A chance discovery

We chanced upon this at Stowe yesterday. It appears that Andy Goldsworthy has written his name in found things from the woods. It was utterly sursprising and charming. Serendipitous. Even if it had been created by a 6th form art student from the school or Andy himself, it possessed great creativity and charm. I think Alan Bennett said once that the beautiful thing about TV was the possibility of discovery. How many ads would do something so humble as place themselves in a media backwater to be stumbled upon by chance? And then be so creatively charming that they make the viewers' day altogether brighter and uplifted? We call ourselves a creative industry - and surprise and delight should be in the domain of creativity, not sales promotion.

Pictures. Lots of pictures

I'm super-impressed about the number of planners and planning type folks and planners from other industries who have joined Planning Eye group on Flickr. People are posting pictures of all sorts of things that I'd never have taken, and see things I'd never look at. It's wonderful to know what's exercising planning minds around the world.

The thing is I want to do something with all this stuff. The web is wonderful but people have to find it. It's the people who are involved who are seeing things. I think I might produce a booklet or somesuch and give a copy to all the planners and creatives I know. Don't know what good it would do, or what they'd do with it, but it seems like a nice idea.