Dave Trott’s Blog

One of the greatest pieces of visual communication is the London tube map.
I never really appreciated it until I was taught about it, at art school.
In New York.
Cities the world over copy the basic principles of this design.
New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Singapore.
And yet I grew up with it, so I never thought anything of it.
What’s so good about it, it’s just a map?
Well no actually, it isn’t.
It’s not a map.
The routes that the tube lines follow, bear no relationship to where they actually go.
The distances bear no resemblance to reality either.
Even the Thames isn’t that shape in real life.
According to this ‘map’ every tube line is perfectly straight or smoothly curved.
And every line goes either vertically, horizontally, or 45 degrees.
No variaton.
Now of course that isn’t anything like the reality.
If you’ve ever seen a map of the actual tube lines, it’s like a cross between a spider’s web and a cracked windscreen.
But the man who designed this map wasn’t a cartographer.
He wasn’t even a graphic designer.
He was a draughtsman, called Harry Beck.
So he didn’t do a map, or an attractive layout.
He did a wiring diagram.
If you’ve ever tried to trace the electrics on a car you’ll know what I mean.
The diagram doesn’t show you an accurate drawing of the route of the wire.
It shows you a start point at (say) the battery.
Then a straight line to the end point at (say) a bulb.
You don’t need a map, you go to the car and trace the actual route yourself.
That’s how the tube ‘map’ works.
You’re underground, everything is identical: just a tunnel.
It doesn’t matter what’s going on above.
You need to know the start point, and the finish point.
In the simplest possible way.
What an absolutely stunningly brilliant piece of thinking.
The tube map isn’t a map.
It’s a wiring diagram.
Before he did it, it was a ridiculous thing to even suggest.
Since he did it, everyone in the world copied it.
Isn’t that a great lesson for us?
People can’t agree with a great thought before it’s done.
Because, if it’s a great thought, it breaks the rules.
And you can’t agree that breaking the rules makes sense because it doesn’t.
Following the rules makes sense.
That’s why we have rules.
Breaking the rules won’t work.
Until it does.
Then everyone can agree.
And, of course, it’s the same in advertising.
Breaking the rules won’t get any agreement.
If you ask for permission you won’t get it.
But once you break the rules, and it works, people can see it makes sense.
Then that becomes part of the new rules.
Which can’t be broken.
That’s how it goes.
If you wait for permission, you’ll never get into trouble.
You can’t be wrong.
But you can’t do anything truly exciting either.
As Helmut Krone said, “If you can look at something and say ‘I like it’ then it isn’t new.”

My big sister was coming back from work one evening.
Her apartment is in New York’s upper East Side.
She went into her local deli to get some food.
A large, powerful-looking woman in her twenties was smoking a cigarette at the counter.
The little Korean guy who owned the deli pointed to the NO SMOKING sign.
He asked her if she’d please mind not smoking near the food.
The large woman took a lungful of smoke and blew it in his face.
The little guy backed off, coughing.
My sister leaned forward and opened her bag.
She gestured to her cigarettes inside.
She said to the woman, “Look I smoke too. But I don’t think it’s nice to smoke around food, do you?
And you have been asked politely not to, by the owner.”
The woman took another lungful of smoke.
My sister moved in closer and said, “Just a word of advice.
If you’re thinking of blowing that in my face……………don’t.”
The woman blew the smoke in my sister’s face.
My sister grabbed the woman’s coat, dragged her over the counter, shoved her through the front door and out onto the street.
She dragged her across the pavement and slammed her against a parked car.
She threw her across the hood, out into the street, into the traffic.
Cars and buses screeched to a halt, squealing brakes and honking horns.
The woman ended up in the middle of the road on her back.
Her bag went one way and her shoes went another.
In her poshest English voice, my sister said, “I’m going back inside to finish my shopping now.
If you’re smart, you’ll be gone when I come out.”
And that’s what she did.
She went inside and finished her shopping.
Then she asked the owner if she could leave her carrier bags behind the counter for a while.
Then she took off her heels and put them in her bag.
Buttoned up her coat.
Strapped her bag on tight and opened the shop door.
Then she went out and slowly looked up and down the street.
But, disappointed, she later told me “Dammit, when I got outside she’d gone.”
And that’s how communication works in New York.
Simple, direct, and powerful.
In conversations, in newspapers, on radio stations, on TV, in comedy.
And especially in advertising.
Hinting politely doesn’t cut it.

Oxfam once asked a couple of dozen advertising bigwigs to come to a meeting.
They said they wanted to share a problem with us.
The problem was The Third World Debt crisis.
Unicef estimate that The Third World Debt is directly responsible for the deaths of 5 million little children, under age 5, a year.
Oxfam said they couldn’t get involved themselves because they were a chairity.
And this wasn’t a charitable issue it was a political one.
The problem wasn’t about raising money, the problem was getting banks to agree to write off loans that should never have been made.
I was so touched by the issue I decided to get involved.
The first stage in any problem is always research.
So, as banks were the problem, I started there.
I went to see the Chairman of one of the UK’s biggest banks.
I asked him if he’d consider cancelling his bank’s share of the debt.
He said, “Financially we could do it. We have the money set aside, £3 billion. But legally I can’t.”
I asked why not.
He said, “I’d be open to charges of negligence as far as protecting shareholder’s interests.”
I asked why.
He said, “I may agree with you that it’s a worthy cause, but I’m not allowed by law to make that decision.
I may think the Donkey Sanctuary is a worthy cause, but I can’t give shareholder’s profits to whatever cause takes my fancy.”
And at that point I stopped discussing it.
I’m not capable of having a reasonable debate with anyone who equates the Donkey Sanctuary with millions of children’s lives.
I start to get angry, and that’s not helpful
So I went to see Edward Heath.
He was an ex Prime Minister, and had sat on a committee of international statesmen to debate what could be done about the Third World Debt Crisis.
I think he felt discussing it with me was a bit beneath him.
I asked him if I could count on his help for our campaign.
He said no.
I asked him if we could at least use his name.
He said no.
I asked him if we could just keep him updated on what we were doing.
He said no.
So I got the message and left.
Then I went to see Ken Livingstone.
This was before Ken was Mayor of London, he was just an MP.
I asked him the same questions I’d asked Edward Heath.
Ken said yes to everything Heath had said no to.
He said, “Look, don’t even ask. The Third World Debt Crisis is dreadful and iniquitous.
Greedy bank speculators are profiting from the deaths of millions of children.
Use my name in any way you think will help.
Call me for anything you need for the campaign.
And the more trouble we get in the better, it can only help publicise this genocide.”
So there you have it: the difference.
The banker reacted logically:
I’d love to help but the law forbids it.
Edward Heath reacted logically:
I’ve already discussed this with more important people than you.
Ken Livingstone reacted emotionally:
I’ll help, it doesn’t matter what’s reasonable, and sensible, children are dying.

See, logic and reason are what created the Third World Debt Crisis in the first place.
Logic and reason are what stops anyone doing anything about it.
Logic and reason are tools for maintaining the status quo.
Logic and reason will keep you stuck.
Emotion and passion aren’t logical or reasonable.
That’s why emotion and passion are the engines of change.
Emotion and passion roll right over logic and reason.

If you want to change anything it’s worth remembering that.

My big sister is 11 years older than me.
She went to live in New York when I was 15.
She took to it like a duck to water.
It’s a town where you don’t ask permission.
New York is tough, but so is my sister.
One night, several years ago, she was walking home from her office when she felt a tug at her bag on her shoulder.
It was a guy on a bicycle making a grab for it.
He was big guy: early twenties about 6 foot tall.
He grabbed her bag and pedalled away fast.
As he did, she grabbed his wrist with both hands.
She yanked him off his bike but, at that moment, her heel broke.
She stumbled and let go, and he cycled off.
She took her shoes off and ran after him
In her bare feet he couldn’t hear her coming.
Until he looked round and saw her just as she was about to grab him.
He pedalled like crazy, trying to get away up Second Avenue.
She jumped into the street in front of a cab.
It screeched to a stop and she jumped in next to the driver.
She said, “Follow that cyclist.”
The driver said, “Lady, I can’t do that.”
She yelled, “FOLLOW THE GODDAMN BIKE.”
The cab driver knew he had a crazy woman next to him.
So he followed the bike.
Eventually they came to a red.
The bike went through, the cab stopped.
He wouldn’t go through a red.
My sister got out of the cab and ran back to her apartment on the upper East Side.
She changed out of her office clothes.
She put on tracksuit bottoms, a T-shirt, and Nikes.
She took down a baseball bat and went back in the street, uptown looking for the guy who robbed her.
She walked down every alley she could find where she’d last seen him.
Around midnight, a police patrol car pulled up as she came out of an alley.
The cop lowered his window and said, “Lady, we’ve had some reports about you prowling around here with a baseball bat.
You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
In her poshest English accent my sister said, “Certainly officer, if you want to tell me where the fuck you were when I got mugged two hours ago.”
The cop nodded slowly, raised his window and drove off.
That’s why I love New York.
No wonder the best advertising comes from a town like that.
It’s a tough, no bullshit, town, it needs tough, no bullshit, advertising.
The general lack of arty-fartiness, means you can do advertising that has real power.
Not just pretty little pieces of film.
Muscular advertising that gets into the language instead of just getting into D&AD or Cannes.
Imagine a product that killed cockroaches being launched in England.
It would probably be called something like ‘Roachgon’.
And the strapline would be something like, “The humane way to get rid of unwanted guests”.
Just to make sure no one has to feel bad about killing insects.
In New York that product actually exists.
It’s a little box that traps cockroaches inside.
Then, when it’s full, you throw it in the garbage.
It’s called “ROACH MOTEL”.
And the strapline is, “Roaches check in. But they don’t check out”.
Brilliant.
You can laugh at them while you’re killing them.
Instead of pretending to be humane.
You can be honest, instead of being ashamed of what you’re doing and pretending it’s something else.

And that’s why the best advertising still comes from New York.

When I first went to New York I was nineteen and I’d never been outside London.
So naturally I thought everyone, everywhere was just like me.
I found out they weren’t when I got a subway train to my art school in Brooklyn.
I knew I needed to change trains at Jay Street, and again at Hoyt Schermerhorn.
So when I got to Jay Street I did what I’d do in London.
I asked a member of staff.
I went up to the change-booth and said, “Excuse me, can you tell me which the platform I need for trains going to Hoyt Schermerhorn please?”
Silence.
He must not have heard me.
I said, “Excuse me, could you point me towards the platform for Hoyt Schermerhorn?”
Nothing.
I said, “Excuse me.”
It was like I wasn’t there.
Then I remembered a friend of mine back home, who’d been doing A level French.
He said it was no good speaking French with an English accent.
The secret was to speak with their accent.
He said, although it sounded silly to us, you had to imitate Maurice Chevalier as you spoke.
The fat bottom lip, the shrugs, the whole nasal “Haw-hee-haw”.
So I thought, I wonder if that’s what I’m doing wrong here.
Speaking in English instead of American.
So I turned back to the man in the change-booth and shouted, “HEY BUDDY, HOYT SKIMAHOYN!”
He pointed and grunted, “Platform 4”.
There it was.
The words weren’t enough, you had to learn the language.

Later, in Brooklyn, I wanted to make a phone call and needed a dime.
I went into a coffee bar called Nedicks.
Behind the counter was a really tall black basketball player type guy.
I held out a quarter and said, “Have you got change for the phone please?”
At least that’s what it sounded like in my head, but I do have a London accent.
He said to me, “You wha?”
I said, “Can I get a dime?”
He looked puzzled, he said, “A duy–yum?”
I said a, “A dime.”
He shrugged and said “A duy-yum?”
Then he turned to an old Jewish cab driver, drinking coffee at the counter, for help.
The cab driver said to me, “Whaddya want?”
I said, “A dime, a dime.”
He looked puzzled and said, “A dow–wum, a dow–wum?”
He gave up and went back to his coffee.
I mimed dialling a number and holding a receiver up to my ear.
Eventually the black guy’s face lit up and he smiled.
He said, “Oh, you want a da-ahm, for the phone. Whyn’t you just say so man?”
I thought I had.
But apparently not.
I’d learned the language, but I couldn’t unlearn my accent.

It was pretty much like that all the time I was in New York.
I’d call up a creative director to try to get an appointment, and it would go like this.
The secretary would always ask who was calling.
I’d say, “Dave Trott.”
She’d say, “Dive Truck?”
I’d say, “No, Dave.”
She’d say, “Dive?”
I’d say, “Let me spell it: D – A – V – E.”
She’d say, “D – I – V – E?”
And I’d have to say, “No, first D, then A (the first letter of the alphabet) then V, then E.”
And eventually she’d say, “Oh you mean ‘Dave’. You sound Australian.”
Yup, I sound just like Crocodile Dundee.
To you.

It reminds me of a joke I used to hear about two soldiers in World War One.
An American soldier and a cockney soldier meet in the trenches.
They share a cigarette and start to talk.
The American soldier is very patriotic, he says, “I came here to die.”
The cockney soldier says, “I came ‘ere yesterdie.”

Which is why I always tell students, you can work anywhere in the world if you’re an art director.
Because visual language is pretty much universal.
But if you’re a copywriter you can’t.
Because spoken language isn’t.