Creative Graphic Design Tribe Cardiff

This blog has moved

2010-03-12T17:42:00.001Z

This blog is now located at http://blog.designtribe.co.uk/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://blog.designtribe.co.uk/feeds/posts/default.

Bernie Warhol

2009-11-08T23:16:00.000Z

Whilst watching the F1 the other weekend, it struck me how Andy Warhol and Bernie Ecclestone might have been separated at birth...?

Design Tribe's a real livewire

2009-10-17T22:41:00.004+01:00

Tom was pleased to be asked by Shell to appear in a short video for young entrepreneurs, giving his top tips for starting your own small business.

Click here to go to the video section of the Shell Livewire site, and watch his interview.

Trash Talking

2009-06-26T22:30:00.008+01:00

Helsinki, the capital of Finland, has taken it's green initiatives to a new level by installing 8 talking bins. 2 million Euros are spent every year on cleaning up the public spaces there, but this scheme aims to encourage locals and tourists to can their littering habits.

Topics of discussion range from politics and religion to comedy and culture. Both the public and the council have hailed them as a great success.

Design Tribe loves anyone who's doing their bit for the environment. I wonder if they do a bilingual version?

National Recycle Week

2009-06-20T15:05:00.008+01:00

June 22nd to 28th is National Recycle Week, and they've done a thorough job at taking their campaign online with a multitude of nicely branded facebook applications and features on their website allowing users to publicise the event.

This year, the theme for Recycle Week is "let's waste less..." encouraging all of us to try something new in an effort to go greener and cut back on the waste we all produce.

For more information about Recycle Week, click here to visit their website.

Google Law?

2009-06-20T00:32:00.003+01:00

Google look like they might be moving into law enforcement after two Dutch men who robbed a 14-year-old of cash and a cellphone last September, were arrested after their victim identified them on a photo on an online mapping service.

"Police managed to track down the men, twins aged 24, thanks to Google Street View" said Groningen police.

Their victim contacted investigators after he found a photo online taken moments before the robbery.

"As the faces were unrecognisable, Dutch police made contact with Google in the US, and received the original photograph by mail in June. An investigator immediately recognised one of the suspects," said the statement.

One of the two subsequently confessed.

Perhaps it's not a Web 2.0 invasion of privacy after all?!

eMail Marketing On The Up

2009-06-16T23:51:00.006+01:00

New research suggests that email marketing in the US will reach $2 billion by 2014. This isn't exactly in line with research from JupiterRearch earlier this year, which suggested $2.1 billion in 2012, but it's looking good for the industry nonetheless.

This new research comes from Forrester Research, who says that falling CPMs (cost per thousands), higher ROI (return on investment) and growing consumer use of social email accounts will all contribute to the use of email by direct marketing professionals. The firm says that in five years consumers will opt-in to receive over 9,000 email marketing messages annually.

Forrester's research cites the following as key growth areas for shaping the future of email marketing:

- Retention email - email that recipients have blessed with their permission - will continue to replace paper communications and will make up the largest share of marketing messages. Retention emails will account for more than a one-third of all marketing messages in consumers' inboxes by 2014, representing increased competition for marketers.

- While the bulk of the market will continue to deploy email marketing on a self-service basis, the growing complexity associated with data integration and new tactics to increase relevancy will drive healthy growth in use of email service providers.

- Spending on opt-in ad-sponsored or ad-supported newsletters will double over the next five years as traditional print publishers face falling circulation and ad revenue.

Social media has brought an interesting new element into the world of email marketing. This element brings with it both opportunities and challenges. "The use of email in social networks will be one of the biggest challenges for direct marketers," says Forrester Research Vice President and Principal Analyst David Daniels. "Over the next five years, marketers must bridge the gap between social and traditional inboxes with social sharing tools."

Design Tribe provide customised eMail Marketing solutions with our Flaming Arrow design service.

Inspired Bicycles

2009-06-15T10:33:00.003+01:00

This is where dedication and ability will get you.

The Tetris Effect

2009-06-05T23:58:00.004+01:00

Google's latest special logo re-jig is for the 25th anniversary of Tetris on June 6th. Google must think they can't ignore the birthday of one of the most iconic video game brands of all time (it even hold's nine world records.)

It's a little depressing to think I'm two years older than this gaming classic!

If you don't know what all the fuss is about - read the Wiki entry for Tetris here.

Tidy Branding

2009-06-04T22:14:00.004+01:00

As we're delighted to be working with Keep Wales Tidy at the moment, and we love branding of all shapes and sizes, we were interested to see the new Keep Britain Tidy brand as designed by Brand Catalyst.

The brand has been designed with flexibility in mind - the new 'Keep It Tidy' philosophy allows for usage in campaigns on a regional and local scale e.g. 'Cardiff -Keep It Tidy' and 'Your Park - Keep It Tidy'.

It's not often that an opportunity to utilise the spelling and formation of words results in such a simple but effective message.

Design Week's full write up can be found here.

Pre-natal Impression

2009-06-02T11:58:00.006+01:00

E3 - the video games industry's flagship event - is currently underway in Los Angeles and has resulted in something of a bombshell from Microsoft.

Since the doldrum years of the late nineties and early naughties when everything Sony touched seemed to turn to gold, Microsoft have been making consistent and significant improvements to the XBox 360 and XBox Live to keep them at the forefront of video game technology.

Their latest announcement could change the entertainment world as we know it.

Project Natal is a motion sensing camera system that detects player body movement. No control pad necessary! Players can score goals by kicking a virtual football or throw knockout punches with their bare fists.

It also responds to voice commands, directions, and changes in tone of voice.

The industry is certainly doing it's best to dispel the myth that video games are for couch potatoes.

You simply HAVE to check out this video!

Or read more about the product here.

Cardiff Design Festival Blog

2009-05-31T17:40:00.009+01:00

We've just put the Cardiff Design Festival 09 blog up whilst the main website is being built.

You can access the blog by clicking here, or the Twitter page here.

Be sure to check both out for details of planned events and ways in which you can help.

You can also read about Design Tribe and some initial plans in this Design Week article.

Olym-Pics!

2009-04-30T19:39:00.004+01:00

The Daily Telegraph are featuring aerial photographs of the Olympic developments in East London.

They are updated every month or two and it'll be really interesting to see how things progress in the build up to 2012. There are already some great shots of just about the biggest construction project you're ever likely to see!

Google Dot Dot Com

2009-04-26T23:58:00.006+01:00

By now, most people will be used to Google's adaptations of their logo to celebrate certain events.

I think they've outdone themselves today though with a lovely little tribute to the father of Morse code - Samuel Morse.

Picture this...

2009-04-03T12:32:00.003+01:00

Although a number of sites tend to post amusing or unusual photography, MSN's 'Life Through a Lens: The Week In Pictures' provides a particularly thought provoking take on this trend.

This section of their site features images from around the world like the one below of a man surrounded by fire at the poor district of El Sharabia in Cairo.

This week also includes some interesting shots of London's G20 protests... and some metal elephants in Havana.

Definitely worth a visit during your coffee break!

UWIC Talk

2009-03-26T10:06:00.003Z

On Tuesday I was at my old stomping ground of Cardiff School of Art and Design, where I first studied my Graphic Communication degree way back in 2001!

Myself and fellow designer Claire Siggery spoke about our experiences since leaving University including freelancing and applying for jobs. I also spoke about the compromise between creativity and business, as well as setting up Carbon Studio and Design Tribe.

It was great to meet the current crop and catch up with the tutors. Looking forward to getting to the graduate exhibition in the summer!

Snow Competition

2009-03-07T00:35:00.003Z

Seeing as I've just invested my hard-earned cash in a bit of board... I thought I'd give it a mention on the blog for two reasons.

One - I'm doing my bit for the environmental brigade as it's one of only a few boards to be sustainably produced.

20% reduction of petroleum-based materials content
25% reduction of non-renewable materials
10% reduced board weight

...basically it's made out of bamboo!

Secondly, wanted to give a mention to Jarin Nemecek, from Czech Republic, who submitted his nature-inspired freaky big mouth monkey graphic illustration to www.artworkcontest.com; the official website for Salomon Snowboards Artwork Contest.

And just to prove I'm not just doing the 'cool designery thing' of saying I snowboard... here I am in action... sort of.

The first post!

2009-02-16T00:20:00.000Z

Well it's about time I started posting the latest info. on here about how Design Tribe is coming along.

The main website is in development now and should be ready by the start of March.

Projects are keeping me busy and the wider Design Tribe branding will be the next thing to move onto once the online side of things is complete!