The Foundry’s recent run of Flash sites continues with Daisy and Friends. Daisy is a cow who would you believe, loves nothing more than making toasted sandwiches. She and her friends live on a farm where you can download recipes, wallpapers and play the “Crazy Daisy Challenge” game. The range of products starts with a rather cute toastie maker with cow print on it.
At the risk of seeming horribly behind the times (because it isn’t new), I thought I’d link to an animation that I was sent today. Hey, it’s Friday afternoon!
Animator vs. Animation by Alan Becker.
Somewhat reminiscent of the Xiao Xiao cartoons, here’s the artist’s description:
An animator faces his own animation in deadly combat. The battlefield? The Flash interface itself. A stick figure is created by an animator with the intent to torture. The stick figure drawn by the animator will be using everything he can find - the brush tool, the eraser tool - to get back at his tormentor … Who will win? You can find out yourself. This took three long months.. i think it’s worth it.
It really was.
I thought I’d take a moment to observe the first birthday of my website. A year ago today I went live with a basic WordPress install. So far the site has undergone:
It’s still very early days for me on this score. I’ve been slowly narrowing my focus and finding my style. I think the quality of my writing has come a long way this last year, but still leaves a great deal to be desired. I want this blog to have worth (rather than just an account of my activities), so I am thinking about fleshing out some previous posts into articles and tutorials. I am open to suggestions in this matter.
I don’t feel an urgent need to change the basic design of the website, since this look-and-feel is only eight months old anyway. It has held up under additions without any signs of creaking, so I think it will be good for another year.
When I come to redesign the site I’ll be paying close attention to my statistics. I’ve gained some interesting insights into how this site is used (ie: what is popular and what is not) and these factors will be taken into account. One result is likely to be a blog that is more visual, with less categorisation.
I have lots of ideas going forward. I plan to release simpleContact 1.2 in November, and version 1.3 is pencilled in for February. I’ve made no secret of my intention to release a commercial product next year, which will exist alongside the free version and offer more sophisticated functionality (custom fields, for starters).
I’ll start work on simpleContact 2.0 “Pro” in the new year. Watch this space…
This period of focusing solely on a free version is proving immensely valuable, because it allows me to gauge people’s opinions. I can get a feel for what people need, how much active support I will have to perform and respond to bug reports or compatibility issues (which I’m pleased to say have been very few).
As always, I am open for feedback and support. I have a roadmap in place for the application, but will give requests due consideration. Contact me with yours…
Back to work!
Pixelmator is available now to buy (there is a 30-day trial). This is slightly later than originally projected, but that’s life in the world of software 
I remarked in a previous post that this application looked like a possible alternative to Photoshop for the casual user or designer on a tight budget. I guess it’s time to find out if that’s true.
For $59 you can’t go far wrong.
A new website by The Foundry went live this morning. Cheeky Monkey Business Solutions deliver “a human approach to innovation and change.”
Designed by our very own Mital Daya and built by myself, we had lots of fun working on this one.
Explore the site and see how many secret animations you can find!
In keeping with our accessibility guidelines, a HTML version will follow soon.
While I was playing around with colour palettes from my photos I thought it would be kinda fun to put some wallpapers on my site. Some of them work pretty nicely in portrait format so here are three to be going on with:
If you’re hungry for more, then check out the iPhone Wallpapers Flickr Group and Pixelgirl Presents.
I think between Flickr and COLOURlovers I have discovered a new addiction!
When you work as a developer full-time, it’s easy to feel that your design skills are wasting away. One reason I started this website was to give myself a creative outlet. I enjoy reading about what’s happening in web design on sites like Styleboost and Web Creme, but it’s more stimulating to be actively creative, even in a small way.
I found the COLOURlovers website over the weekend and joined it right away:
COLOURlovers™ is a resource that monitors and influences color trends. COLOURlovers gives the people who use color - whether for ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification - a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.
I’ve started out by visiting some of my favourite photographs and drawing inspiration from them. After all, the best palettes are in nature, no? I think the next design for my website will start here
Three articles from A List Apart on an often neglected aspect of communication on the web – the tone and words that you use. We could all benefit from learning how to be better writers because of one simple, rather unsexy truth:
All the Search Engine Optimisation in the world is futile if you’ve got nothing to say.
No one wants to read claims of market leadership in leveraging viral deliverables. They want to know what you can do for them, in the most straightforward way.
The articles:
How is it that the very foundation of the web, written text, has taken a strategic back seat to design? Bronwyn Jones argues that great web design is not possible without the design of words…
Intelligent web content is the literature of our time. Amber Simmons argues that conventional approaches have starved the life out of web writing…
The zombification progresses so gradually that you don’t realize it’s happening until your “About Us” page begins to smell bad and tries to bite your face…
In a riveting bit of non-news, Apple and Microsoft have extended their deal which allows Apple to supply core Windows fonts (such as Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana) with Mac OS X. In a joint statement the two companies said:
Apple customers, developers and web designers can safely specify fonts knowing that their documents, presentations and web pages will appear as they are meant to be seen on screen and in print.
While this is obviously good news (ie: any other decision would be unthinkable), I can’t help but feel like an opportunity has been missed. With Windows Vista only just released, and Mac OS X Leopard almost here, is consistency through mediocrity the best we can expect in the year 2007?
Must we resort to CSS image replacement or sIFR to create a simple heading?
Granted, Verdana is OK (at small sizes) and Georgia is nice too. Arial however is a sorry substitute for Helvetica and in widespread use simply because it was cheaper. Instead of a handful of “web safe” fonts, why don’t we have hundreds? Surely billion dollar corporations can take a font licensing fee on the chin to elevate design across the web? Helvetica, Gill Sans and Futura would be a good start…
While we’re dreaming of changes let’s ban Comic Sans
My good friend Stephen Meehan has relaunched his d3creative website. It includes his portfolio as well as details of his new packages, which he offers in addition to his freelance services:
“Everything you need for a professional web presence, designed, built and published by d3creative.”
“The perfect way to collect information via your website and distribute a highly targeted e-newsletter to your customers.”
“Managed hosting for 12 months, domain registration, web space and email setup all in one simple package.”
Take a look. Stephen is not only a talented graphic designer but gives real thought to helping his clients devise and execute a strategy that will deliver return on their investment. If you need a designer for your next project he could well be your man.
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