Its our End Of Year Review time and here we present an exclusive interview with the elusive Mugspotters blogmeister himself…..
Q: Why did you start the Mugspotters Blog?
A: 3 reasons really:
1. Back in July/August I was absolutely sick and fed up of the Olympics. I can’t begin tell you how bored I was by it all. Everything you turned on (TV, Radio, Web) was full of it. I needed a hobby to get me through to the start of the football season.
2. To prove you can make a blog on the most obscure of subjects and still find an appreciative audience. (albeit very small at present)
3. I wanted these unsung earthenware heroes to finally get the recognition they deserve.
Q: Why the fascination with Trade Mugs?
A: My earliest recollection was when I went on Holiday as a kid to a caravan in Cornwall, 1981. Upon entering and surveying it’s contents I was fascinated to find a wonderful collection of oddly-mismatched ramshackle earthenware & utensils, including a mug for a company named OAKITE. I baggsied it for the holiday. Oddly, no one else seemed to put up much of a fight….
I guess the seed was sown back then and it was watered and germinated when I came into contact with the likes of Jayline and Malcolm Group. This epiphany prompted me to action, hence Mugspotters was born.
Q: How do you think the blog is performing?
A: Quite well really.
There have been a few ‘Dark nights of the soul’ moments when I didn’t know where the next Trade Mug was coming from but somehow ‘Spots’ & ‘donations’ from the most unlikely of sources kept surfacing ensuring momentum was maintained.
For example, a work colleague had been secretly collecting Trade Mugs sourced from various Charity Shops he’d visited and very kindly presented them to me, one for each working day in December! This was a truly magnificent gesture and ensured the blog is now bustling with new artefacts for your viewing pleasure.
I think now we’ve learned Charity Shops are a fertile outlet for Trade Mugs, so hopefully we’ll never go short in the future.
What is most suprising is how you get other bloggers ‘Liking’ your site entries. For example, the NW Learing Platform received a ‘Like’ from someone in the US the day after it was posted back in August! Mugspotters wasn’t even on Twitter back then so I’m baffled as to how someone had happened across my humble blog.
Finally I’m overwhelmed by the amount of Spotters who have gone ‘above & beyond’ in risking their reputations by snapping mugs in tight situations at work and then emailing them to me for site inclusion. Their selfless actions are very much appreciated.
Q: Worst Mugs posted?
A: I always say ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ but personally from a design point of view for a long time it was Sensia but this was trumped recently by Beaches Family Resorts. (Oddly however this post has received a record 5 ‘blogger-likes’ from across the world!) There’s no accounting for taste.
Q: Best Mugs Posted?
A: Trade Mugs are by naff by definition and were never supposed to be design classics. Sometimes however you do get some
cracking ones turning up.
PGL Holidays – Fantastic double sider of 70s style logo & Line drawing
Sitex Orbis – A busy, busy action-packed mug rammed with facts & stats
Chili ESM – a wonderfully clean & contemporary design
Perfan IV – Lovely use of colour, fonts & illustration
Q: Do you ever use Trade Mugs at home for recreational use?
A: Not ordinarily however NES Recruitment has made it’s way into my kitchen as a semi-permanent fixture.
It has a great feel to it and size-wise it’s ideal when you don’t perhaps want the volume offered by your typical ‘Cambridge’ or ‘Marrow’ which usually adorn our mug tree.
Q: Your Hopes for 2013?
A: I have a few:
– To make it to a hundred mugs posted.
– To make more of a splash in the Twitter-space, maybe even take the site to Facebook.
– To perhaps start earning some revenue streams from the site (although financial gain was never one of my motives
for getting on-line)
– To maybe start an off-shoot blog “Mugsotica” (TM) which celebrates branded earthenware, not trade this time but rather novelty instead, for example chocolate bars, cereals, food & drink products.
– To float on the Stock Exchange (only kidding)
That’s all for now but whatever you do, ABS:
Always
Be
Spotting
Mugspotters 