[HN Gopher] Exeter's unassuming co-op worker leads double life a...
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Exeter's unassuming co-op worker leads double life as 'Lord of the
Logos'
Author : summoned
Score : 191 points
Date : 2025-04-05 15:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.devonlive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.devonlive.com)
| flippant wrote:
| Archived copy
|
| https://archive.is/JbtH8
| m463 wrote:
| so exeter co-op is a grocery store?
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Co-op is a UK supermarket chain and the brand used for the food
| retail business of The Co-operative Group, one of the world's
| largest consumer co-operatives.
|
| This is the Exeter branch.
| mattl wrote:
| There's multiple different businesses doing business as "the
| co-op" in the UK IIRC, somewhat based on geography but with
| different branding too.
| gerdesj wrote:
| There are these ones in the UK these days:
|
| https://www.co-operative.coop/about-us/history
| https://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/about-us/
|
| When a Brit talks about "The Co-op", they (we) mean the
| stores. The bank always has bank appended to its name.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| There's also the funeral care:
| https://www.coop.co.uk/funeralcare.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Good catch.
|
| My New Year's promise this year was to be more
| demonstrably accurate than last year and I seem to have
| screwed it up already.
|
| Bugger.
| mattl wrote:
| You can see here what I'm talking about:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-op_Food
|
| Different groups of co-operatives sharing "The Co-Op"
| brand with different but similar branding.
|
| Co-op Food in Devon vs other parts of the UK will be run
| by a different group.
|
| I went down a Wikipedia hole on this the other day.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Indeed. Sometimes you'll have two Co-ops from different
| groups right next to each other: Shipston-on-Stour has a
| Midcounties Co-op two doors down from a Co-operative
| Group Co-op. Both are externally branded Co-op, they sell
| many of the same Co-op branded products, and they don't
| take each other's loyalty/dividend card.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Yes, a village near us has two close by and competing, a
| mid-counties co-op and a food co-op.
| FearNotDaniel wrote:
| Yes. Exeter is a city in England. Co-op (short for "co-
| operative") is a chain of grocery stores that was originally
| founded on principles of shared ownership [0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_brand
| kristianp wrote:
| Pronounced "coo-op" or "cwop", depending on your accent.
| funnybeam wrote:
| "Ko op" where I'm from, never heard it pronounced any other
| way
|
| Rhymes with no-op
| treetalker wrote:
| Logos as in corporate designs, not Greek / Christian _logos_.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| "Corporate designs" is technically accurate, but more
| specifically he primarily makes logotypes for heavy metal bands
| and other musical acts. A very cool, inspired pursuit.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| Yeah I totally thought this was going to be about some new
| religious or spiritual movement.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Heavy metal logos, not corporate logos.
| arpinum wrote:
| I'll pop in tomorrow and see if he does corporate logos
| columb wrote:
| My time to shine! I used to work with Krzysiu (Krzysztof). He
| used to have MySpace popular page and he was designing logos for
| heavy-metal bands - sometimes (if not always) for free. Really
| nice guy. Oh, and Exeter got to the front page...
|
| Czesc Krzysiu! Pozdrawiam (We used to work at COOP HB)
| mattl wrote:
| Wasn't expecting to see Exeter on the homepage for sure.
| dotBen wrote:
| Is there a tech scene in Exeter? I have long lived in San
| Francisco having moved from UK in 2006 but I spent a lot of
| time down in Devon where my parents now live.
| mattl wrote:
| Heh, not sure. I moved to the US in 2008. I think you and I
| talked about this when you were at WordCamp Boston when you
| were doing stuff with WPEngine.
|
| I think at least one of the W3C staff is in Devon.
| dotBen wrote:
| wow you have a much better memory than I do, I don't even
| remember anything about the event (tbf for several years
| I used to attend a WordCamp somewhere practically every
| other week!)
| mattl wrote:
| Yeah, you've been to approximately 9000 of them and I've
| been to less than five.
| physicsguy wrote:
| Not really, there's a bit of one in Bristol, but from what
| I see of job postings down there, salaries aren't that
| high, comparable to much of the rest of the U.K. outside of
| London
|
| The MetOffice has their software stuff down in Exeter but
| it's <PS45k for people with experience in scientific
| computing and HPC
| heeton wrote:
| I wouldn't call it a scene, but there's a small handful of
| people and the occasional meet-up or event. I'm near Exeter
| after working in London for ~10 years.
|
| Hi to anyone else who's down in Devon :)
|
| (Hit me up via my profile if you'd like to grab a coffee)
| rc55 wrote:
| There is a tech scene in Exeter for sure, check out these:
|
| - https://techexeter.uk - they've been running events for
| many years now, 1500 members and monthly meetups.
|
| - https://bsidesexeter.co.uk - Infosec events - some
| members formerly of the local DEFCON group (those events
| were fun).
|
| - Shameless plug https://novaparty.org - Annual demoscene
| event (this year will be 13-15th June) run in collaboration
| with Tech Exeter.
| nextos wrote:
| Would Exeter be a good location, in comparison to the
| home counties, to set up a startup where most employees
| WFH 90% of the time?
|
| I really like the area, and my preferred locations in
| Oxon & Cambs are getting incredibly expensive in terms of
| real estate, which doesn't make sense in case of WFH.
| dcsan wrote:
| Richard bartle and the original MUD came out of Exeter uni
| AI program. Until this week he was a game design prof there
| too. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_p
| layer_type...
| xanderlewis wrote:
| Wasn't expecting to see the Co-op.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Is this guy why every metal band logo looks like a bundle of
| twisted sticks? Or maybe he's just particularly successful at it.
| starkparker wrote:
| no, he's just part of a long evolution of metal logos from the
| 1980s, particularly Mayhem: https://www.metal-
| archives.com/bands/Mayhem/67
|
| this article kind of glances on Christophe's Emperor logo,
| which was 1994, but it was also just part of the chain of
| influences
| darkwater wrote:
| This style is mainly used by black metal and death metal bands,
| not every heavy metal one.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| People seem to like the style but I find them virtually
| unreadable.
| jlarocco wrote:
| Same here. I think they look kinda neat, but I can't read
| them to save my life.
| arp242 wrote:
| The obscurity and inaccessibility is kind of the point, at
| least for some of the Black Metal bands.
| senderista wrote:
| Emperor's logo is indeed iconic. Shame that just like most of the
| bands he's made logos for, he can't live on his art.
| kilpikaarna wrote:
| Legend! Seems like he might be a bit of a savant type though. Sad
| to hear that he's working at a supermarket. He started getting
| attention about a decade ago thanks to social media and had an
| artbook published, but despite his cult status and having some
| big name clients he would charge like 30 bucks to draw them a
| logo.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| > Sad to hear that he's working at a supermarket.
|
| I wouldn't be too hasty to call someone's job sad, unless they
| actually hated it.
|
| From the article:
|
| > [...] Christophe relies on the steady income of his job at
| the Co-op serving customers. He is contracted to do 12 to 20
| hours a week, [...]. He said: "The reason I will never be able
| to fulfil my dream to be living exclusively off my art is
| because of the competition there now is so I have to have two
| sources of income.
|
| And specifically:
|
| > "Working at the Co-op also helps me maintain contact with the
| outside world as otherwise you can be immersed in your own art
| world. As long as my tummy is full and I have a roof over my
| head, that is the most important thing."
| anticorporate wrote:
| I worked at a food co-op for the first three years of my
| career. After spending the next dozen or so years in tech,
| I'm now reapplying to co-op grocery jobs.
|
| Money isn't everything.
| vvpan wrote:
| As they say - name checks out. I have been really into the
| idea of cooperatives lately. It is a topic that deserves
| more light seeing the extreme centralization of corporate
| wealth. Sadly most non-legal info about co-ops out there
| always goes back to Mondragon. There needs to be more media
| about non-corporate organizations. US farming and
| electrification was largely driven cooperatives, for
| example, but one rarely hears much about it.
| memhole wrote:
| I personally like cooperatives too. I've always wondered
| if instead of a tech union a cooperative might be a
| better fit. No solution is perfect, though. Lots of
| people want to make an income and not deal with the now
| governance part of their job. You also have people that
| are attracted to those kinds of organizations who also
| desire the governance part. Which goes back to the trope
| about those that should have authority don't often want
| it.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Yeah money isn't everything after you made a bunch. What.
| beacon294 wrote:
| Well, our society defaults many people to serving money
| so having escaped the immediate serfdom of debt and even
| short term cashflow, people can make more balanced
| choices.
| anticorporate wrote:
| This was me. I loved my co-op job, but I had no family
| money and no prospect of ever being able to buy a home on
| that income.
|
| I worked in tech long enough to pay off debts, put a down
| payment on a house, and no longer have to live in fear of
| a minor crisis bankrupting me. I didn't got rich, I
| stayed long enough that after leaving tech I could
| continue to work a normal job until normal retirement age
| - the thing that used to be in reach for the working
| class, but no longer is. The continue pursuit of money
| beyond a basic safety net wasn't worth the harm.
|
| I still love technology. I have no love for the tech
| industry.
| manarth wrote:
| Although it's nominally and legitimately a "co-operative",
| the Co-Op in question is a large national supermarket chain
| in the UK.
|
| Working there is like working any retail job, and a far cry
| from a small community co-op.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| Traces its roots to the Rochdale pioneers. I'd say it's
| not just "a" co-op, it's likely the oldest in existence
| on Earth.
|
| But yeah, working there is not going to be too much
| different to working at any other store.
|
| Still, don't underplay that. Having something you can go
| to, walk away from without having to bring home any work,
| get your 30-40 hours/week (and they'll pay a decent
| living wage), so you can pay the bills _and_ keep your
| creative energy for your art... it 's not a bad way to
| be.
| cartoffal wrote:
| The Co-op in Sandwich, Kent is still locally known as the
| Pioneer!
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| He does what he loves while without having to be "hungry" or an
| unstable lifestyle and unpredictable.
|
| That sounds like the definition of success to me.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I wish I worked a simple manual labor job like a supermarket.
| It's just hard to make a living wage, savings, retire, pay for
| unexpected high costs for transportation or health care, and I
| wouldn't be able to travel. Otherwise it would be great.
| Stacking boxes all day? Helping customers with their bags?
| Doing inventory? Checking people out at the register? A simple
| job where I don't have to sit in a chair, can plan, organize,
| do rote manual tasks, socialize, and help people? Sign me up.
| Heck I might even do it part time when I retire.
| y42 wrote:
| yeah I tried to read the article, but somehow it's hard to see
| the content beyond a full screen ad inside a modal, a second
| modal asking me to allow notifications, an inline WhatsApp
| banner, a fixed ad in the footer,four display ads fencing the
| first paragraph and at this point I kind of gave up.
| wffurr wrote:
| Yeah this seems like a fun article but it's buried under way
| too much adtech crud, and Chrome Android has no "reader view" I
| can find. Maybe I need a better user agent that actually
| respects the user.
| Liquix wrote:
| Iceraven is an unofficial fork of Firefox for Android
| maintained by Mozilla, allows installation of desktop
| extensions (full uBlock origin): https://github.com/fork-
| maintainers/iceraven-browser
| mkl wrote:
| Firefox Android supports uBlock Origin just fine (I didn't
| see a single ad or modal in this article). There is no need
| for obscure forks, and Iceraven is "Definitely not brought
| to you by Mozilla!", as the first sentence on the page
| says.
| switch007 wrote:
| It's an ad blocker testing site that occasionally has some news
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| Reach - the publishing group that owns a lot of local papers as
| well as some national titles in the UK, such as the Daily
| Express and the Mirror - has run their online portfolio into
| the ground. All their paper websites are like this, and staff
| have been complaining for some time that their content is
| getting buried under adtech noise. Worse, the writers have page
| view targets - no wonder morale there is so poor.
| dcsan wrote:
| The revenue has been sucked out of the publications pushing
| them into options like this. Craig's fortune was redirected
| from somewhere in a zero sum ecosystem. LLM searches making
| it far worse. I hope micropayments for original content work
| out but that's a pipe dream so far
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| Why aren't you using Firefox with uBlock Origin?
| y42 wrote:
| I am... experienced that on my mobile.
|
| (and fwiwf, shameless self promotion, thats why I wrote my
| own AI based summarizing service:
| https://nickyreinert.de/blog/2025/02/16/poneyhot-eats-
| click-...
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| You can use Firefox with uBlock Origin on mobile too,
| that's what I do.
| dcsan wrote:
| Reader mode in mobile? But then maybe you lose some graphics
| sieste wrote:
| Funny to see this on the front page. When my son was a baby, I
| carried him in a sling and got my morning coffee from Christophe
| in the coop next door. Every day he greeted me with "It's the
| tired kangaroo man!"
| lukecarr wrote:
| A DevonLive article on HN: this must be one of the four horsemen!
| dmje wrote:
| Ah, town of my teen years, hidden under 300 pop ups and adspam
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| _very_ cool story
| croisillon wrote:
| What a horrible ad and spam drenched website, poor Devonians :(
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| It seems every county in the UK has one of these sites, it's
| part of Reach plc (formerly Trinity Mirror).
|
| This particular article is about as engaging as it gets.
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(page generated 2025-04-06 23:01 UTC)