Could I make this sound any more exciting? It’s a little tricky to explain without giving the game away. Essentially it’s some video that interacts with the browser window.
I watched it all the way through. Marketeers will do the same. First person to spot a copy for a well-known brand say cabbage.
Found by Richard Holt
Now, there’s a new-ish venture in beta called mydeco. The latest venture from Brent Hoberman, one of the two responsible for lastminute.com, boldly claims that it will “revolutionise the way you shop for your home”.
Rory Cellan-Jones on his BBC blog was skeptical about it’s chances of success and I’m probably of the same mind. Certainly the rise in interest in buying homes (Location Location), building homes (Grand Designs), selling homes (Property Ladder), decorating homes (Changing Rooms) etc. is unmistakable but I just can’t get past the interface of the site.
Strange logo placement (odd white space), mixed bag typography (too many faces in too many sizes) , unclear hierarchy and possibly non-existent grid system coupled with trying to offer quite a lot of functionality and content makes it all overwhelming. For me at least.
Perhaps as the community element starts to kick in then it will take off and the ‘realistic 3D tool’ will have an opportunity to deliver.
At the moment, if one has any attention to detail then purchasing a table or chair from a ‘Second Life’ quality rendering seems unlikely.
Having said all that, any new venture deserves a fair crack of the whip so fingers crossed for mydeco. Especially in light of the current, slightly terrifying global financial climate.
Korea have received the first combined USB travel/creditcard/onlinecard device. Looking like a memory stick it’s provides ‘over the air’ payments in physical locations, travel authorisation (Oyster) as well as handling online transactions without having to type in card details.
It’s not a bad looking thing.
Why is any rollout of similar technology here taking such an awfully long time?
Found by The Raw Feed from ETNEWS
I’ve been banging on about this for weeks in the studio so this post will come as no surprise to, and perhaps even elicit a sigh of exhaustion from my colleagues.
Anyway, this arrived in the post today:
The two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 were each graced with a gold-plated record. These records contained images, greeting, music and various sounds of Earth (avalanche, elephant’s trumpet, a kiss and so on).
The book is an account of why they did this, how the repertoire was selected and precisely what the record contains.
Although it is unlikely that the contents of the record will ever be reviewed by other beings (the vastness of space in comparison to the size of the craft puts paid to that) it’s remains an intriguing project and one which came with a certain amount of responsiblity - the attempt to represent, equally and accurately, the diversity of human life.
The book unfortunately does not contain the CD. This was only included as part of the 1992 Warner New Media edition - now practically impossible to get hold of it. But that’s okay. It’s a pretty amazing read and they were extremely innovative in a short, very-presssured period of time.
Anyway, enough about this. If you work in The Brand Union in the London office and would like a look, please drop by.
(I would publish some images but I’m not sure where I’d stand on the copyright on this one. There is a wikipedia entry though and I’ve also discovered a picture of the pictures.)
Punish typographic crimes.
Naturally you’ll have to click on the image to see it at a sensible, legible size. Although the quality isn’t great. Don’t know what’s going on there. Sorry about that.
Anyhow, see a better quality version and more at Design Police. (see what I did with the title?)
Found by: Sean Rees
This site takes a classic text on typography and shows how its principles can be applied to websites using CSS, including looking forward to future CSS3 updates. An excellent read from someone who is obviously knowledgable in both typography and up to date web design.
For those who like me who’ve been looking for a typography blog that updates more that once a year, there is now ilovetypography.com which also features lots of introductory level articles.
I had a lovely weekend and this was, in part, due to visiting Kew Gardens to see the Henry Moore. There is an exhibition of his large-scale sculptures in the grounds, forming the largest outdoor exhibition of his work ever held in London.
If you’re in London between now and the end of March, I would recommend a visit.
They’ve employed a clever audio-guide approach where one uses one’s mobile phone. Simply call a single number, agree to the charge for the service and then key in the number displayed next to each exhibit. Each call is the cost of a local phone call (so about 1p) and by using the speaker option on your phone, more than one person can listen. At £4.50 or thereabouts it’s not super-cheap but the commentary was illuminating.
So this saves on using the bespoke audio guides which often feature terrible headphones and unfamiliar interfaces.
[Every audio clip finished with “…thank you for listening to this piece featuring me, Mike Greenwood”. By the end of the 3rd piece you were perfectly aware of me, Mike Greenwood’s extensive involvement. Well done Mike.]
The Kew Gardens site is pretty good as well, allowing visitors to look up specific plants/trees etc. These are then explained and their position within the gardens identified on a map. For example, Monkey Puzzle tree.
