Summer Snippets

A Cut Above the Rest

Simon visited the Matisse exhibition at the Tate Modern this month as one of over 200 Better Bankside levy payers, and it was always going to be something of a highlight. Watching films of Henri Matisse at work with colour and form demonstrated the gulf between being artistic and a true pioneering artist. We often say to young designers that true artists work for themselves and for self-expression, while designers help clients express their vision for their brand. However, more and more these days we see the inextricable link between art and design, where the work we do is often elevated by incorporating art into the creative expression of a brand. The show is a must see, so many thanks Better Bankside for the invite.

A Viral Lesson

The ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ is a viral campaign that has been unmissable since it began on July 29th clogging up everyone’s newsfeeds - Even Simon's gotten involved. Although pouring ice cold water over yourself isn't everyone's cup of tea, the campaign has so far raised £50 million for the ALS Association with 1.7 million contributors. Making it not only a success but also a lesson on this contagious form of campaign. See Linkedin's marketing lessons here.



Digital Indulgence

Some of us here at TTP recently visited The Barbican to see their ‘Digital Revolution’ 3 areas of pure digital indulgence. You’re taken on a nostaligc journey through time and a showcase of classic machines, games and software from the past 40 years. Once through here you get to the digital extravaganzas and the projects the past paved the way for, from Hollywood special effects to innovative use of online media. Just when you think you’re near the end, you turn another corner to be dazzled by something you didn’t expect. Fancy turning into a digital crow or seeing a giant godlike effigy of Will.I.Am complete with clockwork orchestra? Then this is for you.

Bring Back Neon

This month we’ve created a neon sign for one of our clients, suggesting that ‘Italian’s tweet better’. One of a few neon signs we’re working on at the moment, it seems the retro style is coming back. Forming one of many design pieces created to add a personal touch to their office spaces around the globe. Amongst tuts of disapproval from other offices, the illuminated sign has brought discussion as to who does tweet better. Do you think #italianstweetbetter and if not who does?

Parallax

As part of our ongoing work with News UK we had a walk around the new News UK building (that's a tongue twister) ‘The Place’, and were blown away by their conversion of still photography into animated, stop motion imagery. It's called parallax and uses a little Photoshop wizardry with some After Effects skills to bring photos to life as slow motion shots. Examples of parallax shown here have inspired us to get cracking and test it with some of our clients. Contact James or Simon for more info.

Snoopers Paradise

If you're prone to a little curtain twitching, then we recommend getting yourself to one of Open House's 750 open houses available to nosey around for free on 20th-21st September. With highlights such as restored Churches, award winning sustainable houses, an eco-village, London Underground HQ and even number 10 Downing Street, the event aims to promote public awareness and appreciation of the capital's building design and London architecture. An event not to be missed.

Rand Re-issued

Originally released in 1947, Paul Rand's 'Thoughts on Design' is finally being reissued. This is great news as used copies were changing hands for just under £170 on Amazon. Rand is widely recognised as one of the major influences in the history of graphic design. Written at the height of his career, and with a new foreword by design luminary Michael Bierut, this book is as relevant today as it was when first published. This classic treatise is an indispensable addition to the library of every designer, including us here at TTP.


The Tower of London Remembers

As you might be aware by now here at ttp our weekly runs in aid of Challenge Charlie take us along the banks of the Thames. As part of the route we’re witness to the Tower of London’s moat progressively filling with Paul Cummins’ ceramic poppies. By Nov 11th 16 acres will be filled with 888,246 poppies, representing every soldier that gave their life in WW1. The sheer scale of this project creates a powerful reminder of the tragedy. Each handmade poppy has been sculpted by artists, and you can see how they’re made here.


House of Vans

The tunnels under London Waterloo station have been transformed by Van’s and are now open to the public. The newly launched multi purpose venue has an indoor skate park, 850-capacity music venue, a 160-seat cinema and a gallery, as well as two bars and a café. This concept is tried and tested in Brooklyn and Van’s have brought it to London, working with the local community and stakeholders to cement its place on the London scene. It’s free for all and open Wednesday to Sunday. For details, see here.

Talking Statues

The clever people at Sing London have brought some warmth to some of London and Manchester's stone hearted residents. Scanning a QR code or typing in a web address sees the user receiving a call from one of the 25 statues across both cities (no app necessary for once!). So if looking popular in public places is your thing then this is right up your alley. The phone call has been recorded by voice actors and celebrities alike to give a whole new dimension to some of Britain's famous monuments. The project is running for a year so there is plenty of time to check out all 50! For  more information see here.

Challenging Design

Cyber Security Challenge (CSC) aims to uncover hidden cyber security talent from across the UK through competitions, challenges and learning programs, and then work to develop their skill sets to help them enter the industry.

It’s an exciting world, and their work uncovers some immense talent (we attempted one of the competitions, and it’s fair to say we didn’t make the grade!). However, the complete redesign of their website was a challenge more up our alley.

CSC asked us to provide a dynamic new design, supported by a whole new CMS. To improve on their out of date and inflexible system we suggested Wordpress as the best platform. Due to its blogging past, many dismiss Wordpress as an inferior CMS option, however, don’t be fooled! It’s moved on leaps and bounds over the years, becoming the most popular platform in the world. With a global community of developers and resource, Wordpress is ever improving making it a powerful and future proof solution. And being selected by a company specialising in cyber security must give it some brownie points!

All design requires a good foundation, so at the start of this project we worked closely with CSC to define how they wanted to feature their content, along with identifying their target audiences and the journeys they’re likely to take on the site. From here we created a sitemap and a series of wireframes to define key areas of content.

Once we had a plan in place we were able to move on to the look and feel of the site, creating a homepage with a dynamic ‘magazine’ style, allowing different types of content (article, video etc) to be added helping to keep it looking fresh.

The final stage is the build, during this time we also fine tune aspects such as the responsive layout. Although this is addressed early on, it can’t be finalised until the site is constructed - for example the initial breakpoints were adjusted to better fit Google’s small Nexus 7 tablet screen size.

The site is then ready to be unleashed on the world, and is transferred over to the chosen hosting provider – in this case Skyscape who supply and manage incredibly secure website hosting – website security is an obvious requirement given the subject matter! Take a look at the site and let us know what you think.

Tangram Teaser

With the Olympic games coming to London next year, giving our 2012 calendar a sporting theme was a natural choice. As the Games make the journey from Beijing to London, we thought we’d be clever and link them (and our calendar) to another game that travelled the same journey, albeit hundreds of years ago.

The tangram originated in ancient China before reaching America and England through trade in the early 1800s. To play a Tangram, you simply arrange the seven pieces – five triangles of varying sizes, a square and a rhomboid – without overlap, to exactly reproduce the given image. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Believe us, it isn’t. We needed a number of attempts to produce recognisable Olympic sports. If you don't receive your calendar or know someone who would like one, let us know as we always have a few spare.

Continuing the theme, our Christmas card also features a tangram in the shape of a tree, which thankfully, was much easier to create. We'd love you to punch out the pieces and create your own symbols/icons and send the pictures to tangram@tothepoint.co.uk. We'll send a real tangram puzzle to the best ones.

Get a sneak preview of our calendar online

or download it as a PDF

We've also created a little screensaver just for christmas and inspired by the 12 tangram illustrations we've used on our calendar, you can download it (for Mac or PC) here.

Finally, an odd, and intriguing aspect of the tangram is the phenomenon of paradoxes. A tangram paradox exists where two puzzle configurations are almost the same, yet a part in one magically ‘disappears’ in the other version. One of the most famous examples is the Dudeney paradox featuring two monks, where on one version the figure is a complete person and on the second version, the figure appears to lose its foot. Have a look at this head-scratcher here and see if you can solve it.