Author Archives: Jeremy Williams

Jeremy is an author and activist based in Luton. He writes serious books for adults, less serious books for children. His blog, The Earthbound Report, has been recognised as the best green blog in the UK by Vuelio and the UK Blog Awards.

Waking from the consumer dream

It’s 07:49am and I’m standing on an escalator, flanked on both sides by streaming commuters and flashing LCD screens. Easyjet suggest I go skiing. Armani want me to know that their new mobile phone has ‘night effect’, whatever that might be. I deserve more TV channels, and Virgin would love to supply them to me. I am barely an hour into my day, and already I have seen dozens of these visions of commodified happiness. Where, in all this buzz of hype, is the promise of real life?

The consumer dream is, in essence, the promise that happiness will come to us through our consumer choices. I will be a more fulfilled person if I have a larger house, a faster car, and newer clothes. I will feel better about myself, and others will like me more.

Read the rest of my article for Slipstream here.

Breathe Conference flyer

Been doing a bit of design work for a change, with this flyer for the Breathe Conference 2009.

e-flyer-final

Click here for the conference details.

All about Mimosa

I love the way the Pantone people wax lyrical about colour. Here they describe their choice of ‘Mimosa’ for their official colour of 2009:

“In a time of economic uncertainty and political change, optimism is paramount and no other colour expresses hope and reassurance more than yellow. The colour yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance. Mimosa also speaks to enlightenment, as it is a hue that sparks imagination and innovation.”

Thou shalt… decide for yourself

quakers-2k1

While the atheists rev up their bus in protest at aggressive Christian advertising, here’s a refreshingly different approach, from the Quakers. I found this as a full page spread on the back of Ecologist magazine.

Nice design job – a combination of ancient and new, lots of white space, open and inviting.

Lemur

My wife got me a lemur for Christmas last year, through Whipsnade Wild Animal Park’s adoption scheme. You don’t get one to take away unfortunately, but you do get a pair of free tickets to the zoo. We finally got round to visiting on the weekend, and I wanted a photo of my lemur.

I like photographing animals. I just wish they’d hold still.

Bleriot vs Rossy

In 1909 Louis Bleriot flew across the channel in an aeroplane, inspiring a generation and proving that air travel was a real possibility. Within five years the first commercial air service was up and running. 

Yesterday Yves Rossy flew across the channel with a jet-powered wing, inspiring a generation and proving that personal jet travel is surely imminent. I expect my jet-pack within five years.

Welcome

I am a freelance writer and project developer based in Luton. I specialise in news and features on consumerism, development, poverty, the environment, climate change and conservation. I use this website as a personal scrapbook of projects. I don’t update it very often, so if you want to get in touch try Twitter or LinkedIn.

photos

A photo of mine has just been used in the new Schmap tour guide for London, I found out today. Always nice to have them put to good use. That’s the second commercially used photo this year. I also had one of my stock photos of a llama used in an anti-tobacco ad in a little league baseball stadium, with the tagline ‘spitting is for llamas’. Such are the wonders of the internet.

world’s least interesting museum?

rooms of mirrors I was in Germany a couple of weeks ago. Among Dortmund’s attractions are the German Occupational Health and Safety Exhibition. (DASA) Their website sells it thus:

“The concept of the exhibition is not geared towards displaying technical innovation from a futurist perspective. Nor is priority given to the issues of labour market policy. More importance is given to the question raised on how to safeguard key human values such as health, dignity, well-being and participation in society, in view of the foreseeable developments in the world of work from the occupational safety and health point of view.”

We didn’t go. Maybe next time.