This motion project for the talented digital development company, Digital Cools, showcases their interactive web apps produced for the Telegraph.
Credits:
Web app design and development: Digital Cools
Motion design: Jason Kinouchihttp://www.vimeo.com/21917811
Greg Quinton promised a string of pearls for his D&AD North Lecture, which took place in Manchester. Being a Creative Partner at The Partners, and a D&AD Black Pencil winner, Greg was more than qualified to share his secrets of success and also those of The Partners, who are ranked No. 1 in just about every design ranking there is. There were 10 key points of creative success which Greg discussed:
No 1. Have a totally unattainable goal
The Partners wanted to be the best agency in the world, which is an impossible task. Despite this unattainable goal, it has given the agency a focus- something to work towards.
No 2. IDEAS
No 3. Less (strategy) is more
No 4. Don’t be cool
“Are you a styles person or an ideas person?” Design problems can truly be solved through ideas and good design, not through hollow stylistic application.
No 5. Fail
“Failure is good. celebrate and enjoy the failures”
No 6. Make a difference
No 7. Love good clients
No 8. Work damn hard
No 9. Change
Seek to constantly reinvent yourself. A designer is not an artist. A designer is a conduit to solving a problem
No 10. Create the future
Do work that makes you scared and pushes you out of your comfort zone. Work with weird people who want to make weird stuff!
The Brit Insurance Designs Awards, “the Oscars of the design world,” showcases the work of international designers across seven categories: architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product and transport. I wandered over to the Design Museum in London, to view the best of the best. These were some of the nominations which caught my eye:
Forsman & Bodenfors‘ designed Ikea’s ‘Homemade is best’ recipe book, which also won in the Award’s Graphics category. The focus on the minimalistic, even artistic arrangement of the raw ingredients makes a refreshing change to the completed culinary masterpiece.
Photo: Carl Kleiner
‘I Wonder’ by Marian Bantjes impressed me with it’s vector-based ornate gilding throughout the book.
Irma Boom: Biography in Books. This incredibly small compendium is typical of Irma’s desire to push the limits of publishing to their extreme.
‘Playing with Lego bricks and paper’, designed by Muji. This excited me incredibly- bringing both childhood joys of lego and papercraft together into one delightful package.
Tape Installation: Numen / For Use. A much smaller maquette of their tape-constructed installations was displayed at the Design Museum. The actual size of their works are large enough and sturdy enough to allow people to crawl through their suspended playhouses.
Photo: Numen / For Use
This was an interesting and beautifully animated motion piece for Coalition of the Willing, Directed and Produced by Knife Party. An engaging approach to solving the global warming issue through open-source collaboration.http://www.vimeo.com/12772935
I was commissioned by Glyndwr University’s Marketing Department to Art Direct a team of four designers. Our brief was to produce the concept, design and template for the University’s Postgraduate & Professional Prospectus, 2011. The concept of ‘growth’ throughout University was conveyed through the Russian doll visuals, suggesting continual expansion and advancement through the various degrees which Glyndwr has to offer. Various booklets were produced for each department of study, with each requested booklet assembled into a personalised folder for the prospective student. This saved on printing costs compared to the traditional model of a thick ‘catalogue’ prospectus, filled with courses irrelevant to the student.
This was my first Liverpool Design Festival I’ve attended in the stunning St. George’s Hall. There were over 90 contemporary design makers showcasing their works. These were some of the ones which caught my eye:
Rebecca Gouldson’s Metal Wall pieces- beautiful etching and detail.
Hannah Lobley’s unique recycled Paper Art.
Rethinkthings, founded by Ilsa Parry (winner of BBC’s Design for Life with Phillippe Starck) and their inventive design products.
Graduate Min-Kyu Choi from the Royal College of Art created this ingenious design which I was able to see at the Design Museum in London. The UK Folding Plug transforms from a bulky three-pin plug into a portable, hassle-free plug ideal for people on the go. When not in use, the UK Folding Plug transforms into a 10 mm-thick flat object. Just goes to show what is possible to redesign for the better in our everyday, mundane surroundings.
Vibe is a concept for a multi-layered digital platform of a city, showing the real-time energy, experience and interpretations of its residents.
Anyone can join the Vibe community and are then able to participate, by uploading their own ‘vibes’, ideas and experiences, using a variety of media such as video, photographs, audio, web links, and augmented reality. Staying true to the constant evolution of the city, the continual contribution of content ensures that Vibe is always changing and stays up to date. Older or outdated vibes disappear over time to be replaced by new ones. This makes each visit to the digital city fresh and engaging with new experiences ready to be discovered.
Each city can have its own unique open map that buzzes with a live network and community, sharing and expressing their personal vibes, and offering an insider’s perspective of their environment. This map can be accessed primarily through a smart phone interface, but may also be interacted with physically using an ‘Invisible Map’. This is based around a blank embossed map, embedded with RFID tags acting as triggers to allow real time interaction with the digital city.
Benches- A self-initiated project
Intimate thoughts; Shared spaces
Benches are curious phenomena; islands of solitude or community dispersed across the landscape, marking routes that we frequent.
This project aims to offer a fresh perspective on these familiar and commonplace objects.
St. Asaph’s community and the localities of North Wales were asked to share their stories and experiences of these benches and their origins.
These encounters have been documented in the form of an interactive map, allowing the story to continue.
Please feel free to add to this communal map from wherever you live.
See this set on Flickr
Locate them on Google Maps
A strong typographical approach was key to the Kinouchi branding, which was carried across to these self-promotional business cards. These square-cut cards offer an alternative to the norm of business cards and have a beautiful sturdy and tactile quality to them. They are double sided and have been hot foil stamped with both silver and black foil.
