Unnovations

An essential purchase for the amoral, 9 Sep 2003

Having previously read some of Charlie Brooker’s work before, I thought I knew what limits he’d go to in Unnovations. How wrong could I be?
From cover to cover, this book contains wonderful products that I never knew I wanted until I read about them (especially the “Baker-Infuriating Hat” – designed solely to insult bakers and their ilk). If you’re offended by anything at all then don’t bother with this, but if you’re open minded about it you’ll probably find this to be the funniest thing you’ll have ever read.

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Sick and surreal, but spoiled by corner-cutting graphic design, 2 Dec 2007

By 

Brennan Young “Shameless onanist and flaneur” (Copenhagen, Denmark) –

  

If you enjoy sick/surreal humour of the Nathan Barley variety, this will do it for you.

Many hilarious and bizarre ideas, mostly taken from Charlie Brooker’s “Zeppotron” website. My favorite is the newsagent’s shop facial disguise for trapping miniature hallucinatory prostitutes, with the nagMaster2000 as a close second.

However, I have a gripe – the graphic design is shoddy in places, particular the drawings, which simply do not match the style of the innovations catalog which the book is supposed to parody. They also re-use the same models in the photos a bit too often, and you can see the pixels in artwork obviously intended for internet delivery.

It’s a shame because the pastiche advertising copy accompanying those products is no less funny. (It’s great to see idiot football fans getting a thorough and well-deserved pasting. I HATE football, and I hate the proletarian chumminess surrounding football-related products.)

So, while some of the graphic work is pretty good, it looks like they rushed parts of it to meet a deadline using quickly drawn ‘Desperate Dan’ style cartoons instead of the witty photoshop manipulations in the rest of the catalogue.

Anyway it appears to be out of print now. I can’t believe the high price of the second hand copies!!!

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