Inspirations

Innovations / Inspirations / Thoughts — 3 Comments
28
Apr 10

Just scratching the surface

With the release date of Apple’s iPad fast approaching (Friday April 30th), it got me wondering whether it could spark a rejuvenation or re-imagination of other ‘larger’ touch screen devices.

Trapped in a glass box?

No, I am not saying that Tom Cruise and his Minority Report glove thingy is the next step in the evolution of ‘buttonless‘ devices… however it maybe closer than you think!

Cast your minds all the way back to 2008 when it was announced that Microsoft Surface units would be in plce in hospitality businesses, such as restaurants, hotels, retail, public entertainment venues and used by the military for tactical overviews.

“Microsoft Surface is a multi-touch product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of gesture recognition. This could involve the motion of hands or physical objects.” - Wikipedia

Now, I for one have never seen a Microsoft Surface unit in the public domain. In fact it’s only visibility to Joe Public is being used by MSNBC during its coverage of the 2008 US presidential election and also being featured in the CBS series CSI: Miami. So from a public usage point of view… it’s a flop so far but the potential is massive.

On the surface however, this looks awesome and I would love to see it being used in the public domain. I am wondering whether the popularity of the larger touch screen Apple iPad will have any affect on similar devices to Microsoft Surface.

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Inspirations / Thoughts — 2 Comments
22
Apr 10

CSS3 – What can we use now?

I recently found a nice little tutorial and demo on Web Designer Wall about gradient buttons created using CSS3. Why am I posting about this rather than all of the other cool stuff that CSS3 has to offer I hear you ask? Well I am choosing to bring this to your attention mainly because this is something we can start using NOW without worrying about how it looks in IE6!

These buttons are created without the use of any images. The buttons are scalable based on the font-size. The button size can be easily adjusted by changing the padding and font-size values. The best part about this method is it can be applied to any HTML element such as div, span, p, a, button, input, etc. See a demo here.

Although CSS3 gradient buttons are not supported by all browsers (Firefox 3.6, Chrome, and Safari are all compatable). This technique does degrade gracefully:

Gradient Images

The discussion point for the increased use of CSS3 is that it is not compatible with older browsers. However, I am a firm believer that as a young aspiring web developer / designer you should be utilising the best and most up-to-date techniques available to you! The argument should not be that: ‘my site doesn’t look correct in IE6 whereas it does in Chrome’, it should be that it looks ‘amazing’ in Chrome and ‘degrades gracefully’ in IE6.

We can utilise the latest CSS3 techniques as well as ensuring the site looks good in older browsers. Here is a quick look at the CSS used for that specific to the Gradient buttons:

To view the full ‘how-to’ article on on to achieve CSS3 gradient buttons click here: http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/css3-gradient-buttons/

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Flash / Inspirations / Work — No Comments
20
Apr 10

Gearing up for the global soccer challenge

We’re lucky to have clients such as Toshiba.

While we do a lot of straight down-the-line marketing for them, the UK division is always prepared to push their brand in the name of a good campaign.

And this campaign’s a winner in my mind – get a free laptop or high def TV if England win the World Cup in SA this year. Heckins, if I was in the market I’d consider this offer very strongly.

Anyways, the brief for the UK website was to be a little bit out there, so we came up with the concept of a dressing room team talk, to complement the England Expects promotional messaging.

This went down well with the client, who, having visited personally before, wanted the site to look like the inside of the Wembley dressing room (the initial designs looked like an amateur dressing room, with lots of mud and half-time oranges).

The campaign went live last week, and looks like this:

The England Expects website for Toshiba UK

Wow - Fabio could walk in at any minute!

The miracle of inheritance

To complement the campaign, a large number of banners were commissioned to be completed in a short amount of time.

Having had a few campaigns lately using the Eyeblaster system, we now have a simple, robust and reusable set of AS3 classes geared for rapid turnaround and flexibility when creating standard and rich banners within Eyeblaster.

These were invaluable for delivering to the brief, and confirm the team’s philosophy here – invest in a reusable, flexible code base, and reap the rewards later in speed and stability.

Come on England!

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