Ralph Talmont | Pictures, pixels & pages

Marketing, product and customer service lessons from a Gypsy fortune teller

Ralph — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:28:20 +0000

Some months ago Mrs T and I spent a most pleasant weekend at a country town far enough from the capital to be worth the drive. (This post has been in a notebook for a while – I’ve not had a chance to finish it till now.) My friend Janusz Kobylinski’s exhibition of photographs was [...]

Stories surround us

Ralph — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:13:27 +0000

This is a new one… I haven’t re-posted other bloggers in the past but this one from Designing Change makes so many good points, it needs to be spread.

Written by Joyce Hostyn on June 29, 2011

“The world we see today is the legacy of people noticing the world and commenting on it [...]

People die. Stories live on.

Ralph — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:31:55 +0000

Some fourteen years ago I started to work on a book of Maori tribal myths and legends. Some eleven years ago the book was finally published by the New Zealand publishing house of Reed. (The book sold out withing three years but the publisher refused to reprint. That’s a good subject for another discussion about [...]

iPhone photography, a sense of place and a “new old” aesthetic

Ralph — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:55:53 +0000

Promenade des Anglais, Nice, France

Bless its silicon heart, the iPhone would be loved even by my old chiropractor who for years told me to quit lugging a camera bag the size of a small Victorian travel trunk on my shoulder… I did finally quit the year my damaged back convinced me I should [...]

Presentations are not just about presenting

Ralph — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:42:49 +0000

A little while ago I had the good fortune to speak at the second Startup Weekend Warsaw, organised again by the team at Hard Gamma Ventures, and led by Startup Weekend’s own Jennifer Cabala. I had been asked to give a talk which would help the teams build presentations for the ultimate pitching session at [...]

Ignite talk about TEDxWarsaw

Ralph — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 15:44:24 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of giving an Ignite talk at the second edition of IgniteWarsaw, held at the beautiful Zacheta Gallery. Aircon wasn’t cooperating all that well but other than that the evening went off like a rocket thanks to the efforts of Michal Paluchowski, Zuza Stanska, Mateusz Nowak and [...]

Tell me your story, but don’t put me to sleep

Ralph — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:24:34 +0000

Jacek Kowalski from Gazeta Wyborcza, the leading Polish daily, did a little chat with me this week, in the context of TEDxWarsaw, public speaking and the role of the storyteller. We talked for a while and here is the resulting interview, translated from the Polish. It was titled : “Tell me your story, just don’t [...]

A typographic walk in Edinburgh

Ralph — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:25:36 +0000

The Scots did not invent typography but walking around Edinburgh one might be forgiven for thinking that perhaps they did. From ancient stone work to the endless variety of antiquarian bookstore shopfronts, hand-crafted typography is on display all around the city. Racing to and from TEDGlobal sessions, I had little time for a good leisurely [...]

A review of Warsaw StartupWeekend

Ralph — Tue, 17 May 2011 20:49:36 +0000

No doubt detailed technical write-ups will soon pop up in lots of places so instead I’d like to offer a broad brush kind of review of the Warsaw StartupWeekend – an event I had the good fortune to attend this last Sunday.

The short version: fully awesome.

The long version: without putting too fine [...]

A typographic walk in Amsterdam

Ralph — Mon, 16 May 2011 15:56:59 +0000

If typography reveals anything about the character of a city and its people, then the fine examples of hand-lettered signage found on the doors and walls of central Amsterdam are just as one would expect them – clean and elegant. Reflecting the city’s rich mercantile history and a tradition of fine design, the letterforms are [...]