Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world – are the ones who do.

Shot with my Lumix GF1 using a generic TV lens (25mm/f1.4) with C-mount adapter.

Cobbled together, and exported from iMovie.

Music: Underworld / Ess Gee

Christmas is just around the corner so now is the perfect time to sort out your Christmas cards, Christmas emailers and Christmas graphics for your website. We call it ‘Christmasification’…

Right now, if you place an order before the 29th October 2010 you’ll get 10% off. Coupled with an already low cost and award winning design we think it’s an offer you won’t want to miss out on!

Find out more here.

Twitter finally gets a creative and usability upgrade that might just make it a little more useful and ‘sticky’… The designers have a done a great job of keeping the design very much like the old Twitter, the tweet stream works in the same way we’re all accustomed to, but now you can quickly view embedded media like pictures and videos. As well as see more relevant information in mini profiles. It defintely has the feel of Facebook and its wall – but whilst the constant design refreshes of Facebook actually complicate simple processes the Twitter refresh has taken a very simple solution and added usability in an incredibly elegant way.

Find out more at the Twitter Blog.

Inspiration can come from anywhere – and we’re lovers of music, nature, film/animation and the liberal arts. In fact, just about anything that has creativity at it’s heart…

Alma Credits:
Written and Directed by: Rodrigo Blaas
Produced by: Cecile Hokes
Music: Mastretta
Art Director: Alfonso Blaas
Lighting Supervisor: Jonatan Catalán
Character Technical Supervisor: Jaime Maestro
Character Design: Bolhem Bouchiba, Carlos Grangel,
Sergio Pablos, Santi Agustí
Animation: Daniel Peixe, ManueBover, Remi Hueso
Sound Design: Tom Myers and David Hughes
Post Production Coordinator: David Heras
Special Thanks: Keytoon, Next Limit, UserT38

Via: Vimeo

Starting soon we’ll be kicking off a weekly blog post demystifying Design, Web design and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

We’ll be running through the gamut of web and design buzzwords and phrases you’ll hear to describe the work you might need. Sometimes, web design and search engine optimisation can feel daunting – you might think all you need is a web design and an email address for your business, when in fact you need to be sure you have robust hosting, year round service and content management systems (CMS) that help you keep your new website up to date with latest news or products. You also want to make sure you’re in control, we hear horror stories on an almost weekly basis of poorly built websites, companies that have promised much but delivered little – leaving you pulling your hair out at the thought of even having to talk to them! Just like any industry, you can be sure the creative industries has its fair share of cowboys, but the vast majority of creatives out there (including us!) truly love what they do. They have a high level of integrity when it comes to your web design or marketing – and they have your best interests at heart. The way we see it – the more successful we can make you and your business – the more you’ll come back to us for more work as well as recommending us to others.

What we won’t be covering are the things that don’t really matter to you. We want to cover aspects of web design and search engine optimisation that actually affect your online business. We’ll be kicking things off next week with the letter… *drumroll* … A. Which in this case will be about Accessibility.

As midlands based web design specialists we understand your unique needs as customers. Whether your based in Leicester, Derby or Birmingham, we realise that design and web design will play a vital part in communicating not only with your local midlands client base but beyond into new regions. We want to help lift you and you business from being focussed on those Leicester or Derby clients by using great web design and web design strategy to help push you to a national or even international audience. We also know that simply being online is only 1 part of the web design puzzle, you’ll be competing with other online businesses in Leicester, Derby, Birmingham as well as across the region and nationally. Completing the puzzle means marketing and effecting content – all wrapped up as search engine optimisation. With search engine optimisation we can make sure that when a customer searches for a product or service – they find you before anyone else.

You can find out more about our web design services here, or our search engine optimisation service here.

Data visualisation seems to be de rigueur these days – everyone is at it!

Laia Clos’ studio mot have beautifully crafted a set of info graphics visualising the lead violin of Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’. You can see more of the work here: http://datavisualization.ch/showcases/motstudio

On the BBCs Newsnight programme on Monday there was a segment about data visualisation and how to reinterpret statistics and information more interesting and beautiful to look at. It’s incredibly interesting – the mapping of Chennai’s bus routes (created by individuals who spent 3 days pulling together information) and subsequently the areas of the city not serviced shows just how graphical representation, rather than numbers in a chart, can be incredibly revealing.

You can see the entire show on iPlayer (segments starts at 26.00).

Via: Swissmiss

Web design for e-commerce is just like any other retail concept – where presentation is everything. Focus on the top line and the bottom line will follow.

Because we get to know you, your business and how you want to sell up front – we ensure the system is perfectly tuned to you. By asking the right questions up front we can also ensure fewer ‘surprises’ (of the worst kind!) in the project cycle when it comes to costs. We understand the fundamentals of selling online; multiple unique buying options, bulk purchasing, tiered pricing and delivery, user accounts, stock control etc etc. We know that from the get go you want to know you can log in to the system and start to update and grow your store without worrying about whether a piece of functionality is going to be there or not.

We know all about effective web design and web design for e-commerce. Our clients have enjoyed a huge amount of success by launching websites we’ve both designed and built. There are a world of e-Commerce systems out there, all have their own pros and cons – but the one we’ve found to be the most robust is Magento.

We don’t throw the kitchen sink at you, nor do we take away the basics (and then charge you to put them back in!). We offer a well thought out tailored solution that does everything you want it to do from day one. And we constantly work with you after launch – overseeing the store and making sure that as you confidently take full ownership over it we’re with you every step of the way to make sure it’s selling your products. We’re proactive in coming forward with new ideas and ways of helping you sell.

Magento is used by some of the largest online retailers in the world. We’ve been using Magento since it was called ‘osCommerce’ – we don’t just know the system, we grew up with it! And we’re proud of our achievements with Magento. Just ask Pineapple Shoes, who got a store that ticked all the boxes when it came to the fundamentals and client expectations of online retailing, but who also got an online store that looked like nothing else in their market and directly targeted their core audience through design and planning. The bespoke adaptation of Magento and the design we delivered means Pineapple Shoes will stand head and shoulders above their competition for a long time to come.

Having a beautiful e-commerce web design is one thing, but having one that is secure, functions as expected and integrates into your own internal stock / CRM systems is quite another. Your web design needs to build trust and faith in your customers, after all, they’re about to hand over credit card details to you and no one will do that on a website they feel they can’t trust. We work with you and your bank to ensure the highest level of data security transfer – building trust in your customers through clearly labelled shopping processes and understanding their needs as a consumer.

We can also integrate your online business with your offline business. If you’re currently running an internal system we’ll work closely with you to make sure that your workload doesn’t double when you launch your website. Stock control, customer management, sales reports etc etc – we’ve got it covered. We’ve found that our clients will start using their online system that we’ve designed and built more and more to manage both aspects of their business.

View our ‘e-Commerce To The Power of M’ e-mailer here.

Read more about e-commerce design and web design.

Out with the old, and in with the new. 2010 is already proving to be a pretty exciting year. In an email last year I described how 2009 had it’s fair share of ups and downs for all of us. There was also a lot of moving on from old pastures, leaving the weight of some bad situations behind and looking forward to being able to provide an honest, creative, professional and successful service to clients who truly deserve the best.

With the launch of the new site you’ll get a better idea of the type of work my team and I are capable of. Hopefully the portfolio will show you the breadth of work thats achievable. If I’ve already worked with you in the past – you might find your work featured in the portfolio and I’m looking forward to the future where I can add more of your work to the website!

So what can you find on the site?…

The website has a more detailed services section. Although to be honest it’s quite impossible to cover all the different types of work we might be able to do together. Instead you’ll find the most popular services most clients ask for.

Some of the services might surprise you – hopefully in a good way! It’s going to be a productive year bringing together all of the services to bring you a more robust creative / marketing solution.

The blog will also feature the best of design and creativity on the web as well as regular articles about work, about the industry, about search engine optimisation (hot topic!) etc. Articles being written right now include:

• How The Parb Johal Holding Page Was Created (because you all loved it so much!)
• The Truth About SEO

So be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed or sign up to the periodical e-newsletter ‘The Wrap‘ to stay up to date with the blog.

With that said, I can’t wait to start talking about the work we’ll be doing together this year and into the future.

Thanks, Parb Johal