Louis Theroux and Pen & Pixel

In my never ending crusade to bring things up that are at least five years old, I come to Louis Theroux. If you don't know Louis Theroux, a brief introduction - he's a British journalist, very disarming and very funny - well, the best way I think of to describe him to the uninitiated is that if you like things like The Daily Show, The Onion, The Colbert Report and so on, you'll love Louis Theroux. He has a great series called Weird Weekends, and I believe the clip above was from a series called The Call of the Weird or some such thing. I've seen him cover things like mail order brides, wrestling - you really can't go wrong with Louis Theroux.

In any case, I thought of this clip today after being assaulted by an incredibly hideous graphic in my inbox that I was certainly inspired by those wizards of design at Pen & Pixel. I was working in a record store when this Pen & Pixel stuff started becoming popular, and I remember just turning the releases over and over again in my hands, marvelling that someone actually paid these designers for their work. I've always wanted to be a fly on the wall of the meetings at which the prints were approved, like, "yeah, this is good work. But see if there is anything else that can be encrusted with diamonds. And tell them we want a fluorescent green tray."

So anyway, this clip is hilarious (though warning, it's a bit long). It's also pretty interesting to see the cynicism of the designer. But let it be said that not everyone shares my Pen & Pixel aversion. The company is still going strong. Explain if you can.