Dan Germain

this blog is pretty dead, but I am still alive

2012-05-30T21:52:06+01:00

This blog is pretty much defunct, like a lot of other blogs. If you want to find me these days, you will have more luck in the following places:

twitter.com/dangermain

dangermain.com

on instagram (@dangermain)

and by emailing dangermain at gmail dot com

Thank you

where's my horse?

2011-06-19T11:54:43+01:00

We've all been there.

the longest brush

2011-06-13T10:22:26+01:00

This man has the longest window cleaning brush in the whole of London. It's magnificent.

As seen this morning out of the window. Important enough to be the first post on this blog for many months.

drinks for tom

2011-03-04T16:56:27+00:00

My friend Tom is coming over tomorrow. I went out to the garage to see if we had enough drink in stock, to have with lunch. Looks like we should be OK. Tom will drink anything.

it's 2011

2011-03-03T23:21:10+00:00

And it's time to post something. First up, I saw this...

And then I listened to this...

I've been listening to quite a lot of old acid house, and Ewan and that Weatherall bloke are very good at it. I like how they took it in turns to play records.

Then I met Luke for breakfast and he inspired me by being young and interested/ing. Luke lives here.

And I've been doing other things, like making adverts for smoothies and orange juice, getting our new innocent home ready for the people to move into, judging some awards, and encouraging children to visit the dentist. Got a puppy as well, and a machine that scoops up dog sh*t.

Lots of good things. If I get a bit more time I might write more about each, in some sort of order and depth. Thank you for reading.

where was i?

2010-11-30T19:48:17+00:00

I've been in the garden. And with the knee specialist. And in Barnet (see photo). But now I'm back, prompted by an email from someone called Emilie.

Next year I will be the Foreman on the Writing For Design jury at the D&AD Awards. Emilie from D&AD emailed me saying that it would be good to publicise this fact, hence this somewhat delayed blog post.

For all of you reading (Tom, Mum, perhaps Paul), I hope you are proud of this achievement and if you need to know what Writing For Design is, here is a definition...

"Copy, long or short, that is integral to a piece of graphic design, and where the two aspects work in harmony with one another."

In other news, the cartilage in my left knee has gone. That's now both knees. The next op is in a fortnight. Afterwards I'm going to take up canoeing.

my new knee

2010-07-21T20:21:00+01:00

A while ago my knee had all of its cartilage in the right place. But then I knelt down, scooped my two year old out of the bath, pushed upwards using my right knee, in order to return to a standing position, and heard/felt a strange popping noise.

After conversations with some doctors, it was decided that I had torn my cartilage and the only cure (apart from leeches and some rebalancing of the biles) would be to have some of it snipped off.

And that's why I didn't run for almost 8 months. Seeing as running is the only form of exercise I really enjoy (now that my days as a footballer are gone), this was a bit of a pain. As well as the obvious benefits (cardiovascular fitness, looking good in Lycra), running is a form of head clearing and meditation for me. It helps me think. I have ideas when I run, and seemingly important things can be put into perspective.

So imagine my delight when, during my recent stay in the USA, I started running again. Wisely, I chose one of the world's hilliest cities in which to make my comeback. Packing an extra few pounds, the inhabitants of San Francisco (which also seems to be one of the world's healthiest cities) couldn't have failed to have been impressed by a man of my stature crawling up the world famous [insert name] Street - you know, the one with the trams going up it.

It felt good, and the knee is holding up. Long may it run.

working in a new place

2010-07-19T23:18:18+01:00

A while ago I realised that it was 11 years since I had worked anywhere new. So I thought it might be good to go and be the new boy somewhere. I talked to the people at method and made a plan to go and work at their place in San Francisco for a short while. I figured this would be a good idea for a number of reasons:

1. They're a smart business. Surely they had spare ideas that I could steal?

2. They are based in San Francisco.

3. They're quite similar to innocent, so there were some parallels that could be interesting.

4. Being the new boy would give me a different outlook than my default grizzledoldhack position.

5. They are based in San Francisco.

So I did it and now I'm back home, back at innocent, thinking about what I learned. It was a bit of a wrench to leave. My new American friends were fond of the idea of having an exchange student and made an attempt to kidnap me (see photo), but whilst they were doing crazy finger pointing, devil horns and posing for the camera, I quietly slipped away unnoticed, off to the airport. For all I know they may still be standing there, in that exact same pose.

Anyway, what did I learn? Well, I learned that whether you make laundry detergent or smoothies, you need to have a strong purpose behind what you do, or you are screwed (American word). I learned that having a bunch of people who believe in what they do is a much more powerful weapon that a bunch of people who are thinking about maybe joining the company down the road that makes cat food. And I learned that maybe I should just try saying these things straight, without having to load them up with irony or inverted commas.

I had a great time, they are a great business and it was very kind of them to let me stay for a while.

trust the beard, trust the man

2010-04-17T07:22:46+01:00

I think we all knew this anyway, but men with beards are more trustworthy. It is now a scientific fact.

my favourite designs

2010-03-21T07:21:00+00:00

Went to see the Designs Of The Year show the other day. I was very impressed with all of the stuff that other people had made/designed. My favourite item was this lampshade.

And I also thought that the BMW made out of fabric rather than metal looked lovely too. I had a special photo taken of myself standing next to it.

Finally, congratulations to Bert Tennant and his newspaper gang for winning their bit of the show. I always knew they'd make it big.