The simplest ideas are sometimes the best.
I came across this competition entry on design blog ‘Design Boom‘ which really reminded me how the simplest ideas can sometime be the best. Take a simple problem and provide a simple cost effective solution.
A group of designers in Italy have both those boxes ticked with their innovative cutlery designs which allow you to utilise office stationary to eat your lunch. Simply transform a biro via pen cap style spoon, knife and fork attachments. Yes – You can now legitimately use a biro to eat your pasta with these add-ons:
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News travels at the speed of broadband – but is any publicity really good publicity?
As I am sure all of you are aware social networking site Facebook made headlines everywhere this week after changing a line in their terms and conditions relating to ownership of users content and photos.
The change to the terms consisted of just a few lines being altered but the results were instantaneous. A wildfire of outraged complaint spread across the internet, one of the early spotters of the change seems to have been ‘Comsumerist’ which posted a damming blog on Sunday which stated that “anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later”. The post is reported to have received somewhere in the region of 300,000 views almost overnight. Bloggers were in uproar, an angry Facebook group opposing the terms grew into an army 120,000 members strong within hours, users threatened to delete their accounts and the headlines went to press the next day.
Red Vs Web 2.0
This is kind of a tangent to my current exploration of political party websites, namely my Red Vs Blue comparison of how both Labour and The Conservatives use their main web space to engage the general public.
This post delves a little deeper into the Labour marketing strategy, especially their current upscale in social media and what could loosely be called ‘web 2.0′ style sites. This kind of political marketing is really ramping up after successful implementation of similar strategies by Obama in the US, it seems our politicians and strategists are realising it is a highly underused medium for political engagement over here.
Red Vs Blue – round 3
This post is part of a series – read all the Red Vs Blue articles here
After having a look at how the Labour Vs the Conservative party site compare with their usage of front pages and supporter statements to engage their audience, this round explores how they present their policies. They are, after all, the most important thing a party can do to gain support from the voting public and how they show thier vision for our futures. So how do the two sites compare?
Red Vs Blue – round 2
This post is part of a series – read all the Red Vs Blue articles here
This post examines the support pages of the sites and how the parties leverage the support of the general public and engage them.
First off – how do we get to these sections on the websites from the front page?
Nice clean website background generator site
I spotted a site called bgpatterns earlier today and was impressed with the nice clean implementation of such a simple idea.
The site allows you to generate your own website background tiles by choosing colour, texture, pattern and rotation. It also lets you preview the effect by viewing your tile and also by applying the background to the page you are on, so you can see how it looks. You can then download your tile or (if you like) you can create a login and save/share your creations with other users.
The perfect cup of tea…
How to make the perfect cup of tea or coffee has long plagued the English – as we insist on putting milk, sugar and all sorts into the stuff in varying amounts and calling the end result tea/coffee even though the eventual content of that particular aspect is minimal…
Some clever guys at the inaccurately named www.suck.uk.com have come up with these handy tools to help you make the perfect cuppa – I particularly like the pantone-esk design of the mycuppa ones -I am tempted to buy them even though I don’t drink tea.
Red Vs Blue – Round 1
This post is part of a series – read all the Red Vs Blue articles here
The recent Labour spoof of Cameron on their website aroused my curiosity. It has been a long time since I had a look at either parties website. Political design is always interesting as it has to be so much so so many people. It has to entice new supporters, retain current ones, portray an every changing way the party wishes to be perceived and the values they represent, to convey a lot of information to those who understand the jargon of politics and want in-depth knowledge and also to those who care very little or have very little political understanding… it is a pretty tough brief to meet and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
So I had a more in depth look at the Labour site and had a look at the Conservative equivalent as well – to see how they are both approaching the medium.
What goes through your mind when someone says "Let's go for a drink"?
A friend sent me these the other day – genius.
The next big thing? Cadbury saves bored commuters…
After the move towards projected video adverts on the underground and animated bus stop adverts I had been wondering where the next step would be – and Cadbury may have made it with their interactive bus stop Creme Egg game. The only other similar interactive advert I have seen is a Nokia memory game bus stop advert.
Video of the game (the only video I could find with working embed code is sideways, so please tilt your head to the left now):
