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Free downloadable HTML email template

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:24:50 +0000

After discovering some quite frankly shocking HTML email examples out there, I’ve put together a very basic but robust template.

I’ve made it available to download here, so please download and butcher as you please.

And remember – ALWAYS test your emails properly using a proper cross-client testing platform!

For some good pointers and best practices for creating HTML emails check out this link from net.tutsplus.com.

Building iPhone Applications with Flash

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:38:36 +0000

I’m going to let the video do the talking for this one. Click here to view the tutorial at www.gotoandlearn.com, or click here to download the Quicktime.

Appy Christmas :)

N-DUBZ Augmented Reality CD cover

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:43:41 +0000

It’s becoming fairly clear that augmented reality applications are very soon going to be everywhere both on the web and mobile devices.

Something I saw today on a colleague’s machine was (apart from an obvious marketing point of view) totally useless and completely brilliant to watch.

Check out the photo below (a video would have been more effective but I only have a standard iPhone) of N-DUBZ’ new gimmick for selling more of their latest single. Just go to their site, show their CD cover to a webcam and watch them dance around all over it.

I’ve also seen some very useful ways of implementing augmented reality but they didn’t involve people dancing around in the palm of my hand sorry.

Twitter background design

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:58:38 +0000

Something I find annoying about Twitter is the fact that it doesn’t give you the option to centre your background image, it will only let you tile it or position it at the top left of the screen. This, combined with the fact that people will be viewing your Twitter page with varying screen resolutions, poses a challenge to the design aspect of it.

There are however a few handy tips that you can use when creating an effective Twitter background and few people have written some best practices like these to help you out.

I’ve gone for the background graphic fading to colour technique to keep it inline with the look of this site.

Also, if you can’t be ars*d designing your own you can download them from places like twitterbackgrounds.com.

Flash on the iPhone (CS5)

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:35:19 +0000

The next release of the Adobe Creative Suite (CS5) will be capable of creating iPhone apps.

This doesn’t mean that there will be a Flash Player on the iPhone, but it does mean that many Flash designers/developers will be able to create their own apps within Flash and let it do the hard part for them. And you thought there were a lot of iPhone apps already?!

I downloaded my first app created using CS5 (South Park Avatar Creator) and it’s got me extremely excited about the opportunities the new suite will give me.

There’s plenty more info on the flashmagazine.com site, or check out the video on the Adobe Labs site.

Jim Carrey Flash site

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:22:53 +0000

Now, despite my nerdy-ness, I’m not normally one for going giddy at Flash sites (unless they have some seriously impressive actionscripting going on).

That said, Jim Carrey’s site (www.jimcarrey.com) although not technically groundbreaking, has just been done beautifully. Yes it takes a while to load, but it’s worth it for the atmospheric transitions and nicely melded together graphics from his various films.

Little extras like the Ace Ventura bird who spits out Carrey’s latest Tweet, or the blimp that glides by to tell you the latest news also make the site a joy to visit.

Nice work from the people at 65, check their site for more great sites.

Web content below the page fold

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:00:49 +0000

The page fold issue is something that could be a matter of opinion, but this article I came across has some good user testing results to back up what they say here about the page fold really not being a barrier for websites. Stats of course can still be interpreted in different ways, but I’ve always thought that it makes sense to have some content below the page fold if it means the user doesn’t need to navigate to a new page.

If you’re interested in this kind of thing then this article may either change, or reassure you of your views on web content displayed below the page fold.

You can also click here to read the article.

Everyone’s a designer…

admin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:12:13 +0000

… and now everyone’s a movie maker thanks to this new service from www.xtranormal.com. This particular example made me cry with laughter, then cry with real tears of pain and anger…

The Fun Theory (VW viral videos)

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:19:25 +0000

The beauty of viral videos is that the medium doesn’t change, but the content is endless. Volkswagen have gone and brought a massive smile to my face this Monday morning with their latest videos observing what they call ‘The Fun Theory‘ where they see if they can make people do normal, everyday things more if it is made to be more fun. I’ll let you see the answer for yourself. My favourite one is below, but you can see the rest of them by clicking here. Have fun!

Augmented Reality iPhone App – BIONIC EYE

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:13:16 +0000

The iPhone is the perfect device for anything Augmented Reality and this is a great example of how it can be used. Minority Report eat your heart out. It’s only available on the 3GS and new iPod touch by the sounds of it and is currently only available in New York, Chicago and Washington. But, it’s bound to be everywhere soon. See the video below or read more about it on Mashable’s blog.