How design helps business

Understanding the vital role of design isn’t easy
Business and organisations of all size, operation and disciplines often find it difficult to choose the right design company for a given project. It’s easy to understand why, as our perception of professional design is relative, subjective and elusive;  the professional application of design even more so.

As consumers and business users we are surrounded by professional design, yet in many ways graphic design is a ‘closed shop’. Design isn’t validated, certified or regulated in any meaningful way, with awards ceremonies celebrating great design and creative excellence typically being low profile, industry-only events.

Google AdSense occasionally nonsense

There can be no doubt that the web has enabled and enriched our lives tremendously. Access to data and information that just a few years ago would have taken hours to acquire is now often just several clicks away. Rarely has access to such a wealth of data, services and information been so simple, or free. Sometimes it merely appears to be free, with the cost demanded subtly in the form of targeted advertising.

iPad; cool heads & sore foot prevail

It’s Thursday the 27th of May, the day before the iPad is finally released in the UK…the buzz is palpable and I’m sitting here with a stress fracture to the fourth metatarsal of my left foot.

My first brand awareness (age 32 months)

As a professional Designer I’ve worked in advertising, marketing and brand development for nearly my entire career, so it’s fair to say in my personal life I’m considered ‘brand-savvy’. However, as a father I’m fairly brand-adverse. The BBC’s dedicated pre-school children’s channel Cbeebies is a godsend in this respect. It’s not perfect, but it does offer children some protection from premature indoctrination into the world of consumerism– well, at least until they arrive at the toyshop at least.

Decode – Digital Design Frustration

In the accompanying free book to this exhibition, Golan Levin, the digital artist responsible for Opto-Isolator II (the huge big eyeball that follows viewers around the room) says, “It’s a terrific honour to have my work included in venerable institutions like the V&A”

The need for, and appreciation of…speed

Business travel is a bit of drag, but it doesn’t have to be. On a crisp and sunny early May morning, traveling at over 140mph on the UK’s fastest train service, it occurred to me that we rarely get the chance to celebrate or enjoy speed as part of our everyday life.

Come for Blu-Ray, please stay for Flash

“Come for the Blu-ray, stay for the Flash”. That’s the sassy slogan prominently displayed on the launch panel of Adobe’s Encore CS4 DVD professional authoring application, viewable every time it’s launched. Within a few years Blu-ray will likely be consigned to history as the last mass-market physical file format. More imminently, Flash will face serious challenges to its current web-based hegemony as emerging handheld devices (primarily the iPad) and open source-supporting tech (HTML5) drive new rich-media design models. For the time being however, Adobe, as the only company supporting this design workflow has a point and understandably wants everyone to know it.

Dieter Rams ‘Less and More’ – more required.

This exhibition was a tad disappointing. It was fascinating to have an opportunity to view such an extensive collection of the designer’s work; indeed Rams’ position as a highly influential product designer isn’t diminished by this show. Ultimately however, this meticulous, studiously laid-out collection of work felt a little too ordered, too consistent and, dare I say, repetitive.

IPad: Content will be king

With only a few days left before Apple’s unveiling of their new tablet computer, and media speculation rampant, I thought I’d

Testing mobile app 2.1

Previous attempts with 2.1 gave poor results so it looks as though some bugs have been ironed out. UPDATE: Confirmed – this app has gone from buggy drudge to smooth functionality in one update, with remote photo upload working smoothly. Well done to the engineers, a job well done.