29Jul2009
bananas
Posted by timezoneone
In a world full of apples and oranges, creative people are bananas. The creative mind is a funny thing, it’s kind of like a hyperactive 4 year old, it has a short attention span, it likes to wander off when mum (mom) and dad aren’t looking, it’s prone to the occasional toy-throwing tantrum and it’s always asking ‘Why?’ and it doesn’t even care what the answer is. Children are very creative, most of us lose that creative ability as we grow up and haircuts, mortgages and real jobs. Fortunately for those of us in the business of being creative, we never really have to grow up. Our child-like imaginations and ability to send our mind off for a wander are our greatest assets, they allow fresh perspectives on everyday things.
I find randomness inspirational. I keep a collection of completely random objects and images that I’ve found. If every I’m stuck for an idea I flick through my collection of randomness and see what it sparks off. Throwing a little randomness into the mix allows you to move beyond the obvious solution to the brief and start exploring solutions from a fresh perspective. It’s this kind of random mind-wandering that has created links between polar bears and soft drink, gorillas and chocolate and pirates and breakfast cereal.
And if your ever really stuck for a fresh take on things, just ask yourself – What Would the Japanese Do?
Here’s a rabbit in a tea cup.
Celebrating M�ori language Week brought to you by the color M�whero and the digraph Wh.
A rabbit in a tea cup – He r�peti kei roto i te kapu tī.
There are 2 mÄ�ori words for banana and a kind of interesting, but probably not really, story behind them. When MÄ�ori first arrived on these shores, between 800AD and 1300AD, they brought with them their crops from the pacific. One of those crops was the banana, but it is too cold to grow bananas here. So by the time Europeans arrived and brought the banana back to these shores, the memory of the banana and the word for banana was long forgotten. So MÄ�ori adopted and adapted the English word to create the word Panana (there’s no B in the mÄ�ori alphabet). The other mÄ�ori word for banana, that has been adopted more recently, is Maika. This is the Tahitian word and, because the languages are closely related, it is likely that this is what the original mÄ�ori word for banana would have been. So Banana = Panana or Maika.
David
