X is for Xylography

This is a quick and fun one! You may have been wondering what I would come up with for the letter ‘X’ and I must admit, wasn’t sure myself!

During one of the many COVID lockdowns, I rang a friend who I had spent some years developing online platforms with to ask how he was coping.

A creative individual, he explained about spending time in his workshop, creating ornamental wood carvings.

As it just so happens, xylography is the art of engraving on wood or of printing from woodblocks!

I think the importance of this is that my friend was using the downtime to create works of art and found immense pleasure and satisfaction in doing so.

I explained that I had begun illustrating comic books once again and had taken an online foundation course in figure drawing.

I also used this period to take marketing courses and read the books I had been meaning to get through but not yet found the time to do.

Between us, we had remained busy, occupied and importantly, kept our minds active.

Not quite the end...

To read the A to Z of things, its complete series and witness how I do not give a conclusion, but more, open a door to an entirely new era, simply purchase a copy for yourself.

Click the link to discover more: Open-Minded - an A to Z of creative thinking.

PRESS RELEASE:

East Midlands marketer publishes his first book!

Barry Michael Aldridge, a fully chartered marketer, and head of marketing for Flotec Industrial Limited, a Loughborough-based SME manufacturer, has written and published a book which he has titled ‘Open-Minded’.

Having worked predominantly within the B2B sector for many years, Aldridge is well known both in industry and the marketing’s professional networking circuit.

Here, Barry explains his purpose and reason for penning and publishing a book:

“Earlier this year, I set myself a personal challenge of writing a book and ideally having it published before the end of 2022.

The original concept was to focus on the industrial revolutions but as I began blogging ‘Open-Minded’ on LinkedIn, realised that the content was already very much in progress and naturally taking shape.

I describe ‘Open-Minded’ as being an ‘A to Z of creative thinking’.

Within its pages, I work my way through the alphabet, thinking of words to act as a launch pad for creative thinking and discussion.

Obviously, I write a lot about what I believe the marketing profession to be all about but also discuss other topics such as technology and sociological subject matters which I think are important.

I explore neurodiversity and raise awareness about eczema. Having suffered a major flare up in 2020, still undergoing substantial treatment and once being the victim of a hate crime related to my skin condition, writing a book was the perfect medium to change attitudes and raise awareness about what eczema is and more importantly, what eczema is not.

I am really pleased with the visual identity of the book and chose to have it printed in a glossy format. Coming from a background in graphic design, I created the cover artwork myself, using Adobe software and wanted it to be very minimalistic.

If you read the book, you will learn how Japan and its culture has been so heavily influential throughout my lifetime and a lot of the content focusses on this country.

I made sure to use the official Japanese red emblem colour and chose the typeface Frutiger as the headline font.

The book prompts a lot of blue-sky thinking about a diverse range of topics and interestingly, has no definitive conclusion. If you read it, you will understand why.

People have asked why I have written a book and the answer really is because I wanted to share my experiences, thoughts, and ideas.

To hold a printed book in your hand and read through its pages with the knowledge that it is your very own work feels incredibly rewarding.”

Open-Minded – An A to Z of Creative Thinking is available to buy now on Amazon in digital, paperback, and hard copy formats: https://bit.ly/open-minded-the-book