February 2009
55 posts
Fazely Studio's Launch Party
Just got home from the launch night of Fazely Studio’s. We were there on behalf of Plus and it sucked. Considering we had put our own money into our piece we received no thank you or even an acknoledgment of out time for FS. This plus the fact that no-one was really interested in anything but alcohol made it completely useless. I feel used and although I have been cheated. That money could...
“Forget plastic discs. Downloading games to your console is the new way to play –...”
– David Kushner Wired 14.08: The Infinite Arcade
Good design: The ten commandments of Dieter Rams →
It’s reassuring to find articles on the aspects of design that I agree with. Sometimes the fads that I see worry me and makes me wonder about my design choices.
Iris Associates Ltd. →
Nice site design using only 2 columns. I could definitely take note from that.
ruiz+company →
Whilst I do love this company, the identity is really cold. It needs something to lift it out above the crowd.
Lovely understated website.
The Smile Website Dilemma
So as part of the Last/First project (uni project about Smile’s last uni project that’s also our first project as a commercial entity) I will be redesigning the Smile website so it looks its best.
My problem? I think we need three columns. Nav>Content>Copy. Easy right? Wrong. It’s a pain in the bum! This is because of the limited width I can use. I think that most design...
Leicester Accountant people
I went (with Smle) to Leicester to meet some accountants on the recommendation of Sarah Coleman. The two hour drive was well worth it. We got some great advice and we’re now set on the right track for the close future.
Saffron Brand Consultants →
Very interesting website. Individual. Retained me for more than 5 clicks.
Suprb » Projects →
Superb work. Seriously. Really hot stuff.
Helvetica/Baskerville
I’ve been screwing around with Baskerville and Helvetica and trying to make them play nice with each other. It’s really quite a challenge. The application is tricky because of Baskerville. This is mainly because I’m forcing it to comply with the Swiss layouts I’ve produced. I don’t think B likes it.
Not my problem :-P
I’ve actually got it working in some...
Why I don't like Blogger.
First of all, these are my personal opinions and I am not trying to force them upon you nor do I claim any of them to be facts.
I don’t think that Blogger is necessarily a bad platform, there are just a few irritations and gripes that I have with it. The first major pain is the overall look of every blog tends to look the same. Blogger has a big user-base which is great, but when a form of...
“The carrier is as important as the message it contains.”
– A1 Envelopes - your first stop for direct mail
“Shit just got real.”
– Martin Lawrence Bad Boys 2
“A piece of 18th century intellectual piracy.”
– Simon Loxley Comment on Fry’s Baskerville
“You really should set 16pt Helvetica with a 20pt line height.”
– Balvir Nandra
"I Can Read Movies" →
Great collection of book covers. Yummy graphics that remind me of Saul Bass/Paul Rand type stuff.
Waving Stripes
→
Lovely piece. I would like to try something like this for some giveaway prints…
Advertising Brief
I have been working with Susan Coles & Umbreen Iqbal for the past 4 days on a brief set by MA Design Management students. It has been undeniably tough. The workflow was a bit disjointed but the final outcome was strong. Our presentation went well and doesn’t require any further work. This is pretty good as it means my focus is now squarly set on final major.
FontStruct →
A great online tool for creating modular typefaces. Especially good for shoeing the basics of type design.
I like big stats and I cannot lie...
I’ve been looking at my Google Reader trends after deleting some old stagnant rubbish. This post details what I have learnt about myself.
I read 24 articles a day. If you want me to read your article, you’d be making a sensible choice by publishing it on a Monday. It seems that most people want to post their item on a Thursday though. Whatever you do, don’t post your article on...
Texture Time
Tonight I have been refreshing my Photoshop skills after doing some visualisation mock-ups for a Think Tank brief.
I just wanted to share this tip, because it saves so much time and I never knew it existed. When you want to make a pattern/texture a seamless tile; take your image in PS and follow “Filter>Other>Offset”. Finish the seams with the patch tool. The filter cuts out all...
Blueprint: A CSS Framework →
The Grid; for the web. I am so sold. Bring on the new web project!
Web Design tutorial for simple but powerful... →
Great style. Loving this website!
OSX Style Binder Address Book Icon Tutorial →
Great tutorial, extremely thorough and excellent outcome.
The Google Sync
Today I avoided tidying the mess that is my bedroom productively tried out Google Sync for the iPhone. I was scared about losing everything, but it’s not half as dangerous as everyone makes out. Just make back-ups and you can revert everything!
It’s actually pretty cool. Seeing changes happen in real-time is awesome! As a result I’m going to move all of my calendars onto the...
“An Impersonable Typeface for Today and Tomorrow.”
– Axel Langer (on Helvetica)
Have we found the Smile studio?
No. But I feel like we’re getting closer! After going to 2 large creative-industries orientated developments, I think we are finally coming to a realistic conclusion. Whilst some new builds can offer fresh paint and large spaces, the older builds can offer security and flexibility. The fact that they were willing to cater for us in ways that the new build seemed very hard edged and...
“It’s what you do with the space that counts…”
– Matt Lees (Creative Director at Smile Creative Consultants)
Map of Popular Super Bowl Words Used on Twitter →
This is a super-cool data visualisation for twiiter usage during the Superbowl. This sort of stuff would be so useful to advertisers!
Don’t forget it’s all about that play button!
(via @Sharl)
Simple Web Management →
This looks interesting. I’ll give that beta a go and fill you in later!
The Infamous Foundry →
This is a beautiful foundry. I’m jealous.
The Impossible Project →
Even the website looks ‘vintage’! I love this site and I love the mission. Bring back instant film!
“Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly...”
– Edwin Land
3 tags
Primary Domain issues fixed!
Phew, after hours of head-scratching I got the new domains working! What was the problem? An internal CMS redirect.
The nature of the smile site (and my lack of phpwcms experience at the time) meant that I had the default landing page redirect to a new spoof home page that I created to make it appear in the menu structure.
I had entered an absolute path name. Why? I’ve no idea, but by...
“There’s a lot of weather about this morning…”
– GMTV weather reporter
Primary Domain Woes
I’ve had a good run of minimal website problems. I started young and learnt areas to avoid. In a way, I guess I have a fear of web-hosts.
Today I bought two new domains. I parked them. So far so good. Oh wait, look at that, the address bar is all rubbish. It’s displaying the old domain.
… and so begins the nightmare.
So it looks like I’ll have to change the primary...
Andrea Guinn →
Really beautiful piece of infographics! Go now!
ShotCodes
Now this is cool. ShotCodes are similar to the QR-Codes I used a while back. This image however is created using a dynamic URL. Basically you input the address with any url and the shot code is made on-the-fly.
The image url is; http://www.shotcode.org/code.png?url=www.nathanmonk.com
It’s just a shame that ShotCodes aren’t half as popular as QR-Codes.