CollyLogic | Simon Collison's Illogical Waffle

I had asparagus on my pizza and my pee turned green (aka The Future of Web Design conference 2008)

18th April 2008

This year’s Future Of Web Design (London) was an almost complete success. I’d love to explain at length why talks by Hicks, Budd, Burka and most others were so fantastic (or at least reassuring), but in truth, I’m burned out on a diet of too much alcohol and way too little sleep. I think an impromptu gate-crashing of Pub Standards followed by late bar mayhem with my fellow Erskine alcoholics and assorted geeks is ultimately to blame. Not hungover, just sort of… fermenting. Relieved I didn’t have to do a turn this year.

Most folks I spoke to seemed really upbeat and positive about this year’s event. Anyway, the ever-giving Mr. Keith has wrapped it all up for you via some accurate live-blogging, so I don’t feel the need to write anything particularly insightful today. Time for a bath, then time to sleep in my own bed.

Still, I would like to extend my thanks to all the folks I caught up with again, and all the new folks I met, and those of you who presented me with gifts (wonderful). Apologies to those who I’d forgotten I’d already met! My bad. I failed to respond to Tweets, or introduce people, or even be gracious in conversation at times, but I hope you’ll forgive me. The nurses don’t let me out very often, you see.

Oh, and steer clear of asparagus as a pizza topping. The colour is one thing, but the smell was rather too much at 7am.

#740 | 18/04/08 | Web stuff | 9 comments | More >

North Pole Speed Record

21st March 2008

A few days ago we launched the North Pole Speed Record site for our intrepid client Ben Saunders. Ben is a record-breaking long-distance skier, with three North Pole expeditions under his belt. He is the youngest to ski solo to the North Pole and holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton.

This latest expedition (supported by Ernst & Young) is an attempt to set a new world speed record from Ward Hunt Island to the Geographic North Pole. The current record was set in 2005 by a guided team using dog sleds and numerous re-supplies in a time of 36 days 22 hours. Ben’s expedition will be solo and unsupported and on foot. This route has only ever been completed once solo and unsupported, by Pen Hadow in 2003. Ben aims to halve his time and complete it in 30 days.

I love the Equipment page (below). Just check out the sheer volume of stuff ben has to drag behind him, including his trusty “spork”, and a gun to ward off polar bears. Gulp.

We worked closely with Ben, his team and the sponsors in a very short time frame to pull this website together and reflect the scope of the expedition and Ben’s personality. We also created bespoke tools to allow him to easily post journal entries from the North Pole on his mobile without exposing himself to frostbite or hammering his batteries.

We’re still waiting on clips from a couple of TV interviews and a few other bits, but to get some other perspective on Ben and his achievements, check out the press page.

Huge credit to our Greg Wood who led the design and development on this project. Greg has written more about his approach here. We’re now counting down the days until our client sends a blog post from the North Pole using the tools we built. That will be pretty special. Ben is off to the South Pole in November too, so hopefully we can collect the set. Next stop, the moon.

#739 | 21/03/08 | Erskine | More >

Tanks, troops and terror

16th March 2008

Having spent a comfortable Sunday morning reading the newspapers and pondering how best to use my freedom on this wet day, I began to feel compelled to write about the worrying reports coming out of Tibet, ~~a country~~ an “autonomous region” that I have spent many years reading about, hoping to one day visit before its whole identity and heritage is obliterated…

#738 | 16/03/08 | Observations | More >

The Seldom Seen Kid

15th March 2008

The fourth album from Elbow is another intensely personal journey through main man Guy Garvey’s experiences, dripping with introspective worry and wonder. Twice divorced, world-weary and used to life in England’s rainy cities, the music of Elbow always reflects the intricacies of life and loves in Northern towns, and its a narrative I buy into with every release.

#737 | 15/03/08 | Music | More >

Pimping Greg Wood’s new website

28th February 2008

Erskine’s chief carrot-topped design wizard Greg Wood has just relaunched his personal website - www.greg-wood.co.uk - and I love it. Peppered with his own idiosyncratic robot doodles and “...a deliciously organized foray into the abnormalities and oddities of [his] grey matter.”

The devil is in the details, so I recommend trawling around this cornucopia of obsessiveness. For CSS trickery, check out the expansion of the screenshot when resizing text on the Work page, or the visual details on this Sweeney Todd review. I do worry about the contents of Greg’s brain, so enter his website with caution.

#736 | 28/02/08 | Erskine Web design | More >

Get your own Erskine badge and join our ephemera wall

18th February 2008

Earlier today I posted a photograph of our shiny new card-mounted Erskine Design badges on Flickr. Since then, I’ve had way too many emails, tweets and comments asking how to get hold of one.

OK. It would be our pleasure to send these little birdies out into the postal system and around the world at our own expense, just because you say “Want one” or “How do I get one?” without saying “please” (you know who you are). But we are not going to do that.

How to get a badge

If you want one, you have to send us something first. It is easy really. Send us a sticker, badge, mug or t-shirt (cheeky me) of your company or employer, or if that isn’t possible just send any old crap. Its the gesture we’re excited by, not monetary value. I’ll ready a load of badges and the moment I receive your ephemera, we’ll post ours out the same day.

What will we do with your crap?

Here at Erskine Design towers, we’ll build a wall of received ephemera and blog/Flickr it and get you linked up. Actually, we might also do some crazy image-map madness at a custom URL that all the cool people will be aching to be featured on. Maybe.

Send your rubbish to...

Erskine Design, 4 Stoney Street, Lace Market, Nottingham NG1 1LG, United Kingdom. Don’t forget to enclose your own address and a wee message.

Make your own bargain buttons

Huge credit to our friends at PureButtons Inc for the badges. With easy-to-use PSD templates and very affordable pricing, these folks are tops and get the Erskine Design seal of approval (and they have not asked me to blog this).

#735 | 18/02/08 | Erskine | More >

The Indy-fatigable franchise is back!

14th February 2008

Ooh, ooh. The trailer for Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is out today. Whatever your views on such a belated episode of the boys-own saga, I tell you that the moment you hear the theme tune you start to feel like a kid all over again.

The plot revolves around Indy going to the 2008 Olympic Games to bring down China over the Darfur crisis. No, not really. That was just a little bit of politics.

So, what can we glean from this brief glimpse? Well, its classic Spielberg adventure thrills. It has Ray Winstone in it. It has Cate Blanchett in it. There are plenty of big stunts. Harrison Ford sounds like he smokes 50 a day. It has a very long and stupid title. That hot shot kid everyone is talking about is in it. So is John Hurt. So is Karen Allen (best of all Indy’s women). George Lucas has managed to get some Ewoks into it (possibly). It is out on 22nd of May. I can’t wait. I might be disappointed. I don’t care.

#734 | 14/02/08 | Culture | More >

Colly’s design-related analogy for the day

12th February 2008

The difference between bad web design and good web design can be compared to the difference between my Dad going for a walk, and Richard Long going for a walk.

#733 | 12/02/08 | Web design | More >

More Nottingham gig artwork - Jay Ryan (Bird Machine)

2nd February 2008

Earlier today I wrote about Chris Summerlin’s brilliant gig posters, and he and I had discussed the work of The Bird Machine - a Chigago-based outfit led by Jay Ryan - responsible for quite a few Nottingham posters.

Bird machine Nottingham posters

These beauties are sketchier, more heavily worked than Chris’s posters, but just as covetable. They can be purchased via the Richard Goodall Gallery of Manchester, or by contacting The Bird Machine directly.

Bird Machine Nottingham posters

#732 | 02/02/08 | Culture Music | More >

Official gig poster art by Chris Summerlin

2nd February 2008

Top Nottingham-based illustrator Chris Summerlin just delivered nine of his incredible gig posters in person. And a fine chap he is too. After ordering my prints, it turned out that Chris lived one street away from me in Sneinton! Small world.

Chris Summerlin posters

These are all genuine gig posters commissioned by the bands for some of their gigs in Nottingham, so they all mention fine venues such as The Social, Rescue Rooms, Rock City etc - and I even went to some of these gigs. One is even from a gig at Sneinton Hermitage!

As many of you know, I’m a huge music and illustration fan, so when the two combine I get excited. Trawl the web and you’ll find lots of gig poster sites (I’m also a fan of The Small Stakes folio), but there’s so much lame gig poster art out there or artwork not authorised by the bands, or made after the gigs, that to have these wonderful genuine prints is a bit of a coup.

Chris sells his posters as crisp A3 prints for around a fiver each, or he’ll do you a deal for bulk orders. All delivered carefully in strong cardboard tubes. Visit Chris Summerlin’s website to order prints or get in touch with him, or check out his Flickr poster art set. Chris is a freelance artist, and is available for commissions of all kinds. Word on the grapevine is that some commissioned artwork might just appear in my redesign later this year, but keep that to yourselves.

#731 | 02/02/08 | Culture Music | More >