Recently in design Category

London's Big Egg Hunt Returns for Easter

By jenn on March 28, 2013 10:58 PM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

Earlier this year, I posted (Big Egg Hunt 2013 Begins in London) about the 2013 London Big Egg Hunt, which was also headed to a few other cities after making its first appearance in London. After a few weeks, the eggs are now back in Covent Garden in London, and they will remain until April 7. Hopefully this means that all of their fans can come to enjoy them and participate in the hunt to find all eggs. Maybe some visitors will visit this Easter weekend.

To celebrate the final weeks of the London Big Egg Hunt 2013, I have posted a few photographs of my favourite eggs. Of course, all of them are beautiful in their own way.

For Grace, After a Party - Susie Hogarth (I love the silhouette-esque figures with minimal detail and a great colour combination.)

Lion Estate by Frank Laws. This is one of my top favourites. I love the rendering of the brickwork over this egg and the detail of the tiny window. I've always liked painting and drawing architecture, and this reminds me of something I would have created.

Winter Scene - Daisy Clarke, Beatles Bubble Gum by Vincent McEvoy. Breakfast with the Beatles by Team Beswick. Come on, who doesn't love the Beatles. I love the vintage style of the Fab Four by Team Beswick. The egg by Vincent McEvoy reminds me of one of my favourite eggs from last year with the retro font and 1960s music theme.

The Big Estate by Thibaud Herem

Hello Cheeky - Hattie Stewart. This is one of my favourites as I love the expression and the bold colours.

Eggs in the City by Lindsey Spinks is a black and white illustration, and you always see something different when you examine the illustration.

Untitled by Cassie Howard. This egg is completely white, except for a crowd of people. They remind me of tourists.

What's that? How Long? Sit on... - by Maeve Rendle. I love this egg because of its simplicity and nice font. It reminds me of a book cover.

Last year, I posted the following articles about the Big Egg Hunt: London's Big Egg Hunt Grand Finale at Covent Garden and Hunting Eggs in London: Fabergé Big Egg Hunt. There was also a Big Egg Hunt in Ireland this year. It would have been amazing to see that. Did anyone visit it?

I hope that you enjoyed the egg hunt this year. Have you been to visit it? What are your favourite eggs?

Examples of Nice Typography on Web Designs

By jenn on March 14, 2013 10:12 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Recently, I have been inspired by stunning typography on websites. Choosing the right typography for the design of your website (or any design) makes a huge difference. Do not be afraid to use non-standard web fonts in your designs, as long as you have the license to use the font and a fallback option in place.

Read my blog entry Using CSS @Font-Face for Custom Web Fonts for information on how to add custom fonts to your website, or serve your fonts through Typekit (Web Font Loading Using Typekit). Instead of image icons, you can even serve your website's icons using an icon-based font (Use CSS3 For Embedded Icon Fonts, Not Images).

I've added a few examples of websites that use visually-stunning typography to really enhance the design. I hope that this will inspire you to embrace non-standard web fonts.

http://www.justdot.gr/

http://alwayscreative.net/

http://www.hdlive09.co.uk/

http://www.indubitablee.com/

http://www.designweekportland.com/

http://rule-of-three.co.uk/

http://www.briabby.com/

http://blakeallendesign.com/

http://www.salfordstories.com/

http://dressresponsively.com/

http://paidtoexist.com/

http://alistapart.com/d/responsive-web-design/ex/ex-site-FINAL.html

http://www.stockholmhairdresser.se/dans/

http://galp.in/

http://tejpotter.com/index.php

http://www.amazeelabs.com/en

http://www.mariecatribs.com/

http://www.eightytwodesign.com/

http://www.onedaywithoutgoogle.org/

http://davidbatra.se/

Big Egg Hunt 2013 Begins in London

By jenn on February 15, 2013 5:46 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

After the success of last year's 'Big Egg Hunt', sponsored by Faberge, the Big Egg Hunt is back in London. And, this year it will also be visiting a few other cities in the UK. This year sees the event sponsored by Lindt chocolates, and one lucky winner who finds all eggs has a chance to win a year's supply of chocolate. Visitors can purchase a book and spot the eggs. Those that manage to find all of them get a stamp in their book. Free chocolates are also being handed out to visitors.

The eggs have been in Covent Garden in London all week, and this weekend is your last chance to see them unless you plan on visiting another city or waiting until Easter week (when they return to London).

Nicktoons' Spongebob Squarepants

For Grace, After a Party - Susie Hogarth (I love the figures.)

Strawg - Ged Wells

There are 101 eggs on display, and these will be on tour to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow. They are in London's Covent Garden until Sunday but will be back again for a week at the end of March. The eggs will only have a week at each location, so do not miss the opportunity to see them.

Two Sides to Every Egg - Chris Bianchi

What's that? How Long? Sit on... - by Maeve Rendle. (One of my favourites.)

Hello Cheeky - Hattie Stewart. This is one of my favourites as I love the expression and it makes an excellent photograph.

Last year, I loved looking for the eggs (and other animals and artwork dotted around various cities in previous years). It's a great chance to bring people together to go out to explore, get exercise, give money to charity, and admire the artwork of each sculpture. I love walking and seeing new (and familiar) places, and I love artwork. This is popular with families too, and I think watching the children and adults get enthused about the sculptures is part of the excitement. More of the eggs this year have children in mind with Ben 10, Spongebob Squarepants, Peter Rabbit, and Moshi Monsters eggs.

Artwork by Mark Hayward, Thibaud Herem, Network Rail, Ed Saye, Moshi Monsters, and Penguin

Equinox by Barbie Harrison

A row of eggs

This is one of my favourites. Eggs in the City - Lindsey Spinks

Smiley Stop by Jack Brindley

For more information about the eggs and their locations and dates, visit: http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/

Have you been to see the eggs in Covent Garden, or are you planning to see them in another city? What is your favourite egg? Did you participate in the egg-spotting last year?

Fixed Navigation & Navigation Design

By jenn on January 30, 2013 1:41 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Website navigation is one of the most important areas of a website as it determines how the user can browse the website and the various areas on the website. Careful thought must be given into the navigation and the website's structure, the terminology, the location, and whether or not the navigation is fixed. Most importantly, the website must be easy to browse and the user must be able to determine where the information that they need is located. This brings us to the first topic: structure.

Structure

The website's architecture or structure should be planned out so that the information flows and similar content is grouped together or in a hierarchy. In a past project that I worked on (for a university), we had a top level structure based on our user personas or user types. These areas included 'current students', 'prospective students', 'alumni', and 'staff/faculty'.

Getting the website's structure correct takes research and an understanding of the user personas. These areas are often linked and it also reflects the journey that each user will take to meet their goals. Following on, the navigation's terminology must be understandable to the user.

Terminology

Terminology is one of those tricky areas that can bring up much discussion (and conflict) between individuals in companies. I've spent more time discussing the terminology for some projects that is needed. It's just one of those areas that some management types seem to focus on and want to change.

Overall, the user must be able to relate to the terminology of the website. Often, the more simple the term, the better for the user to understand. The terminology should not make the user think. According to Silfer on Smashing Magazine (1), there are two important points when determining the terminology:

1. The labels must relate to the navigation and help to explore it.

2. Are the meanings of the labels separated enough not to be confused with each other?

In addition to the above, all terms that do not help the navigation need to be removed. In a past project that I worked on, we had the top level navigation items, which included: "News", "Your Companies", and "Your Watchlists". The word "Your" was removed because it was not necessary and over-complicated the website.

Keep in mind that the website must be as usable as possible, and because of this, labels should be used and the user should not rely on icons. However, using icons with a label is fine and helps the association of the area with an icon. I have seen websites that rely on an icon or on the user rolling the mouse over an icon in order to see the description of the area, and this simply is not good practice.

Moving on, the location of the navigation is important, particularly today as more and more users are browsing using tablets.

Navigation Location

Navigation has been traditionally at the top or left-hand side of the website. Either of these options was popular in the 1990s. Developers often used the left-hand side of the website to contain the navigation. (Remember frames?) However, the trend for the past several years has been to favour horizontal navigation at the top of the website.

With mobile devices and tablets becoming more popular, left-hand vertical navigation is becoming popular again. Developers can also use media queries to make their websites respond differently in different devices based on the size of the screen that the website is being viewed on.

Another factor to consider when developing the navigation is the option to make the website fixed on one area of the website.

Fixed vs Non-Fixed Navigation

The recent trend seems to favour fixed navigation (on the side or top of the page). Many websites have started to adopt this technique. Fixing navigation is popular because it prevents the user from scrolling back up to the top in order to use the navigation to browse to another area.

A study was done by Denney (2) in 2012 in which he developed two identical websites with the navigation fixed in one and not fixed in the other. He found that the fixed menus were 22% quicker to navigate because the user was not forced to scroll back to the top of the page. He also noted that 100% of the users preferred the fixed-navigation website, but none of them knew why.

Some of the most popular websites are using fixed navigation. These include Facebook, Google+, Google, and Twitter.

Now that we've looked at the pros of fixed navigation, I'll explain the negatives. Firstly, fixing or not fixing the navigation must be considered for each website. In some cases, it simply may not be viable to include. Perhaps the navigation area is quite large and fixing the navigation means consistently losing the top 200 or more pixels of a page to the navigation. This makes the navigation an annoyance and distracting. Changing the navigation when the user scrolls is another option, but this again could create distraction and inconsistency. Only consider using fixed navigation if you believe that it can help the usability and experience of the website.

Secondly, do not forget tablet and mobile devices. These may require a different use case anyway as users tend to use mobile website versions for only core tasks. Identify these tasks. A different treatment of the website is required for mobile devices because the screens are much smaller. Consider the device that the user is using and determine the case for fixed or non-fixed navigation.

How to Fix the Navigation

Fixing the navigation is simple and done using CSS. To do this, you will want to use the 'position' attribute, and this should be set to the 'fixed' value. Developers may also need to set the 'z-index' attribute to prevent content from over-lapping the navigation.

#navigation {

position:fixed;

}

Examples of Fixed Navigation

To wet your appetites, I've added a few examples of fixed navigation. Come back later to see more examples.

1) Silfer, Peter. Smashing Magazine. The Elements of Navigation. http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2012/03/20/the-elements-of-navigation/ [20 March, 2012].

2) Denney, Hyrum. Smashing Magazine. Sticky Menus Are Quicker to Navigate. http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2012/09/11/sticky-menus-are-quicker-to-navigate/ [11 September, 2012].

Movie Posters of 2012

By jenn on January 22, 2013 9:26 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

I've included a selection of posters of some of the films that came out in 2012. There seems to be a trend for many of the films released in 2012 to use muted blue and grey for their film posters. The muted blue or grey can then have a bright secondary colour, such is typically orange or red. However, the film "Frankenweenie" uses a lime green and orange with a grey-tone picture. "Brave", "Avengers", "John Carter", and "Hobbit" use orange in their muted-blue posters, and "21 Jump Street" use red as the secondary colour.

The exceptions seem to be "Snow White", "Hunger Games", and "Ted". "Snow White", which uses bright colours for its princess theme. Blue and pink are the most prominent colours in this poster. "The Hunger Games" is primarily orange. The poster for "Ted" uses neutral colours, and the title of the movie is green.

Pantone® Colour of the Year for 2013 is Emerald

By jenn on January 3, 2013 6:23 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

The company specialising in colour, Pantone®, has launched its "colour of the year" for 2013, and that colour is 'Emerald' (PANTONE 17-5641). I was happy to see this news after the past couple of years; green (emerald) is my favourite colour. At the beginning of 2012, the year's colour (deep orange - a.k.a. 'Tangerine Tango') was seen in fashion. I am hoping to see my favourite colour in a lot of products now.

According to the Pantone® website, emerald is: "lively. radiant. lush...a color of elegance and beauty that enhances our sense of well-being, balance, and harmony".

For more information about the colour emerald or to see information about the Pantone "Colour of the Year", visit: http://www.pantone.com/pages/index.aspx?pg=21055&from=hp

More Delicious Chocolate Packaging

By jenn on December 20, 2012 9:15 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

The London department store Liberty has designed some nice packaging for their chocolate bars. I've photographed a few of these bars. There are two sizes - a full-size bar and a smaller size, which comes in a pack of three. The bars are brightly-coloured and depict the famous department store's timber facade. The packaging also contains brightly-coloured glitter. Various photographs of the packaging are below.

This year has been popular for UK-themed packaging for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic games. The chocolate company Prestat designed Diamond Jubilee themed packaging and flavours. I've snapped a couple of the bars below.

Each bar contains an image of the UK flag in the background with a different shade to distinguish between the different types of chocolate bars. There were more flavours, but I bought the "dark chocolate and raspberry" and "roasted almonds, sea salt and milk chocolate".

Another chocolate manufacturer to cash in on the Diamond Jubilee packaging is Monzuma. (This is probably my favourite chocolate, and the chilli and dark chocolate is divine.) Monzuma developed British themes and included the flag imagery in their packaging, and they have developed British flavours, such as "Eton Mess" and "Apple Crumble".

Liberty department store's chocolate shop display

Hotel Chocolat, another chocolate company, have created "eggs and soldiers" and "eggs and chips" for the past two Easters, at least. I love the fried egg, which is made with white chocolate. (I've included photographs below.)

Hotel Chocolat white chocolate that looks like a 'fried egg'

Recently, I visited South Bank's Chocolate Festival and got a glimpse of some really nice chocolate packaging from many different chocolate suppliers. I couldn't photograph all of them, but I got a good sampling.

Rocco Chocolates, http://www.rococochocolates.com, has many different types of vintage-inspired chocolate packaging. I loved the boxes with the hand-drawn pets on them, and I also loved the chocolate cats. (First photograph below taken by me, but the other photographs were taken from the Rocco Chocolate website's online shop.)

Rocco Chocolates

Another chocolatier I loved the packaging of was ChocStars. This company use images of celebrities as animal personas. (I know that Paperchase currently sells these images on postcards.)

ChocStars package designs (http://www.chocstars.com/)

Chocome (http://www.chocome.co.uk) is another chocolatier, and the packaging presentation is mainly focused on the product itself. The chocolate is made to look delicious.

Chocome

Chocolat à Casser creates slabs of chocolate in a wooden box, and these slabs come with a wooden hammer to break the chocolate. The packaging and the chocolate looks beautiful, and I love this idea. Who hasn't bought a large slab of chocolate and struggled with breaking it up?

Chocolat à Casser's large chocolate slabs in a wooden box

If you have seen any nice chocolate packaging, let me know.

London Christmas Lights 2012 and Window Displays

By jenn on December 13, 2012 9:23 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

London's Christmas lights and window displays are out for 2012, and I've photographed some windows displays and the new Christmas lights for this year. Some of the displays have been outstanding with new Christmas lights and sponsors (Marmite and Lego) setting up Christmas themes. Below are a few photographs of London 2012 at Christmas.

Marks and Spencer's Christmas lights on its Oxford Street branch are new this year, and I prefer this new design.

Selfridges' window display has been interesting this year. The displays at Selfridges feature robotic moving parts, such as hands and cogs to form a Willy Wonka-esque window display. The main window on the corner displays a train set with brightly-coloured sweets on the floor to add colour. Robotic items feature the products.

Once again, the window frames were decorated with pine branches.

Selfridges' window display

Selfridges' window display

A Buckingham Palace gingerbread house. You can also buy a large gingerbread house that looks like Selfridges.

The other large department stores on Oxford Street were similarly decorated with snowflakes and brightly-coloured lights: John Lewis, Debenhams, and House of Fraser.

House of Fraser

John Lewis window display

This year, Regent Street features Christmas lights with the "Twelve Days of Christmas" theme.

Regent Street Christmas lights

Regent Street Christmas lights

The Seven Dials area of London has the same Christmas lights as last year, featuring multi-coloured tubes of light. These are located throughout the Seven Dials area, bordering Covent Garden.

Seven Dials area Christmas lights

One of the most creative Christmas decorations this year were at Carnaby Street. The Christmas lights reflect its rock 'n' roll roots theme as this was a trendy shopping area in the 1960s and 1970s. The Christmas decorations feature vinyl records and the iconic Rolling Stones lips with a Christmas message.

Christmas on Carnaby Street

On Ganton Street near Carnaby Street, the iconic giant 'plug' has had a makeover to keep in line with the Christmas decorations.

Next to Carnaby Street, the Liberty department store is decorated.

Covent Garden in London is also bustling with Christmas decorations. This year, the decorations are giant red baubles and a massive red and blue Christmas tree. (As of the first of December, a giant advent calendar made of Lego bricks was on display, and the windows are opened daily to reveal a Christmas-related Lego object.)

Covent Garden Christmas decorations

Covent Garden Christmas candy cane decorations.

Covent Garden Christmas tree.

Mayfair is also bustling with Christmas decorations, and many of the shop fronts are framed with pine and festive branches.

Shops on New Bond Street are decorated.

South Molton Street Christmas arches

Purple baubles in Mayfair

I hope that you have enjoyed seeing the Christmas lights and window displays in London this year.

Beautiful Beauty Packaging by Mad Beauty

By jenn on December 9, 2012 7:30 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

MAD Beauty is a cosmetic and beauty company that sells unique beauty gift products. I have discovered a range of beauty gift products that offer wonderful packaging. I love the packaging of these items. You can view the MAD beauty website by visiting: http://www.madbeauty.com/

"Toast and Jam" is a jammy-scented body wash complete with a sponge shaped like a piece of toast. Yum.

Various Russian doll and cocktail-inspired lip gloss, mince pie lip gloss, and white chocolate bar soap would look wonderful in my handbag and on my bath.

Marmite Sponsors Oxford Street Christmas Lights (with Social Media)

By jenn on December 1, 2012 7:05 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Marmite, the spreadable vegetable-based product with Australian origins, is lighting up Oxford Street in London this year with its "You either love it or hate it" campaign. Many large 'Marmite Gold' branded Christmas light banners can be seen up and down London's famous street amongst other various Christmas themed banners.

The lights at the famous Oxford Circus junction show a jar of Marmite being stampeded by reindeer.

A part of the campaign involves using social media and the public. (Rob Messeter and Mike Crowe of DDB helped create the idea by wanting to allow characters to 'love or hate' the product and to have their moment of fame. (1).)

Photographs can be uploaded via the Marmite Facebook application in the 'Love' or 'Hate' category. These photographs are then uploaded onto various banners dotted up and down Oxford Street. The Christmas light banners include the words "Merry Christmas from Marmite" with the company's brand phrase 'you either love it or hate it' with a picture of a member of the public shown inside the lights (with a Christmas hat). The banner alternates with one informing how to get your picture displayed, and this points to Facebook.

A Marmite banner showing a user's photograph.

1. Gosling, Emily. Design Week. Designing Oxford Street's Christmas Lights. http://www.designweek.co.uk/whats-on/designing-oxford-streets-christmas-lights/3035554.article [9 November 2012].

« art | Main Index | Archives | general »

Recently in design Category

London's Big Egg Hunt Returns for Easter

Examples of Nice Typography on Web Designs

Big Egg Hunt 2013 Begins in London

Fixed Navigation & Navigation Design

Movie Posters of 2012

Pantone® Colour of the Year for 2013 is Emerald

More Delicious Chocolate Packaging

London Christmas Lights 2012 and Window Displays

Beautiful Beauty Packaging by Mad Beauty

Marmite Sponsors Oxford Street Christmas Lights (with Social Media)

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