Say ‘Hi’ to Highrise

March 22, 2007

37 Signals is a company with an impressive track record amongst the web-savvy communities. Like Apple they have a knack for making the complex appear simple and easy to use. Their particular market is in the project planning/organisational tools area – an increasingly popular subject in today’s ‘always-on’ world.
Another similarity with Apple is the cult [...]

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Moonlighting

March 5, 2007

Us creative types often take inspiration from the natural world around us, so when I heard there was to be a full eclipse of the moon last Saturday night I wanted to get a good look at the phenomenon.
I’ve seen a lunar eclipse some years ago and remembered how fascinating it was to observe, but [...]

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Back on the air… er, wires

January 27, 2007

This is my first post to this blog for quite a while now.
Design work has been pretty intense since just before Christmas, which is very good news for me, but bad for the blogging.
Work is still in the ascendant, I’m happy to say, but I intend to maintain my blogging on a more regular basis [...]

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My name is Legion, for we are many…

October 8, 2006

With all the expanded media opportunities available to help market your brand nowadays I thought a post about logo design iterations would be of interest.

A few years back a ‘typical’ corporate Identity core logo design used to be fairly straightforward:

Original logo design (mono or colour)
Line colour version (maybe two, or three Pantone colours)
Process colour version [...]

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Drawing on Technology

October 8, 2006

I saw this awesome demonstration of design sketching on Youtube.
Stick with it to see how much detail the physics model generates form these simple sketches.
I wish my sketchpad could do that.

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Well ‘ard logos

September 26, 2006

I’ll come clean here and openly admit that I am a big fan of ‘Old-School’ style logo design. By ‘Old School’ I mean a brand logo with hard, solid geometry and well-defined areas for ink/no ink – an image capable of faithful reproduction in almost any media, with minimal adjustments to the original. Back in [...]

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Point & shoot & Physiotherapy…

September 21, 2006

So that’s what a 160mp camera looks like!

I think they’ve rotated the photo here, the camera is on the ground and the guy is lying on his side – trying to lift it.

Click on the thumbnail for a better image of this brute (and I’m referring to the camera, of course).

You’ll probably have to upgrade [...]

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“On again, off again, on again – Finnegan”

September 1, 2006

I must admit that I am in awe of the Basecamp product for online collaboration, it really is an elegant web-based solution for project management. I find I am using it a lot more now that my clients and I are becoming more familiar with its benefits, which happens in a short space of time [...]

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The lifetime behind every second

August 27, 2006

I found this very apt description on the value of experience on the 37signals website (the folks behind Basecamp)

Picasso, Paula Scher, and the lifetime behind every second – Signal vs. Noise
…The designer version of the Picasso story usually involves a designer sketching out a brilliant logo on a napkin during a lunch meeting. If you’re [...]

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Saul Bass title animations

August 27, 2006

Thanks to YouTube I just found some classic movie title animations by the legendary Saul Bass.

Go check them out, amazingly, even at these small viewing sizes, Saul’s powerful graphics are still very effective.
I saw him on a documentary once voicing his preference for illustrating on very cheap papers, instead of the high grade expensive stock [...]

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A word from the Management…

August 13, 2006

Anyone involved in the creative industries will know only too well that good Project Management is critical to success. As in many other disciplines today’s creatives must manage and be accountable for more than the central creative processes alone.
This is especially true for small businesses, ie: the majority of designers, where the creatives may also [...]

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Creature Feature

August 9, 2006

Another one of my pet obsessions is movies and their effect on popular culture, so I recently picked up the ‘Alien Quadrilogy’ (is that a real word?) DVD box set at my local HMV shop. I’ve seen them all quite a few times of course but the one that really stands the test of time [...]

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This season’s iWant

August 9, 2006

The launch of the new MacPro desktop workstation at the Apple WWDC on Monday has the Mac creative community drooling in anticipation, and rightly so. The external casing has changed little from the G5 (hey remember them?) but under the bonnet is another story. All of these desktop units sport the new Dual-Core Intel Xeon [...]

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Magnum in Ireland

August 4, 2006

Following the recent re-opening of the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast they have managed to acquire a fascinating exhibition from the renowned Magnum Photos Agency. The exhibition is entitled ‘Magnum Ireland’ and features many photographs from such world-class photographers as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliot Erwitt, Ian Berry and others.
The images date from as far back as [...]

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A woman of letters

August 1, 2006

I recently attended my daughter’s graduation ceremony at Brighton University and, in addition to enjoying being the proud dad for the day, was pleasantly surprised to see the university awarding an Honorary Doctor of Letters to the graphic designer Margaret Calvert.

Margaret worked with Jock Kinneir in creating the UK road and motorway signage system, started [...]

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Hello World!

March 1, 2006

Well, this is the historic first post (or possibly the hysteric first post) for my new blog.
I intend to publish my opinions about design, graphics and generally anything of a visual or creative nature for those of you with an interest in this sort of thing, well that’s the plan anyway.
There will likely be a [...]

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