Copywriter and sporadic blogger at nothingelseis.com and tumblrer at dbcle.com. All views expressed here are my own; not those of my employer or associated brands.
It's no one platform's fault, but the time has come to stop using Posterous and instead blog directly to Wordpress instead. Posterous is great and all but the formatting and markup of my posts is consistently, by default, hideous and autoposting to other platforms doesn't always embed media quite as well as it should do.
Instead you should be able to find me at http://nothingelseis.com or (some point in the future) http://timholden.eu. Or if you only really ever came here for the pictures and videos, you might prefer my Tumblr http://dbcle.com where default formatting isn't quite so bad. :)
What does a father do and what does he look like? In the old(er) days it was simple.
Today's Google doodle nods to a similar stereotype.
Oh sure, that font they use on The Office and a tie because, well, dads wore ties. But what about the future? I may work in an office but I'll probably never have a job that means wearing a tie. Increasing numbers of future fathers won't. For that matter, sorry Gillette, not so fussed on the clean-shaven thing either.
So what's the dad symbol to be these days? At time of writing, even the Noun Project is drawing a blank.
Cast the net wider. Right now I can't think of any (any!) big father figures in current popular fiction besides Superman's "Earth and birth" combo of Jonathan Kent and Jor-El combo, parts rumoured to be played by Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe respectively in the forthcoming movie Man of Steel. 1978 Superman had Glenn Ford and Marlon Brando. Maybe today's dad needs to have been Robin Hood in a former life.
Stick with screen fiction for a while: other actors who are/could be really convincing as contemporary fathers? Nic Cage, Will Smith, John Hamm. Mark Ruffalo I guess. Liam Neeson, of course. He always (link to IMDB) gives good dad. Be it slightly tragic but happy dad (Love Actually), avenging dad (Taken) or substitute God dad (Narnia). He is exceptionally dad-like, but this very pre-eminence goes in part to highlight just how few actors around have that quality. And presumably, just how few roles call for it.
There is, IMO, a current serious lack of people with meaningful things to say about father-son relationships. I'm talking both proper stories and brand stories. The son becoming the father and the father, the son. Apple have had a go. Google too.
So my timely hunch if you're looking for a "big idea": really go to town on that theme, do it modern, do it right and you'll probably have a hit on your hands.
On Flickr. Tap the Facebook button. This request comes up.
NGHK! (Incidentally this is one of the reasons Twitter is destined to continue doing so well. Not because Facebook "knows too much about you" or "doesn't care about your privacy", but because Twitter's limited functionality limits app makers' otherwise rampant egocentric demands for your data.)
'Semi-useful info-visualisation' loveliness from BERG, re-imagining the humble receipt as something more interesting and personalised. A 'paper app' is how they describe it and I'll be damned if that isn't just a perfect description.
Article appears in this month's ICON magazine (issue #97). I'm just popping out to buy it now.
