Well it may not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but here are a few of my favourite - new - things…
iPhone 4
As to be expected, this evening (in our timezone at least) Apple announced iPhone 4. “This Changes Everything Again”. Now my iPhone 3G looks mega old and rubbish. A few major breakthroughs - a brilliantly high resolution screen, 5 megapixel camera front and back (with led flash and light censor on back), video chat on WiFi + HD video editing directly on phone. Sounds amazing. Looks amazing. Definite yes to upgrading - glad I skipped the 3GS now.
Torchwood - New Global Series
Purely by chance I visited the Torchwood site today to find announcement (dated today) that a new series has been commissioned by BBC Worldwide and the production team is to be led by none other than Russel T. Davies. John Barrowman returns as Capatain Jack Harkness, along with Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper and some new faces. Can’t wait.
HTML5 & CSS3
Although not particularly new - and still along way from being universal - HTML 5 and CSS3 have taken a notable leap forward, with Apple’s heavy backing (no doubt because they hate Flash). See this new page posted by Apple of just a taste of some of the amazing things we can’t yet do because all those (majority) Internet Explorer users can’t see yet: http://www.apple.com/html5/
For kicks see this neat site currently shows HTML5 readyness - even Safari 4 hasn’t ticked all the boxes yet, but it’s come along way. http://html5readiness.com/
Now who says I only post half naked men, funny videos and silly cartoons…
About a week ago, a design acquaintance of mine mentioned Clients From Hell on Twitter. Although I consider myself very lucky on balance, with the vast majority of my clients being great, everyone in the industry has horror stories to tell. Clients From Hell is a place for anonymous contributions, and had me transfixed and also laughing at stories that mirrored some of my own experiences: clients who think that because they could really do something themselves, they shouldn’t have to pay you to do it for them; people who want you to design something despite not being able to supply any kind of brief; unrealistic businesspeople who want the moon on a stick for next to nothing. But having followed this blog for a few days via RSS, I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with it. Horror stories are all very well, but I’m under the impression that some of these clients from hell have had the misfortune to deal with designers from hell….
Click the link to read on.
A worthwhile read for us designers who need to remember that just because everyone does not think the way or know the things a designer does, doesn’t mean they’re stupid. Communicate!
I thought this was a music video! I would definitely stop and watch this if it came on tv.
A recent project I did at uni involving a video ringtone and a flash website - you can check the flash website (which also has the video ringtone on it) here or by clicking on the big image. Like me it’s a bit weird, and I feel it’s worth checking out if you want a bit of a giggle. Anyway I don’t like flash very much - so this is probably the most interactive I’ve got with it in a while :P and in turn it has some rough edges. All artwork is of course conceived and created by yours truly - as is the actual ringtone (although it’s not really what you’d call music…). Not so Interesting fact: I recycled part of Supernova Names logo (a sub-brand of my company, Specific Gravity Ltd) in the video for the comets and the sun.
This is a mini book that I did for my final project in Media and Visual Communication in 2008. Click to view or download (Large PDF).
