I recently started using a new online service called SVPPLY, in many ways it’s similar to ffffound, an invitational visual bookmarking service, but the difference being that SVPPLY is solely for commercial products available to buy at various places online. Don’t get me wrong, I normally hate shopping, and really can’t afford to buy a lot of the jazzy stuff on here, but a lot of the things on there hold their weight simply as pieces of product design and on the whole the photography is great too. There’s a lot of amazing modernist furniture and record players that I wish I could afford! You can check out some of my personal recommendations on my page.

In the bigger picture, this is a great service for small independent sellers who use sites such as Etsy and Big Cartel to get web traffic and get their products seen. It’s a great example of how commerce is evolving and despite our high streets becoming more homogenous, our web communities are becoming more rich and diverse.

Thought I’d share this on here… Otherwise it will never see the light of day!

I was planning to apply for a design job recently, where part of the application was to submit some logo ideas… Long story short I decided that I’m enjoying being freelance at the moment and didn’t really want to give all that up, so I never applied for the job! But, I did spend a few hours messing about with some logotypes and quite like this one. Still needs some tweaking, better colour palette and exploring into how it could be applied, but it looks kinda cool!

Final Logo

Initial Mock-ups

Current Microsite

After a lot of too-ing and fro-ing I’m happy to announce the Brits Classact.co.uk microsite is now live. Classact is a new music award for school pupils which will be announced at next years Brit Awards. I’ve been working with Synergy (who run the Radiowaves and NUMU communities) on the art direction and design for the Classact brand. Instead of basing the brand around school iconography we choose a more aspirational route and focused on various relevant brands and current trends in music poster design. Unfortunately due to being so busy working on the Radiowaves site launch I didn’t get to work on any of the actual site design of this, it’s just based around my initial mock-ups. Hopefully later this year when the site re-launches with full functionality (upload songs/online charts etc) I’ll be more involved in the process.

In the meantime, if you know anybody still at school with a talent for music get them involved!

This is an interesting use of technology. DoGood is a web browser plugin (works on all major browsers except Chrome) that removes the flash adverts on all sites that you browse and replaces them with simple static ‘do good’ type messages. To be honest, these messages aren’t amazing, lot’s of obscure examples of things that we could re-use/re-cycle, which is ok but slightly like having an annoying hippy whispering in your ear while you read your emails. Having said this there is some relevant content (such as Haiti earthquake fund) and I get the impression they are trying to get more (ethical) third party advertising. So, potentially could be quite interesting in the long run to see how this evolves and the content improves. But for now, if you’d rather be told how you can recycle your socks as opposed to being asked if you’ve had an accident at work this could be for you. I’m just enjoying reading my emails with things flashing all around them.

Thanks to Sarah for the link :)

Brief: Design and spec for a print welcome pack for new schools who join the Radiowaves network.

Client: Radiowaves

Details: Radiowaves is a free and safe online environment for primary and secondary schools and pupils to share vidoes, podcasts, stories and photos (basically a cross between facebook and youtube but more secure). They needed a way to welcome new schools to the network and provide them with all the relevant information on how to get started. The whole pack was condensed into a C6 envelope and mailed out with various flyers on specific topics such as training and equipment, it also includes compliments slip, mini business cards, pin badges and stickers.

The concept behind the work was to make to potentially daunting online world more accessible and tangible to technophobic teachers. The design uses several of the icons from the website in a large out of context manner. The type style is based around highlighted text on screen. A lot of work was put into the tone voice, making the information fun, relevant and digestible while remaining professional when talking of serious issues such as child safety online. The whole thing was printed on uncoated paper to make it feel more tactile and friendly.

Print Spec:
Dimensions: A6 booklet/flyers/compslip, C6 Envelope, 25mm Pin Badges, 70×28mm Business Cards
Booklet Pages: 16+cover
Print: CMYK Litho + Pantone 3005U
Binding: Saddle Stitch
Paper Stock: PaperCo 9Lives, 300/130 gsm, uncoated, 100% Recycled
Extras: Diecut Cover
Typefaces: Helvetica Neue

Brief: Redesign of the Radiowaves website

Client: Synergy

Details: Radiowaves is a free and safe online environment for primary and secondary schools and pupils to share vidoes, podcasts, stories and photos (basically a cross between facebook and youtube but more secure). Working closely with their in-house senior developer and freelance programmers from Portugal and Russia, we re-launched the website with increased functionality, simplified navigation and refined aesthetics. My role in the project was predominately on the front end, working on layouts, structuring information and delivering key messages. A main part of this was working on the public facing and marketing pages and devising ways to explain their complex service simply. I also optimised there existing icons and and designed various new ones to fit in the set.

Check out the Radiowaves website.

Brief The design of venue dressing and printed collateral—invites, programme, certificate holder, info card—for the first graduation ceremony the College has hosted independently.

Client Leeds College of Art

Details The College were keen for a prestigious and traditional feel to the ceremony, but one which also helped differentiate them as an independent authority of art and design education. Visually the design was kept very simple and in-line with the college brand. A lot of attention was paid to print finish, and a scarlet stock was used in a heavy weight with a gloss white foil for the type. One of the key problem solving areas of the brief was to devise a way for the students name to be visible on the front of the certificate holder, to save time when giving them out on stage. After exploring several options of a diecut hole through to the certificate, none of which were aesthetically pleasing, we decided on a digitally printed insert giving the whole thing a slightly more modern feel.

Print Spec
Paper: GF Smith Colorplan, Scarlet, 350GSM / 9Lives 130GSM & 350GSM
Finish: Foilco Gloss White Foil/ Diecutting / Spot Black Litho
Printing: Team Impression

Collaborative project with Kyle Bibby.

My role as a freelance in-house designer at Radiowaves has been developing slowly, and is now at the stage where I’m a part time member of staff for the foreseeable future, which is great. I decided to celebrate this occasion by treating myself to a macbook so I no longer have to lug my desktop on the train. I also decided that it would be really useful to set up a preview monitor to have a better idea of what my work would look like in context. Because Radiowaves is mainly aimed at schools, who have a wide variety of equipment and are filled with kids who like to do things like turn the contrast up to full on a monitor I decided to grab the oldest spare monitor in the office and crank up the contrast. It’s really interesting to see how other user will view your work, for example on the preview screen you can’t see anything below about 15% K (sorry I can’t help but think of colour in print separations, can’t get my head round RGB!).

I’ve also been trying to teach myself as much about design for web as possible, here’s a some sources I’d give the thumbs up too if you’re trying to do the same…

Smashing Magazine who also have a really good twitter feed
W3schools
WordPress (forums have some really good for CSS related info)
A List Apart

I’m also looking into various platforms for a website I’m going to be designing for a photographer and have found some really exciting new technologies I’m looking forward to using, more info on this soon!

Part of the work I’ve been doing with Radiowaves recently has been looking at the front end for their website re-launch scheduled for January. This involved going over all their existing GIF icons, redrawing them, creating new additions to the set in a matching style and then optimising them all for the web mainly at a 22×22px size. I’ve never really done anything like this before so it’s been a bit of a learning curve and a lot of pixel fiddling x3200 zoom on photoshop, but I definitely think it’s been worth all the effort and feel far more comfortable taking on a similar project in the future. I also spent a lot of time trying to optimise their logo and created print and web specific versions without altering the overall effect covered by their trademark.

I’m really inspired by the work of German designer Stefan Dziallas aka Iconwerk, who has the ability to make beautifully simple yet descriptive icons… I also really like the Helveticons set by Maximilian Larsson who I think is a student at Hyper Island.

Here’s the final set in all it’s glory… doesn’t really look much, but I guess thats half the point: it’s one of those so easily overlooked areas of design that people take for granted. It links back to the notion of ‘good typography is invisible’, it should just work, you instantly understand it and it eases your navigation.

I absolutely love this website! If everything was this much fun, and this considered, the world would truly be a better place!

I think the idea is you can customise your Ronnie, choose a background and turn it into a greetings card, but I just enjoy making him fat and thin over and over!

The design is by a London based company called lateral and the sound design is by a guy called Jono Buchanan. Great stuff!