This carved Leica sign sits above the upper office doors here at Camera Electronic. It is a beautiful thing, and I'm actually jealous of it. I once bought an oil painting of myself but that is just a daub - this is sculpture.
Mind you, I have been looking closely at the artwork carved behind the names. Someone said it represents oak leaves and natural shapes, but I'm not altogether sure it isn't two dragons; Fasolt and Fafner. Which means that somewhere around the place is a fabulous horde of gold, a ring, and a Valkyrie maiden surrounded by fire. Plus Nibelungen*. It's going to play hell with the insurance rates for the premises...
Coming away from that, we get to the point of this week's posts; Leica. You may have heard of the firm - they make cameras. But up until now, you might not have realised that they are quite as much fun as they really are.
To start with, you generally see the Leica brand in a standard setting. I've seen ten separate Leica Boutique installations in three countries in the last five years, and I would be hard pressed after one beer to tell them apart. That's good branding, I guess. Like seeing a Shell or BP sign when you are looking for petrol and an ice lolly, and you know exactly what you are going to get. The fact that you can't get a Leica for petrol or ice lolly money is beside the point - you know it is what it is when you see the black cabinet and the red dot.
But are you seeing it all when you just see the outer coating? Is Leica a staid brand? Has it stayed too much the same for much too long? Is there anything new? Is there anything
fun? Do they make anything that you can take out, wind the top down, and open the exhaust cutouts?
Here's a taster:
You can't buy it, because it's not for sale. It's a small gold model of one of the first experimental Leica that Saul and Howard picked up in Europe on one of their Leica trips. It probably doesn't take pictures, but with this sort of thing you never can tell...and it is a clue that Leica people have a sense of fun and history hidden away.
You might almost say they have a horde of fun...
* Now I know I'm on the right track. I've seen Nibelungen in the storeroom.
