Apple iPod touch update at last, but…
Apple® today announced its 16GB iPod touch update is now available in vibrant colors and equipped with a 5 megapixel iSight® camera for just $199. The entire iPod touch lineup features the 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording, brilliant 4-inch Retina® display, Apple’s A5 chip and FaceTime® camera. iPod touch features an ultra-thin and light anodized aluminum design and is available in pink, yellow, blue, silver, space gray and (PRODUCT) RED. iPod touch comes in a 16GB model for $199, 32GB for $249, and 64GB for $299.(more…)
Dual screen vs super-widescreen, monitors for designers
LG have recently announced a 34” 21:9 Ultra wide monitor clearly targeted at designers. We love the idea of this and can see all the benefits of a continuous screen with one colour profile and seamless line of 3440 pixels from edge to edge. When designing monitors for designers you need to take into account many of the features LG have included here, which is a good thing.
Wearables… WTF? [podcast]
Mobile Brain Podcast Ep 7
I sit down with Joel Blackmore & co. for an episode of Mobile Brain podcast. We talk about wearables – mostly fitness trackers, smart watches and Android Wear. I really enjoyed the discussion and although I don’t feel we got to any conclusions per-say, we certainly explored the topic in a fair amount of detail. What I found most interesting was the variety of opinions we all had on where this market might be heading…
Sexism in tech and general vocabulary practice
The Accidental Tech podcast crew talk about sexism in tech, and in general. John Siracusa makes some very good points that apply to mindset and vocabulary that apply to both tech, the workplace and discrimination in general.
Listen to episode 57 of ATP. This particular conversation kicks in at 55:20 and continue of the rest of the episode.
To paraphrase the points to which I agree with most:
Be mindful of your use of particular vocabulary usually instilled in us in an innocent way due to our culture or upbringing, that has the potential to unknowingly insult & upset people. This kind of subtle sea-change although seems a small effort to make in on the scale of you and your conversations really matters, and making a concerted effort not to upset people regardless of your intentions is an important thing to do. We need to un-train our minds of these words & phrases that have been conditioned into us over the course of our lives.(more…)
Squarespace logo designer is the Ikea of online design, and that’s just fine
Squarespace, bankroller of tech podcasts and creator of an incredible website platform, released a new tool yesterday that allows users to create their own logo. There was a backlash from many in the design community about this move suggesting it’s undermining the work it takes to achieve good design.
I see this as a smart move by Squarespace and a natural extension of their business model. If you’ve never used Squarespace; it’s great. It’s where we send people who have small, simple web projects and not enough budget to afford a professional to do a bespoke design job. Their templates are well designed, the CMS is easy to use, and it’s actually hard to make a template look like crap, unlike alternatives on the market. (more…)
Lovestruck users
There’s little more rewarding in this line of work when you see proof that something you worked on made a positive impact on somebody’s life. The newly released Lovestruck dating app we designed is cast as the driving force in this touching reenactment of a Singapore couple using the app and going on their first date. They later fell in love and married!
Watch the touching video they put together to mark the occasion as they give thanks to Lovestruck for making another successful match.
Cyber security campaign gone wrong
The Home Office here in the UK recently launched a new campaign to raise awareness about cyber security for both individuals and businesses called Be Cyber Streetwise. The campaign consisted of print ads and a website which focussed on a juvenile cartoon concept of several urban scenes depicting parody scenes relating to key points about protecting your data. Personally I think the cartoon approach was not a suitable style for a serious campaign like this; making it light hearted doesn’t help soften the topic in a constructive way. Visual implementation aside the illustrations have been well crafted by Steve May and the analogies will no be lost on anyone despite the approach.
Develop for iOS or Android first?
In response the an Article by Cennydd; Why don’t designers take Android seriously. We look at the iOS or Android discussion from our perspective, having worked on several apps now that span both platforms.
Cennydd raises some good points in his article about Android being the bigger market and being ignored as a platform to develop on first, and they’re all completely valid. It’s also important for such pieces to be published and shared with relative frequency to keep the discussion fresh and front of mind. However I believe we live in a world where people making apps (that people care about) already know all of this; it’s not news.
The reason businesses ((I would also like to note when Cennydd talks about designers we hope he means the businesses making decisions to build the apps, rather the individual designers who rarely have any say in the matter.)) make the decision to develop for iOS first is a capitalist one. (more…)
iPhone 6 concepts; observations
The Tech Industry consensus is that we will see a larger screen iPhone in the fall of 2014. Having seen many concepts over the months and years, we’ll look at a collection to gauge what enthusiastic product designers and industry rumour-mills think we will see (or rather want) in future iPhone hardware.
Popular iPhone 6 concepts
2013 Round Robin
The year seems to have gone by in a flash — as I’m sure it has for most of us. We’d like to take the opportunity to tell you all what we’ve been up to and summarise our 2013.
The biggest change was our move from our shared studio east of Silicon ROB, to our new Co-working space 200 yards south at Shoreditch Works. We wrote a blog post about this a while back, it’s been a great move and it’s nice to be surrounded by interesting people and companies, some of which have gone on to become clients.
In 2013 we’ve kept the core team small and centred on UX/UI design. Some fantastic output from our designers have allowed us to focus more on the overall experience of every project. For development we’ve been working with our long term friends Code8 in the Czech Republic to deliver a number of projects on Drupal and WordPress. We’ve met some great new development partners this year too, each has a slightly different approach and skill set enabling us to offer a broader service to our clients. We partnered up with the mighty American Pivotal labs to produce a delivery service project for Shutl (which sold to Ebay). (more…)