Kindle have just won the ‘One to Watch’ category at the ‘Scottish Design Consultancy of the year Awards‘ in Glasgow on 20th March.

A nice way to see our way into Spring.

Kindle are delighted to have been chosen as one of the Scottish Government’s Design suppliers for the next 3 years. We were selected from over 120 agencies and are one of only 10 agencies that made it. Everyone here is quite delighted!

Not what i was looking for  - but brilliant non the less.  www.designspotter.com the clue is in the name! R

 
Kaboom! by PES from DESIGNSPOTTER TV on Vimeo.

Kindle Design has been recognised as an Investor in People after achieving the Standard on 8th July 2008. This achievement formally recognises our commitment to training and development and looks forward to the bottom-line benefits that improved people-performance delivers.

By embarking on this process, Kindle aimed to achieve tangible improvements to the quality and effectiveness of the design and marketing services they provide to their clients.

Director, Jamie Lonie says: “We’re committed to developing workforce skills in order to achieve our wider business aims in design and marketing services. We have used the Investors in People planning process to organise our business processes and development programme so that they deliver focused, up-to-date skills to our people and improved services for our clients. This will be a major factor in driving our future success.”

The Investors in People panel commented: “The organisation must be congratulated for its sterling work in achieving the IIP Standard. Well done - many other organisations could learn from you!”

Simon Jones, Acting Chief Executive of Investors in People UK comments: “Putting people development at the heart of every function is the most cost-effective decision a business can make. Employees are central to business success so it is vital for staff to be skilled, flexible and motivated. This can best be achieved through planned and consistent training and development. The Investors in People framework ensures that if you look after the inputs the outputs will look after themselves.

Research conducted among recognised Investor in People organisations has shown that 80% have increased levels of customer satisfaction and 70% have become more competitive and increased productivity. (Building Capability for the 21st Century. Create 1999.)

Last week at the Glasgow Barrowlands I watched the recently reformed My Bloody Valentine create the most monumental noise I have ever experienced. The middle eight section of final song You Made Me Realise which usually contains about 40 seconds of white noise was extended tonight to over 20 minutes. The initial feelings of amusement, surprise and discomfort gave way to a pleasant, hypnotic state which gave way to exhilaration and enjoyment which then gave way to mild nausea and a funny feeling in my legs. The ringing in my ears finally subsided after about 36 hours. 10/10.

Struggling with your conscience over the impact you’re having on our planet is becoming part of our daily routine, and that’s probably a good thing. The pervasive message of renewable and sustainable living fluctuates, on a daily media-fed diet, from the commonsensible (recycle, walk to work, car share), to the often unimaginable (ice-age caused by Gulf Stream slowing).
Can we as individuals make a difference in a broader global context? Are our political representatives doing enough to effectively manage the world’s resources with the setting of worthwhile science based targets? We may ‘get it’ as individuals but is there a broad public understanding of how our actions have an impact, who needs to do what and when is still unclear for the vast majority of the world’s citizens. One things for certain; something better change.

One message of change is expressed superbly by Annie Leonard in a short 20 minute film called the Story of Stuff. Our North American cousins have always excelled at communicating and this is a near perfect example. Even if you disagree with the overly simplified vilification of corporations and the subsequent exploitation of the proletariat the general message is compelling and persuasive.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

music to help spring spring and drag out summer

http://www.myspace.com/clapyourhandssayyeah

St George’s day came and went last week with little or no enthusiasm, a mood brilliantly captured by the skillful deflating of manufactured national pride on the Today programme. The slow-news-day relief was a piece on St George’s Day and a poem commissioned by English Heritage to encourage visitors to historic sites, it was dully discussed and read by the author zzzzzzz……it was followed, rather mischievously by a Today programme commissioned poem written and read by Elvis McGonagall and is worth sharing

St George’s Day.

Once more unto the breach dear Morris Dancers, once more.
Jingle your bells, thwack sticks, raise flagons cry ‘God for Harry and St George’
Gallant knight and slayer of dragons, Patron saint of merry England
and Georgia and Catalonia and Portugal, Beirut, Moscow, Istanbul, Germany, Greece, archers, farmers, boy scouts, butchers and suffers of syphilis,
multicultural icon with sword and cod piece.
On, on you bullet headed Saxon sons, fly flags from white van and cab,
but, remember stout yeomen,
Your champion was Turkish,
so, get drunk and have a kebab.

Elvis McGonagall,

as read on Today Programme, Radio 4, 23/4/08