Jack of all trades
Wednesday 15 June 2011When it comes to skills offering I generally try to follow the ‘James Dyson’ rule. James Dyson is an inventor who is responsible for the Dyson Vacuum cleaner and is an expert in cyclonic separation. Dyson did try his hand at washing machines once but they didn’t really work out so he chooses to stick to what he knows best – airflow. When you buy a Dyson product you know you are paying a little more but getting a well designed product that is built for purpose and to a high standard.
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The future of digital content
Friday 20 May 2011I’ve spent far too long writing an article for Smashing Magazine. A mixture of work commitments, lurgies, and weekends away were the main culprits for slowing the article down but I also found myself getting deeper and deeper into the subject matter.
I’m not entirely sure if the good folk at Smashing Magazine are going to publish the article so I won’t go into too much detail about it (yet) but what I will say was it was quite a fun journey. I got to chat (via email) to some clever and influential designers who’s opinions and comments I very much respect. I have a lot of love and passion for our creative industry and these people giving me some of their time reinforced that energy.
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Illustrations of Osama’s compound
Tuesday 3 May 2011It’s been media overload with the capture and apparent killing of Osama bin Laden for the past few days. One thing that has interested me as a designer are the various illustrations that have been created of the compound that Osama was found in.
The official illustration
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Creating a logo usage guide
Saturday 30 April 2011I recently completed a logo design project for a client, and part of the original specification was to produce an accompanying logo usage guide. The guide was produced in a PDF format and contained comprehensive information on the structure, font usage and colouring of the logo as well as how the logo should be placed when used in various situations. The guide also detailed information on the file formats I supplied when delivering the completed project.
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The iPhone and iPad user interface have got it right
Friday 18 March 2011Last week I attended Geek Ninja Battle night in Brighton where the subject discussed was web Vs native design for mobile devices. It was a great night with some healthy debate by Aral Balkan, Andy Clarke, Remy Sharp and Sarah Parmenter on the pros and cons of both practices. A comment that stuck in my head was made by iPhone and iPad UI design guru Sarah Parmenter who described her mums experience of the UI on the iPad. Sarah’s mum was described as not being particularly tech savvy but had been using her iPad for a short time to access her favourite websites. She would manually type in the address into the Safari browser each time until Sarah showed her how to add a bookmark to the site as an icon on the Springboard. Since Sarah’s mum was now accessing the site via an icon she would also instinctively swipe left and right with her finger to try and browse next and previous pages as if using an app. For me, this is a perfect example of a successful User Interface design in that it’s mechanics are instinctive to us humans.
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