Gavin Pretor-Pinney Lecture

Lecture. (2011). Gavin Pretor-Pinney was a freelance graphic designer and then created a magazine. After this he worked for the Guardian making posters and they benefited immensely from his high standard graphic design skills. 

He started and was the founder of 'The Cloud Appreciation Society'. There were two ways of looking at the clouds he said, one was the scientific side and the other was the female way of just looking for shapes and feeling what you see not. Expanding on this is that there is an analitical way and the basic way. 

He was very interested in all this nature versus human mind and he wrote a book on "The Watchmens Companion". 

The career advice he gave out to us was that 'we should try as best we can to not have a specific career'

This meant that we should not limit ourselves to one thing, as being good at many things opens more doors. Being in the economic world today as we have gone through a recession there are not many jobs so the more flexible you are and the more you are willing to do anything and try anything the further you will get.


"He also commented that you should work on all ideas of life."


Meaning that you should stretch your ideas, do not confine yourself, make sure you do things that broaden your mind, your research and experience. The more you see the more the mind sees and this is what gives you inspiration.

What do you see in this cloud? 

Reference List:

Pretor-Pinney, G. (2007). The Cloud Appreciation Society on BBC TV in August. Available: http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/cas-on-the-one-show/. Last accessed 5th December 2011.

Pretor-Pinney, G. (2011). The Wavewatcher's Companion. Available: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wavewatchers-Companion-Gavin-Pretor-Pinney/dp/0747589763. Last accessed 2nd December 2011.