HEAD BLOG

I read copy.

A lot of copy.

I even call it “copy”, something you might only do if you read it and work with it.

Give me a bottle of milkshake and I’ll be turning it over to see what there is by way of.. you guessed it… copy.

I get a bit of a kick when I read something more than the ingredients. Although, if the ingredients are well written then I’ll even get a kick out of those.

What I find, when reading all this incidental copy – what many people might term “blurb” – is that more often than not it is just a space filler, without being honest enough to tell you it’s a space filler.

I’d love to squint at a pack to see the copy say something like:

“I don’t know why you’re reading this but thanks. The boss told me he didn’t like all the white space the designer was using and so could I do something about it. So here it is. I hope you’ve enjoyed it but don’t be too hard on the designer, white space is nice too.”

That would be fun. That would make the time I spent reading it a little bit more pleasurable because, let’s face it, if you are reading the back of a packet then either the instructions were really hard to find or else you are just a little bored and so in need of a pickmeup. Someone who will chat to you until the microwave pings or the slug pellets have all emptied out.

It isn’t difficult for a product to fill that need.

They’re all singing from the same song sheet but when it comes to 3D I’m not sure I’m hearing them.

Everybody seems able to recall images of strange black and white folk in even stranger red and blue glasses. It’s a part of all our sci-fi childhoods along with transporter technology and blue skinned aliens.

Some things just won’t die.

Those 3D glasses have made such an impact upon every fan boy’s psyche that when it comes to getting a job and having a say in product design, the memory steers the adult, making the dream of 3D a constant in the lives of successive generations.

Whereas, in previous decades, 3D was used as a show stopping gimmick now it is becoming a game changer and every company in this dimension is determined to make it happen.

From super expensive TV sets to handheld gaming systems, the time of 3D might finally have come.

Where there’s a will there’s a way too much and we’ve seen every form of entertainment trial 3D as much ad they possibly can. Studios are scrambling to convert films to the format (stopping just short of the Police Academy series) and video games are all set and ready for it also. It would come as no surprise if we see a 3D Switchover being publicly funded a few years from now.

But beyond the pre-pubescent fascination with the technology (no doubt born from a desire to see naked ladies with depth) where is the real value? Is being able to see Elsie Tanner (she’s still in Coronation Street right?) push a pint of mild out of the screen really worth the awkwardness of wearing a pair of glasses that dull the image and thereby actually reduce the user experience?

And that’s what it’s all supposed to be about, right? The user experience. Not the continual need to create new products, however vacuous, in order to persuade us to ditch things like those old fashioned flat screen HDTV sets we bought for the World Cup. If we can persuaded of the need for something then the rest is just a PIN number away.

So will it change the way we tell stories? Probably not but then neither did the coming of colour.