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Paddy O'Clery 27/04/2009 No comments

Digital’s up in a downturn

Everyone in digital and media seems to be talking more.

Clients, contacts and business associates are showing willingness to explore opportunities and more creativity in carving out new alliances. And they’re asking themselves the fundamental question – what is it we are doing?

This shift is the unexpected by-product of our daily diet of economic gloom.

We’ve all heard the economy is going to hell and the bankers, business leaders and government are drowning in a cesspool of rotten debt. We have everyone to blame - and yet no-one to point a finger at.

So if you didn’t recently trouser a £25m bonus, what do you do?

In our industry, we’ve noticed positive and forward-thinking sorts have re-doubled their efforts and inspirational arty types emerging as deal-makers.

Too many people are losing their jobs, livelihoods and houses to take this lightly but it does seem the worldwide economic woe has had the local affect of poking many into action.

Uncertainty, bad economic news, insecurity and the fear of redundancy have been the catalyst for action.

With Chroma’s roster of TV, media and brand clients, we’ve noticed a marked upturn in interest in the web and all things digital.

Brand clients are asking themselves what their web and mobile sites can do for their business – just having a web presence is no longer good enough. We’re having more developed conversations about how the web can deliver better communication and sales.

Brand spending online has often been viewed as a luxury but now it’s increasingly being seen as a way to make savings.

And media clients are demanding more bang for their buck but are leading the charge on how this can be best achieved.

Isolated from the Sir Fred’s and the bonkers bankers of this world, many of us have not felt the full impact of the economic meltdown…. Yet.

We know it’s coming and the digital world seems to be preparing for the worst with an enormous amount of energy and optimism.

In many ways, nothing has changed from a year ago.

Nothing has changed but everything is completely different.

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John Davies 06/03/2009 No comments

Ten free high-quality useful fonts

If you’ve spent a while trawling the large free font sites you’ll probably have noticed some common similarities between all the fonts on offer; bad kerning, no accented characters, no ligatures, or most often just plain ugly. They are usually free for a reason - nobody in their right mind would pay for them.

But amongst the sea of knockoffs and tacky dingbats there are some gems to be found, the convention of the crappy free font is smashed by these ten lovingly crafted faces. Covering a broad variety of styles and with myriad uses, I’m looking for the appropriate project to give me an excuse to use them!

Click the images below for links. Some will require a myFonts account to download, despite their $0.00 pricetags…

ReportNevisMisoMouseDistrictAdam GorryMidoMuseoExpresswayQuicksand

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Paul Wood 05/03/2009 No comments

In-boxing clever: email marketing tips

emailAm I just a late convert, or has html email marketing finally reached mainstream respectability?

I suspect that the range of easy-to-use email marketing systems (and the resulting cost reductions), the rising awareness of best practices and the realisation that email communication campaigns can and should look good may have something to do with it. Not to mention powerful reporting tools that prove the value of good design and compelling content.

So for those newbies beginning to seek illumination into the dark arts of email marketing, I have compiled the following list of must-haves, must-dos and, at the-very-least, must-think-abouts:

Think skinny — emails should be much narrower than websites (think 600 pixels) to allow for email software that often gets set up with multiple panes. The last thing you want is for recipients to be scrolling horizontally as well as vertically.

Think about text — always send a text only version alongside a fully coded and designed version for people that can’t receive html emails. The text version may need to have different content, or different priorities. It certainly needs to be thought about how the text can have the most impact. Use hyphens, capitalisation, spacing and other characters that can give your text visual interest in a world without bold. Oh, and use carriage returns to make sure each line is under 64 characters long to avoid horizontal scrolling.

Think 90s coding — emails should be readable through lots of software packages: Hotmail, Outlook and MacMail all render emails differently as do different devices such as PCs, Blackberrys and iPhones. Therefore an email cannot be as technically sophisticated as an up to the minute website. Most structure is provided by tables for instance; background images are not supported and you can forget about Flash or Ajax.

Think three seconds — Just because someone has signed up to receive emails from you doesn’t mean they’ll open it. You’ve got three seconds in which to grab their attention with your subject line. It’s got to have impact and give them a reason to open them, so in my experience something that is quite long (say 60 characters) with a call to action or a clear benefit to the opener works best. That’s only half the battle though, once they have opened, you need to make sure they read and in many instances, click.

Content is king — It’s obvious, but make sure your email’s content is relevant, your message is concise and there are clear calls to action all within a beautifully designed package that mixes plenty of well laid-out text with high quality images. Design and content of marketing emails have a direct impact on their success.

Keep your mailing list up to date — send an email out to your list at least once a month. This cuts down on recipients marking your email as spam. But of course you shouldn’t keep bugging your list either, so you should build ‘list time’ into any ongoing activity to test the amount of activity that will be most acceptable to your users. If, for instance, you are publishing an email newsletter like, say moconews.net then maybe daily is fine, but if you are a brand that is essentially reminding your customers that you exist then maybe once a month is more appropriate.

Clarity will be rewarded — make it easy for people to leave your list by providing a simple unsubscribe process and remind them why they are on your list. Recipients who trust you will reward you by clicking more frequently.

Reflect your branding — you have spent a lot of money on your branding and your customers trust it, it makes sense to continue the branding in the look and feel of your emails too.

And finally, avoid image-only emails, they might look good, but your clickthrough rate will suffer!

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for email updates of our blog posts — they get sent straight to your inbox courtesy of Feedburner as soon as they are posted.

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Jon Rowe 02/03/2009 No comments

Unlocking the Apple TV

Apple TVThe Apple TV is an elegant, almost silent set top box which allows you to listen to music, watch videos and show off your photos through your television. The device is much loved for its ease of use and fast access to digital media in the living room.

However, out of the box it suffers from some significant drawbacks:

  • The hard drive is small for a media center: The Apple TV comes in 40GB (£195), or 160GB (£263) variants
  • YouTube is the only accessible internet video service
  • Its incompatible with many common video formats

This Mac-centric post runs through how to overcome these issues:

  • How to add an external hard drive
  • Use the BBC iPlayer (UK only)
  • Enable the playback of most video formats
  • View IMDB information for your films
  • Optimize videos for the Apple TV

Installing the software
There are many ways to do this, but the easiest way to enable all of the features listed above is to use aTV Flash to create a patch stick. aTV Flash costs $49.95 and is available for Mac and PC.

Create a patch stick (Mac)

  1. Download this file
  2. Open the downloaded file. This will mount a volume on your Mac called OSBoot.
  3. Insert the flash drive you wish to use into the computer (256MB - 4GB size)
  4. Run the aTV Flash application directly from the downloaded aTV Flash disk image
  5. Select the flash drive you wish to use from the drop down menu, and click start
  6. Select these plugins…
    aTV Flash
  7. The installer will copy the selected plugins to the flash drive automatically. When the process completes, a message stating ‘the drive cannot be read’ may appear. If the message appears, click eject. The flash drive can now be removed from the computer. It is ready to be used to upgrade your Apple TV.

Installation & setup

  1. Update to most current software through Apple TV Settings > General menu
  2. Unplug the Apple TV
  3. Insert the flash drive containing the aTV Flash software into the Apple TV USB port
  4. Power on the Apple TV
  5. After a few seconds you will see the aTV Flash logo, followed by some text running down the left side of the screen
  6. After a few more seconds, the text will stop, and you will see an install confirmation near the bottom of the screen
  7. Remove the flash drive, and restart (power down, then up) the Apple TV
  8. Your Apple TV will start up and complete the software installation automatically. It will reboot itself once. Once complete, the Apple TV menu screen will appear.

To add an external drive

  • On the Apple TV navigate to nitoTV > Settings > Install Software
  • Run the Smart Installer
  • Once this process completes, restart your Apple TV

Your Apple TV can now support up to 1TB drives via its USB port. Media on the external drive should now be visible to Nito TV / ATVfiles / Sapphire / XMBC / Boxee. All of these plugins can play videos, but I recommend ATV files as its the only player which supports HD video, resume, and file deletion.

To watch the BBC iPlayer (uk only)

  1. Create an account at Boxee
  2. On the Apple TV navigate to XMBC/Boxee > Boxee
  3. Enter your Boxee login details
  4. In Boxee navigate to Video > Internet > BBC iPlayer

Playback of iTunes incompatible videos

  • To playback a DVD backup use NitoTV or Boxee (Mac users can backup DVDs using MacTheRipper)
  • To playback a standard definition video use ATVfiles, NitoTV or Boxee (supported formats include mkv, ivx, xvid, avi, wmv, rmvb as well as the native m4v, mp4, mov formats)
  • To playback a 576p or 720p HD video (m4v, mp4, or mov only) use ATVfiles or NitoTV (the Apple TV doesn’t support 1080p playback, although it can upscale to 1080p)

To view IMDB information for your movies
On the Apple TV navigate to Media > Sapphire and populate the file data.

To optimize video for the Apple TV
To get the best quality out of your Apple TV use 720p video files (H264 m4v, mp4, or mov only) up to 5Mbps. Video files are often distributed in mkv format - unfortunately the Apple TV can’t play this format in HD. You can use VisualHub (free, Mac only) to convert incompatible files. Setting Visual Hub’s Apple TV preset set to high quality and 2-pass produces high quality files.

VisualHub ignores soft subtitles. If you require subs and the source video has a .srt file you can associate it with your Apple TV optimised video using Subler (free, Mac only). Rename the video’s file extension to m4v. Whilst video is playing hold down the Apple remote’s play/pause button to select subtitle options.

More

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Paddy O'Clery 27/10/2008 No comments

Designs on the mobile internet

The mobile internet: so what are we talking about here? A scaled down version of a website we can view on our phones?

In some cases yes. But that would miss the point.

Some old media has worked well on the web. From the FT to Empire online, there are content sites that have added value by being online. But the best websites have been a creation of the medium.

So the mobile internet must create its own success stories if it’s going to succeed.

The future of the mobile internet may well be certain sites scaled down to be a more readable and useable display for mobile.

But all mobile internet sites must grasp design and expectation issues. In other words; how will it look and what can I do when I get there.

An example would be a travel site. It may be able to sell a specific air ticket for a specific time through mobile. But users are unlikely to sell a holiday that needs research or a package tour that isn’t about wanting a ticket to fly right now.

Content sites will need to take a view on how they use the mobile internet. YouTube have an excellent mobile site. But do users want to trawl through the thousand mile-wide content offering, with iffy clips and dodgy quality? The user experience on mobile is too confined to have an aimless wander through oodles of web pages. Better still would be a distilled mobile-designed version of YouTube - a ‘best of’, if you will, to give the mobile user a guaranteed 10 minutes of quality and fun.

In other words, the mobile internet needs to be more specific and more refined.

So what about the mobile user? What are they doing to bring this media to life?

Research shows mobile internet users are often not even aware they are using the mobile internet. In the UK, we have not escaped the walled garden of the UK operators with Vodafone Live, O2 Active or Orange World our guardians. Mobile web users associate cricket and football scores with a service from their operator rather than an independent offering.

And then there’s the wariness of those who have heard about – or worse still been stung - by over-zealous and possibly criminal subscription charges imposed by less-scrupulous content providers. Those mobile internet pirates designed the mobile internet to look like a safe jaunt and an easy download. Meanwhile the unsuspecting user got whacked for 20 quid.

Mobile internet publishers will need to be more open and have express clarity on any charges. And network operators must simplify their data rate charges.

Then the designers and publishers – who will add real value to the mobile content experience - can move in and make it a safer, more fun place.

That time is now.

Just keep thinking more specific and refined and you’re there.

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Jon Rowe 08/08/2008 3 comments

iPhone applications

A couple of months ago the iPhone 2.0 software and iTunes App Store were released. Great web apps designed for the iPhone had been around for some time but this upgrade enabled the installation of native programs, and the App Store easy navigation of both paid and free apps.

Development is flourishing as developers are able to sell their applications in the user friendly App Store, and can set their own price. They receive a monthly payment of 70% of sales, with 30% going to Apple.

Our favourite apps so far

vicinity.jpg Vicinity
One tap access to nearby restaurants, pubs, shops, bars, taxis and takeout food. Also accesses local Wikipedia,Flicker and Panoramio entries. £1.79
Zenbe Lists Zenbe Lists
To do lists which can be synced and shared. Lists can also be accessed through a web browser. Free
Texas Hold’em Texas Hold’em
Apple’s slick execution of this addictive card game. Shame the multiplayer function only allows multiplayer play on the same WiFi network. £2.99
tube-status.jpg Tube Status
Unfortunately essential for Londoners. Hopefully TFL have a iPhone Journey Planner app in the pipeline. Free
crash-bandicoot.jpg Crash Bandicoot
Not quite Mario Kart but still pretty impressive. Controlled using the iPhone’s accelerometer and touchscreen. £5.99
Facebook Facebook
Pretty much everything that Facebook amounts to without third-party applications. Free
Shazam Shazam
Discover, buy and share tunes simply by holding your iPhone to music for a few seconds. Free
units.jpg Units
A simple unit conversion utility that works a lot like a calculator. Currency rates are updated daily. £0.59
G Spot G-Spot
Handy position sharing application with a terrible name. Instantly email friends your current location on Google Maps. £1.19


Related posts: iPhone wallpapers

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Paul Wood 01/08/2008 5 comments

Bespoke is best for CMS

CMS screenshotAt web manager job interviews these days, interviewees get asked ‘what CMS packages do you know?’ implying that as a content manager or publisher they are expected to be an expert in how to use a CMS. Surely the point of a CMS is that anyone can publish to a website and the content manager or publisher just has to be shown around a couple of times to understand the features and can then concentrate on the content.

I often get asked to recommend a CMS for a client website, and these days my usual answer is ‘bespoke is best’. By usual I mean if you just want to have a nice looking blog then let’s look at WordPress or similar, it’s a good tool for doing a specific job after all, but not all websites are as simple as that. A lot of websites need user registration, customised data collection, customised article publishing tools, specific catalogue image control, user generated content submission, Google maps integration, personalisation options etc etc etc. So let’s look at the specific site requirements and pull together the various parts into a customised whole that covers just these requirements within a framework that is easy to build on and has an easy to use interface.

This approach might be at odds with some received wisdom in the off-the-shelf vs bespoke CMS debate. Admittedly, there are lots of robust open source packages out there, Joomla, Drupal, Typo3 to name but three that I have used. All these packages have been developed over the years to provide every conceivable solution for every conceivable web developer’s problems and as a result they are bloated, non-specific platforms that require customisation taking considerable development time and resource with an inelegant solution the end result.

Strategically, a bespoke PHP-based CMS has a lot of advantages for organisations who have relatively few legacy systems to integrate with, are committed to growing and developing their web presence and have a multi-talented team who work with it. There are also a lot of advantages for CMS development to continue at the pace determined by the client’s thinking on how they engage digitally and their ability to provide the resources required to support this.

In my ideal world, a truly open source bespoke CMS solution would be based on a common PHP/MySQL framework using an amalgam of custom code and open source snippets. Each release would address specific client requirements and offer an easy to use interface for doing specific tasks. These releases would use minimal code for basic tasks like article editing and creation but also offer a range of enterprise level features like versioning and permissions. Content managers who previously used clunky off-the-shelf systems would not believe how easy it is to use and how simple the user interface is, no longer being clogged up with unnecessary links to developer functions like ‘DB check’, ‘Task center’ or ‘Clear FE cache’ (sorry Typo3!).

I don’t advocate developing absolutely every CMS function from scratch however, if clients have specific needs for such things as ecommerce or email marketing it makes a lot of sense to use third party packages. My view is that by having an agnostic approach to a CMS ‘umbrella’ ensures the package that best addresses the client’s needs is selected rather than the best Joomla ecommerce module.

Another bugbear about CMS packages is the use of the term ‘Open Source’. Sure, the systems mentioned above are based on Open Source code, but the development interfaces are visual and filled with system specific jargon that means a developer has to be familiar with that package. This immediately means that developers have to be specialists, not simply good PHP developers. The OS aspect of a system like Typo3 means that members of the OS community can develop modules that provide more functionality, the end result being a huge range of overlapping or competing modules developed for specific tasks that add even more to the bloat and even more options to an already unfriendly and clunky interface.

So it’s my view that the sensible approach to CMS development is to look at genuine requirements, and how best to address them, not to be beholden to deploying one uberpackage that could be characterised as putting the square peg into a round hole.

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Jon Rowe 16/04/2008 No comments

Nanotube

Nanotube

Nanotube is a fiendishly addictive new game by Chroma’s resident flash geek, John Davies (aka Slakinov). The concept is simple; match the colors of the orbs with the color of the rings by using the left and right cursors to prevent their escape.

Guaranteed to have you swearing within three minutes and sending on to your mates within five its been featured on Channel 4, One More Level and Random Good Stuff (among many others). Even Christian mums are hooked.

Click here to play.

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Jon Rowe 01/04/2008 No comments

Some essential design books

How to Be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul

How to be a graphic designer, without losing your soul by Adrian Shaughnessy
 The visual display of quantitative information

The visual display of quantitative information by Edward R. Tufte
Visible signs: an introduction to semiotics

Visible signs: an introduction to semiotics
by David Crow
 The elements of typographic style

The elements of typographic style
by Robert Bringhurst
The art of looking sideways

The art of looking sideways
by Alan Fletcher
 Grid systems in graphic design

Grid systems in graphic design
by Josef Muller-Brockmann

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Jon Rowe 20/03/2008 1 comment

iPhone wallpapers

wallpaper-thumbs.jpg

How to use the wallpapers
Click on the image you like, the full-size wallpaper will open in a new window. Right-click on the image, save it to your hard drive, sync your iPhone. Tap on the Photos icon, navigate to the photo and set as wallpaper.

For detailed step-by-step instructions click here.

Want more?
Poolga | PixelGirl presents | Flickr’s iPhone pool

Related posts: iPhone applications

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