I’ve just stumbled across an entry into a contest that Transport for London apparently held. The entry in question, which was created by a UK design firm known as Airside, is a parody of the 1972 book “The Joy of Sex”, and the folks at Airside have taken care to include close-ups of gross hippie beards in the spirit of the original. This is an especially timely move as today’s modern hipsters regularly cultivate beards every bit as gross as the hippies of years past.
Or at least they do in Atlanta, which is unquestionably the London of Georgia. Furthermore, the Chattahoochee river is the Thames of Atlanta, and the Millenium Wheel is Six Flags over Parliament, which is, in turn, the Georgia State Legislature of the UK. The members of Parliament are exactly the same as our Georgia politicians with the exception of their Parliamentary garb and headgear which they are required to put on before they make even the smallest of laws.
British Parliament
If you read Airside’s notes on the matter of the Joy of Cycling poster, you will learn that it was originally created for another project, but was shelved because that original project was not gross beard friendly. Speaking as someone who does a certain amount of graphic design in the normal course of his working life, I can tell you that having your design shelved or rejected like that is a blow to the designer’s ego. There are only two ways to handle such an insult.
First, you can challenge the rejector to a duel. To do so, you must obtain a gauntlet, seek the rejector out in person, and then throw said gauntlet to the ground at his or her feet and demand satisfaction. That, or you can shelve the rejected work and fume about it indefinitely, your tear drops sliding poignantly down your carefully chosen avant-garde glasses into your mochachino. Most designers choose the latter option because the former requires them to “grow a pair” and they’re typically a bunch of mewling pussies. Sorry to say it, fellow creatives, but you know where to find me should you care to toss a gauntlet my way.
Now, it should be said that challenging clients or superiors to a duel, let alone actually shooting or stabbing them in the course of said duel, can be highly detrimental to one’s career advancement, so the wisest course might be not to try it. Yes, the wisest course; just not the most honorable one.
So, the designer of the Joy of Cycling poster clearly shelved his work, sobbed quietly to himself, and pledged that his tormentors would rue the day, and then a contest came along in which he could enter the poster. Now it lives forever nestled in the warm bosom of the internet, I bring it to you, and the idea spreads across the land.
It should be said that I am required, at this point, to make some sweeping statements along the lines of “That’s what great design does”, because, like poets, designers are always defining their work for one another, but I’m going to skip them and get to work instead.
UPDATE 11/16/10: I am informed by the Airside folks, or “blokes” as they prefer to be called, that one can purchase one’s very own copy of the above gross beardosexual poster at play.airside.co.uk after November 27th in A2 size (420 x 594 mm or 16.5 x 23.4 in).
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