Let the Nightwatchman de-jargon cricket

You may have noticed that cricket season is upon us. I know I have, it seems to be all over the papers, pubs and tv. So here I was thinking, I'd like to understand it, I can certainly get down with the fashions, white is so summery, and the picnic liquid lunches, Pimms anyone? But where do I start?

Well bowl me over with willow and leather and LBW your googlies, there is a website which helps the complete cricket novice understand the fine art! 

Vodafone's Nightwatchman is just the right mix of informative, entertaining and bitesize. Let Dougie Anderson (complete cricket novice) guide you through the rules, jargon, and banter that makes Cricket quintessentially English, oh and you can win tickets. 

I've signed up, hopefully by the time I win (positive, mental, attitude) I'll known my seams from my creases, or something like that. Howzat?!!!.

www.nightwatchman.vodafone.co.uk

Also, sweet simple cricket animations in-between the video clips. Pretty.

This isn't just any farmer...

Hello!

I'm back after a relaxing week in the sun, and in my absence Digit have launched a wonderful new section on the Marks and Spencer's website called 'Meet Your Farmers' it's a lovely insight into the people who farm the produce and the lengths they go to to produce top notch grub.

I helped out on the copy side of this project so it's lovely to see Brad and Elise's design come to life. Top work Digit. If you aren't familiar with M&S's Plan A, it's a long-term 100 point plan, over five pillars (categories) and they're totally committed to it, it's impressive. I was part of the original team to win this business nearly three years ago, and the site is a beauty. 

Lots of rich animation, beautiful photography and useful information. Have a play with Plan A.

To boldly go wrong

Dear Trekkers, there is much hype around JJ Abrams' latest film but maybe cast an eye over their official website and raise your designer eyebrow in Spock-style shock!

What is this? "Font Size 13"? Ugly content boxes? Bizarre widget box, oh dear. 

Reminds me of this superb blog of cake wrecks. 

I think I'm suffering from mild Neighbourphobia!

I wish my neighbours would take off like in this clip, I was woken at 5am, yes 5am, by a drum kit and a bass guitar and the raucous party next door. And where was my invite?! Anyway, I've realised I badmouth my neighbours a lot and found this, I'm not alone! I'm just suffering from neighbourphobia. 

The website has some sweet illustrations, especially in the quiz, including David Attenborough (the nicest man in the world). You can take the test and see how affected your area is too, it's a bit 28 days later on a serious budget, but nice sentiment.

Neighboursanonymous.com

After a bit of digging and emailing, the illustrator is a Mr. Pancaldi, although it seems he's quite the talented painter too!

Dictionary corner

For visual stimuli other than google images, check out the fledgling photographic dictionary and watch it grow. Let's hope the quality of images stays constant.

Rachel Griffin

I came across this website a while back but was recently reminded of its interface. It's far from perfect but the act of simple clicks to enlarge/close content, click through images combined with the main sentence to sort content is a refreshing change to an indexed portfolio. I like how there's a sense of exploration and that you can keep content open throughout the page.

There are also some interesting ideas in her site, anyone for a swing skirt?

www.rachelgriffin.net

Don't make me think

I'm putting on my web designer hat now to tell you about the web without words. Imagine, a web, without, words.

Pause to gasp.

A very clever man called Paul Armstrong takes well known sites, removes their content then analyses them. It's design in reverse, when we create sites we do this process, to see how content flows and feels in certain layouts. It's like scamping out an illustration or composition but with boxes and lines instead of images and words.

Anyway, you might or might not like it, but I enjoy his insights and design is design is design.

web.without.words

New Digit website

Hurrah! The new Digit website is up and running, we've had a brand overhaul, introducing the Digit D, it'll be cropping up quite a lot.

Featured above is the National Gallery Grand Tour, this project was my baby, under the brilliant art direction of Andrew Dean, it even picked up a D&AD Black Pencil last year. My illustrations were used in the site, print, adverts and merchandise.

My role has grown recently at Digit so some of my copy writing skills make a small appearance here too.

The landing page changes dependent upon the time of day, so check back in to see how it differs.


www.digitlondon.com