Type Cast

The brilliant Edward Tufte on the iPhone interface.  (Quicktime video)

“…clutter and overload are not an attribute of information, the are failures of design”

Amen to that!

An ex-colleague (sort of) just posted a link on facebook to an intriguing project, Have you got the nerve?

Basically they are looking for 3000 individuals who will become the ‘crucial foundation’ in the launch of a new breed of TV production company and share in it’s future profit - Have You Got The Nerve? You stump up 60 of your hard-earned pounds and become an executive producer.

In their words…

“Have You Got The Nerve?’ TV is a new breed of production company which is set to turn traditional media on it’s head. ‘Have You Got The Nerve?’ TV will work alongside you to create powerful projects and TV programmes, just like tribewanted. We will produce TV programmes about these projects which will broadcast around the World and will be followed online.”

Apparently the first ‘multi-media project’ needs to move into production with the band McFly and they are in talks with the social networking site Bebo.

It’s the brain child of Mark Bowness. And, in true, lazy blogging style, this is what he is all about…

“In 2005 Mark Bowness created the concept Tribewanted and in doing so launched Worldwide business. A 200 acre island in Fiji was leased and over 1300 people signed up from over 27 Countries. Tribewanted was filmed during it’s initial 18 months and received a prime time commission from BBC2 as a 5 x 1 hour programme called ‘Paradise or Bust’. Alongside the TV programme entitled ‘tribewanted’ has been published through International publishing company, Random House.”

A quick root around that wonderful production by Messrs Brin and Page brings up all sorts of claims that Mark Bowness is a scammer. In fact, he is also known as Mark James.

Whatever, the whole things sounds pretty interesting. And, it’s either a great opportunity to get involved in some socially collaborative media productions or an elaborate, westernised 419 scam!

Just to confirm, as of writing, I have not invested and don’t know if I have the nerve to…

I bet this wasn’t exactly what the author was thinking.

Via the ever informative Design Observer

Meant to blog about this a couple of weeks ago but never got round to doing it.

Anyway, the clue to the post is in the title. This was a site I designed whist working with the incredibly talented colleagues I once worked with at Interesource. It’s great that the site has been recognised, partly because it’s acknowledgment of our own work but also of the trust DogsTrust (no pun intended) put in us to build it and make it work.

We had loads of ideas for monetising the site from on-demand printing to paid for treats. I truly hope the site continues its development and goes from strength to strength both in growing its user base and being a pro-active marketing tool for the superb work of the charity.

Only if you wear the same navy, polyester, shapeless suit every day of your working life are you a suit.

I can’t remember where I read that and apologies for not citing you if you’re reading.

A post on the Scamp blog by a ‘Creative/Creative Director’ from the Above The Line agency BBH in London made me think about image, perception and impressions that us ‘creatives’ transmit when working with clients.

The basic premise of his post was that you cannot be creative if you look like everyone else. He ran a poll recently which seems to show that the readers of his blog back this up. Though there are a few dissenting voices in the comments.

Now, as a ‘Creative’ I know what image means. I understand that how I present myself, my work and my verbal rationale all has an affect on how it is perceived by the client. But I would truly say that what comes out of your mouth is the most important aspect of the image mix (though I do like to hide behind particularly striking glasses). The number of designers that I have worked with and interviewed over the last 8+ years who could produce beautiful work but couldn’t even coherently replay the brief they worked to.

If nothing else, four years at art college taught me how to talk my way out of a paper bag. Rationale, reasoning, compelling argument, eloquent rhetoric. When I’m trying to convince a client that their visual brand expression on a given piece of digital comms is the most effective piece of brand application since the casting of the Coke bottle mould, the fact of whether I’m wearing check trousers and an ironic t-shirt or a nice two-piece and Pink shirt makes sod all difference.

Perhaps, the ATL types have to rely on looking ‘creative’ to sell their ideas, I don’t know. It’s not a world I know particularly well and have no immediate desire to find out.

Anyway, didn’t Matisse and Einstein wear suits every day of their adult lives? The perception of their ‘creativity’ wasn’t exactly stifled was it? But then, what do we mean by ‘creativity’? Oh God, I leave that one for another day.

Sometimes, this is just how it feels to be a designer.

What’s worse is, the less the client is paying, the smaller the job, the more they block your offense (maintaining the metaphor).

From the always surprising ffffound 

I’ve just downloaded and installed the extra applications for the iPod Touch, launched at the Apple Keynote on Tuesday this week.

I know there’s a load of rumblings about having to pay for them. The whole thing does smack a little of Apple biting the hand of their early adopters. You would have thought they’d learnt their lesson after the iPhone price reduction scandal.

Having just experienced the customisable home screen with the jiggling icons and the fact that I now have mail, however, all I can say is that it’s a triumph of elegant, intuitive interaction design and I’m just going to ignore the particular line item on my bank statement. Denial and one click purchasing on the iTunes store is the only way.

Apple should start to learn some lessons and tread a careful path in this area in the future though.

Well, the speculation was true. Apple have today announced the MacBook Air.

I must admit it looks like an exercise in packaging, as with all Apple products. One thing to point out is that the ‘real’ images on the Apple site look loads better than the camera phone shots on the streaming news feeds from the actual Keynote address.

Things I like about it. Well, the size for a start. I use a 15″ MacBook Pro at work and having one at home seems like overkill for my domestic Flickr, iPhoto, iTunes and Safari activities. Especially as pretty much all of my home mac use is literally laptop-based. The ability to connect to another machine’s optical drive will save £65 by not having to purchase the separate drive. Let’s face it, I rarely insert CDs or DVDs into my machine at home, preferring a portable hard drive for storage and for the rare occasions when I install software, doing it wirelessly will be fine. The development of the track pad to include more sophisticated gestures akin to the iPhone and iPod Touch is a nice development.

What I’m not so sure about, however, is the price point. The entry level model seems to sit awkwardly, hovering £100 below the base MacBook Pro which is faster, can drive a bigger external display, has a larger hard drive, upgradeable memory, removable battery etc etc. The 1.8 GHz model is £229 more expensive than a 17″ MacBook Pro! Looking at the options, that solid state memory is over 600 quid! I know producing something on that size is expensive but this might end up being a repeat of the days when users were confused as to whether to get a 14″ G4 iBook or a 12″ G4 PowerBook. Didn’t take long for Apple to kill the 12″ pro-level machine.

I don’t know, what I’m pretty sure of though is that this will suck loads of mac fans in and probably points to the future of their laptop development in the omission of the optical drive and a reliance on faster wireless networks for reading and writing files. Remember what people said with the first iMac omitting the floppy drive? And look where we are now!

Suffice to say, mine’s on pre-order! The base-spec one if you were wondering.

Seeing this post on the ever-excellent Londonist reminded me of a photo I took a few months ago. You really have to love The Evening Standard. Err, well… their headlines anyway!

Shane Richmond over at The Telegraph has blogged about the demise of Interesource. They obviously had all sorts of problems with the hosting arrangements for the blogs and My Telegraph when the administrators rolled in. Good to see things are back up and running normally. I think part of it might be down to the fact that an ex-colleague, and the guy responsible for Interesource’s CMS platform on which ran the aforementioned services, James Higgs is over at Telegraph towers.