what can be dismissed as hubris or outright falsity.

I’ll be listening to test pressings, looking closely at artwork proofs and mostly catching up on my magazine reading which has sadly been put to one side in recent times. There’s something particularly annoying about being ill and having to spend lots of time in a bed but not being well enough to read. Stimulation when you’re very unwell really is hard work. Why is that?

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Access

Back from a much-needed break, away from home and away from the heat of summer. I’ve never been so glad to wake to rain and temperatures below 18ºC. Sadly came back to scorching temperatures again, with this week heading above 35ºC again. Ah well, maybe someone in power will recognise that action needs to be taken.

Moving on from the weather, I came home to an email from Nick Cave. Well, his team.

I was lucky enough to go to the recent Brighton ‘festival’ where Nick headlined with his Bad Seeds, alongside some great bands like English Teacher, and Cate Le Bon. Living with cancer means I have access needs, which we were informed would be possible if we went to a specific gate.

That gate was poorly signposted and not all that accessible. Security staff were vaping and standing around while we were forced to stand in the pitching sun for 50 minutes before we were let in. We had arrived with almost 45 minutes to spare to get in, get settled and see the first band. That didn’t happen. Okay, small issue in the bigger picture.

Except I was asked to empty my bag of my food and questioned about my meds. The man next to me was embarrassed publicly by being asked to take out his spare catheters and put them on a dirty table. I was then scanned airport-style. When it beeped I was treated like an idiot for not removing things from my pockets. I wasn’t asked to and there was nowhere to put them other than the floor. AWS Ticket staff were surly and unhelpful; they didn’t scan my wife’s bag or person. About 75 minutes after arriving at the gate we got in. No water to be found, so we went into the ‘Access’ tent. Five chairs available. The staff in there were lovely and helpful, but it wasn’t organised particularly well.

There was no shade to watch the bands. Food queues were up to an hour’s wait. The merchandise queue was at least three hours (after asking, someone from the Access tent got us ahead of the queue as there was no way I could stand in the sun for that long).

I saw about 50 minutes of music as I had to keep finding somewhere to sit down, which means a hike of at least 500m to the Access tent. In the end we left early.

I’m glad we did. National Rail at Brighton Station had not a clue about how to deal with a large influx of people. Different people told us different information and we ended up walking around in circles until I decided to move a barrier so we could get to the platform. The staff were rude, the police were helpful. Headless chickens.

So on the train to Portslade, where we’d parked, my wife wrote an email. A clear and concise email to state why our day wasn’t great and how they might want to improve things for people with access needs – and therefore improve things for everyone! The excuse on the day of ‘we weren’t prepared for that many people’ when they knew they’d sold 50,000 tickets was, quite frankly, the kind of BS I expect of a political party representative about the heatwave.

I didn’t expect to hear back. And so it was a pleasant surprise when an email arrived from Nick Cave’s team. It was really well considered, took our points and specifically addressed them, and told us what they would do different next time. It was an A* grade response. They’ve asked us to feed into their process and said that, should we wish to go next year (I assume this will now be an annual thing) someone will be in touch to facilitate that and to get our feedback on how well they’ve improved things.

National Rail? Crickets.

So, well done to the events team that organised this for Nick Cave and, I presume, Brighton Council. You went above and beyond in your response compared to just about every company I can think of. You recognised you’d got things wrong and accepted responsibility for that and then stated how you would change. While I wasn’t about to renounce my Nick Cave fandom, I will now tell everyone just how great his team were and how excited I am to go again next year, if that’s a possibility.

So, consider yourself told.

And if you run crisis comms for anyone, or just need to respond to someone’s legitimate concerns about something you’ve done, this is how you do it.

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The case for friction

I don’t actually have time to write this out in full, so this is a ‘stub’ of an idea that I might return to. Although, based on previous suggestions that I will return to this topic, I probably won’t as I’ll simply forget and move on, filling this page with mundane crap that’s useless, even to an LLM scraper.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, friction.

I recently read Martin Wiegel’s piece about why we need human artists. He makes the case that they show us a window into a place that invites us to go beyond seeing, to start looking. They are looking for us so that we may see something we’d normally gloss over in our frantic, modern lives.

Read it, it’s great. Even if you don’t come back here, it’s more than worth your time and effort to click through.

Second, I saw this piece from The Guardian, US Edition. Why does everything feel joyless?

It got me thinking about how I’ve never seen a tech leader who looked like they understood joy. They’re all about removing friction, to smooth out the edges of life that catch you in the metaphorical shins, or the weird oddness that can sometimes grab your attention when you should be doing a simple task like stepping off an escalator. Their Modus operandi is to get rid of joy. Surprise and delight, it turns out, is only surprising and delightful if it’s had all the joy sucked out of it so you can ‘transact’ quicker and get back to doomscrolling.

Anyway. Joy. It’s also inherent in Martin’s piece. We’re missing it. No digital experience gives joy in a way that, say, watching a beetle march through grassland, or playing with a dog you meet in the park for no other reason than it wants to and you have the time, or sitting thinking about a line in a book you’ve just read that stopped you in your tracks and requires you to actually think deeply about the words chosen. Or whatever it is that floats your boat. That brings you joy. Those three are activities of mine in the last 24 hours. I could think of more, but you get the point.

They’re pointless in terms of capitalism, or tech culture, or productivity. They’re about observing and thinking about what you’re observing. They’re looking (or doing) rather than getting this stuff off your agenda so you can CRUSH IT, or whatever it is that the LinkedInfluencers do these days.

Joy. Find it. Nurture it. Add the friction that makes you have to experience the things that could bring joy. Don’t seek it out, let it happen.

Start with forgetting to take your phone with you when you next leave the house. Once the jitters wear off, you might find you can start to enjoy the world again. There’s friction. And that’s joy.

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A long week

This week feels like it’s been going on forever.

There’s a lot going on work-wise, which is great. But I think I’ve not slept well and the compounding of that on my brain and body is about to come to a head. First up, a big presentation, which follows another big presentation yesterday.

I’ve been practising the art of not responding for the sake of it, which has proven to be a very powerful tool in meetings. It opens up a void that the person who is saying things that make no sense or are aggressive tries to fill. They usually undo themselves. An example of this, and how it undermines the person, or accenuates their stupidity, is the El*n interview with the Economist. Search it up, I’m not putting that muppet on my site.

I then undid all the good I’ve been learning by getting excited about cymatics in a meeting and trying to explain it to people. Afterwards they all went off to look at it and totally got why I brought it up, but I made a complete idiot of myself. At least I acknowledged it. I was tired and excited and my brain fired off a connection to something from 18 years ago.

Lesson learned: don’t reference 19th century physicists in a meeting at 5pm.

I’ve got one big presentation to do next Monday and a meeting in London on the Wednesday that I’ll need to smarten up for (no Godzilla t-shirts for this one) and then I’m done for a week or two. Judging by my faux pas in the meeting, I need the break as much as my current colleagues do.

It’s been a long week for them, too.

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Titles

Today, I got to thinking about titles.

In my current role I’ve been switched (by others) from ‘strategist’ (my label) to ‘Strategy Director’ (others’ label – and, I note, with the “title” case). When I’ve been positioned as the ‘director’ I’ve had a more positive experience with a difficult client. Like they are happier they’re dealing with someone who is at a ‘director’ level even though I’m doing the same work I had previously been doing under the guide of being a simple ‘strategist.

Do titles make a difference? Really?

I think they probably do. For me, I just think about the work I’m doing – strategy. My lined and tired face should alone let someone know that I have experience. Maybe it’s just me and that there is an expectation when someone introduces themselves as a senior level person.

Or perhaps I’ve just read more into a situation than is actually there. The client is still difficult, so aside from how they speak to me and act on my work being different they’re still harder work than they should be.

The good thing that comes from pushing myself up the hierarchy is I can say what needs to be said and it’s generally accepted.