Christmas Round Up

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John Lewis focuses on the joy of giving gifts this Christmas. Their advert is notable in that it has launched another notable single for Ellie Goulding, 'Your Song'.

Interesting choice of song though. Big risk to choose a song with the forbidden word, 'money' in it. "I don't have much money" is a rather ironic lyric to have in a John Lewis advert, which to be blunt, has little time for people who don't have much money.


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Communication Technology: HTML 5

http://www.williammalone.com/

My housemate introduced me to this great website. Not only does it give a contextual introduction to HTML 5, it enables the user to have a go with some simple tutorials. On the whole, it seems that HTML 5 will make the way things work much simpler, easier and more impressive

The site itself is built in HTML 5 and the level of interactivity is great. I've posted a screen shot on the right, but to really appreciate the website you must visit it and have a play around.

The tutorials marry Javascript and ActionScript to show the potential possibilities. I'll certainly have a go at some of these, although the amount of time this would consume means it could form a whole new project.

I personally feel it is quite exciting being able to get the 'basics' out of the way and onto designing cutting edge web sites.

Communcation Technology: Comments Widget

Today I came across this service, 'Disqus'. Disqus allows you to embed a commenting service onto your website; it's currently being used on the Transparency BETA for 10 Downing Street. Seems like it may be really helpful for me in trying to create more interactive websites though. All the syntax is relatively conventional; anyone used to using Facebook or Twitter would have no difficulty in using it.

http://disqus.com/

Welcome to Yorkshire

Welcome to Yorkshire has won the world's best marketing campaign.

Online Execution: Art?

Communication Technology: ustwo: http://www.ustwo.co.uk/

I'm posting this website for two reasons; the design and the content.

It's an HTML website with some simple Flash elements embedded, but it looks contemporary and cool. Rollovers have been used effectively on the header text while a subtle drop shadow around the container lifts it off the background. The background must be an image, although I'm not sure how this has been achieved. I assume it must be one very large image so that it doesn't change form depending on the monitor.

Graphically, the site looks great. Really well chosen colours mix together to create a vibrant geometric background which is carried through to the container where the font is clean and legible. It's similar to Calibri but I can't find out exactly what it is as the CSS isn't showing.

Within the container is an embedded Flash banner. It works well as the user can scroll through 5 large images easily on the homepage, removing the need for clutter on standard HTML sites.

In terms of content, the website is for digital user interface design. In other words, they develop apps, games, content and other designs for mobiles, netbooks and tablets. I want to pick out their Sim City inspired design particularly, where the norm of gridded icons has been done away with and replaced with an interactive image.

Visually, the phone looks great. It's still in development so we'll have to wait and see for the reaction from the consumer, but I'm sure it will be a hit as form is preferred over function.

BBC loves EU?

A breach of neutrality? Whichever visual communicator decided this was a good image for the BBCs homepage banner perhaps needs to reconsider who they want to work for; the EU or the BBC?

Yeo Valley Rap