WHAT IS ART (HUH!) ABSOLUTELY NOTHING: SU&SD Newsletter #63

Matt: After 10 years, I needed to do something a little bit scary. Don’t be alarmed or excited though folks, it is time for me to get catastrophically BORING.  That’s right, I’m here to talk about the process of the 2022 SU&SD rEbRaNdinG!

Please, stop - put the pitchfork down for just a moment: Let me try and explain, and THEN you can eviscerate me.

Back  at the dawn of Shut Up & Sit Down, it’s safe to say that we didn’t have a logo. And why on earth WOULD you? It was just a pair of men doing silly things, free from the curse of knowing about copyright laws. And  so when it came to Making An Actual Website back in 2014, our designer ran with the material that we currently had to offer: an off-the-shelf wordpress theme and a recurring joke about a sentient pear.

Matt: And it was good! It was totally fine! As the years went on I then worked around these same foundations, making jazzier thumbnails and artwork and merch that stuck to the style of these original designs. But it wasn’t really something that any of us chose, it sort of just… happened? At some point we’d probably update it with something a bit better. And then I blinked and ten years had passed and I no longer fit into all of my trousers.

Copying or tweaking stuff is easy, but making NEW THINGS is hard. As a hobbyist site that talks about board games and is largely supported by donations from YOU FOLKS, though, it only really felt sensible to do all this rebranding work ourselves.

The problem was, I wanted it to be GOOD. And to be serious for a moment, this need for quality doesn’t come down to any personal ego: I do what I do because I firmly believe that Shut Up & Sit Down is brilliant. It spreads joy to people, it amplifies a hobby that I think deserves more love - I’m so proud to be a part of it, to help grow and support such a wonderful entity and team.

I quit my old career because I believed in this completely, and I still do. 10 years in, with new faces appearing, I wanted to design a family crest of sorts - a coat of arms cozily wrapped around everything we are making. I wasn’t sure I’d be good enough to do it, and that’s not me being modest or fishing for compliments! I was outside of my comfort zone, and it was really hard.

And  WHY did I choose to do this in 2022? Despite being horribly busy, with new faces and new voices truly starting to bloom - the timings felt just right. It was now or never, and it was VERY FLIPPING HARD. Overall, the process took about four months - picking away at things and then stepping away, coming back weeks later to look with fresh eyes. I included the team at various key steps of the process - it was vital to me that everyone loved it and was part of it.

The  team wanted something bright and vibrant and fun, and so I set to work experimenting with the elements we’ve always used before. Colours would be locked in once we’d found the right shape, which seemed to take forever.

Finally, I was done. It was sharp, it was neat - everyone liked it. But it was also: wrong.

I’ve  always been aghast at the millions spent on rebrands. Of the overpaid  designers explaining that the tiny wiggly line is representative of the magical wobble inherent within The Mission Of The Brand. But it was during the process of refreshing our logo that we actually started to really think about what Shut Up & Sit Down is.

I  was so focused on simply making something that looked nice, but that  wasn’t enough. It wasn’t right. And in talking with the team and trying to get a sense of why, I set to work on developing the design into something fairly different. It needed to be messy, bold, and fun. It needed to be silly! It turns out that design is actually VERY HARD.

Eventually I decided that I wanted the whole design to be clean - that meant no gradients or soft shading: two crutches I’ve relied on in my design work for YEARS. I also wanted to use bold colours - having to then contend with the trickiness that came with the intensity that brings.

I then wanted to update the little pear character, to better fit the new colour scheme. It didn’t really work, so I re-did a lot of the artwork from scratch. It was better! What a cutie! And these experimental  nu-pears had me playing with all manner of shapes, realising upon talking through my artboards with Tom that this erratic lumpiness, this disparity of shapes and sizes of the different pears was a strong fit  with the inclusive chaos we’ve always tried to promote.

Injecting  this lumpy chaos into the new branding took time - more nudging and tidying than I’d care to admit publicly - but in the end the journey was  absolutely worth it.

I discovered the real value, though, when describing the final work to a friend: “Squidgy, but sharp”. And cor! that’s Shut Up & Sit Down! That’s us, that’s what we are - in just three words.

I thought I’d just been wrestling with shapes and colours, but in  retrospect I really do believe that without actually knowing, I was having such a tough time with the design because I was no longer aiming to just make something nice - I was trying to communicate the heart of what we are.

We are squidgy. We are wonky. At times we may be fuzzy, but we are never ever soft.  It’s the sharpness that defines what I love about this website - both in the care and precision with which we create our work, but also in the way that we approach the things that matter to us as humans. Despite the frequent presentations of chaos, it’s important to us that we are never thoughtless or reckless.

We’ve always been hugely proud of our wonderful community, but this wouldn’t have been possible without ruthlessly removing those who refused to provide other people with respect. In our work we always aspire to be  friendly; to be nice - but we’ve never allowed that to get in the way of doing the right thing. It so easily can.

Again though, I owe anyone reading this a great deal of thanks. Firstly, for putting up with me self-indulgently talking about my own work for more than 1,000 words - but also for allowing me to continue to pour my time and love into a project that I truly think is brilliant. With our shiny new logos and spicy new colours, I’m really excited for what’s to come next. Here’s to another ten years! I’ll be back in 2032 to explain why all of this work is actually rubbish.

What are we video games!  🎮

Tom: Hardspace: Shipbreaker hit 1.0 and I played through it all! I’d mostly been playing it in the  mornings before work with a LARGE COFFEE - doing some relaxing not-work  to ease me into reality. It’s a lovely thing, and really worth checking out despite the many points where it could be so much more - I wrote  some more stray words about it here, if yr interested.

Quinns: I love Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and I love the growing genre of “games that simulate a job”, because anything that tugs at the tacky barrier  between work and play is really philosophically juicy to me. Wilmot’s Warehouse being both a great example and one of my favourite games.

But if I’m talking about one game I’ve been playing this month, it’s got to be Norco.  That game is an aesthetic and artistic jewel and deserves every word of  the glowing reviews it’s been getting. My wife was watching me play it and within about 8 minutes of the game starting, she took in the sound & visuals and said, awe in her voice: “Oh, so this is gonna win the awards this year.”

And... yes. Yes, it is.

What are we music!  🎵

Tom: Kikagaku Moyo has been my soundtrack to the creeping warmth of Brighton - music  that you can feel the heat dripping from. Effe, from their latest, hit  me in a particular way. I was sitting up on the roof of my building, writing, and a beam of sun splashed through the big glass of  ice water I was sipping on. I think I enjoy summer more when I like the city it’s taking place in.

Ava: Before I'd  really recovered from UKGE I went down south again for a mini festival  and to meet my old friend's new house/record shop/partner/baby. It also  meant a gig outdoors enough to be my first one in two years at the very  least. The Comet is Coming really got me dancing like a monster, slowly easing me back into a habit I'd lost. Just outrageously playful chaos with sax and bass and drums joining in a mass of party. Floating Points  did a lovely rowdy DJ set and I finished off with Bicep and their lasers. Honestly the live set started off sounding ludicrously similar Orbital. But given they're probably one of the most respected dance acts out there in terms of live production, that's a plus. It was a thick  wall of exactly what I want from an outdoor dancey summertime. Been a while since the bass has run right through me. Pretty magic. Oh, and if this isn't inappropriate, if you're ever in margate, Ghost Papa records has some lush second hand records and books! Tell them Ava said hi!

What are we watching? 📺

Ava: A bit late as it was late to cinemas in the UK, but Everything, Everywhere All at Once is  actually somehow more fabulous than people were telling me. Ridiculously creative film making and story telling, beautifully choreographed and  performed surrealistic martial arts, and a heartbreaking story of queerness, diaspora, generational trauma and love. Certainly the most creative thing I've seen since Into the Spider-Verse, and for a certain crowd (including me) it'll be even better. I suspect its not for everyone, and putting on the correct content warnings would spoil some of  the magic, but if you go in with an open mind I think you'll have several whales of a time.

Quinns: I’ve been  all over the place recently. Last week I watched the Kristen Stewart movie Personal Shopper, which I sat to watch down for knowing nothing about and which left me totally discombobulated. I also watched Abbott  Elementary, which I initially felt didn’t live up to the hype? But then half-way through the season it finds its feet with the poise and power of a kangaroo and becomes this... agile, intimidating, ridiculous creature that I hope will be bouncing around for many years to come.

Now that’s finished, tonight I’ll be diving into season 2 of Hacks. I was  so, so impressed by the first season of this show about a young writer  teaming up with a legendary older comedienne. Not since Succession have I seen a show where every character is painted in such lurid, loving detail. By all accounts, season 2 continues the glittering accomplishments of the first season, so I’m really excited.

What are we reading? 📚

Quinns: I’ve got a collection of short stories to recommend this month- Get in Trouble by Kelly Link was a recent finalist for the Pulitzer price, and I picked it up when I heard that it doesn’t really fit into any particular genre (although Wikipedia says “her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and realism”).

Another way to put it  would be to say that generally, as a reader you’d better buckle up and be ready for anything. Kelly plays with the characters like a  charismatic but markedly unhinged child playing with action figures, and  at any given moment you’re not sure if she’s going to whisper a secret to you or yeet one of her toys out of the window. At turns I felt  delight, teased, alarmed and scared, and I couldn’t quite believe how different all of the stories are. I’d recommend the book to anyone with an interest in the unusual.

We can genuinely never say it enough! Thank you so so much for supporting SU&SD!