My favourite way of keeping things challenging is by making everything into a game and competing with myself. As I get better at what I am doing, I have to make these challenges more difficult, which only makes succeeding all the more satisfying. In short I sometimes set myself seemingly impossible goals. Then I split these down into smaller tasks to make them more manageable, but try not to loose sight of the big picture. I set a bunch of tasks in the awesome iPhone app Epic Win and set about ticking them off. 

Read more books ¶

On the 1st January this year I decided I wanted to read more. I guess this is a resolution plenty of people make. I want to read more, I want to go to the gym more, I want to eat healthier. These are perfectly acceptable goals, but they are too broad. Its hard to challenge yourself and motivate yourself to do complete a vague goal. What is "more"? If you never go to the gym at all, more could only be once a week. This is fine, but its hardly pushing yourself to achieve something impressive. So I took my vague, wishy-washy resolution and refined it, deciding that I would read 52 books this year. To refine that some more thats one book a week. 

This was a far cry from the 6 or 7 books I read last year, and it seemed pretty daunting, but as soon as I got into a routine of reading every day I found that I was easily reading a book a week. I have now read 41 books this year, so I am close to finishing this challenge. I have trained myself to never miss a deadline and I never do.

Efficient markup ¶

This has also crossed into my work life. I am constantly trying to build sites faster and better than I did previously. Each site I build I try to employ some new techniques that I haven't used before and finish the work quicker than before without losing any of the quality of the work. The feeling of achievement I get every time I complete one of my goals is awesome and it really keeps my moral up. 

Quick wins ¶

My point is, set yourself big scary unlikely goals. Its a big cliche to say so, but aim high. Punch above your weight. Set a challenge then break it down into smaller ones. The 'quick wins' of completing these smaller tasks will keep you motivated and without even noticing it you might have achieved something epic!

Last weekend I hopped on the train and went up north to Liverpool. I'd never properly explored the city and with it being named European Capital of Culture last year and hosting Liverpool Biennial, (a contemporary visual art event) my adventure begun...

First stop was the Walker Art Gallery which was grand Victorian building promoting itself as the 'National Gallery of the North'. Its collection proudly announced artworks dating right back to the 13th century, including art heros such as Rembrandt, Turner and David Hockney. I didn't visit all the rooms but I did enjoy The John Moores Painting Prize. The competition has ran for the past 50 years and is open to everybody so attracts over 3,000 entries so there's a eclectic mix of both established artists and new talent. Some weird and wonderful things to say the least!

Next door, as it seemed we were right in the centre of the 'cultural quarter' was another neo-classical building housing Liverpool World Museum. Just so you know, I went to the aquarium and checked out some pretty amazing fish ;) 

After previously visiting 3 of the 4 Tate galleries I was looking forward to ticking off Liverpool as I strolled towards Albert Dock. There were quite a few tourists around and a massive que at The Beatles Story as it attracted fans for what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday (This was later confirmed as we walked down Mathew Street later on!) The main Tate exhibition was 'DLA Piper Series: This is Sculpture' which asked key figures from the cultural sector to co-curate and pick works from the collection to represent their interpretations. Each room was donned with a fluorescent hue dissenting from the traditional white wall gallery space which was pretty cool. As I approached one of the rooms presented with a wall of wireless headphones, I took the opportunity and the headphones, pulled back the black curtain and entered the room curated by Hemingway & Son. With the likes of Greg Wilson and Yousef playing in my ear I stepped right into a disco environment fully equipped with mirror balls, ambient lighting and an interactive light up dancefloor! The juxtaposition of the 80s disco vibes and modern contemporary sculpture was definitely a different way to look at the 25 life size sculptures focusing on the human body. They explain a little more thoroughly of their 'nightclub in a gallery' idea here. Other curators included poet Carol Ann Duffy and artist Michael Craig-Martin, definitely worth checking out if you're tup norf' anytime soon!

Taking part in the Biennial were venues A Foundation and Contemporary Urban Centre about a ten minute walk from the centre. Named the 'Baltic Triangle' and a bit of a hidden gem the area had qualities similar to those of Digbeth with its abandoned warehouses, numerous Grade II listed buildings and affordable creative spaces. With a no larger than A2 sized board sat in the middle of a unused road we were directed to the A Foundation. What looked like an oversized garage door appeared to be 2500sqm of exhibition space with cafe and bookshop. Currently showing was Bloomberg New Contemporaries which shows the best of up and coming emerging talent from across the UK. I was a bit overwhelmed by the space and the quality and range of work spanning all medias. If you don't get an opportunity to check it out then it's on at the ICA in London shortly. Last but not least was headed over the road to the Contemporary Urban Centre, (NB: the entrance is a little hard to find on the massive scale Grade II listed warehouse!!) The centre was a stunning space for creatives with art galleries, a unique cinema, studio spaces, cafes and a gig venue. Unfortunately we arrived on the one day they were closing early so we didn't get to see much of the City Spaces 2010 exhibition.

So we ended our day (I won't tell you about my evening!) in the Leaf Tea Shop & Bar, set on the ground floor on the opposite side of the building to the CUC. We arrived a bit late for it's high tea menu (we're quite partial to these thanks to the folks at Fazeley...mmm) but just in time for a cheeky beer and shortcake. Looking back I wish i'd tasted one of the show-stopping amounts of loose tea on offer served in their fancy teaware, but hey it was getting dark! Alongside its imaginative interiors, the laid back art cafe vibes, tasty cakes and the slick branding no wonder its became a worthy hang out to Liverpool creatives embracing the amazingness of tea, cake, and music! I'd say it's right up there with the likes of London, Berlin and New Yorks cultural hubs.

So yeh, Liverpool was pretty inspiring :)

I've been away on two European trips in as many weeks. The first of which was to Amsterdam, and the 2nd was to the European ICT conference in Brussels. I'll come back to the Brussels trip, but for now i'll attempt a brief rundown of my jaunt to Holland.

The primary reason for this trip was my involvement with a project called Creative Metropoles, a project that presents a shared vision of 11 European cities on creative industries and creative economy. We heard from some seemingly very intelligent and afluent people running some interesting projects within the Amsterdam creative industries. One particular project that drew my attention was the Bureau Broedplaatsen, a project that subsidises and helps manage the development of creative spaces, http://bureaubroedplaatsen.amsterdam.nl/en/.

The added bonus of this trip was that I was able to attend the Amsterdam Picnic event, http://www.picnicnetwork.org/.

PICNIC is about innovative ideas for business and society. It is an annual three-day festival that blurs the lines between creativity, science, technology and business to explore new solutions in the spirit of co-creation. Curious minds eager to exchange their knowledge, ideas and skills gather at PICNIC, making it the place to create the future – together.

I attended some really engaging panels, which were extremely closely related to some of the work we've been doing here at Substrakt. In fact, one of the lab sessions took the same title as a project that we've been working on, Urban Lens (more to come on this soon). This particular session gave great input to our thinking on this project and explored how a city could be explored.

How do you experience the city surrounding you? As a series of buildings and streets, or a collection of data and connected objects? During the Urban Lenses Panel, a collection of experts will explore the city as they see it – combining services, sensors, objects and data.

The chaps from Tellart, who doing some pretty cool work, are especially worthy of note, http://www.tellart.com/

We design products, services, and environments that address human need and shape human experience. We work between worlds–analogue and digital, visual and physical, yesterday and today and tomorrow–because that is where most people live.

Urban Lenses Lab:
http://www.picnicnetwork.org/program/sessions/urban-lenses-lab.html

The Beyond Tourism session was highly relevant to some of our projects too, and explored the future direction of cultural content on mobile devices, http://www.picnicnetwork.org/program/sessions/beyond-tourism-future-directions-for-mobile-cultural-content.html

It would also be a crime not to mention the amazingly energetic and entertaining Pips Lab, presenting Diespace http://www.pipslab.nl/onlinepromo/diespace_subs.php

If you can get to this event then I would highly recommend it. I only managed to get to day 2 but the content throughout the days seemed to be of very high standard.

I certainly came away buzzing with ideas and inspiration.

Okay, the last couple of months have been pretty busy here at Substrakt HQ and I guess that’s what I intend to blame my lack of blog posts on! So, I hear you ask, what have I been up to?

Plenty! Amongst moving to Moseley, Substrakt day out, Glug London, Creative Coffee meetings, Digital Playground, trips to the Electric, exhibitions, birthdays, weddings, Centre Parcs and a wonderful holiday to Mykonos, I’ve had the opportunity to work on some really great projects.

After our Substrakt day out we managed to share a lot of thoughts and ideas on how to develop our creative processes and ways to work in which we would benefit from each other’s talented skill sets. During this Ryan and I realised we shared many thoughts on design direction and that working closer together on projects would be beneficial to both us and the client.

Since then we have had the opportunity during numerous brainstorming sessions along with Jim to exchange knowledge and opinions on many of our projects whether it be branding, digital or print. It’s great to be part of a creative team sharing my passion for design and once our new site has launched we will be integrating this to share with you!

Here’s a little sneak of some projects we’ve been working on recently and until our new site arrives you can check out my daily inspirational posts here.

Here at Substrakt we love a bit of emerging technology and CSS3 is especially close to our hearts just for the sheer possibilities it presents. At the moment it's just that 'little extra' for people with the latest and greatest, but it's potential, when widley supported, is epic.

We've all seen the numerous impressive 'icons made with CSS3' tech demos, stared in awe at the technical feat and then jumped into the code to see how bits are done. Some people's reactions to these kind of demos are somewhat overblown, saying their pointless and not practical. Very true, but that's not the point. They're meant to be inspirational. Showcasing what the technology can do. And to most designers & developers, this is pretty obvious...

But on to the post's title subject. I found this yesterday, and was blown away by the sheer creativity and ambitiousness. Simon from Simurai.com has done an awesome job re-creating a photography technique known as Tilt Shift using text, text-shadows and rotation. It could be used practically, but it's best to see it as a creative and inspiring technology demo for now.

Check out the post and demo.

We need things like this to keep us excited about a technology. Without these sorts of demos, the majorty would just see CSS3 as text and box shadows... Surely that's enough reason for the top of the webdesign curve to keep creating things like this and this?

Mark Steadman and I took a trip to Dublin for a couple of days in the last week of July thanks to some work we are doing with Birmingham City University. The purpose of this visit was to discover more about an interesting data visualisation application that is nearing completion, and to potentially partner up to apply this application to some of our projects.

The application lets you see what really matters by presenting your data in a fast, dynamic and intuitive visual interface. You can rapidly identify key patterns, trends and expectations, and drilldown to the detail required for effective decision making.

We were given an impressive demo that used large amounts of e marketing data as a case study. It was incredible to see how easily these huge sets of data could be explored in a manageable and visually engaging format.

The project team were really great hosts and took us on a tour of a few Dublin hotspots in the evening, so needless to say we managed to enjoy a bit of Guinness.

We are now working closely with the team in Dublin to produce various case study demos using interesting data from several of our projects. If you could benefit by exploring your data in a refreshing way then please get in touch with us to discuss the potential.

We're loving the new Google image search at Substrakt. In creative terms, it feels a bit like unlocking a secret level on a game you've been playing for years. As the images keep appearing as you scroll down the page, it's got real photo album appeal - surprises, old favourites, cringe-making pics and genuine delights are revealed. So much easier to find what you need and keeps you engaged. It gives us Google natives another reason not to bother looking elsewhere.

However, as many commentators have pointed out, this new look and feel looks and feels like it's wearing a massive Bing costume. Oh no! Has Google copied Bing? Surely not again! How dare they? I think the answer to that's pretty simple - it's because it can and the risks of doing so are pretty minimal in terms of it's brand reputation.

Changing the way you look is way more risky than rolling out a new look from scratch. If you change your hair to match your favourite celebrity's, you worry that your boyfriend will like it, whereas when you first met him, I bet you weren't worrying about whether he liked your hair that much. But in reality, how many girls have been dumped because they got a bandwagon-jumping hipster haircut? The fact is, he loves you anyway, and will either have fun getting to know your new haircut, or grin and bear it when people run sniggering from you in the street. Because he's loyal and he thinks you're better than anyone else, the fool!

The same goes for Google - it instinctively knows as a brand that we'll appreciate the change and adapt to it. It also knows that its users won't care, in the main, that it copied Bing a bit. Much as the launch of Bing was a big deal and as we all know, there are other search engines out there, most people turn to Google as they appreciate the brand, are used to using it and frankly are a bit nervous of trying something new. To Google is a common verb to most of us now.

Fun with Google images - Substrakt in pictorial reference:

Following on the World Cup theme comes an interesting take from the World Development Movement...

The website http://whoshouldicheerfor.com/ was designed by Ryan here at Substrakt and built by Pontus Westerberg, website officer at the World Development Movement.

whoshouldicheerfor.com is a fun way of ranking the teams playing in the World Cup 2010 based on global justice issues.

Home page design:

Compare page details:

Groups page details:

Go have a play...

Theurel & Thomas - Anagram

Theurel & Thomas is the first pâtisserie in Mexico specialized in French macarons, the most popular dessert of the French pastries. For this project Design agency Anagram rebranded and redesigned their store in San Pedro, Mexico. The result is a beautiful, clean & simple, visual luxury rebranding work! White is a central part of the design and it contrasts with the French macarons colours.

Farrow - Kew Gardens

The identity, which works within existing guidelines deliberately concentrates on the buildings within the grounds as opposed to the plants and trees normally associated with Kew.