Tech + creative + win
Every now and again, we stumble over ideas that just make us think 'oh snap, wish we'd thought of that...'
<stumble>
Read on for the Vimeo
Of Blacklock Jewellery & reflected glory
We love it when clients we've worked with so closely, get recognition for what they do. Blacklock Jewellery have just been featured as 'Retail Stars' in Professional Jeweller's Hot100 for 2010. The Hot 100 "is a roll of honour for the retailers, jewellery and watch executives, established and emerging designers and businesspeople who have made an outstanding contribution to the industry this year." source
We wanted to extend our congratulations to the Blacklocks; we're excited about where you're heading and look forward to what the future holds.
On a personal point of chuffedness, the shooting location selected for the magazine spread was sourced by Paul Evans our Creative Director. "Art direction for the win!"
RG&B and ARS sitting in a tree...
As has been previously noted, we like our Swiss type. We think we're pretty good with our letters, but it's nice when impartial, objective on-lookers back us up. Our brand typeface is ARS Region which we love dearly. ARS themselves have recently stumbled upon our website and have seen fit to feature our use of their typeface on their own.
Feel the Swiss love!
Do typefaces really matter?
Yes. Good, now that's settled, please indulge us a little. There's a really interesting article posted by Auntie Beeb that presents some interesting points about the theories of typefaces usage, without the zealotus rhetoric we typographers invariably resort to when we talk about the matter.
It's interesting; we frequently meet people who are design-conscious, who want to know what fonts they should be using, rather than the stock fonts that ship with your average PC/Mac these days. More often than not, they tend to already know that Arial is bad, and that Helvetica is better, but don't really know why. The reality today is that no self respecting designer would use Helvetica in any case, not because it's an inherently bad font (though many would argue that it is), but because since its birth in 1957, it's become unashamedly ubiquitous. In 1983 a new variation called Neue Helvetica was spawned which was superior in every sense, but has only contributed to the glut of Helvetica usage over the last few decades. There was a point during the 90's where a ridiculous volume of brand, and logo work generally, explored no further than Neue Helvetica for their typographic components. It's everywhere. Even today, you'd be lucky not to be exposed to Helvetica in a few dozen contexts before breaking for lunch.
That ultimately is the problem; for all its rights and wrongs, the reason we don't use Helvetica, is because it's an easy solution. It's a creative no-brainer. With so many viable alternatives available, the persistent use of Helvetica only highlights a lack of critical thought on the part of the designer. That's not to say that Helvetica doesn't have its place, it clearly does, but that place is a generic, functional one.
If you're still interested, and want some advice about typefaces, or you can't sleep and the chemist is closed; do give us a shout...
New face for the BBC News website
Over its lifetime, the BBC News website has won four BAFTAs, nine Webby awards of various flavours, and some serious love from the online design industry generally. We remember the early 2000's when pretty much every proposal document we produced for an information driven website referenced the BBC site of the time as a shining example as to how the web should be done. Its use of space, early adoption of technology, uncompromising usability hand in hand with quality stylings; it was hard to fault it.
Today, version 4 of the site has been released into the wild. There's some really interesting details in there, but on first impression, it feels a bit, well, floaty. One of the defining features of the last few iterations of the site, has been its amazing use of space. The pages were incredibly rich and dense with content; the new site by contrast welcomes a lot of empty space. And not in that cool Swiss-type sense, but in a kind of 'we were expecting more content in this space than there actually is available' sense.
We look at the BBC News site at least a half-dozen times a day, so we'll give it a going over in the next few days and consolidate our thoughts - for our benefit, if nothing else. What can we learn from the new skin of this revered archetype of solid UI IA design? Time, of course, will tell.
HTC 1 + lovely
We may love Apple industrial design big-style at Red Green & Blue, but never let it be said that we don't appreciate quality design developed elsewhere. Case in point; Designer Andrew Kim has developed his own concept phone under the HTC brand, that checks pretty much every box we can think of. Quality, simple hardware which doesn't scream me2 iPhone; UI that borrows elements from iOS, Windows Phone Series 7 and, bizarrely, five's stings it seams; and some truly unique ideas that would bring something fresh to the shelf of your local Car Phone Warehouse.
It's all good, and HTC would do well to watch closely; we'll be doing likewise!
Blacklock website shortlisted for “Best Jewellery E-tailer of the Year”
We're over the moon! April 2010 saw the fruit of 6 months of hard graft on the Blacklock Jewellery brand and website project. We loved every moment of the job, and we knew when it went live we'd been involved with something special. That's now been formally recognised by the UK Jewellery industry, as the site has been shortlisted for “Best Jewellery E-tailer of the Year” at the UK Jewellery Awards 2010.
We won't know whether we've won until the night of July 15, but in the mean-time our Creative Director, Paul Evans, needs to go and source himself a tuxedo. Nice.
Of actionscript and emotion
function random(min:Number, max:Number):Number {
var randomNum:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min + 1)) + min;
return randomNum;
}
function Spotify() {
var r:Number = Math.round(random(0,1));
if (r == 1) {
var emotion:String = "likes";
} else {
var emotion:String = "loathes";
}
trace ("decides that today he "+emotion+" Spotify");
}
Spotify();
Blacklock Classic collection photo-shoot
It's a bit belated; this shoot took place back in 2009, just as the leaves were falling from the trees. For a small setup (art director, photographer and model), the shoot went brilliantly well, thanks to Aga and Marry for making it what it was! More images from the same set can be found on Flickr.
WinPho7 interface development
Heart on sleeve time: We love Apple. We're unapologetic iNerds, we're proud of it, and we'll happy bore you to tears over it as soon as look at you. Let it never be said though, that we can't apreciate innovation and creativity from its competitors...
Towards the end of 2010, Microsoft are telling us that they'll be releasing the next iteration of their smart phone operating system; Windows Phone Series 7. Forgoing the contrived name, Microsoft seam to be doing something their critics have accused them of failing at for the better part of a decade, innovating. Over the last month or so, we've seen a swath of previews and screen-shots trickle out from Redmond, and we have to give it to them, we're excited about a Windows phone for the first time since - well, the first time ever, really.
The latest previews present some quite granular detail around the way the OS will handle users' interactions with email functionality, and the mobile flavours of the Office suite. It's typographic, it's simple, it's fluid, and we're seriously hoping Apple are watching carefully.
