FullScope.co.uk :::::|> graphic design | web site design | print and other good stuff

Two days to go Euro2008

2008-06-06T16:43:00.004Z

Its nearly here! You can't ignore it with so much coverage about a lack of national interest, favourite players and the inevitable question "Who are you going to support?" Surveylab launched a quick survey to capture feedback from a range of consumers and we've been lucky enough to feature on one or two radio shows. Number of interesting things came up, notably that 40% of British men and 57% of women don’t care about Euro 2008 but that UK productivity may benefit with very few taking time off to watch the games. If you would like more info, drop me a line.
With the Surveylab website finally launched and 'settling in', another site was launched today - Holt Carpentry.

Steve Holt is a carpenter providing a range of custom design services in the Sidcup and SE London. Please visit his site and have a look around.

June means footballl?

2008-06-02T10:16:00.005Z

Start of June and as a May blog post, um, didnt happen, here is the June post nice and early! As avid regular readers of my blog clamouring for a new post may have guessed, May proved to be very busy.
The new Surveylab website is finally launched, at last. After many versions, revisions and 'back to the drawing board' moments, after approximately 15 months a design was agreed on between myself and Dan and was launched on Friday. The last site was (and looked) very 2003-4, and although there are one or two tweaks and styling issues to resolve, the new site presents a fresh, clean and 2008 face to Surveylab.

New websites are in production, (CCMC, CCA, Holt Carpentry, Self Storage 4U) and marketing projects in hand for Self Storage and Kingsgate Recruitment. Watch this space. May was busy as ever for Surveylab, project work coming along well and keeping our heads down, especially when selfish Dan headed off for a week's holiday.
Added to which the BT broadband is barely sorted. A seamingly reliable connection has apparently been made, but speed still slow and I'm not totally convinced its been sorted. Week 9 or 10 for final resolution? /sigh.

Fullscope website *will* be updated this summer - lots to update and sort out. Watch this space.

Broadband Woes

2008-04-03T09:49:00.005Z

Been a frustrating few weeks. After experiencing extended downtimes, I initially pointed fingers at my old ISP Freedom 2 Surf. Contacting tech support, I eventually had a BT engineer round who fixed an internal problem and found wet connections on my road. Wasn't overly impressed, especially when service went down again for 3 days over Easter, their service pages weren't updated and I generally felt like an unwanted customer. So much for 3-4years as a loyal customer. Si I've switched to IDnet which seems just fine although I clearly have hardware issues somewhere along the road casuing synch problems. Joy. Lets hope round2 of BT work will help... if/when they turn up!

On a more positive note, the Emma Flavell Photography and Excellence & Tradition websites are live and doing well.

Ashwood Office Interiors have rebranded and their website has been republished. Surveylab is busy as ever with a recent 'new' addition to the team and things are developing well. Fullscope work has kept me tied to the computer recently, lots of end-of-year requests and two websites soon to be built for an American company... watch this space.

A new macbook pro has been purchased and its a fantastic tool. VMWare Fusion created a fully fledged Windows session opening up possibilities to work in both operating systems on the same machine. Expensive yes, but sooo shiny.
Once again, this post is light on the 'fun' links so apologies for that, lets hope I can pull some more interesting bits togther for the next one.

March(ing) on

2008-03-20T10:01:00.005Z

Well into March and Fullscope.co.uk is still awaiting an overhaul. Both Surveylab and Fullscope are coming along well. Two new sites launched from Fullscope this month. Excellence & Tradition Limited is Sophie Hermine Bertrand's business which sources exquisite crafted items of superior quality for the more discerning purchaser. Emma Flavell Photography went live this week. Emma specialises in contemporary photographic services, specifically portraiture, weddings, portfolio and corporate imagery.

Please visit both these sites and have a good look around.

Not many links harvested this month. Been a case of getting my head down and cracking on. Three new business sites are in production - for Surveylab, and two US sites for Customer Care Measurement and Consulting and for the Customer Care Alliance. Watch this space! Bye for now.

Busy February

2008-02-12T10:14:00.000Z

After January sped by, February is proving extremely busy with Surveylab and Fullscope. Need a holiday, /poke Dan. Somewhere hot, cheap and probably nowhere near a computer.... Falmouth! Wild. Several Surveylab projects underway - client work busy and we've a deadline for the new company site to be in place early March.

Using a template from Nonsuch Rotary, The Rotary Club of Norwich Thorpe St Andrew launched their new site this month. A Fullscope site built from scratch was also launched last week, HouseHusbandServices.co.uk, is Jay Harris' domestic cleaning services business based in Epsom, Surrey. Still in its initial stage, we've more content to apply and more images to gather. Please take a look. Two other sites in development are EmmaFlavell.co.uk - a photographers portfolio site specialising in wedding, portfolio and portrait photography, and Excellence & Tradition, a business sourcing traditional and crafted products from the continent, especially France. Both in development. Check back soon. A bid is out to help with an American website, will see how that develops.

All very busy at the moment as you can see, please feel free to drop me an email via the fullscope.co.uk website.

Busy 2008

2008-01-15T11:55:00.000Z

Another long overdue post. Fullscope website is still on the 'to-do' list but both Surveylab commitments and freelance work is keeping me very busy.
Bridge To Health website has been designed and launched, in fact a number of updates to the portfolio are long overdue. Bridge To Health is an osteopathic practice in Uxbridge, and I'm pleased with the website and brand. Work is continuing in terms of search engine optimisation. The Local Bike Company (Wolverhampton) website is awaiting content prior to completion and launch and DNH Construction (Plymouth) is in a similar position too. Clearly everyone else is as busy as me! The portfolio pages are likely to updated with the new site relaunch.
In terms of links, I think the stand out link is Zune Journey... an amazing flash website. A nice news blog from GoSquared is nice to keep up with technology and things going on (mostly stateside). Visit Papervision3D for a virtual sea scape, just give it a few moments to load - very nice. CSS design bits and inspiration at CSSJuice will prove a good visit I'm sure and a page of Unfortunate Logo's is worth a look in at CoolzOr. Always engaging and right on the sharp end, visit Banksy's website and have a real good look around. More on the random side of things this Swedish site takes words you type in and then gets each word from other songs and plays them back to you - titled "Let Them Sing It For You". Some cool tshirt designs and printing at Grafiknoise.

Leaves on the line blah blah... better late than never

2007-10-24T11:07:00.000Z

August was the last post, nearly 2 months have flown by. Both fullscope and Surveylab committments have increased keeping me very busy... September and October especially.
The Surveylab website is due a facelift, and with a growing number of clients we're being kept very busy. Fullscope is ticking along well with some nice client projects fitting alongside Surveylab work.
Just a short post, squeezed in before I head to Australia and New Zealand for a few weeks... back sometime end of November.

August Links

2007-08-15T09:28:00.001Z

Soggy August has meant more work, the odd rare day of sun and lots of losing at football. That aside, found a few more useful links for avid readers of this blog to enjoy.

First up is SmashingMagazine, a great resource for design stuff and web design ideas. Dan picked it out for the data visualisation examples it provided. Interesting blog here from ASourceOfInspiration, with great links and observations. ON a slightly more tecchie tip, here's xml-sitemaps.com, generating site maps on the fly. Nice timesaver.

This month has also seen investment in new software and PC. Very happy with the custom PC unit built by Kevin for me at Ginger6.com. Undecided for a while about PC or MAC and I wouldve been happy with both. However I went for PC on cost and productivity. Though MAC's have lots of features I really like, I consider myself faster on a PC perhaps due to greater familiarity with the way I've got my head around shortcuts and the like. I bought Office2007 and Adobe CS3 this month and very happy with both. CS3 is awesome in what it can do - challenge for me is stretching myself more into moving image and audio visual projects.

Two final links from YouTube. One a trip down memory lane for anyone that remembers Zena's House in Plymouth. Second link is some random bod getting into some 90s house records sat um, in front of his PC. Most amusing.

New Designers Show 2007, London

2007-07-26T16:58:00.000Z

Been a couple of weeks since the New Designers Show in London, and on reflection it was great to be involved and presenting. It was a warm and sticky week making the trek from SW London to Angel a pain, especially through rushhour. That aside, we all mucked in and applied ourselves to making a great display and ensuring the show was covered. Have a look at the photos, all images taken in my Sony mobile.

Panoramic view from top steps during Preview Evening

I was never really convinced my material was suitable for presentation but it all worked out, helped by having my portfolio to hand when chatting to people. We all did well, perhaps the photographers wouldve liked more interest but there was much photography across the show.

Panoramic view from balcony, south end of venue

Setting up, view from balcony, north end of venue

Setting up, view from our balcony

My own little corner, and Rich setting up his images

TeamPCAD setting up

Overall a long, tiring week but we all managed to chat to interested folks and had a good week. Since then I've been flat out on a number of things. Another blog shortly I think.

Soggy June -Show and Stuff

2007-06-22T10:04:00.000Z

Another delayed blog post, so apologies to regular visitors to Fullscope (!). The past month, in fact from the beginning of May, has seen me very busy on three fronts – Surveylab, freelance and college. College has now finished and the last 3 weeks have been taken up with completing my web accessibility project and preparing for the graduate show at the Royal William Yard in Plymouth. Setting the scene at the Royal William Yard...I was pleased with the project overall, although as is often the case with work that you’ve been ‘living and breathing’ for any amount of time, I can see a number of things I would change and improve. That said, the deadline was met, I managed to produce the website I had in mind and present associated marketing visuals.
Similar to last year’s Icon project, iSense now features on the Portfolio pages of Fullscope. The demonstration website is also live, www.isense.org.ok, though please note that the large animation files will take a while to download as the site was designed primarily for presentation on a standalone machine. A further ‘health warning’ is that Firefox has issues with AVI files so please view in IE, Safari or Firefox for mac.
The show went well I think. It was the first time the degree student presented together and on a site away from college. The Royal William Yard was a nice looking venue, affordable (we have since found out), but perhaps proved too far away from the city centre for both casual visitors and students without transport. That said, some great work was on show but I think a number of displays suffered from a lack of background/introduction text.

I’m on a list to show at New Designers, a graduate show at the Business Centre in Angel, London. Not entirely convinced that my work is completely suitable but if I do get involved it will not doubt be a great opportunity. IF anyone in London would like to come along, public dates are 12th-15th July, 11am-6ish.
Surveylab has been busy although recent weeks have seen Dan slacken off on passing work to me to help me clear college commitments. We have work on the go, and Dan’s been hectic on client reporting, and a number of internal projects are looking to be started properly when my contract with Surveylab escalates at the beginning of July. The Surveylab website is long overdue a complete overhaul and we are starting to develop a more serious and coherent online marketing campaign. Watch this space.
Fullscope, helped by project work required by college, is going to develop both in terms of presentation and scope of work. On the radar is a Surveylab website overhaul, testing and launching of integrated content management applications with new site designs and looking to incorporate ASP further in development. So the focus remains on web design in the short term, but I will still be welcoming all forms of work for variety and personal development. I haven’t done enough 3D and Flash work recently, I hope to use both on Fullscope’s new site and perhaps start hunting out more work in these areas. Finchfield IT (aka Mr Ricky Slim) has been busy and is generating interest in new websites for his clients. Currently there are two sites to be launched shortly, Ashwood Interiors and Bedford Hire will be live asap. Again, watch this space. Hands4Healthcare had a promotional DVD shot my a friend in London, I've since uploaded this to their site.
A new PC is also just around the corner. My mac doesn’t cut it these days but will happily remain as a testing machine and somewhere to spend money on pesky iTunes. The old workhorse PC will drop down to slave and a spot of gaming, whilst a more custom system is purchased to take on work applications (CS3, drool) and project stuff. Bootcamp for mac is in beta which allows dual boot of mac and PC operating systems which could mean that a new mac would be the best of both world. However the mac platform I’d then be after would be significantly more £££ than a PC I think.
Random links are limited this month. If you have any interest in vector illustrations, a good tutorials is here at Layers Magazine. For t-shirt lovers (Fullscope's own shop will expand shortly), I would recommend having a look around this Fench site - La Fraise. Thats all for now. Will no doubt be a post after the New Designers Show.
PS I'm on Facebook these days, feel free to have gander yourself.

May oh 7

2007-05-08T14:48:00.000Z

Another month, another blog post. April's sped by and May is hustling towards June and it's time for more news and random links picked over the last few weeks. ON the work front, SettleOnCyprus.co.uk website has been launched. Currently in HTML, back end database is planned to be integrated in due course. Work for Surveylab continues and indeed increases, with Dan (and John) receiving more work, meaning more bits and bobs for me to get stuck into. Surveys and graphics are coded and produced with Dan (and Peter) casting their magic wands over the code and databases. All going very well on that front, watch this space.
With Surveylab and Fullscope work going well, college work has taken a back seat. However with our end of year show looming at the beginning of June things are happening quickly and deadlines fast approaching. Pics of the show are planned, again, watch this space.

Onto more random pickings. Returning to my weakness for mashups (music mashed up dunchuknow), visit the audio delights of 99x.com. Specifically, check their mashup page and amongst a number of track I recommend Marvin - VS - Radiohead - 'Sexual High' and 'Pop Music' - VS - Public Enemy's Bring The Noise.

On the multimedia front, checkout the nifty Oddcast. I especially like their VHosts product for in-website avatar commentary. A tad expensive but has many applications.

Another interesting site (well interesting for some) is Scribd, a free online library where anyone can upload documents to the site using their embedded PDF player to publish and view documents in your web browser. Worth checking.

Takes on geek culture made me laugh and filed under conspiracy theories, someone with too much time on their hands suggests that blowing up the Death Star was an inside job. 'The Death Star has cleared the planet' indeed. Keeping on the Star Wars theme, here an another exmaple of having too much time on your hands... replacing words in Star Wars. More humour from a lists site, this time about about failed show pilots... in yup, the US. Enjoy (I think).

Music recommend this month is the new Faithless album - All New Arrivals, with the very special Music matters and Spiders, Crocodile and Kryptonite. Music Matters was seen late on C4 from a secret Myspace concert and blew me away.

I'll leave you with a funky photopgrahy site I found by Vicki Couchman, whilst visiting the HMC Interactive website. Awesome photos that I spent ages looking at. Recommended.

March to April Goings On

2007-04-07T14:41:00.000Z

Another delayed blog so apologies for anyone popping by and not seeing any updates. It has been extremely busy at my end and I am just about keeping one step ahead. This last month has seen the Surveylab family grow with Peter coming on board based in Canada, and Dan n Claire having another little boy, Jamie, a couple of weeks ago. I was kept busy with applying translations for a European online survey and trying to help Dan out as much as possible as he took (or tried) his paternity leave.
Freelance work has been busy. A Welcome Pack for A&A Flats is in development and needs to be finalised soon. Kingsgate Recruitment website is now established and business cards have been designed (See Web design portfolio page). Ashwood Interiors, an office refurbishment company in the Midlands, have had a letterhead, compliment slip and business cards designed... website coming soon I hope. Settle On Cyprus is a website in development that I have been working on and should be launched soon. All busy busy.
Work for the art college is needing serious focus - the accessibility awareness website remains on paper at the moment and needs building, as well as the associated marketing produced. April and May will prove very busy. Watch this space.
Random stuff from the Net now. Please have a look around a former work colleague of mine, Richard (the Lizard) Pearce. The Green Glutton is an organic food supplier featuring Fair Trade products.... mmmm chocolate. A Plymouth based multi-media agency, HMC Interactive, is doing great stuff these days, please visit their website to have a poke around. Good site.
Returning to the random theme, countless optical illusions at Michael Bach's site to start headaches and cross (angry) eyes. Eye candy now at the Museum of Lost Interactions - random content but a cool site to click around. Enjoy. Rounding off the random stuff, on looking for Star Wars bits for my nephews I found this spoof picture site that had me smiling for quite awhile. In fact check out the whole site (Manic's PhotoShopping) - this guy clearly has too much time on his hands but has a good sense of humour to fill it!

February, er fun

2007-02-13T11:11:00.000Z

Don't pretend to be a frequent blogger, but once a month seems enough to put down new projects, fun sites found and anything else I deem worthy of mentioning. 3 websites have been taking my time recently... as the disseration deadline looms ever nearer. The joy of being a mature student, skint and never enough hours in the day!
Kingsgate Recruitment is a new employment agency launched by Mark and James - I've been helping with domains, emails (boo BT) and of course the website. Hands4Healthcare is a businesses specialising in on-site remedial massage for the business and corporate market. Barnehurst Builders is another recently launched site, Craig Lawrence runs a building services business in the South East London area. Feel free to have a browse around the websites.
More random links that might be of interest to some of you, my avid readers. Note, fullscope does not take any responsibility for the content of other websites, though I will leave the 'not safe for work' sites to be found on your own time!
An especially random example is the Trolley Spotting website I found last month. My mate Joe has been writing and producing his own songs for a long time now. He has now in a band called the Dead Men's Trilby's and their myspace site has audio of some tracks. A cool illustrator's portfolio site, Krolikov, is well worth a visit. A cool Flash site about an animated comic is at Hitless.com, I didnt absorb much info about the comic but Flash looks great. (An issue with such sites perhaps?). Finally a range of recommended music/radio websites. Some ace audio tracks mixed and produced by Simon Idol (note, some titles are not safe for the sensitive). House heads both new and old will enjoy surfing the www.djdownload.com website. Havent purchased any tracks so can't recommend the quality but you can lose hours easily on this website. Driving back from London at the weekend I was listening to the 10-12pm Rehab show on Kiss FM. The MANDY track 'Body Language' works for me. Listen again to KISS FM at totalkiss. Player only works with IE, and crashes Firefox users but there you go. More updates soon.

Happy New Year 2007

2007-01-02T17:59:00.000Z

November and December were so very busy so I must apologise if you arrived at Fullscope looking for updates, humour or even just for some cool links. More private work is in hand (see A&A Flats website) with more bits and bobs in development. One or two leads for more website work should hopefully come in shortly, meanwhile Surveylab grows and grows, with potentially more staff and more work in the pipeline.
College work has kept me quiet for November and December, and as I pick up the pace again this year, the first 6months are going to be hectic. March is the submission date for the disseration, May is the date for production presentation and hand in. Ah to be a student again. On the one hand its an engaging and creative environment, on the other it simply serves to get in the way of earning money!
Some more random links I've picked up recently. For all around general usefulness, my ISP has a good page about the web's most useful websites. Mix your own music tracks on this cool site (if you can ignore the obstrusive adverts). Takes a while to load, stick with it.
Tidy portfolio site from Ferry Halim is a bit special and for random randomness, visit the Brio website. Continuing the off the wall links, here are some really bad tattoos! (Note: some images are not work safe).
Finally, a mate of mine Stevie Baker got married last year and chipped to New Zealand. He has his own blogger now if you want to have a gander.
More updates soon. Bye for now.

Update at the start of October

2006-10-04T09:09:00.000Z

September was a busy month with work, stag dos, weddings and countless odds and ends to sort out/ignore/fight off.

College started two days ago and its promising to be a hard, and hopefully, creative year. I find myself in a new multimedia/motion graphics strand with all the hardcore coders, animators and 3D artists... it should be a challenge.

Main issue I now face is to finalise ideas about my final year production and dissertation subject. Thoughts currently float around interface design - how individuals interact with specific design examples... not just websites and kiosks but with other graphic peices. The theory can introduce ideas about what individuals bring with them in 'reading' a design, lived/learnt experiences, context, social and cultural cues. The production or practice side of this idea is still pretty vague - designing (web) interface(s) for specific members of society or market place? Main driver for me is to make the main project both engaging and with a very vocational/marketable objective. Currently my understanding of interfaces is rather dull and functional... will have to do more research to find 'my bag'.

I have always wanted to learn sign, and have been inspired to try and get on a level1 or introductory course this year. Andy Way, a lecturer at college, is hot on Disability requirements on webdesign (being deaf himself) and has suggested a few places to visit and grab more infomation from. Perhaps this could be a good vehicle to take project work forward. We'll see.
Fullscope has been busy in September...

whitefoord.net was bought and I've started early research on creating a family website. I'm lucky to have a family tree updated by my Dad to hand and have already been in touch with Mike Whiteford from another part of the family who has done a massive amount of work already. Its a long term project but will be updated as and when.
A&A Flats website is now in final stages and should be uploaded soon.
CRL Solutions is now moving under the Surveylab umbrella, these changes will be reflected on the website shortly
Fusion Players website is due to be updated with more information and details of new productions

The Ryder Cup grabbed my attention for the 3 shorts days it was on. From abusing Sky for having liver coverage, I changed my tune completely when I found out that I could buy a license to watch it live online. I bought a 2day pass for a fiver. The coverage was excellent, picture quality superb... was very impressed.

Couple of links before I sign off. Outlaw is a good site for anyone with half an eye on legal issues bubbling around the Internet. And slightly less dry is the impressive list of design links PCAD provides on its new shiny resources page. Great resources and better than anything I could provide on the fullscope site.

September Racing On

2006-09-11T14:00:00.000Z

RiP Steve Irwin.

Found a few more interesting links this month. David La Chapelle is clearly at the top of American design game with a range of polished, glam images available to view at his site. Not to everyone's taste but I bet he earns enough to keep his Ferrari or two on the road.
The site was actually found looking for more examples of the black American comedian Dave Chapelle. This guy makes me laugh - not everything he refers to I understand, but if nothing else the audience simply lap it up. YouTube has hundreds of examples and sketches of his, here is a kinda suitable one for this site.. his take on a visit to the Internet. I'd also lob in a Star trek cribs vid from YouTube that had me smiling.
Inspiration for logo design can be found at LogoPond - a great site to browse. Been using whatthefont a lot recently, simply create an image of text with sufficient contrast and let the site read and determine which font it is.
I've been putting together some music for a mate's wedding in Deal, Kent this month and pleased with final result (turned into 7 cd's worth), I found a few mash-up sites along the way. The Dutch Mashcultural is worth visiting, and LCO has a great archive. Gotta love broadband. Lazyeejay is up there too at a site I spent hours checking out. Best example of a mash-up track, hunt out Stuntmasterz' Mdojo vs Brandi & Monica - Lady vs The Boy is mine. Not the best production but reminds me of good times when it was caned to death on London's KISS FM.

Summer Links

2006-08-25T09:52:00.000Z

August flew by with the same speed as July, and sitting here on the Friday before Bank Holiday, sneeze and its going to be Sept and Oct. Been noting down more links that poked me in that special way. See what you think. First off, my mate Shaun has uploaded his site online with a tiny bit of help. ManMadeMad presents Shaun's art and graphic design, please visit the site and email him with any comments... oh, and he aint as scarey as the image on the front page suggests.

Playing with your head for a mo, the best visual illusion I've seen in a while here - grey squares. Actually, this was picked up as I start hammering out final year project ideas and I've found several links that jumped out at me. Someone more intelligent than me has created visual images from the structure of songs - seen here at Shape of Song. Anyone into typography, and I guess we all are in a way, Thinking with Type is a great resource to dip into. Another visually stunning Chemical Brothers video 'let forever be' is linked here, awesome stuff. Fun site here about creativity on the back of business cards - gapingvoid. In fact, here's a list of graphic design related links I find useful on a daily and hourly basis... might be of use to someone with even a passing interest:

Found some very cool flash projects online, The Exquisite Corpse project is a range of ideas and great source of inspiration. Of course, 2advanced still blows me away linked here is a new release, v5 'The Attractor'. Great photography at bsimple, I was inspired by this in the digital illustration (PhotoShop 1) seen here in my portfolio.

Street art is something that has always appealed to me, the politics are sharp and the voices raw and determined. Here's a great list of sites to see what I mean.

My understanding of CSS is coming along well. Found helpful links here at PingMag, especially the 5steps to CSS heaven. Lovely illustrated site here at Malajube well worth bookmarking - the music they have on the site is awesome, I'm waiting for availbility on Amazon.co.uk (currently .com only). On the same tip, my step-cousin James Crabb, who recently got married, congrats again, has his band the Jim Muir Slideshow on myspace. Well worth checking out.

Finally, more survey and graphic work completed for surveylab, with the obi wan of online surveys Dan Wardle. Fullscope relaunched the Treliddon Farm website after the horrific first draft stayed online for far too long. Fullscope's Portfolio is being updated as and when work is completed, check it out. Last major update concerned the images I put together for a gaming message board website - see examples here. If anyone in the Plymouth area, or much further afield requires any graphic services (web design, deisgn for print, branding etc), please get in touch. Enjoy the links... till next time. Hew.

July - blink and you would've missed it

2006-08-02T11:28:00.000Z

Blimey, July flew by and a quick blog is long overdue.

Finished the foundation degree officially at the beginning of the month. The Summer Show at PCAD poked me somewhat and helped give me ideas about my next steps. After intending to finish the 2-year course and look for employment/freelance/more Surveylab work, I saw the 3rd year work at the Show by my peers and realised that for about 6 more months of college, I could 'top-up' my qualification to a full degree. I was thinking that this would further justify my decision to go back to college. Yes its another year (well 6months), mostly part-time so I can continue to work outside, and at the end perhaps I will be more marketable. Another side benefit is the briefs, client work and network opportunities through the college. Means another year of being skint, but in the long run I think it will pay for itself.

So, what have I been up to.

Well, slowly getting fitter, squeezing in the odd night out (few and far between these days :( ), stag do in Isle of Wight and saving for a couple of weekends away end of August and of course next year.

Fullscope updated with images I create for gaming website
Revised advert for Finchfield IT
Village Ceramics brochure designed/printed and website updated
HolidayFalmouth.com updated
More Surveylab tasks met

Next on my plate? Well, several things bubbling along. Surveylab reports pages needs input with 'The Master' Wardle, more client bits from Surveylab, the Treliddon Farm website needs relaunching and Fullscope portfolio section needs work. I need to start thinking about major project work for college in September, t-shirt designs with Spreadshirt and make sure I snag any paid work thats floating around. Busy busy.

Reading on the web

2006-06-28T13:24:00.000Z

I am having ideas about conducting some usability research on the Internet - I think there is both personal and commercial value in looking into one or two issues in more depth. Gender bias in web design is one area, as well as 'hot topics' such as online "word-of-mouse" and how different people 'consume' the Internet. If anyone has ideas or issues of interest, please fire them over.

For anyone interested, Jakob Neilsen is a big-dog in the field of web usability and has great content on his site. On a related note, how people read the Net interests me. Taken from the UseIt.com website, the following in a pic tracks the eye movement on a website. "Heatmaps from user eyetracking studies of three websites. The areas where users looked the most are colored red; the yellow areas indicate fewer views, followed by the least-viewed blue areas. Gray areas didn't attract any fixations." Interesting eh? Oh, just me then.

Summer Show 06

2006-06-28T09:52:00.000Z

Stuffed into two rooms in the a-hole of the college, the Foundation Degree show is drawing to a close. First couple of nights drew quite a few visitors, many of whom didn't find our show rooms. Two images on the right are my two areas - displaying the 'icon' branding project and the motion dvd under the pretentious title of 'Awaken from a Dream'.

Anyway, it was a good experience putting the room and our displays up and certainly bought together those of us who bothered to actually turn up.

My final project, icon, is now online on fullscope.co.uk, via the portfolio > marketing > finalm page. Please have a look and email with any thoughts, opinions, likes, dislikes.

Other stuff found around the web... spotted this thread on the graphicdesignforum - tis easily done but nasty stock photography can be a slippery slope to laziness and blandness. Whilst remaining on the subject of graphic stuff, the growing petercrouchcandoanything page is well worth a visit.

Sadly there are two whole days without World Cup football, so best crack on with some work.

And so it begins

2006-06-06T08:18:00.000Z

With the country going mad for the World Cup, the place is being drenched in St George's crosses. Everyone knows of someone going too far, of a house their mate saw painted with a cross, of white vans with lumpy red paint scrawled across it. INGERLAND. Still, can't help whistling 'Back home' from the '66 team, I am avidly watching every game I can for the duration. Just do d8mn glad its started after being sick the back teeth of build up programmes. Rooney's toe? I really don't care - just play the d8mn game.

Other stuff going on at the moment includes the Final Year Show at college. The course is effectively over the next 10days will see us build, paint and prepare rooms to show our work. Should be nice and busy. On that subject, useful link for graphic design stuff found at allgraphicdesign.

More stuff dragged from the Internet that you may find interesting. YouTube provides more random entertainment - Will Jesus survive? (Works safe but not for kids!). My favourite Flash files are hosted on some virtual space I have free - 3 Beatles songs, I feel fine, Tomorrow, Come Together and and Radiohead's Creep.

Fullscope site in phase 2.0

2006-06-01T09:08:00.000Z

Fullscope phase2 is launched. Site has been updated with more images and brand tightened up. Still not entirely happy with the branding but it works in the short term, and is not fixed yet. I welcome any feedback, comment and opinion.

Final brief submitted

2006-05-25T12:21:00.000Z

After a difficult week with my Gran passing away and the last of my final briefs submitted, I have a moment to pause and let out a deep breath. Not for long, as I've fullscope to bring up to speed with the much needed visual content, a number of outstanding jobs to do that I promised folks ages ago and the sniff of more work on the horizon.

More random stuff plucked from the Internet for your amusement. Apparently popular in the US, can see why - Georgie boy. Also howmotorwayswork worth a look if anyone's ever driven a motorway.

More Distraction

2006-05-13T09:10:00.000Z

Dipping again into the world of online vids (the nice kind), visit YourTube.com for another cracker - Evolution of Dance... an excellent 6min video, very work safe but needs sound.

On the same tip as taggers like Banksy, stateside Marc Ecko cracks out his own form of artist expression in Stillfree.com. Mad stuff. Finally yet another video link dug up by a mate - this time a Lord of the Rings flava, hobbits to Isengard. Highly annoying.

Random_01

2006-05-09T13:06:00.000Z

Drawn magnetically into a ringtone website founda couple of gems I'd share. Under Editors choice, listen to the Indian Crazy Frog. Whilst nosing around, the weirdness continues under Accents where Indian Outraged made me laugh. Thinking of more stuff to help you avoid working, check out the awesome human beatbox at YourTube.

On a more work/useful tip, visit Permadi for HTML/Javascript and Flash tutorials,and CSS Remix isa cracking showcase for what can be done with CSS... well I liked it.

'May' as well post

2006-05-07T08:00:00.000Z

May 7th already and posts thin on ground. Pretty busy atm. Rcade.com tidy site full of distractions, ATV game bit nifty.

People having too much time on their hand

2006-04-27T08:22:00.000Z

Starting of a really hectic couple of weeks for me, so posts may be limited.

The title of this post could refer to about 80pct of the Internet I guess. Here are a couple of quick links that may be of interest from folks who do have lots of time to bum around and come up with funny stuff. Flowgo is a dancing kiddies site in a cheesy animation style that works really well. Worth a nose. If that tickles you, visit RatherGood.com for more spoofs and stuffs... is the bunny too tight to mention?

Another link I'd suggest visiting - my step-cousin (its complicated) is a bit spesh fronting his band the Jim Muir Slideshow. They play in around London and in small bars around Europe - there's a mailing list up there.. if you like what you hear.

Site Stuff

2006-04-22T13:32:00.000Z

Still working on the fullscope website, not far off launching next version - navigation now in place, just reproducing portfolio images and we are there.
Tattoo website now in production. After an extended delay trying to find mislaid host information, the URL now rests in my 123-reg account and webfusion hosting package appears to be up and running well. Version1 of the site can be found here.

Squint or pinch corners of eye... ho ho :)

Chemical Brothers - StarGuitar

2006-04-05T11:36:00.000Z

Amazing video I saw a few years ago, here is the link to see it in its glory. Watching it more than half dazed and hungover, it suddenly grabbed me that the moving image, in this case the background landscape was in time with the beat. Got hold of the album whilst travelling and played it to death (reminds me of Kho Phi Phi) and this link suddenly popped up and I thought I'd share.

fullscope.co.uk getting into shape

2006-03-29T10:24:00.000Z

After promising myself to design a new site for months on end, fullscope is now looking halfway decent. See what you think, send me an email what you like/don't like. At time of blogging, only the framework is in place. Portfolio content needs preparation, and I'm not happy with my brand at the moment. Its a start.

Some new sites that I think are very impressive. Laserlines - very clean and a cool navigation system. For curve-lovers, visit preloaded, clean and smooth grid system but with the cool authority of a blue blue colour scheme. Smacks in the face of those claiming that 'chicks dig circles, dudes straight lines'... but thats another peice of work I've still to do.

Footballers speak out

2006-03-20T16:43:00.000Z

Caught this in the Observer last weekend (19th March 2006), made me smile on what was otherwise a dull trip back from London. Not a happy chappy is Meesta Ronaldo, especially with one Pele.

On other another note, entertained my nephew with the fantastic monkeehub.com website this weekend. The Flash vid of Radiohead's Creep from the LowMorale series is always amazing, but he was more into the pesky JCB song.

On another random note, the website I work on for the Everquest game I play has been updated - visit the NC site here. The screenies are produced my me but will make no sense to most. Some are nice to look at anyhoo.

Happy days

2006-03-16T10:31:00.000Z

Catching up today with Mike and Katie, mates met from travelling a coupla years ago, I found myself reading my old travel blog. Photos are offline so there are several empty links but for me at least its an ace trip down memory lane.

New site I've designed has been launched. www.nonsuchrotary.org is a website for a colleague involved in the Rotary in his area. Brief was quite open; blue background was mentioned but the rest was up to me. I'm pleased with the watermark effect in background and the general layout sits well and cleanly on the eye. The scrolling content is passable I think, but at least it operates well in both 800x600 res and 1024x768.

Flashy

2006-03-14T12:18:00.000Z

Testing image links with having this Blog hosted away from Blogger.com. Thus the random news item on the right.

Flash animation gets better and better - www.thestreakinggame.com/

Excellent graphic design reference information available at www.bamagazine.com. Helps fill in some*cough* knowlege gaps.

Ronaldinho spoof vid - I was utterly taken in and had to have it explained by a mate at footie on Monday. Felt like a tw*t. The direct link to the vid is bust as its been taken down, but check out this site for whole host of random stuff movies and stuff. The Ronaldinho el Maestro vid is pure class.

http://www.youtube.com