Many many months, a few haircuts, and a new job later, I’m back! Yes, I’ve been a busy boy… And what better day to start getting back into my blogging habit than the strangest day of 2010 – 110110, which has a lovely binary ring to it. Strangest until October 10^th anyway. (Not that I had built up much of a habit, but I was working on it )

I spent a lot of 2009 wishing to work for people I liked, creating work that I was proud of. I was searching for an opportunity to design, be creative, and develop my skill. I was lucky enough to get this opportunity! Since late September ’09 I have been working as the principle print designer at Mac games publisher, Feral Interactive. In this role I am now responsible for the design and artworking of all printed items and the odd digital/web work. This includes corporate and consumer marketing pieces, e-newsletters, sales brochures, DVD labels, sleeves and boxes, disk icons, folder backgrounds and the occasional in-game graphic or screen. If you’re an owner of the recently released BioShock port, or are a fan of MacFormat, then you may have seen some of my work already. I’m thoroughly looking forward to the release of the first title I’ve been involved heavily with, Rome: Total War – it will be a real thrill to see a product I’ve worked on ‘in the wild’, so to speak.

Other than that aspect of my life, my freelance web and design work is going fine, having redesigned and upgraded the CMS on a Scottish Labour Party MP’s website and launched a new college website for a school on Oxford Street.

I’ve also been having a think about a new design for this site, which I’ll come back to in a later post. I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seat for that one

Until then, I hope you all enjoyed the snow if you’re in the UK (great fun, even if it does cause transport havoc!) and hope you had an excellent Christmas break & great new years celebrations.

As I always say, “I intend to post more often now”. Maybe in 2010 this will turn out to be true! I promise there’ll be at least one more before I use the header 111111*.

Thanks for reading and feel free to say “hi!” in the comments…

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

*November 11^th 2011 for anyone who doesn’t get it

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Whilst the sun has decided to shine on the UK at last, all it seems to have done for me is make me a little less comfortable in my chair at work, instilled a yearning to go outside, and made me a little more sleepy.

However, time has been ticking on, so let’s have a little catch up on what’s been happening since Calm before the Storm:

• Writing some posts about useful things I’ve found and learnt.

^ Started a couple, but not quite finished any.

• Re-building my freelance site using WordPress for the back-end.

^ Complete! design-is.co.uk is now a lot more professional looking with a lot more content – head over and have a look.

• Getting up-to-date with admin.

^ Pretty much there, although getting it all organised would be a good thing to do next.

• Getting approval on an improved website (previously mentioned).

^ Unfortunately the corporate cogs haven’t quite found the time yet.

• Contacting existing clients.

^ Hot on the heels of my renovated freelance site came the first instalment of ‘design-is: updated‘, my newsletter to clients and prospects. I foresee this becoming a vital touch point, allowing me to easily inform readers of new offers and services.

• Following up leads.

^ Progress made, but an unending tasks when leads keep coming.

• Investigate post-grad certificate.

^ I wasn’t overly convinced that Birkbeck University knew what courses they were running when I attended their open day, but assuming I can find the cash, I’ll be looking into their offering more thoroughly as the months progress.

Other recent events include the Apple WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) 2009, in which they gave a nice little bump to their laptop range, took us through the latest features of their upcoming operating system Snow Leopard, and released the iPhone we all wish they had released the first time around. Yes, having upgraded from my first generation iPhone, I am now the proud owner of an iPhone 3GS. Now boasting both media messaging and video recording capabilities along side its (slightly) improved camera, this new hardware is the perfect accompaniment to their new OS 3.0 software.

Other noteworthy events include a couple of completed websites (see Case Studies on new design-is.co.uk) and attending the exhibition of finalists for the Young Designers Competition at Dulwich College. Whilst there I caught up with Luke Riggall, the young designer I recently completed a portfolio for who has made quite an impact on the ‘blogosphere’ with his advanced product designs.

Luke Riggall on Novanta, his 'designers desk'.

I hope you’re all enjoying the summery weather that has finally arrived on the wonderful island of Britain!

(If your not in Britain, I hope you’re having lovely weather too ).

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Sorry to any readers for the lack of new content! I’ve had a lot on recently and have let my blogging, tweeting and general web presence slip a bit…

I’m a day away from a week long break, after which I hope to achieve a long list of things. These include:

• Writing some posts about useful things I’ve found and learnt.
• Re-building my freelance site using WordPress for the back-end.
• Getting up-to-date with admin.
• Getting approval on an improved website (previously mentioned).
• Contacting existing clients.
• Following up leads.
• Investigate post-grad certificate.

Until then, I’ll leave you with an encounter I had this morning:

A kid in a hoodie mumbled something to be on my way from the bus stop… I stopped, looked at him, and raised my eyebrows to signal he should repeat…

“Can you buy me a cigar please?” said he.

“Sorry?” Said I, looking puzzled – I must have misheard…

“Will you buy a cigar for me..?” he said, louder, using the pound coin in his hand to gesture toward the newsagent next to the bus stop.

Continuing my puzzled look, I simply replied “No…”, walked off, looked back still puzzled, and then headed to work.

A cigar… Whatever next?!

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Although WordPress has peeked my interest lately, I wanted to mention another Open Source CMS that has proved invaluable to my services. Where WordPress, Joomla or Drupal present an overly feature rich environment, this offering from Scratch Media fills the gap perfectly.

CMS from Scratch, as it’s known, is a lightweight, database independent system which can be applied to any static website. The process is fairly straight forward and the guide on the publishers website is simple and easy to follow. A video is also provided demonstrating how to convert your existing site for those that want to see it in action.

The system offers easy text editing via the integrated FCK Editor and the ability to upload files and images to the server, which can then be linked to via the FCK interface. Navigation and galleries are easy enough to construct with the Sets feature and a separate log-in can be provided for clients which will only allow them to access the bits you want them to be able to edit.

Support for the CMS is provided via their forum and the creator of the system, Ben Hunt, is frequently on hand to offer solutions or point you in the right direction. This is also the place to follow the slow, but sure, evolution of the package, as Ben often posts fixes and additions directly to the forum.

I find this the perfect solution for small to medium brochure and marketing websites, providing the client an easy editing function without the complications associated with the more powerful packages.

Being Open Source, there is no charge and it can easily be skinned with your own brand. Their website even offers a white label user guide as a word document which you can amend as you wish and pass on to clients.

You can download CMSfS from it’s google code page.

If you give it a go, let me know what you think with a comment.

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My business cards for my freelance design venture have been delivered, so I thought I would post a photo and some info here for posterity.

They are printed on 380gsm fsc accredited board, matt laminated, and die cut with spot UV varnish to the front logo.

I decided to spend a little extra on the enhancements to illustrate to potential clients the finishes that are commonly available. I’m hoping that they will pay for themselves fairly quickly, but only time will tell.

I also wanted to mention something that really got my attention in design theory, back in my university days: Phi; the golden ratio or section; divine proportion; 1.6180339887. It’s presence through nature and history and it’s use in design and architecture fascinated me, and still do. In the past I have used it as a starting point for layouts and grid systems within my work, but my business cards represent the first time I have designed to the proportion in it’s entirety. I knew what I wanted on the cards, and I worked towards creating a grid which would allow me to apply them accordingly. For more information on phi, this site has an exhaustive collection of articles and this page contains some useful links for further reading.

Conveniently, and possibly not by coincidence, the standard measurement of business card supplied by my regular printer conforms quite nicely to Phi, so that was a good starting point. See below for the template I worked to.

Whilst I wanted to include some wow factor on the front, I tried to keep the back as simple as possible. Utilising a fairly plain design with a white background, they allow clients to jot small notes on the reverse if they choose, at the same time as using my chosen trading name ‘design is’ to bring into question the nature of my service and providing a quick definition (thanks to The Oxford English Dictionary) to give them a starting point to think from.

Essentially, I want potential clients to be thinking, “What else can design is do for my business?”

Let me know what you think of my cards. I’ll take all constructive thoughts into consideration for the next iteration.

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I’ve recently completed a new website for a skilled carpenter and general handyman based in Norwich, Trevor Waters.

The brief was to create a showcase for the craftsman’s work and allow clients to get in touch to request quotes and / or more information.

TSWcarpentry.co.uk is my first site to run solely on the WordPress Blogging / CMS platform. The client already had a template in mind that he wanted to use, but a certain amount of customisation was needed to fulfil his requirements. In addition to this, several existing plugins were introduced to bring the full effect together.

More and more I am finding WordPress to be the platform of choice for developing sites which require a little more ‘omph’ than a simple page structure.

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So, we are now well into the year 2009.

Unfortunately my aim to finish this and my freelance site over the Christmas holiday period was thwarted by the flu pandemic which seems to of hit the majority of the UK. However, all is not lost! I have now got my freelance site, design-is.co.uk, to a stage where I’m happy enough to push forward and get some stationery printed up and flyers/business cards handed out.

This site (dougbarned.co.uk) is nearing a similar stage – it’s construction is complete, but it’s not quite full of the intended content yet. I’ll be working on this over the coming weeks, hoping to populate the work and miscellaneous sections with wonderful things.

I am also about to get stuck into a new site which has been partially designed, and built, but is stuck in the dark ages of web design with an antiquated table based layout and JavaScript powered roll-overs. I think someone had too strong a liking of Dreamweaver. I hope to remedy the situation.

In the technology arena, the year is already turning out to be an exciting one. Having avidly followed the process of the Macworld 2009, I can honestly say I would love to know what Apple have in the pipeline. I keep up-to-date on the latest rumours on MacRumors.com, but somehow it’s never quite enough. To prove this point, my favourite appearance at Macworld has to be from Axiotron, an Apple Premier Developer. They are responsible for the much sought after ModBook launched last year. This year, they begin shipping their new ModBook Pro. This machine looks to be a thing of dreams – the closest thing to digital paper a designer can get. I can’t wait until Axiotron start trading in the UK.

The ultimate tablet computer

As a closing note to 2009′s opening post, I would like to say how much I am looking forward to the finalization of CSS 3 and in particularly hope for a good implementation of the new multiple columns and text flow features.

Thanks for reading, I intend to be a bit more active with posting from now on.

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