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Archive for the ‘Things we found’ Category

Hacking or Clever Marketing?

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Jung von Matt

This morning while working on a design I went to grab some ‘dummy text’ also known in our industry as Lorem Ipsum from our trusted friends www.lipsum.com. Lorem Ipsum is described on their site as ‘…simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.’

We use “Lorem ipsum” text in our designs as a placeholder – as a replacement for readable content. It’s written in a similar way to English, in terms of the length of words and sentences – and in a way, it mimics the way real English text looks. This way, clients can pay attention to the design to begin without being distracted by repetitive sentences or meaningful text. From this we can give clients the correct word counts to stick to. They can then follow the word count guides and provide “real” copy after. (more…)

That’s your weekend sorted! 6 “I cant believe you haven’t seen these” epic YouTube videos

Friday, January 6th, 2012

I am sure you have seen, in conversation you inevitably say those words “You know that YouTube video…?” – and then you are surprised when people haven’t seen the ones you have watched over and over!

So I thought I would collect together for you my personal favourites (you will love them! Trust me!), to make sure that you don’t miss out on the wonder and joy of watching them! Have a look and let me know what you think! They all have music too as a bonus!


Mystery Guitar Man – Guitar: stop motion music short

Let me just say that all the Mystery Guitar Man videos are pure genius. But you have to start somewhere, and this is the video that got me hooked onto him. Over 1000 cuts. 6 hours of guitar tabbing. It’s an amazing example of genius editing.


Mike Tompkins A Cappella Cover of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep

Mike Tompkins is lovely and talented too – this cover of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep is so great it inspired me to write this blog post. Check it out.


JK Wedding Entrance Dance

Another one where I am amazed if anyone hasn’t seen it. It makes me laugh and brings tears to my eyes when the bride and group come out. You must have seen this – but in case you haven’t here you go!


Barenaked Ladies – Bedside Manor (The Bathroom Sessions)

I am a huge fan of the Barenaked Ladies and this is part of a collection of videos where Steve and Ed sing and play guitar together, using bathroom acoustics.


Jorge and Alexa Narvaez sing “Home” (original song by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros)

When I first saw this video, I didnt know who Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros were, but I loved this – and then researched the original performers of the song. This father daughter duo have gone on to be big stars (they went onto the Ellen Show and and are are now in a Hyundai Ad.


The Ultimate Yogi – 108 Day programme with Travis Eliot – “Yoga Sequences”

My brother was involved in creating this 108 day yoga programme with the fantastic yoga teacher Travis Eliot. I love this video – the music, the way it’s shot, it’s amazing. Have a look!

So, what do you think? Which of these is your favourite? Are there any you already knew about? Would love to hear your comments and your recommmendations for other “must see” videos!

12 Days of Christmas blogging bonanza

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Tina Webster Illustration - "12 Days of Christmas..." blog bonanza

This year I set myself the challenge of of writing a blog post everyday this month. The posts are inspired by the “12 Days of Christmas” rhyme and have opened my eyes to all things Christmassy!

I chose to blog about different designers festive gifts from “brooches” to biscuits, cards to Christmas wraps, and along the way made a few new friends too!

Here are a selection of some of the lovely treats I found on my journey:

Jeff Josephine Designs - ceramic heart necklace

Jeff Jospahine Designs

‘Birdy Brooche’ by Kate Slater

Kate Slater Illustration

Christmas card by Fréya Art

Fréya Art

"12 Days of Christmas..." card design by Tina Webster

Tina Webster Illustration

A tin of festive Biscuiteers treats

Buscuiteers

Have a gander at my 22 festive blog posts so far and keep your eyes peeled for 2 more!

What Mike Tompkins can teach us about business (and generally being great!)

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

Mike Tompkins Tweet - Thinking Fox

I recently came across via Twitter (a tweet from Rob Harrison @ThinkingFox – thanks Rob!) this amazing video by Mike Tomkins. He uses his voice and mouth to make sounds for music and has covered Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” – all acapella style. This video builds up and up and just gets better and better as it goes. It’s a great song anyway but he has done such a brilliant job I was inspired to blog about it.

Take a few moments to immerse yourself in the happy enjoyment of watching this video – and then read on below for my business thoughts.

It’s an absolutely brilliant video and below I have extracted my thoughts of why you need to look at Mike and take inspiration from him.

There is always room for more talent on the internet

If anyone has ever been thinking to themselves – “I don’t need to be doing that, there are already loads of people doing the same thing online” – think again. Every one can add their own personal spin on what is out there. I already class Mystery Guitar Man as one of my favourite internet stars but I think Mike Tompkins is RIGHT UP THERE – and to be honest I only just heard about him yesterday.

Keep improving and adding variety

I am sure Mike will agree this is like a MASTERPIECE even though ALL his stuff is great – I like the way he worked new typographical style into his signs, his backdrop lighting, the different outfits, the dancing it’s an amazing production and the hard work has paid off.

Use Social Media

If you look at the links below and check out Mike’s Tweet Stream you will see that he is doing his part to let the world know his stuff is out there. I always say – marketing is worth putting the time into – it pays off! And you can see he has mentioned Adele with her original Twitter name, and

Let people discover more of you

It would be wasteful to put just ONE YouTube video up there and that’s it. Mike has been building his collection of videos now for a year and a half and from looking at this one I then watched some more of his stuff and was equally impressed – check out the below and see what you discover!

Check out Mike’s Links:

http://www.youtube.com/user/pbpproductions
http://www.facebook.com/MikeTompkinsMusic
http://twitter.com/#!/mike_tompkins

Royal Wedding Cake Showcase

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

As fans of cake, we started to notice a lot of resourceful cake makers who have created beautiful cakes and cupcakes to celebrate the Royal Wedding. And then, upon further investigation, we realised it’s not just about cake (who knew?).

Below are some examples:

Cakehole London

Cakehole London - British royal cake to celebrate Kate and Will's wedding

Cakehole London - British royal cake to celebrate Kate and Will's wedding

Cakehole London - British royal cake to celebrate Kate and Will's wedding

Cakehole London - British royal cake to celebrate Kate and Will's wedding

(more…)

So, what is Augmented Reality?

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

Some of you may have heard about augmented reality, other’s haven’t. If you haven’t you heard it here first! The best description I have found is from emagin.com – “a display in which simulated imagery, graphics, or symbology is superimposed on a view of the surrounding environment”.

Below are some videos about Augmented Reality – it has a long way to go but keep an eye out for more new cool applications.

Augmented reality in Plain English – from Common Craft

 

 

And here is a cool application of how it can be used in a practical sense – to find the nearest tube station.

 

 

And here is an example of how it’s used in the Lego store to show what’s possible if people buy and make the Lego

 

Uber cool social media icons by Tehkseven.net

Monday, March 28th, 2011

Tehkseven.net are a mobile theming community who contacted us recently to show us their set of 475 SVG icons.

The nice people over there thought that our readers could benefit from these and use them on their own blogs and websites. How nice of them!

So we thought it would be great to post a blog about the icons so that all our readers could take a look.

Tehkseven.net - 475 SVG icons

The icons come in 3 different sizes, .png and .SVG so that designers can edit them as they need to!

Hope you like them as much as we do here at Top Left Design.

Happy Holi – A Colourful Celebration

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

Holi paint

Holi paint

Today, March 20th, is ‘Holi’ – a spring religious festival celebrated by Hindus. Traditionally, Holi is celebrated by people throwing coloured powder and coloured water at each other – certainly a beautiful way to express yourself!

Rangapanchami occurs a few days later on a Panchami (fifth day of the full moon), marking the end of festivities involving colours.

Of course, we LOVE colours at Top Left Design!

Happy Holi today if you are celebrating!

The Drifters White Christmas Animation (which we love) – to make you smile

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

On the shortest day of the year it’s time for a short blog post!

We have featured this video as a link from our Xmas Newsletters for a few years running but we didnt this year – however, have no fear as this is on YouTube and is worth a watch – it will make you smile especially when that white reindeer sings at 1 minutes and 16 seconds into the video – “HeyIyiyiyi Am Dreaming of a White Chrismas!”. Love it!

Communicate by Community – embracing new ways of being connected!!

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

A selection of social media communities and other fascinating Web 2.0 examples – people seem more and more inclined to let the world know what they are up to!

(with thanks to Betti Moser for her help on this post!)

Foursquare

foursquare.com
You can make lists of your favourite things to do and share them with friends. Foursquare will keep track of the things you’ve done, help you create To-Do lists and even suggest new experiences to seek out…. As you check in around the city, you’ll start finding tips that other users have left behind. After checking-in at a restaurant, you may unlock a tip suggesting the best thing on the menu. Checking-in at a bar will often offer advice on what your next stop should be. Every tip you create is discoverable by other users just by checking-in.

A bit like a mixture of Twitter updates, GPS search to locate people you know and ‘Dungeons & Dragons’.

Foursquare

Plancast

plancast.com
A service for sharing your upcoming plans with friends – a social calendar of sorts. Just submit the things you’re thinking about doing in the future, and your friends will be able to hear about them – and maybe join you, too!

TechCrunch calls it “a ‘Foursquare for the future’. The main idea is that while many people use Foursquare and similar location-based services like Gowalla and Loopt to share where they are, Plancast is about sharing where they will be.”

It looks very similar to a Twitter timeline, but the focus is on what you’re planning today, tomorrow, next week, next month etc. This is how it works in action: plancast.com/mark

Blippy

blippy.com
“Blippy allows you to automatically share your credit card transactions as you make them. This includes the place you made the purchase, the amount, and in some cases, the item. This is all placed in a social stream where other Blippy users can comment on and ‘like’ the various items.”

This is still very new. It looks similar to a Twitter stream, but the updates are automatic via a link from your credit card to Blippy. (Hmmmm…)

Last fm

www.last.fm
“a music service powered entirely by its community of listeners.”

Completely interactive music-based community. Plugs into all other social media platforms. Listeners automatically stream the tracks they’re listening to onto Last.fm, thereby creating their online profile.

Spotify

www.spotify.com/en
“peer-to-peer music streaming service that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums, with virtually no buffering delay.”

A monthly subscription gives access to millions of songs to download. Spotify also has profiles on Twitter and Facebook.

Listverse

listverse.com
“a website dedicated to lists of trivia from a variety of categories – the most popular of which are lists of misconceptions and human oddities.” Full of curious stories, all presented as a “Top 10 most…” list.

Hunch

hunch.com
This is a pretty cool site. It uses artificial intelligence concepts to help people with everyday (and not so everyday) decisions! Try it out and let us know what you find!

Petrol Prices.com

www.petrolprices.com
“Find the lowest UK petrol price in your area! 9,537 petrol stations and 8,000 daily updates.”

Just enter your post code and find the cheapest petrol station near you. Compares prices in real time. Also available as iPhone app.