ElectricSun

Episode 1: ‘Cockney Cheese’

Episode 2: ‘The Head of Handsomeness’

Episode 3: ‘The Charity’

There’s a fantastic new sitcom, ‘The Persuasionists‘, showing at the moment on BBC2. With the original working title of ‘The Scum Also Rises’, it is based in an advertising agency called HHH&H and follows a team of creatives and account managers trying to convince their clients that their designs are amazing. Sound familiar? Three episodes have been aired so far (iPlayer links above if you’ve missed them) and is shown on Wednesday, 22:00 on BBC2. They won’t be around on the iPlayer forever, so well worth recording on Sky+.

For the first time, I added a webpage to the ‘home screen’ on my iPhone – the BBC iPlayer site. When I did, i noticed it gave me a nice shiny iPlayer icon. I tried it with this site, and all it gave me was an icon with a tiny preview of the page. Not good enough.

If you’ve got a blog or website, you can make your own by doing the following:

1. Create an image that is 57 x 57 pixels
2. Save as a PNG, and name the file apple-touch-icon.png
3. Upload it to the root level of your site. This is where the index file (and favicon icon, if you have one) is stored
4. Refresh the site you wish to add to your home screen and press the ‘+’ symbol. Then press ‘Add to Home Screen’ (see screenshot)
5. Edit the name of the site. You may want a shorter name that fits nicely on the homescreen. (see screenshot)

The iPhone will round the corners and add a ‘gloss’ to the image you’ve uploaded to create a great looking bookmark to your site. Try it with ElectricSun!

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Augmented reality is popping up all over the place now and expect to see a lot more of it quite soon. It is when a computer generates imagery that is interacting in real-time with the user via camera/webcam, triggered by the movement of a sensor. Big corporations have started to use it in advertising and is an exciting way of making the consumer interact with a product.

Here’s a T-shirt, created by T-post that allows the wearer to play ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ with themselves via their computer, triggered by the movement and position of one of the shapes printed on the tee.
Welcome to the future.

If, like me, you are bored of your standard iPhone ringtones, here’s some simple steps to convert some of your favourite tunes into ringtones. OK, follow me…

1. Open iTunes and choose your track (you may want to duplicate it to avoid altering the original version)

2. Right-click (or maybe Control click, if you haven’t set up your Mac for this) to ‘Get Info’ on the song. The ringtone needs to be shorter than the original song, so adjust the stop time (and start time, if necessary) so the total length of the track is less than 30 seconds (see screenshot, below). You will find this under the ‘Options’ tab. Click OK

3. Right-click once again on the track and choose ‘Create AAC version’, if it isn’t already. If you can only see ‘Create mp3 version’, then alter your import settings in iTunes preferences and choose AAC Encoder (see screenshot, below). You will now see a shorter, AAC file underneath the original. It might be worth renaming the file at this point, eg. add ‘_ringtone’ before the file extension

4. Locate the file on your hard drive in your iTunes library. To do this easily, right click and choose ‘Reveal in Finder’ if you’re on a Mac (I think it is ‘Reveal in Windows Explorer’ on a PC). Keep this window open on your desktop. Click on the file in iTunes and press delete – when it asks to remove the file, choose ‘Keep File’

5. Change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r

6. If you haven’t already, tick ‘Ringtones’ under general preferences. Available ringtones will appear in the left-hand column in your iTunes window. Click ‘Ringtones’ and then drag your new ringtone file (.m4r) into this window

7. When you connect your iPhone to your computer, click on your phone icon, under devices and then Sync ringtones

8. Job done… you can now annoy your friends and colleagues with your unique taste in music every time your phone rings!

Otl Aicher was responsible for some of the most innovative graphic design and visual communications of the 20th century.

In 1953, he established the Hochschule für Gestaltung (College of Design) in his home town of Ulm, Germany. This led him to be commissioned to create visual identities for Lufthansa and Braun as well as creating the complete design package for the 1972 Munich olympic games, for which he is most widely known. He established the pictogram system, using stick figures to depict the olympic events, a style which has now become commonplace in everyday design. He also created the first olympic mascot, Waldi the dachshund.

In 1988, he created the very popular Rotis typeface (which is not one of my personal favourites), used by the likes of Renault and Nokia. He died as the result of a tragic accident in 1991.

Check out the enviable collection of original prints and merchandise that have survived the last 38 years, here.
There are also photographs of Aicher’s work from the 2008 Otl Aicher exhibition in San José, and the 2009 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art exhibition, courtesy of joecompany on Flickr.

Vintage Ad Browser is a wonderfully comprehensive site, crammed with pictures of press advertisements from all industries, ranging from the late 19th century through to the noughties. Many have a retro appeal and some are firmly stuck in their era, but the most interesting are the ones created before the days of DTP software (and thats going back a bit).
Use of blantant sexist and borderline racist copy is surprisingly common prior to the 70′s for certain types of products, but sadly seems to be a reflection on the social attitudes at the time. Thankfully, the advertising machine is a lot more sophisticated these days. I got lost for ages trawling through the images on the site… see how many you remember.

Muse’s album, ‘The Resistance’ has come top in an online poll for the best album artwork in 2009.
Art Vinyl, makers of display frames for album covers, awarded the prize to the La Boca designed sleeve. Voted for by the public, it fought off tough competition from Grizzly Bear, Massive Attack, The Rakes, Editors, and even another La Boca designed sleeve for Kelpe. It must have been their year. See all of the other entries at the Art Vinyl site.