Hello and welcome to March's newsletter (sorry we're a tad late this month). We hope you enjoyed your Easter break. Hopefully a few updates from glue towers will brighten up your first day back in the office. This month we're sharing our first work for Magners, a Twibbon everyone should have, musings on smartphones and browser capabilities, what our design department have been up to and why we're loving fancy boudoirs and a certain brand of bananas.
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Design Day Out
The design department’s recent outing took us to the Design Museum by Tower Bridge. First stop was the ‘Brit Insurance Designs of the Year’ exhibition, which was packed full of interesting designs - some verging on the bizarre, but most were innovative designs with practical solutions (the winner has since been announced - Korean designer Min-Kyu Choi took the grand prize for his innovative fold-flat plug).
Smartphones & Browsers
One of our resident developers, Jens Meijer gives a developer's perspective on smartphones and browsers:
I’ve spent a year with my first proper smartphone now and it’s quite obvious to see where the Japanese were coming from with their early adoption of mobile technology. The mobile phone market over there has evolved in a unique way. It has been compared to the way nature evolved on the Galapagos Islands, unlike anywhere else in the world. Consumers have always been pushing the envelope with their demands for functionality and this has shaped a climate in which technology has advanced rapidly.
3 Things To Make You Smarter
1. As well as being able to import your Facebook friends' email addresses into your Yahoo Mail contacts, you can now update your Facebook status through your Yahoo account.
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2. Fiverr is a new networking site that allows people to sell their services for a flat rate of $5. Current services range from designing a tattoo to writing blog posts. Users can also post jobs they're willing to pay a "fiverr" for.
3. Lady Gaga is officially the first music artist to top over 1bn video views online.
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New Magners Website
We've recently developed a new look and feel for Magners with a redesign of their UK website - our first work for the brand since winning their digital account earlier this year. Through the website, you can learn all about the heritage of Magners and how it's made through beautiful hand-drawn illustrations as well as follow the latest news through live feeds from their Twitter and Facebook channels.
Check it out here.
My Vote Counts
With the general election fast approaching it's become more important than ever for people to be registered to vote.
As part of a wider campaign for the Electoral Commission, we've developed a Twibbon, 'My Vote Counts', which you can add to your Facebook and Twitter profile picture to remind your friends to register to vote.
Bedtime Story Nights
Deep in the depths of Mile End Road lies a hotel so small, you could quite easily miss it. The only two rooms it holds are luxuriously decorated with
fantastic antiques. However, the most flamboyant thing about the hotel is the owner, David Carter and professional storyteller Rachel Rose Reid. Once a month the duo open 40 Winks for an evening of Bedtime Stories where the dress code is strictly nightwear and the entertainment is provided by an actor reciting a themed story. There really is no other evening like it.
Chiquita Bananas Brand Refresh
This doesn't look real somehow. Seems too nice and simple an idea to actually exist in the actual world. Who's the client that signed this off? How did they get this past Steve from legal?
Appears it is real. Here's an interview with the people who designed it.
The man from Del Monte says "Darn, wish I'd thought of that".