Star Propaganda
Now approaching 40 brings with it middle-aged grumpiness but also fond memories of childhood fuelled by Star Wars and a galaxy far, far away. These propaganda posters for the Imperial Forces and Rebel Alliance caught our eye. They’re a fantastic pastiche on the iconic “your country needs you” style posters. If these were around when I was eight I might well have enlisted!
Check out more propaganda posters here http://bit.ly/iN488C and give yourself a chuckle.
Designing a good cause
We received a lovely letter from the East London Community Foundation today to thanks us for the design work we did for their Summer Benefit Event. The event brochure and HTML email invitations we designed and developed helped them to raise a phenomenal £14,000. These funds will help them to continue building strong and caring communities. Congratulations ELCF and we were glad to be of help.
Google+ Vs Facebook
If anyone can attempt to take on Facebook it’s definitely Google. And us web geeks are sure Google+ will look better, work better and generally be a lot better than Facebook. But the thing about social networking is that your network has to be involved too or it’s all a bit... pointless. We hope it does take off and bring social networking back to being about keeping in touch with your mates instead of the global site of pointless gossip that Facebook has become – and rather ironically, the worst bit about Facebook is the chat feature that never works!
Check out the demo site here »
Designer gone off the rails?
British Designer Mark Noad has released a new tube map, said to be a more ‘geographically-accurate’ take on Harry Beck’s. Mark says “This is not intended as a replacement to the official version, it is simply another way to look at it.” But with a full website, blog and social media campaign underway we can’t help thinking that he’s hankering for a bit of public support to approach the TFL with. The designers in the studio are split; “Nice!” , “Why ruin an institution?” and “I can’t even find Liverpool Street?” have been some of the comments. We bet Max Roberts won’t be too pleased if Mr Noad gets all the limelight though...
Graphic Design at Glastonbury
Frontmedia's graphic design for milkshake brand Shaken Udder certainly does get around. Here's our latest display banner ready to draw in the muddy crowds at Glastonbury 2011 today and over the weekend. It might provide some shelter from the rain too...
Dreamcore Europe 2011
We have just returned from a busy couple of days at Sitecore's biggest annual event; Dreamcore Europe 2011. Each time we mingle in the ever-growing Sitecore pool at one of their brilliant events (e.g. a free bar) the stories of incredible versatility, wealth of possibilities and speed of development we hear from other Partners never ceases to amaze us. We're currently working on several big Sitecore builds and have several more in the pipeline so look out for launches in the portfolio soon. After Dreamcore, we've never had more faith in the product and the team behind it - thanks Sitecore!
Fish sustainability? Yep, there's an iPhone app for that
Frontmedia Sitecore client, Fish2Fork, partnered up with Selfridges' Project Ocean campaign to raise awareness and funds to conserve our rapidly-depleting fish stocks. Frontmedia collaborated with Selfridges’ development team to sync F2F's Sitcore database with the Project Ocean iPhone app; specifically the geolocation-driven restaurant directory. Check out the iPhone app to find out where to eat fish sustainably.
Bottle Design Moooves with the Brand
Our graphic design portfolio of Shaken Udder's marketing collateral is bursting at the seams; testiment to how the brand has grown and become an established and trusted product in the eyes of the consumer in recent months. We decided it was time to reflect this shift in the bottle design. Pulling back the typeface of the flavour name places more emphasis on the brand, whilst keeping it simple and synonymous with product's no-addititives recipe. And it looks pretty good on the shelf too.
Fruity vodka with a twist
Peelable Smirnoff vodka bottles! These perforated, peelable, labeled bottles even come in a wooden crate, just like as the original fruits are transported. Nice-shh!
Pantone wine - mine's a 207C please!
Pantone® swatches are used here to identify a particular grape variety. Each time a varietal in the blend of this wine changes in the next vintage, the colour of the swatch changes. No great shakes, but we are always like seeing our design tools recycled - especially if you're a bit of a lush like myself!
Limited Edition Digital Prints from GF Smith
GF Smiths new digital print papers get a fancy new limited-edition package to showcase just what can be achieved with digital printing these days, and the results are pretty amazing. Each pack contains unique abstract digital paintings inspired by the macro details of paper fibres and shaped by generative processes.
You can now achieve a seemingly endless variety of finishes with Litho quality results (if not better), even stuff like printing white on coloured stock is now possible which gives us loads of creative freedom to get a premium finish even on short-print runs.
Soul Underground
Soul Underground was David's all-time favourite music magazine when the internet was but a dream in the late eighties. Totally underground, where else could you find out Eastern Bloc's top 15 house records as an Essex teenager (I suppose I could have gone to Manchester and asked, but you get the idea)? This was a magazine to keep you on the very edge of cool and it's creator David Lubich, has collected it into a 440-page tome fit to grace anyone's bookshelves. If you've no idea what I'm on about, check the description on DJhistory.com:
"A unique time capsule of the early years of hip hop and house, pulled from the super-collectible fanzine. 440 pages of fresh writing on dance music and clubbing in London, Manchester and New York, with fantastic articles on everyone from KRS-1 to Bobby Konders. The Sound Factory, warehouse parties, the first raves, the birth of acid jazz, not to mention about 200 brilliant charts."
FarCry ColdFusion CMS coming soon...
We are in the process of launching our use of FarCry CMS - an open source, content management system built on the ColdFusion platform.
First released eight years ago, FarCry CMS has had a dedicated community of ColdFusion developers behind it for many years, and it shows. The 'out of the box' capabilities are impressive and our own ColdFusion coding team will find it easy to customise to our clients needs.
More info coming soon...
Setting the tone
When it comes to email communication, it seems we’re all ‘glass half empty’ people. According to Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence and godfather of the field of Emotional Intelligence, there’s a negativity bias to email even if the tone is neutral. Some studies show e-mail messages are interpreted incorrectly 50% of the time – not great for keeping your clients coming back.
Introducing ToneCheck: a plugin for Outlook that scans your email for phrases that it thinks would make the recipient ‘sad’ or ‘angry’. It then gives you the option of correcting it until ToneChecker is ‘content’ with your phrasing. Have to admit that the ‘Your message exceeds your Tone Tolerance’ pop up makes me slightly ‘annoyed’ but it’s free and interesting to see it working. Download it here, or it might be more useful to learn 101 Email Etiquette Tips.
Umbraco CMS
Frontmedia are pleased to announce that we have added the Umbraco CMS platform to our website development suite of tools. This professional open source product sits nicely beneath our Enterprise level CMS served by Sitecore.
Umbraco allows for full on-site live editing as well as having a fully featured content management interface. We particularly like it as it poses no restriction on design which allows our creative team to continue to produce award winning designs with total content control.
umbraco-cms »
Fish sustainability - we're talking about it too
Frontmedia has been working with Fish2Fork since April 2010 and the multi-language Sitecore site we built is the hub of their campaign that’s driving restaurants to only dish up sustainably sourced seafood.
Nine months into the ongoing development of the new site, Fish2Fork covers five countries, has reviewed hundreds of seafood restaurants, converted some of the most prestigious chefs in the world to improve their sustainability policies, and certainly shows no signs of slowing down.
Frontmedia has just been given the go ahead to re-build the website of Fish2Fork’s sister company, also on the Sitecore platform, which will form another road to their quest for sustainable fishing around the globe.
Check out the Sitecore CMS driven website and keep your eye on Fish2Fork, they have some impressive plans in the pipeline to get us all thinking about saving the fish in our oceans.
Check the Fish2Fork website »
B.ü.L.b comix
Discovered the link to this rather excellent miniature comic book publisher via Creative Review. Lovely little art works, yours to read / frame / own.
Visit the website »
Site Listening CD
I'll just let the Boomkat description do the talking, "Amazing concept this - Lawrence English has created the first in a series of 'Site-Listening' guides that point you to specific locations at specific times of the year, at certain times of the day to hear weird and wonderful things. Beautifully presented as a pocket guidebook including photographs, notes and even GPS locations of each entry, the book also comes with a 3" CD including recordings from each site. It's just a brilliant idea that's been perfectly executed - a real object of desire."
Take a closer look »
Adobe Edge - an HTML5 prototype tool
Now here is something we will definitely be keeping an eye on. Adobe has revealed some more information on it's forthcoming software called 'Edge'. It looks like it works much like Flash, but uses HTML5, meaning it's compatible with Apple products such as the iPhone and iPad (whereas Flash currently is not) and will enable users to take advantage of HTML5 in the new wave of browsers.
You can view the Adobe Developer Connection video via the link below.
Adobe Edge Presentation »
i - The paper for today?
Described (admittedly by themselves) as "colourful and accessible, concise and intelligent... your essential daily briefing", we felt "i" was a pretty good read. It certainly put us in mind of many of the qualities we strive for in our design and technical solutions. From a clients perspective, it's clear that providing concise and intelligent information is key, especially on the internet, as visitors to your website will look to spend as little time as possible to get what the information they want from it. Optimising your content can lead to far better results, both in terms of sales and enquiries.
Will the "i" survive... hopefully so. It's more accessible than many of the broadsheets and has been prepared to embrace changes in the way we consume information. If it continues to evolve, maybe it can avoid the fate of "Today".
Minecraft - how simple things are often best
You're probably wondering what on earth it is, but Minecraft (http://www.minecraft.net) is a bit of an internet sensation.
Essentially it's a sandbox game that allows the player to explore a virtual randomly generated world and interact with it in a variety of ways. It isn't particularly aesthetically pleasing and you certainly won't be comparing it to the latest Xbox or PS3 games in that regard, but OMG (LOL - Ed.) is it addictive. Kevin, Mark and myself are often seen running around our own virtual worlds during lunch (ROFLMAO - Ed.).
Although its still in development, Minecraft has attracted over 500,000 purchases, and at around £8 a pop has earned the developer Markus Persson quite a healthy bank account!
The secrets of its success are in my opinion its simplicity and accessibility, both of which apply to what we do. When we design and build our websites, we strive for simplicity with style, meaning that visitors are focussing on the content, turning visits into transactions. We also make sites as accessible as possible to ensure that no matter the source of visitor, they will see the information on your website as intended.
Minecraft »
New Adventures of Web Design
We're off shortly to our first conference of the new year in January.
"New Adventures of Web Design"(http://newadventuresconf.com) should be an opportunity for us to engage with some of industry's most respected voices and with 2011 shaping up to be a big year for the newer technologies (like CSS3, HTML5, Web fonts and mobile platforms like JQTouch / JQuery Mobile and Sencha), it'll enable us to make sure we're abreast of all the latest 'cutting edge' digital possibilities for all our clients.
If you're curious to know more about these latest technologies, and how they can be used to either enhance your existing website or engage with your clients in a new way let us know, we'd be happy to talk about it.
New Adventures of Web Design website »
Windows phone 7 launched
Along with every other phone manufacturer going it seems, Microsoft has launched it's latest offering, Windows Phone 7. Looks pretty nice to us, but don't they all these days. I like the idea of the xbox live app, but is it serious competition for iPhone / Android? We'll find out pretty soon.
jQuery Mobile 1.0 Alpha
Seriously cross-platform & cross-device
"jQuery mobile framework takes the "write less, do more" mantra to the next level: Instead of writing unique apps for each mobile device or OS, the jQuery mobile framework will allow you to design a single highly branded and customized web application that will work on all popular smartphone and tablet platforms."
So says the website for jQuery mobile. Looks like a promising way to take mobile apps cross-platform. We're trying it now, so we'll keep you posted.
View the jQuery mobile website »
The Media Festival in Wired
Interesting to see The Media Festival featured in Wired magazine this month (at least it is for us as we did all the design work for it). It's shaping up to be quite an event with some excellent speakers involved.
View The Media Festival website »
Concrete Hermit
If like us, you're a sucker for a decent t-shirt design, you could do worse than take a look at Concrete Hermit. Rich recently picked up a couple whilst in the big smoke (as I believe the kids are calling London these days).
They don't just sell t-shirts though, there's all manner of design-related stuff to be had on the site (or in the Covent Garden shop) pretty much all of which is really quite desirable, so take a look.
Concrete Hermit online »
Kid Robot Munny
David's just finished his first go at a Munny DIY toy. For those of you less than familiar with the world of expensive vinyl toys, Kid Robot sell you a blank vinyl figure and you basically do what you like with it. This one's done with a black twin-tip Sharpie (apart from the red bit on the back which unsurprisingly involved a red Sharpie).
See more »
Galaxy Tab Updates
Samsung is expected to launch its next-gen Galaxy Tab tablets at Mobile World Congress in February 2011, according to the WSJ, alongside a new range of Android smartphones. Rumours abound that the new handsets will use dual-core processors, Android 2.3 Gingerbread and have Super AMOLED Plus displays, as on the Samsung Infuse 4G. Worth keeping an eye on we reckon. The official site can be found here.
Find out more here »
Would you like to go back in time?
Well, guess what, you can. Yes, I know, I know. But you don’t actually need a time-machine to do it. You need to be a Retronaut. A Retronaut is someone who goes back in time using just perception. Its a trick they pull on themselves, a psychological ruse. But – it works.
Want to know more, check this amazing site I stumbled on whilst I was working on the Media Arts Festival website. It's run by Chris Wild, creator of the retroscope, a visual time machine. Yes it sounds a bit weird but seriously, take a look, you won't regret it.
How to be a Retronaut website »
What would Clarkson make of this three-wheeler?
Say hello to the Bufalino tricycle miniature home. Cornelius Comanns has pimped an existing Piaggio APE 50 three-wheeled vehicle as part of his degree in industrial design at the University of Applied Science in Munich. It includes a little bed, seating, a cooking zone, clothes rail, sink and water tank - all decorated in a very fetching Burberry-style stripe. Better still, in Germany it is exempt from taxes and congestion zone-type charges. How civilised.
Design in the Dark
Print Club London presents Blister Blackout – 40 illustrators will be chosen to sell 40 signed prints at 40 pounds each. The theme? Not it’s not 40, it’s glow in the dark screen prints!
The venue will be blacked out at points during the exhibition so the artwork can really glow.
They are open for entries until 30th September so if you reckon you have any bright ideas , go for it! But maybe don’t if you’re scared of the dark...
Blister Blackout »
Sencha Touch vs jQuery?
Sencha Touch, is an HTML5 mobile JavaScript framework that allows you to develop mobile web apps that look and feel native on iPhone and Android touchscreen devices
jQuery Mobile is a "unified user interface system across all popular mobile device platforms, built on the rock-solid jQuery and jQuery UI foundation. Its lightweight code is built with progressive enhancement, and has a flexible, easily themeable design." Looks interesting and seems to have cross-platform support. Who will prevail?
jQuery Mobile »
Mail Me Art Exhibition
Curator Darren Di Lieto asked illustrators and artists to post envelopes adorned with artwork to the same address - over a period of a year...
Find out more »
Table Football at the highest level
I thought things got pretty tense here during a table football match, but nothing quite like this.
Nice font goodness at T26
Saw this on T.26 and it immediately caught our eye. It's got us thinking about what projects we could use it on... scriptastic.
T26 - Creamy Script »
How design helps leading companies meet business challenges
Another good read on the Design Council website - "Find out how leading companies use sophisticated design management techniques to compete in crowded marketplaces, connect with their customers and capitalise on the power of their brands."
How design helps leading companies meet business challenges »
Richard really wants the HTC EVO™ 4G!
Rich really wants this phone... (he claims never to get that excited by phones) but this is rather nice we must admit, it even has a kick stand built in! Boo yah. Shame its not out over here yet!
HTC UK »
What design is and why it matters
You might want to try this interesting article by the Design Council's Chief Design Officer, Mat Hunter. It outlines how design is, "divided into four distinct phases, Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver".
What design is and why it matters »
Flash is dead. Long live Flash.
There's been a lot of hype on the web about the impending death of Flash (the technology web developers have used for the past decade to bring some life the web) as HTML 5 finds support among most browser manufacturers including the increasingly iRritating Apple, purveyors of all things "i". The link below suggests maybe it's not quite as clear cut as the blogs would have you believe.
HTML vs Flash5 »
Sencha Touch 1.0
The Sencha Touch 1.0 release of their new HTML5 framework, intended for rapid development of mobile web apps using familiar user interface controls, looks pretty interesting.
fish2fork.com goes live...
After much hard work by the sitecore team here at frontmedia, the fish2fork website has now been launched! Built on Sitecore the site gives all the flexibility required for the f2f editorial team to manage the site.
fish2fork »
FM reducing their carbon footprint
Director Simon now makes the 5 mile journey into work on a power-assisted bicycle at the cost of a measly 4p. An electric bike may seem like cheating (and of course it is) but Simon likes to think it gives him a gentle workout en-route to the office.
urbanmover.com »