2nd July 2019 / Alan Moore

Living Beautifully Newsletter No.18

Living Beautifully by beautiful.business is a regular newsletter to share and inspire a different way of looking at the world: we have all had enough of ugly. As I have travelled over these past few months I become increasingly convinced of the universal nature of beauty. Applied to leadership and legacy we need leaders who can see an […]

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6th December 2018 / Alan Moore

Living off the coast of Utopia

Emerson said beauty gets us out of surfaces and into the foundation of things. The Shakers, Doug Engelbart (the designer of the mouse and video conferencing), the inventor of Aikido, and tech company Raspberry Pi all share a common theme — they have all brought the new into the world, increasing our social, spiritual and economic potential. […]

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5th November 2018 / Alan Moore

What can Morihei Ueshiba creator of Akido teach us about purpose

The great master of martial arts Morihei Ueshiba became deeply troubled as to his true defining purpose. So he retired into the mountains with a Zen philosopher to reflect upon his work and life. He gave up the practice of martial arts as a form of violence and created the graceful non-violent martial art of […]

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14th October 2018 / Alan Moore

Why the practice of craft makes a meaningful life

I was trained both as a typographer, and as a book designer. Both these practices are steeped in craft. So much knowledge required of materials (don’t get me started on paper – colour, transparency, weight, texture – to this today every piece of paper I touch is evaluated – receipts mostly), production processes, typefaces, and, […]

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10th October 2018 / Alan Moore

Why we need a restorative economy

‘Capitalists are capitalism’s worst enemy’, wrote economist John Kay – ‘and particularly the market fundamentalist tendency which has been in the ascendant for the last 20 years.’ Kay adds: ‘Once we appreciate the historical anomaly of the post-war moment, we might see the capitalism of our own day in a proper light. With its imperious […]

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2nd October 2018 / Alan Moore

Millennials. They want the cool thing, and, the right thing.

I asked Dame Fiona Reynolds, a Master at Cambridge University, UK and author of ‘The Fight for Beauty’ – ‘what gives you hope?’ Her answer; “The reason I feel optimistic is because I think young people are amazing and they get this stuff. This is a generation that has got no ticket to the future, […]

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30th August 2018 / Alan Moore

Beauty recalibrating how we make things and why we make them

In 2013 I gave a talk in Holland about the need to redesign the organisations that we use, inhabit and support us, that drive our economies. I spoke for beautifully designed organisations, beautiful workplaces and work cultures, beautifully designed products, stuff. I asked for a return to what I termed the Human-OS. Where the sovereignty […]

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3rd June 2018 / Alan Moore

Anselm Kiefer, beauty in art and learning to wait

In the 1980’s I worked on an Anselm Kiefer project with the Anthony d’Offay Gallery called Zweistromland, or The High Priestesss. Two massive steel bookcases furnished with books made from one of Kiefer’s favourite materials, lead. They made for an incredible installation. Why were they made? ‘I suspect that the human species – the unique […]

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16th May 2018 / Alan Moore

Tashi Mannox, how stillness enhances creativity

In my book “Do Design. Why beauty is key to everything“, I write about Tashi Mannox and the importance of stillness as a key role in how we work. A concept that can be applied to our daily life, I believe. Tashi Mannox had become a Tibetan monk at the age of 22, spending 17 […]

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12th December 2017 / Alan Moore

How poetry can help us make better things

In 1988 I was asked to design an exhibition catalogue for Cecil Collins the artist. My client The Anthony d’Offay Gallery gave me a brief, ‘could I design a catalogue that would look and feel like a jewel?’ How to make a jewel-like catalogue? I loved Cecil’s work, very English and spiritual. My thoughts turned […]

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