Blog – Page 2 – my (ben weldon) dot

Thread still going from strength to strength

I’ve not posted here for a while, Shanghai is so full of distractions. Social media all but negates the use of private blogs, however I have no intention of turning off mydot. I bought this domain in 1999. OLD SKOOL. I’ve been in China for 11 years now, everything here as changed, my street, my life, my beliefs, but one thing has stayed the course. My design agency Thread. Now in it’s 10th year the company is recovering from a tumble and fall, but now back on it’s feet and stronger than ever. Exciting times ahead, follow the news for morefollow the news if you like.

March 28, 2016

10,000 motor bikes in a Pizza Express

October 23, 2015

Having fun with Fat Wow signage

Fat Cow is a burger bar we designed in 2014, this is one of the last things i design 100% myself.

Bless my ever tolerant production manager, Lisa, for my sense of humor.

If you want to try their burgers, you can find them here.

March 3, 2015

A letter to my clients at Thread, predictions for the Year of the Horse.

I wasn’t excited about the Year of the Snake, but the Year of the Horse – my Chinese zodiac – fills me with anticipation! Allow me, if you will, to make some predictions for the year ahead.

Business in China
I predict a tumultuous year, a stampede of exciting developments and a few troubles in the paddock too. With rising wages and slowing manufacturing, graduates and factory workers alike will be struggling to find jobs, possibly more than ever in the last decade. Expect angry people making business owners nervous.

As things slow down, there will be a deeper focus on the service industry, an area that does have room to grow. Last year saw the gates open up for foreign service companies, so we expect more hurdles to be moved aside in the coming months. Therefore healthcare, education and tourism will all do well as the government actively supports these areas. Good news for three of our largest clients; United Family Healthcare, Duke Kunshan University, and Shangri-La Hotel.

Tiny Technology
China has got the hang of innovation, galloping around the moon last year in the world’s first moon rover in 40 years. I predict some awesome smaller inventions to be announced from the stables of China’s tech firms – namely wearable stuff. Xiaomi impressed us with a phone that rivals Samsungs and iPhones functionality for a quarter of the price. So expect a number of exciting things that link with your smartphone for very little money, a Chinese Google glass on the market soon? Also as pollution has raised health awareness to the next level, NFC jewellery and fabrics that send bio-metric stats to an app in your phone, monitoring level of particles in the air around you, your temperature, your heart rate, and recommending more green tea or other Chinese medicines.

Web Ahead
I see the rise of the independent eCommerce website. Retailers don’t want to share their stable with other show ponies and we will see more move away from a Taobao shop to set up their own brand site. Pre-built solutions like shopify, currently in Asia but not China, will become available (or copied) in China for Chinese users, payment gateways and shipping partners. These systems will be preconfigured for mobile, much hyped, but currently a headache. China Mobile (now, point eight BILLION subscribers) will finally get high speed mobile internet to work properly, encouraging mobile commerce to explode along with herd home grown apps – instant video messages on Weixin anyone?

Tasty Design
In 2005, I was attracted by the huge opportunities for better design in China. Since then it’s come a long way, but as marketing directors look to attract a broader local audience, commercial design will not make any great leaps this year. In Shanghai however, interior design and restaurant branding is a different story. Despite businesses feeling a slow down, an infinite supply of new middle class with money to spend, means this city is opening some of the coolest dining designs in the world. Excited designers and cheap shop-fitting are a recipe for a veritable nose bag of F&B experiences – Some of which will be designed by us, of course!

Whatever industry you’re in, you can be sure of an exciting and interesting year ahead. Whether it’s rioting factory workers, augmented reality contact lenses (worth watching) or robot burger cafés, stay in the saddle and ride it out.

Ben Weldon – Creative Director and horse fan (aged 8)

January 26, 2014

Have a Fabulous Christmas!

December 20, 2013

instagram addiction continues

July 22, 2013

Super-sonic-Thread-boom!

April 23, 2013

Frosty Christmas O’12!

December 21, 2012

Screen print book cover

Spent the day in a screen printing workshop with the Thread team today. (always nice) Producing some artwork for upcoming book by the talented Mr Watkins.

Take a look at his art work over at http://penpaperpause.wordpress.com/

You can see him in a pub with shoddy camera work here… YouTube

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November 4, 2012

2 sides of my personality

As an Ex Gemini I’ve always wondered if the concept of split personalities is something we’re born with or if we just make up to suit our mood swings. (my mood swings)

Playing around with my phone today I realised that my less than symmetrical mug appears to have quite literally two different personalities. An alert mere cat-esk geek and a jovial simpleton. “Like, OMG, totally” the signs were there all along.

May 25, 2012

Thread gets a new website!

To be honest i’m pretty excited about this. Mostly because it’s taken me about 9 months to make.

Thanks to the guys at creative hunt shanghai for their support in listing us for free!

April 25, 2012

Any Rubber Stamp Will Do.

So i’ve started blogging for The Drum A UK design publication. from time to time i’ll duplicated my posts here.

Although I talk to people everyday about my experiences in China, not very often do I write it down. This first post is a little introduction as to how on earth I ended up where I am.

Firstly, for the record I’m no jet setting businessman, I’m not a award winning designer with a vision for Asia, Shanghai just suits me.

2005 doesn’t sound like a very long time ago, but when I arrived in Shanghai, there was only a handful of bars you could go to, your social group was CEO’s to the left of you, English teachers to the right, and a freelance designer in the middle. Depending on which way you looked networking was easy and there was no shortage of work. Before long I was given a free desk in a Taiwanese design studio (because having a white face looks good to clients).

It was there I met my now business partner Louise Lai, a business consultant from Hong Kong with a lot of clients that needed design. We started Thread and the fun began. Things I needed to get my head around included:

You can’t register an English word as a company name
You can register an English logo, but it takes a year and isn’t linked to your company
If you’d like to start a company you must have £200,000 capital invested
If you ask a Chinese person to do this for you it’s reduced to £80
The owner of the company is really just the person that holds the rubber stamps for stamping contacts
Any rubber stamp from any company will do

These rules also change weekly and you are generally informed during application.

There is always the option of staying freelance and profit sharing? Yes, just remember all freelance wages must be declared for tax or face large fines. However there is no visa that allows you to work freelance, so declaring money earned without full time employment would be illegal and you’d face large fines.

June 20, 2011

After the Renovation

If you haven’t already seen the pictures or the little video of this place when i found it, take a quick look at the previous post (Shanghai Home Improvements) else take a look through the gallery below to see the fruits of my labour. If you need a number of a great contractor, let me know.

This is probably my favourite shot though. of the stereo and the white floor!

And of course these guys cheers up the otherwise scary concrete bathroom

Gallery below, will add some day shots soon.

And a little shot from when i invited my lovely team over for fajitas!

April 20, 2011

Shanghai Home Improvements

So the shanghai property market has doubled in the last 3 years (kicking self). property prices are now similar to London, but rental is hasn’t caught up, and renovations are cheap. So i’ve rented a 1980’s workers building and i’m having some fun with it. Well at least thats the plan…

Ideally i would have taken a ton of before and after shots. but i didn’t get my wide angle lens until they’d knocked down a wall. (much to the landlords surprise)

This is all i have from before i rented it, a screen grab from a video i took on my phone. Apartment short (Quicktime 2MB)

Then into google sketch up to workout what size i want everything!

Love google sketch up, premade models of everything you want and easy to make the other bits and bobs, like the cheese graters!

Then before i had the chance to confirm the price and exactly what it was i was going to be doing, I walk in the house to this…

What i hadn’t realised, and to be fair neither had my builders, all the wiring the the flat had be via the shortest root above the false ceiling. The very same false ceiling i wanted removed, which meant i had rewiring the whole place was now part of the job!

Here you can still see the ceiling.. but no going back now.

Day 3, and they removed the kitchen walls.

It’s worth clicking on this one and checking out the pipes that were in the wall. and the metal box now hanging in mid air… Yup that’s the gas main into the house. You can also see how nice the original Shanghainese kitchen is… mmmm.. Although not truly original, in it’s 35 year life i would say this is the apartment’s 3rd major renovation.

There used to be a door on the left and a wall on the right. I’m told neither are supporting walls.

Below is a before and during photo that made me think… OHHH SHIT. WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING TO MY FLAT… i’ve only rented it for 3 years it’s never going to be liveable.

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You probably won’t notice so i’ll point it out, the taps on the bath are plumbed twice, through the wall AND again from the white pipes over the tiles, which means the whole place needs to be replumbed from scratch. This i’d budgeted for though (not enough, but i had)