News from Paz

Build

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:41:06 +0000

I’ve just come back from a nice little trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland where I attended Build, a week-long design festival for makers of digital stuff.

It was a lovely trip down memory lane for me, seeing as this is the first time I visited Northern Ireland after leaving there 5 years ago. It was good to see that Belfast is in great shape these days.

The conference itself was themed around contemporary notions of craft (hence the name I assume). Several speakers had their talks aligned with this subject, the Web Standardistas spoke about the journey of learning centred around the relationship between master and apprentice; Wilson Miner talked about the tools that we shape to help shaping the world around us; and finally Simon Collison threw in a final bucketload of craftsmanship analogies and personal stories of bricklayers and such.

Personally I think that overall they stretched the metaphor a little bit too much. Of course it’s lovely to have a theme for the event and the notion of building digital stuff is not unfamiliar. At times, however, it seemed a little bit over-romanticised and the metaphor was getting in the way of the experience. It was almost like the same kind of romanticism that gives us leather-stitched digital address books with buttons in all the wrong places. The “brand” of Build was designed with meticulous attention to detail, at least as far as artefacts are concerned. We we’re welcomed with an “employee orientation pack” containing “health and safety” postcards with a screenprinted aesthetic, a (unsharpened) carpenter pencil and a name badge that looked like it was meant to visually resemble an identity card from a factory or construction site. All lovely artefacts ~~that make you cringe a little~~ lulling you into the romantic ideals of manual labour. They were pretty but unfortunately not terribly useful. Personally I would’ve preferred a pencil that I can actually write with and perhaps a small notebook. They could’ve still made them look nostalgic but at least the artefacts would’ve been useful beyond their visual aesthetic. It’s only one example of many instances where I think that meticulous detail was detracting from the intended value. In my opinion the same applies to those talks that were trying to shoehorn a very simple and clear message into a metaphor (like continues learning = master/journeyman/apprentice). I think that these metaphors only work when the audience shares the same romantic notions about them, in this case if they are equally far removed from actual hard graft in order as to make it seem desirable. For me personally there is very little desirable about it, having actually gone through this whole craft business myself. It’s a very flawed metaphor for a number of reasons.

As far as the conference itself is concerned, they probably would’ve done better to invest less time and money into paraphernalia and more into the event organisation; for example making sure a ‘practical’ day is actually practical by catering for the most basic requirements like power outlets and wifi; or perhaps by checking with the venue beforehand if the promises they made are actually possible to achieve (ahem … “lunch provided”). And besides, perhaps paying some attention to the gender ratio wouldn’t harm – having exclusively male speakers ~~turned the whole thing into a giant sausage party~~ seemed to contribute a great deal to a lack of diversity in the audience.

It wasn’t all bad though. I really enjoyed the presentation by Erik Spiekermann who talked about the work of his studio and their design approach. Scott McCloud gave a hugely entertaining and inspiring talk about visual communication and – of course – the relevance of comics. Jeremy Keith shared a very interesting viewpoint on long term thinking – stating that, despite popular belief, data we put on the web will not necessarily be accessible forever and we need to put measures in place to ensure data longevity. And lastly I really enjoyed Craig Mod’s excellent talk about the future of books which made a lot more sense than his presentation at dConstruct earlier this year.

In conclusion Build 2011 wasn’t the best conference I’ve attended but I’ve still learnt a thing or two and met some interesting people along the way.

I have just received my degree, on my iPad, as a PDF … as it...

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:25:18 +0000

I have just received my degree, on my iPad, as a PDF … as it should be. (Taken with instagram)

It appears that I have graduated without splashing out on a...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:09:55 +0000

It appears that I have graduated without splashing out on a gown, cheesy photographs and travel and I didn’t even have to touch a rector (Taken with instagram)

True story (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:00:17 +0000

True story (Taken with instagram)

The studio of dreams is getting a lot of media love lately....

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 16:57:56 +0000

The studio of dreams is getting a lot of media love lately. Check out the ustwo™ feature in on the Computer Arts Creative DVD, free with issue 192, on sale 25 August in the UK.

Gamespot UK has visited our studio. More beauty shots of the...

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:57:00 +0000

Gamespot UK has visited our studio. More beauty shots of the studio of dreams (from 2:56)

Makes me proud to be living and working in what’s...

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 17:47:12 +0000

Makes me proud to be living and working in what’s apparently now called “Tech City”, the UK equivalent to America’s Silicon Valley. The video above has lots of nice impressions from the area where I live and shots of ustwo’s awesome studio, where I work.

Stadthaus N1

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:42:51 +0000

By poking around on Wikipedia I just stumbled across some interesting facts about my home that I was completely unaware of. It looks like I’m living in the tallest fully timber residential building in the world. Everything, even the stair and lift cores, are constructed entirely from timber. There go the roof terrace BBQ plans.

An interesting point from a visual design perspective though is the thought that went into the facade:

The pattern looks random, but was in fact created by recording the changing light and shadows formed on the vacant site using sun-path animation. The resulting image was pixellated, stretched and wrapped around the building.

Nice.

Yay! After two weeks in London the last box is finally unpacked...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:14:10 +0000

Yay! After two weeks in London the last box is finally unpacked and I have a desk again. (Taken with Instagram at Graphite Apartments)

The big move

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:57:04 +0000

It’s mid July already! How did that happen? I’ve been so busy wrapping up this degree thing, packing up my life, going on a company holiday to Sweden, moving to London, unpacking and trying not to lose my sanity in the process of all this. Wait, London? Sweden? OK, so here’s a quick update:

University is finally over and done with. I’m happy to have achieved a 1st in both my dissertation and studio units. Like most of my peers I’ve now moved to London and when my desk arrives today via IKEA delivery I can finally finish unpacking the last couple of boxes and call this place home. I was lucky to find a nice apartment just off Old Street, an area dubbed the Silicon Roundabout for the prominence of tech companies here – quite a fitting place for me then.

So, what am I doing here? While I was still at uni, I was absolutely certain that I didn’t want to get into the “traditional” sofa surfing underpaid internships and placements thing, probably ending up borrowing even more money. I’ve done my internships before I finished my degree and I strongly believe that’s the right time to do this. I graduated knowing what I’m interested in, what I’m capable of doing and what I still need to learn. Now is the time to start earning money doing this (and to pay back what I’ve borrowed to get there). After all I’m officially qualified, so why shouldn’t I?

I was actually really looking forward to the job hunt, to building a little ‘hire me’ page, brushing up my CV, sending out portfolios to companies I admire and harnessing my social networks. I didn’t really get to do any of this, no special campaign, not even a CV. It turned out that the online portfolio and my social media presence was the best and most genuine self-promotion; all that was needed was to let people know through my profile that I’m graduating soon. I got a lot of very interesting responses and offers from different companies, huge internet giants as well as awesome startups and everything in between, many of them were very tempting. In the end I made a decision for ustwo™, the digital design studio behind legendary apps like MouthOff and Granimator. They approached me through LinkedIn, I went to their very impressive Shoreditch studio for a chat, presented my portfolio on my iPad to four people in a relaxed atmosphere while having a beer, they loved it, I loved it. The deal was done.

A few weeks later I found myself in a Swedish fishing camp with 80 of their staff, hot tub, floating sauna and a large supply of beer and cider – enjoying a company holiday before I even started the job. What a great opportunity to get to know my new colleagues. I’m very excited to start working with such a great bunch of creative and talented people next week. I have no idea what I’ll be working on, but I’m sure it’s going to be awesome.

The 7th time I’m moving, I think I’m getting the...

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:51:52 +0000

The 7th time I’m moving, I think I’m getting the hang of this #packing (Taken with Instagram at 1 Emslie Road)

Student No 1006391 achieved a 1st class honours. Goodbye life as...

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 11:32:30 +0000

Student No 1006391 achieved a 1st class honours. Goodbye life as a number, hello freedom! (Taken with instagram)

Nearly there

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:34:29 +0000

I have spent so much time on the train in the last two weeks, you could think I’m working as a train conductor. After returning from DIBI I had a short break at #digpen, the 3rd South West Web Unconference, before heading off to London for a week.

I attended the D&AD Awards ceremony on Thursday, where I achieved a commendation (that’s a fancy word for “good, but not good enough”). On Friday I attended the awards ceremony of the International Society of Typographic Designers, where my official membership certificate was handed to me by the living design legend Erik Spiekermann. Aside from the ceremonial aspect, both events were very enjoyable get-togethers of creative talent. For me personally they were also a perfect replacement for the official graduation ceremony which, annoyingly, is going to take place in September. I’m more than happy to skip this event now, having done all the dressing up, receiving certificates, being photographed and getting drunk already.

I’m now waiting for my results tomorrow and I have to say I’m excited about it. Not because I’m dying to know how I performed on the standardised scale of academic box-ticking, but rather because this officially marks the end of it for me. Regardless of the result, I know what I’ve learnt, I know where I was right and where I was wrong. I know that learning doesn’t stop here but also that learning didn’t start with my degree either – and I’m certain that I’ve learnt the most valuable lessons despite going to university, not because of it. I don’t care if it will be a 1st or a pass – even if it’s going to be a fail grade – nobody actually gives a damn, apart from your parents (which incidentally make up 90% of the degree show visitors).

So, if I click on the university website tomorrow and identify the results corresponding to my student ID number, I’ll be very happy for my mum and dad. And I’ll raise my glass to my newly won freedom to create good work that perhaps will be judged by its actual success and not arbitrary box-ticking and tutor favouritism – and yes, I think this totally applies to most awards too, including the ones I did and didn’t win). Cheers!

Bridges, Beer and Geeks

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:12:58 +0000

I’ve just come back from an amazing few days in Newcastle where I attended DIBI the two track “design it/build it” conference. It was a very inspiring event with many great speakers and a good crowd of geeks.

The talks that resonated with me the most were by Brian Suda, who spoke about some techniques useful to have in your data visualisation toolkit and urged us to use them wisely. His advise was also to choose one story and execute it well rather than trying to visualise everything you can squeeze out of a data set. The mantra “just enough is more” rings true once again.

Jeremy Keith used his slot for a good old rant about responsible responsive design, working with known unknowns, why ‘context first’ is not an excuse for pissing all over your website or serving a dumbed down mobile site, and why 'mobile first’ really means thinking about content before thinking about media queries. There is no mobile web, there’s only one web.

Usability legend Jared Spool delivered a very engaging and entertaining presentation that had everyone laughing about his examples of some very obscure albeit not all too uncommon usability fails. He talked about intuitive design and why it is so difficult to achieve. Intuitive design is invisible, technically a great designer has nothing to put in his portfolio (except perhaps the things he would’ve done if he was a not so great designer). He demonstrated how every innovation follows the same pattern from the focus on technology, to features, to experience. Intuitive design happens at the experience stage. When it comes to adding features and keeping the product updated, we need to design for embraceable change or otherwise we risk losing our users along the way. This means favouring small, incremental changes over disruptive major updates. We need to manage the knowledge gap on the “knowledge escalator”, by moving current knowledge (bottom of the escalator) and target knowledge (top of the escalator) closer together.

Jeffrey Zeldman, dubbed the godfather of the Internet, delivered his keynote speech about What Every Web Designer Should Know. He seemed to go off on tangents quite a bit, which was mostly funny (just like we know and love him from the Big Web Show), and skipped a large chunk of his presentation in order to allow some time for questions. I thought the Q&A was where the real Zeldman came through, entertaining, knowledgable and genuine. The bottom line was: we all have so much to learn, it’s a good thing when you feel like the dumbest guy in the room. Our industry is moving fast and we have to constantly learn from each other. It’s why most people in this industry are very humble and always happy to help and why this design community is so great.

I thoroughly enjoyed those few days in the beautiful city with the weird architectural landmarks (the event was held in a building that looks like a giant slug near a bridge that looks like a giant egg slicer). I was also very lucky to meet and socialise with some extremely smart, talented, inspiring and amazing people. Shout-out to Harry (CSS Wizardry), Jeremy (@adactio), Owain (@owzzz), Freddy, Sam (Nocturnal Monkey), Ashley (@dragongraphics), Darren (@madeinthenorth), Gavin (@gavinelliott) and everyone else I bumped into, shook hands with, chatted to or had a beer with but forgot to mention here – I really enjoyed your company.

A long journey

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:30:00 +0000

This is it. My final year work is handed in for assessment and mounted in my exhibition space ready for the final show.

It’s the end of a five year journey in formal design education through four courses in three countries. What was meant to be a straightforward path to gain access to a vocation—with curriculum controlled waypoints, a reward currency in the form of credit points and rules to follow—turned out to be a roller coaster ride and a journey of self-discovery. I hacked the system. I made up my own rules. I went to university because I wanted a degree but I studied because I wanted to learn. I learnt plenty: I discovered what I’m good at, I found out what I suck at. And I learnt how to become good with the things that I suck at. University provided the framework, mainly the reason to be in a particular place for a certain time, an excuse not be too serious about everything I do (perhaps call it the safety to take risks—if that wasn’t such a terrible oxymoron) and eligibility to get free government money. I had to do the learning and source the teaching myself. It was a “bring your own education” party. I made a lot of contacts and friends along the way and I was inspired by many people—even educators. I didn’t stick to the syllabus, I challenged the conventions. I spent the most part of my formal design education questioning the relevance of formal design education. I refused to graduate into a never-ending sofa-surfing internship cycle where I don’t know what I want to do or where I want to be. I wanted to be ready for—and bloody damn excited about—working in the design industry when I graduate. Nobody can possibly estimate where their particular path of education is going to take them when they initially flick through prospectuses trying to compare features of the hundreds of design courses in the UK alone. It doesn’t matter where you go to university or whether you go at all. Design school has its advantages (access to facilities, networking opportunities, free money, something to do, …) but if you’re not willing to challenge the system and build your own personal curriculum of learning opportunities, you’re probably wasting your time. I’m now a graduant, awaiting my degree—essentially an attendance record that certifies my three year commitment to handing in work on time and paying my library fines. What it doesn’t certify is the skills I can contribute to the workplace, my readiness to take on the complex problems of a postmodern world, and my enthusiasm to help shaping the future. That, I hope, is evident in everything I do, not just in my portfolio. Design education isn’t all about ideas and it shouldn’t just be about a slick portfolio. You can have ideas anywhere, with anyone, anytime. Design education should be about finding out what you love, why you love it and how you can make a living of it. This may mean that you have to turn your standard three year degree into a five year educational journey around Europe. When I receive this official piece of paper, I know that this is only the beginning of a much longer journey. But I feel ready now to make a living with what I love doing. And gosh am I excited about it!

All handed in. The end of a long journey. (Taken with Instagram...

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:44:11 +0000

All handed in. The end of a long journey. (Taken with Instagram at University College Falmouth (UCF))

Newspapers, booklets, posters and postcards done. Getting there....

Mon, 30 May 2011 17:21:27 +0000

Newspapers, booklets, posters and postcards done. Getting there. (Taken with instagram)

6 days before handing in all my work for the last leg of my 5...

Fri, 27 May 2011 19:23:58 +0000

6 days before handing in all my work for the last leg of my 5 year educational journey through 4 years of formal education at 3 universities in 2 countries other than my home country and 1 year of self-directed study, I find out that what I really needed all along probably wasn’t so far away from home. Nevermind.

The Future of Web Design

Fri, 20 May 2011 08:38:43 +0000

I’m buzzing with ideas and inspiration from the Future of Web Design conference in London. Although it did eat into the time I have available to finish my work and London isn’t exactly around the corner from Falmouth, I’m really glad that I attended. It was great to put a few faces to some twitter handles, meet other likeminded people, make new friends and discuss everything web and design. I learnt a lot from the inspiring and thought-provoking presentations. The talks that resonated with me the most were by Josh Clark, who talked about designing for touch interfaces, Paul Boag who gave very practical advice on how to be a designer without losing your sanity, Aral Balkan reminded us about our power to decide whether people will have a good day or a bad day, Aaron Walter who urged us to give ourselves permission to do awesome stuff and Sarah B. Nelson who shared some practical tips and communication techniques to help designing with users, not just for them. I’m now really motivated to push through the final two weeks of my degree and beyond, implementing what I’ve learnt and testing new ideas.

Laker compendium – Designing digital publications in HTML5

Sun, 08 May 2011 22:35:10 +0000

Laker compendium – Designing digital publications in HTML5:

A very promising compendium of frameworks for digital publishing.

TASCHEN Digital Magazine

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:32:07 +0000

A concept study re-imagining the TASCHEN magazine for the new generation of multimedia tablet devices.

For 30 years it has been the mission of TASCHEN to make beautiful art books available to everyone. At the dawn of a new era of digital publishing, the digital TASCHEN magazine offers an immersive and social experience that captures the essence of the magazine and redefines it for an audience that values beautifully crafted books and the convenience and intimate experience offered through tablet devices in a networked world. The user interface is reminiscent of the beauty and quality of printed matter and offers a tactile user experience that aims to evoke an emotional response similar to stepping through the doors of one of the prestigious TASCHEN stores and browsing the books on display. A warm, welcoming and yet exclusive atmosphere.

Aside from the multimedia enriched content of the magazine, a book view mode offers a truly immersive experience. It allows the user to pan around a large virtual table and zoom right in to switch seamlessly between overview and intricate detail. The user can take a closer look at the book in original size, in 360 degrees, through preview images or augmented reality. Each book is linked to the corresponding story in the magazine to allow for a seamless move between the book view and the content of the magazine. See all the details in the video demo on Vimeo.

Vitamin D infographic

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:13:17 +0000

Ciceronimo

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:24:32 +0000

Ciceronimo is a personal guide to the city, providing access to location-specific resources for cyclists. Borrowing the visual style of a traditional cycle computer, the web app features content that is curated by its user community which provides routes, cycle hire, cycle parking, maps and other relevant resources for cycling in the city.

Feed me!

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 19:27:30 +0000

A self-promotional microsite pitching to win a conference ticket for UX London 2011.

Clearleft, organisers of the renowned UX London conference had offered the opportunity for students to win one of three conference tickets. Hungry for the experience I decided to go the extra mile and attempted to convince the judges with a piece of work that goes beyond the simple e-mail or video message they asked for. Inspired by the immense hunger of “Audrey II”, the carnivorous plant character from The Little Shop of Horrors, I designed a microsite that highlights in a humorous way just how desperate I am for the opportunities UX London would offer and how creative I get when I’m fed inspiration.

Local Food Grants

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:59:04 +0000

Local Food Grants is a nationwide scheme whereby Lottery funds are distributed to small food businesses, community groups and social enterprises to support environmentally sound production of food on a local scale.

The website functions as a community for the projects which have been awarded funding, so they can receive the best support from each other and the Local Food team and advisors. It is a membership-based site where sharing, advice, news, resources and discussions can be encouraged and facilitated. With this redesign the client wanted to move away from the corporate style of the previous website towards a more rustic and natural look and feel with an intuitive and easy to use information architecture.

The design went through many iterations with a very tight deadline and both illustrative as well as photographic approaches were tried. In the end the client opted for a photographic style that creates a very rustic, warm and welcoming atmosphere. The design and usability have had great feedback from users.

Exposure NE

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:58:54 +0000

Logo for a photography project for young people in the North East of England. The project celebrates what is unique about the coastal environment of the region through photographs and drawings published as a book.

Infographic: A New Model for Government

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:14:25 +0000

A visualisation showing how digital democracy can connect people with governments.

Delib is a digital democracy company. They help organisations to use the internet to connect people with decision making. This is achieved through digital democracy apps which enable governments to listen to peoples’ opinions and help citizens to make their voices heard (for example the Your Freedom initiative created by Delib). The infographic I designed for Delib shows their vision of government as a platform using apps to connect people more directly to the decision-making process in a participative democracy model.

Art School Cliché Spotting

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:28:13 +0000

A tongue-in-cheek take on stereotypical art and design school clichés as often found at degree shows.

Art School Cliché Spotting was a fun project coinciding with the 2010 degree shows. In a tongue-in-cheek fashion it pokes fun at common patterns as experienced both in my own work and the work of my peers as well as the crowd-sourced opinion from people around the world. The aim was to produce a humorous and engaging iOS capable web app that enables visitors of art and design summer shows to find out which work is “ticking the boxes” and calculate the cliché ranking of the art school in a national comparison table. The target audience are art and design students, recent graduates and people affiliated to or interested in graphic design education. The app was to be promoted with a website that is sharable, modern, beautifully designed and offers an additional service element by providing information about the dates and times of current and upcoming degree shows. Both the app and the website are deliberately referencing the various clichés in their own UI design to add an ironic twist and yet look aesthetically pleasing. It uses CSS3 and is based on the 960 Grid System. The typography is achieved thanks to the beautiful open source font by the League of Movable Type. The project was a great success given the viral spread with nearly 1000 facebook likes, 350 editorial mentions (including Johnson Banks’ Thought of the Week, Digital Arts Magazine, GrainEdit, Abduzeedo to name but a few) and 35k visits through 28k unique visitors from 140 countries. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The app was made ‘staff pick’ at apple.com, DigitalArts magazine called it a “must- have”, typographers Hoefler+Frere-Jones announced that it “made their day”, Johnson Banks found it “useful” and GrainEdit said it’s “a little cruel, but you’ll get a good chuckle along the way”. The project was awarded a DADI for the student work of the year 2010. Most importantly though, the project sparked debate about art and design education both nationally and internationally in blogs, forums, facebook and twitter. This project was a collaboration with my friend and colleague Barnaby Norwood for the Open Design School.

User Centred Design

Fri, 28 May 2010 19:49:51 +0000

The central premise of user centred design is that the best designed products and services result from understanding the needs of the people who will use them (Design Council)

This project is the result of my work experience at City ID, an information design studio with international reputation. The poster sums up many of the things that I’ve learnt during my time working with them. It also draws inspiration from practitioners who I admire and from a Digital Media module that I took at the Zurich University of the Arts in Switzerland which was taught by visiting lecturer and user experience designer Eva-Lotta Lamm.

To promote and share the poster with the public, I created a microsite where people can find out more about the project as well as download a free digital copy of the poster and order a printed copy in return for a donation. The project was not only a great learning experience for me but also a fantastic self-promotional piece at the start of my design career, that demonstrates passion and understanding of key design principles. The poster has been downloaded more than 20,000 times and physical copies have been ordered from design studios, UX professionals and User Centred Design enthusiasts in more than 10 different countries. The microsite gained more than 15,000 visitors in the first month and was linked on more than 300 blogs in 120 countries (UXbooth, Speckyboy, Informationdesign.org, Ignore the Code to name a few). It makes me proud to have created something that helps people around the world to advocate usability and aid in teaching user centred design techniques.

Your PA online

Mon, 17 May 2010 11:30:42 +0000

Web-Redesign for a Munich-based business offering Virtual Personal Assistant services.

Through analysis of the market, target audience and the shortcoming of their previous website, I worked out the requirements and how to improve the design. Instead of generic stock photography this design uses a playful illustrative approach and displays all the relevant information in an appealing one-pager with smooth jQuery aided scrolling and attractive call-to-action buttons. In addition to the website, the brand received a refreshed look through a more subtle colour palette and a more carefully adjusted logo. The typography is achieved through a combination of the two free fonts Yanone Kaffesatz and Junction. You can view a webkit and mozilla optimised prototype here. The design process and rationale is outlined in a PDF (in German).