Story by Aiden P. and Sam E.
Photo by Ryan Low
Martin Chatterton is an author and illustrator of children’s books of a range of genres, who also set up the companies Forepoint and Hungry Head Productions. He is passionate about design thinking, a non-linear and human-centred process that allows people to approach problems and ideas in innovative ways, such as how one thing can represent something else. He emphasised this by warming up students with a series of games. Once included a step in a list which was missing, one that tested spatial intelligence with reversing pens and one about lateral thinking with a car park.
The standout was how shadows can change the way we perceive information. From a simulation of a basketball moving diagonally across a court, shadows can make us infer that it’s bouncing or rolling.
But he is also passionate about comedy, particularly black comedy with novels such as the upcoming Would Everybody Please Stop Dying. The nature of black comedy is such that it triggers this natural instinct that makes you laugh when it’s supposedly not appropriate. He shared a story about Cachi the Poodle, where in 1988 Cachi fell 13 floors off a balcony, killing itself and a 75-year-old woman Marta Espina who was just below. An onlooker rushed to help but as she crossed the street, she was run over by the line 55 bus. That bus driver was also said to have suffered a heart attack. The idea that three consecutive deaths would be caused by the one poodle is seen as hilarious to think about, especially since the subject matter is not.
Chatterton then demonstrated his ridiculous illustration style by redrawing a volunteer student. The result…speaks for itself, with the subject saying it mildly resembles himself. But this is an example of the power of illustration, which he claims is the most important development in human history.
Humans historically used anything and everything, from handprints and markings to music and signals, to pyrotechnics and strobes, to convey a point across. And some decide to do silly stuff such as this:
