Tinke Literally Takes Your Breath!

{ CLICK HERE }

Singapore agency Kilo took on the project of giving local product developer Zensorium a presence on the global marketplace, and boy did they do that!

Firstly, the product itself brilliant. the Tinke is a quick and easy way to check your fitness by simply putting your thumb onto two sensors and plugging the device into your iPhone. It's the only one of its kind on the market and is so simple yet so effective. It's bound to spawn many copycat devices, but this is the original and therefore the best. Check out the website for more info on the Tinke.

Now to the design! I was absolutely amazed at the sheer beauty of the site. They use the vertical scroll to animate the Tinke from one section to another and smoothly transition each step of the process with a beauty and simplicity that is simply breathtaking. I have seen this technique used before but never this comprehensively and well designed.

Check out the Web Designer Magazine article for a full interview with the Kilo team who are the genius behind the site. Full respect for them and this wonderful piece of design. Inspired... and then some!

Jessicas Organics

Looking for a something for her? Well look no further! Jessicas Organics has just launched and is a fantastic store offering a whole range of organic pampering products and hand-made jewellery.

I can personally say that the products are all of fantastic quality and all natural. No artificial shit here! Nice to know we won't have to put some unknown chemicals and crap on our skin, who knows what processes they go through these days for mass produced products. Jessicas provides you with the peace of mind in knowing exactly what you're putting on your skin.

I'd definitely recommend the Bee Beautiful Bath Bomb, it's a great way to relax after a long day and your skin comes out feeling super soft! As for Christmas gifts, the Gift Set is perfect, affordable and comes beautifully wrapped.

Overall its a fantastic new shop. Not only will you be supporting a small business start-up, but you'll get some of the best all-natural products out there, the quality is incredible.

Check out Jessicas Orangics HERE

100,000 Stars Web GL

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This is an ambsolutely amazing WebGL built site. Much like one I previously featured where you could look through objects of different sizes by scrolling, this let you zoom in and out of our known universe. I've always been facinated by astronomy and to see this really pulls on my heart and brain strings! Knowing that we are a tiny spec in this gargantuan universe spreading across thousands of light years, and the fact that we know all of this exists is simply phenomenal. Makes you feel so very small, yet so very special. If we really are the only life in this vast space then we are an incredibly lucky little planet.

Web lovers and astronomy lovers will enjoy this incredible site. Check it out NOW!

I bagged me a shark!

Everyone's A Winner!

Latest illustration

I wouldn't mind winning this guy at the fair!

Angry Birds Star Wars

Angry Birds Star Wars was released today! The next Chapter has now begun, may the force be EMU!

Follow this link to download it now!

RIP Ceefax

At 23.30 BST tonight, Dame Mary Peters will turn off the analogue tv signal from Northern Ireland, meaning the end of 38 years of service for BBC Ceefax.

The idea when it was conceived was to give the public free access to the latest news as soon as it hit the BBC newsroom. It was named Ceefax after the simple basis that it enables users to 'see facts' from the day.

It's a sad departure to a well loved feature of analogue tv's. I still remember the 3-digit code for the 'non and next' programme viewer (606) and used to love the old quiz game Bamboozle!

Goodbye Ceefax, our big-pixeled friend! You will not be forgotten.


Click here to see the full BBC article with even more interesting facts about Ceefax!

** CORRECTION -- Bamboozle was on Teletext, not Ceefax**

We Love Digital

Quite simply a beautiful online presence for this fabulous digital agency based in Kent. Also check out one of their latest site designs, drippinginfat.com

We Love Digital...!

Don't Look!

Don't look! from Nick Khoo on Vimeo.

It's been a long time since I've posted a good animation, so it had to be a good one. And this short by Nick Khoo is nothing short of brilliant. A beautiful style and brilliant story come together to make one fantastic little piece.

World's Largest QR Code!

A family in Canada grew the world's biggest Qr code in their corn Field!

Having already been famous for their corn mazes (maizes? far too corny... sorry!) they have now entered the record books and truly made history with their latest creation.

Covering over 29,000 sq meters it is the largest functioning QR Code in the world, although you'll need to fly over it to be able to scan it! They made a video showing the functionality to prove that it works by flying a helicopter over the QR Code of corn and scanning it on a smartphone.

“It was something that we didn't think would happen. There were a lot of little things we had to do and Guinness is pretty picky with how you collect your evidence. We were a little bit on edge on whether it would come through so we were very relieved and very excited,” Rachel Kraay told CTV-News.

A brilliant creation, but like many Guinness World Records, utterly useless! Also, if you're ever considering using a QR code yourself, do check out this site first www.shouldiuseaqrcode.com

Click here for the Kraay Family website

Who Wore It Better?

Another fantastic article by Jessica Louise Turner! Who do you think wore it better this time, Carly-Rae Jepson or Miranda Cosgrove?

Read Jessica's expert opinion and cast your vote HERE!

I think I'm on that dark with of YouTube again...

Sometimes you just find yourself on that dark bit of YouTube. You don't know how you got there and you've no idea how they let this be on a non-censored website, accesible to all, but you're very much intrigued by what you find.

On this occasion it was a short film called GUTTER, I assume it's by Yelawolf, the american rapper and general artist. It's twisted, dark, creepy and I wouldn't suggest anyone who is at all squeamish to watch it. There are some truly disturbing scenes that I'm surprised are even allowed to exist.

So hey, enjoy!

Make your writing beautiful...

Click the link for a selection of great free fonts. Sreda and Vezus are must haves! Always great to have new typefaces to work with.

Also, if you don't already know about then also check out Google Web Fonts where you'll find hundreds fonts free to download and all compatible on the web! Great for web designers and code-heads alike.

Incredible Animated GIFs

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Absolutely Stunning set of animated GIFs by Matthew DiVito. With Flash being dropped by Apple our animators will look for something else to latch onto to make people pay attention to things and  click them. A step backwards to animated GIFs could be the way forwards. DiVito shows extreme skill in these continuously looping animations that are visually stunning and beautifully retro. Great work here, really great work.

"Matthew DiVito is a motion and graphic designer based in Boston, MA from USA. Matthew is also famously known as Mr. Div and if you haven't checked out his blog; well you're missing out! With a combination of After Effects and Cinema 4D, Matthew creates some really stunning retro and modern GIFS. I hope you'll enjoy them."

8-bit Google Maps

If only it were real! Why would you ever need a world any clearer than 8 bit! Now I'm just waiting for an 8-bit iPhone! Or even 8-bit glasses, imagine seeing the whole world like a NES map, i know, amazing!

Who Wore it Better? Scherzinger or J-Lo?

{ Click Here }

Another great article by the fantastic Jessica Louise Turner. This time it's Nicole Scherzinger and J-Lo wearing the same blue Georges Chakra dress. Follow the link above to find out who Jess thought wore it better and vote for yourself at whoworeitbetter.co.uk

Who Wore it Better?

Fantastic new fashion journalist Jessica Turner published her first article today for whoworeitbetter.co.uk

Check it out fashion fans!

Gotye Parody

My feelings exactly transposed into a wonderful parody of Gotye's 'Somebody That I Used To Know'

Swag 2012

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I love this site, could scroll up and down the stadium page for the rest of my life and be probably be very happy. Parisian agency Ultranoir created this beauty. Don't ask me how they did it but it's goddamn beautiful!


Superb work.

Reeve Rixon - Portfolio

Check out the fantastic portfolio of designer-editor-photgrapher...well everything'er, Reeve Rixon. If I needed a creative head I'd give him an interview just to see his hand-crafted wooden portfolio!

Stunning work across numerous disciplines. Check out his website here.

NYC Phoneharmonic

A truly brilliant medley of the most popular ringtones, performed by a small orchestra. Loved this piece from start to finish, great work indeed.

10 Great Adobe Illustrator Text Effects

I though it was about time I compiled a list of some of the tutorials I have found most useful in the past few months. Thanks to all the creators of these for taking the time to share their knowledge.

Round Emboss - License Plate Style

Glossy Smooth Text Effect

Simple Sticker Effect

Quick Airport Timetable

Glowing Neon Sign using the appearance palette 

Cartoon Style

 Grungy 3D

Editable Metal Type - Vectips

Polished Raised Type Treatment

Glassy 3D Effect

That's it for now, hope you find them as useful as I have. Stay tuned to my blog for new vector tutorials  I come across and maybe even some of my own coming soon!

Cardiff Met - The Graphic Spectacle

The Graphic Spectacle from Julian Deborré on Vimeo.

Always a great show to check out if you're in the Cardiff area. My old stomping ground of Cardiff Metropolitan University (formerly UWIC).

Great promo video too! Definitely recognise the shop at the start, think I must have lived round the corner from it.

The Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine is a tool hosted on the Internet Archive which sends you back in time on the internet! It may be nerdy, it may be incredibly boring to others, but I found it fascinating to took at the history of some of the major brands and how far both them and the web itself have come since the birth of the internet.

Here's some of my finds so far!

Clarks 1998 - MS paint style

Google 1998

Myspace.com 1996 - They definitely sold that domain name too cheap!

Blogger 1999

Wildlife; Strike Hard, Young Diamond

{ CLICK FOR WEBSITE }

Thanks to Grooveshark.com I discovered a great new band called Wildlife. They hail from Canada and are currently based in Toronto where they have been making music together since 2005.


Their debut album, 'Strike Hard, Young Diamond' is out now in all major record stores and online through your preferred provider. But even more exciting is the THREE FREE TRACKS!!! available simply by joining their mailing list.


Well worth checking out, downloading, putting on repeat and salivating your idie-rock mouths over. I definitely can't wait for some UK tour dates.

Guerilla Vinyl Throw

This brilliant viral campaign for mobile app MusicBunk has racked up more than 400,000 views on YouTube and taken less than a week to boost this brand out of the unknown. Read more about it on Mashable.com.


Like the infamous Extreme Beer Pong (many videos but this link goes to the one with the most hits on YouTube, Billy's Balls 2) it have no doubt that it's all real and all round great entertainment!

New T-Shirt Concept

Now my first T-shirt is up on Threadless I'm feeling pretty excited and inspired. So last night I put together this design for a new T-shirt concept. Inspired by Walls Cornetto and a childish love for all things mythical, I made the UniCornetto!

Comments and critique very welcome, especially on the type, as you can see this design is still in its infancy.




P.s. Another shout for the fantastic Threadless.com where I'm hoping this design will find itself soon.

Beetle Juice

Beetle Juice on Threadless.com

Hi followers and readers! Please follow the link above and rate and comment on my first Threadless T-shirt design. Would be absolutely amazing to see it printed!

I may repay rate and comments with cupcakes!

Latest T-shirt Design

My latest T-shirt design is now up on RedBubble.com!

Thanks to Catillest for the critique.

Anyone who purchases one let me know and I'll see what I can do to say thanks!

A Little Loft in the Woods

A fantastic discovery today was this little gem of site which portrays the beautiful project that resulted in this gorgeous little egg house in the the woods of Whistler, Canada. Just shows what you can do if you follow your heart, even if your naivety leads you into the complete unknown.

"The HemLoft is a self-funded secret creation that I built on crown land in Whistler, Canada. It hangs on a precipitous slope, in a towering stand of Hemlocks, about a five minute walk from the nearest road. When I started building it, I was just a fledgling carpenter, living out of my car. Building an experimental orb deep in the woods, with no electrical power, isn’t the recommended way to ease yourself into carpentry. However, I was armed with a couple of the most powerful tools a carpenter can have: blind naiveté and supreme determination. Full story here."

Google Zerg Rush

Type 'Zerg Rush' into Google search and see for yourself what happens. 


Try and beat my high score of 292!

Google Glasses: Probably not the Future

Whether it's an April Fools joke or not, the Google Glasses concept is probably not a future hit for consumers.

The idea of having a HUD for your eyes is brilliant, but the integration into real-life situations does not yet look too promising. The parody exaggerates this to large adds that take over your field of vision, but it wouldn't be far from the truth if we were all wearing this kind of device.

A fun idea, but we'd all need the brain capabilities of air-force helicopter pilots in order to keep ourselves from walking into anyone or anything.

Rear Window

First page of Vimeo, a gem that deserves the recognition and promotion given. The incredible stitched scene of the courtyard from Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' has turned the film into beautiful short. The tilt shift applied also gives the added extra of making it look like a miniature world. Truly incredible work and a wonderful homage to the great Hitckcock.

New Childline Advert

The new Childline advert actually made me not click the button for 'skip this advert' on youtube. Dubstep and some slick animated effects, neon light style, really grab your attention. Whoever made this can be very proud of the impact this ad has. Perfect tone and handling of various real-life issues in under a minute, bravo.

HTML Emails, a User's Guide

If you have ever had to design a html email you will know how much of a pain in rear they can be. But there are many tools around the internet that come in very useful and save time in coding, testing and design. Below are some links to articles and sites that I have found most useful:

Smashing Mag: Design and build Email Newsletters

Rock Solid HTML Emails

Emailology

Email Client Rules

HTML Validator

Premailer

Email On Acid

It can be a real nightmare to get emails to render properly across the numerous clients, but using these tools makes life a little more bearable and adds some much needed structure to what can be quite a long winded task.

Thirsty?

I've started doing more and more vector illustration, partially due to my new position at Yellow Digital. So here is an example of one my latest DigiSketches, thinking maybe when they get better I could sell t-shirts or stock? Let me know what you think followers, comments, advice and critique all welcome.

Raise Your Milky Glasses!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OREO COOKIES!

'The Oreo cookie was born March 6, 1912, when the National Biscuit Company sold its first batch to a grocer in Hoboken, N.J. Today, the delectable treat is sold in 100 countries around the world, topping $2 billion in annual revenue.

First launched as the “Oreo Biscuit,” the name changed first to “Oreo Sandwich,” and then, in 1937, to “Oreo Cream Sandwich.”

The basics of the cookie have remained the same — vanilla cream filling between two chocolate cookies — though the design has been updated and variations such as Double Stuf, Cool Mint, Banana Split and Strawberry Milkshake have come and gone through the years.'

Music Maker

{ CLICK HERE }

This is the reason web design is a fantastic thing to be part of.

Big Bang Big Boom

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Possibly the best example of wall-painted animation to date. In incredible 10minute epic story of evolution. Gaze in awe at their incredible talent.

Mini Peoples!

Bonsai Burma from joerg daiber on Vimeo.

Absolutely love this tilt shift film, thank you to Vimeo for having it on your feed today.

The miniature people look adorable, it's like watching an episode of Fireman Sam or Postman Pat, except with real people!

Where did I put that scalpel...?

Josh Ritter - Love Is Making Its Way Back Home from Josh Ritter on Vimeo.

A beautiful hand made piece of animation from Josh Ritter. Over 12,00 pieces of paper used and no effects added in post. Well then that means this is truly spectacular *round of applause*
Stunning and inspiration, now, where did I put that scalpel?!

Millennium Falcon StopMotion: INCREDIBLE

Lego Millennium Falcon Stop Motion Assembly 3d from Francisco Prieto on Vimeo.

EXTREME dedication here for this animation! 3 years total time to make this incredible piece of 3D StopMotion.

WE ARE NOT WORTHY!

Quoteskine

{ CLICK HERE }

An amazing sketchbook available to view online via the link above. It was created by Lee Crutchley, a freelance designer and illustrator based in England. The sketchbook bursts with personality and some brilliantly original observations and twists on common quotes and lyrics. I love this book, and want it, one of the most inspiring bits of stuff I've seen in a while.

The Animals House of the Rising Sun Old School Computer Remix

The Animals House of the Rising Sun Old School Computer Remix from PURETUNE on Vimeo.

The best way to utilise your old computers and bits of tech is obviously to get them together to form a band! The oscilloscope wins my vote for most melodic, although the stunning vocal range of the HP Scanjet 3P cannot be dismissed. Truly stunning and original.

(270) Seconds of Summer

(270) Seconds of Summer from Samuel Ebat on Vimeo.

A simply beautiful piece of filming and editing. Great choice of music too.

The Universe; Enhanced

Possibly the most incredible piece of web design you will see this month

http://images.4channel.org/f/src/589217_scale_of_universe_enhanced.swf

[ CLICK HERE ]

OK Go! Sound-good-driving

Amazing music video once again from OK Go, This time they play over 1000 instruments... with a car!

Chilli the Giraffe