Hasta La Ideas

Last night it was announced that GOV.UK, the UK government’s single online domain designed by the Government Digital Service, has won the Design of the Year 2013…

It is the first website to win the Design Museum‘s top prize which the GDS’s executive director Mike Bracken and head of design Ben Terrett received at a reception held at the South Place Hotel in London. As an example of clean, accessible, user-focused web design, which millions of UK citizens will use, it is a worthy winner.

CR spent several days in the GDS offices last year as they prepared to launch GOV.UK and the resulting feature, which can be read here, looked at the aims of the new government site and the ongoing design decisions the GDS has taken along the way (their own set of Design Principles is also well worth a read).

Moreover, only two years since its launch with the Cabinet Office, the GDS is transforming not just the British government’s online presence but, potentially, the way it acts, talks and works with the public.

“Britain has this history of brilliant public sector design,” Terrett said when I interviewed him at the GDS. “Government projects that are well designed, that have stood the test of time and are copied around the world. The Festival of Britain, Kenneth Grange’s work on InterCity, the tube map – in that style of diagrammatic design, it’s obvious to me that it is ‘user-focused’. It’s so effortless that you ignore it now, you don’t even notice it’s designed.”

And that’s the thing with GOV.UK – users may not even notice it yourself next time they renew their car tax, or check the VAT rate. But it, too, is a product of Britain’s public sector design lineage. For example, it explicitly cements a relationship with the achievements of the past by making use of a new version of the classic 1950s typeface Transport, originally designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for use on British motorway signs. Calvert worked on a new version of the face for GOV.UK with London studio A2/SW/HK.

As I wrote last November, “the bigger picture is that improving these kinds of small interactions with government, just making them simpler and less stressful to do, can only improve well-being.” And that’s certainly something a lot of people could do with at the moment.

Congratulations to everyone on the GDS team. Check out their blog at digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk, and follow them on Twitter at @GDSteam.

The Design of the Year exhibition is on at the Design Museum, Shad Thames, London SE1 2YD is open 10.00 – 17.45 daily. Last admission: 17.15. Admissions: £10.75 Adults, £9.70 Concessions, £6.50 Students, under 12s free. Public information: 020 7940 8790. designmuseum.org.

Past winners of the Design of the Year prize: London 2012 Olympic Torch designed by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby (2012); the Plumen 001 Light bulb by Samuel Wilkinson and Hulger (2011); the Folding Plug by Min-Kyu Choi (2010); Barack Obama Poster by Shepard Fairey (2009); and the One Laptop Per Child by Yves Béhar (2008).

The April print issue of CR presents the work of three young animators and animation teams to watch. Plus, we go in search of illustrator John Hanna, test out the claims of a new app to have uncovered the secrets of viral ad success and see how visual communications can both help keep us safe and help us recover in hospital

Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.

The Partners has created a striking campaign to raise awareness of the plight of street children around the world.

The branding consultancy was commissioned by the Consortium for Street Children, with the goal of highlighting the issue of children that have to live on the streets, both in the developed and developing worlds, and challenge the United Nations to officially recognise International Day for Street Children.

The Home Street Home campaign crystalises the issue in a visually effective way, using giant children’s room signs, placed in rather inhospitable looking street locations across south east and east London, to draw attention to the situation many kids are in.

The campaign used images of the signs, shot by photographer Paul Grundy, in the run-up to International Day for Street Children on April 12, also placing print ads and posters in various locations in UK cities and publications, and encouraging viewers to sign a petition for official UN recognition.

On the day itself, the signs – which were created and installed by the Jack Agency – were placed in high footfall areas such as Old Street underground station to gather further support (see below).

According to Stuart Radford, creative director of The Partners, the signage was designed to be portable and “can work in guerrilla fashion so that the charity can gain maximum benefit from the material developed for the campaign”. It also allows CSC to expand the campaign to different cities, as required.

Since the call to action on April 12 the petition has attracted nearly 3,000 signatures.

Credits:
Creative consultant: Nick Clark
Creative director: Stuart Radford
Designer: Jonathan Brodie
Project manager: Meghan Hagerty

Photography: Paul Grundy
Sign installation: Jack Agency

The April print issue of CR presents the work of three young animators and animation teams to watch. Plus, we go in search of illustrator John Hanna, test out the claims of a new app to have uncovered the secrets of viral ad success and see how visual communications can both help keep us safe and help us recover in hospital

Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.

We’ve been having a lot of fun with this: Hyperlapse is an experimental tool created by Teehan+Lax Labs which allows you to create instant timelapse (or ‘hyperlapse’) films from Google Street View

Teehan+Lax is a digital studio in Toronto. Its Labs department allows staff to work on experimental ideas, one of which is Hyperlapse. “Hyper-lapse photography – a technique combining time-lapse and sweeping camera movements typically focused on a point-of-interest – has been a growing trend on video sites,” the studio says. “Creating them requires precision and many hours stitching together photos taken from carefully mapped locations. We aimed at making the process simpler by using Google Street View as an aid, but quickly discovered that it could be used as the source material.”

At the Hyperlapse site (best viewed in Chrome), just choose your starting point by dropping the A pin on to Google Maps, and your end point by dropping the B pin. Press ‘create’ and your film is instantly stitched together from Google Street View images. Here’s a very accomplished example created by Teehan+Lax themselves:

We, of course, decided to have a go ourselves, choosing the route from my house in North London to the CR offices.

And here’s a still from the resulting film

You can copy the URL to share with others.

Thanks to @MatDolphin and @BenIllustrator for alerting us to this via Twitter

The April print issue of CR presents the work of three young animators and animation teams to watch. Plus, we go in search of illustrator John Hanna, test out the claims of a new app to have uncovered the secrets of viral ad success and see how visual communications can both help keep us safe and help us recover in hospital

Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.

Harmony Korine’s latest film, Spring Breakers, features some great animated typography in its title sequences, designed by LA outfit Gentlemen Scholar. It’s “neon filled Sea Punk”, apparently…

Spring Breakers concerns the adventures of four college students who, short of party funds, go about obtaining the cash by some holding up a restaurant. While successfully partying in Florida they meet a drug dealer called Alien – cue even more partying. According to Peter Bradshaw’s review in The Guardian, it’s a humorous, pulpy, voyeuristic film, and there are lots of bikinis.

For the title sequences, Korine invited the Gentleman Scholar team to invent its own creative brief, and the aesthetics of their own Los Angeles surroundings became the starting point. “We drew a lot of inspiration from our own ‘local cheesy vacation spots’,” says creative William Campbell. The result is a sumptuous alphabet full of dolphins and other sea creatures – a kind of neon, aqua calypso.

“We went to a Santa Monica beach and explored around there,” says Campbell, “drawing on the kitschy local beach community ‘look’ and had illustrators and artists on the boardwalk create little things that we eventually drew from to give the titles their final look.”

View a clip featuring elements of the film’s titles and credits on Gentlemen Scholar’s site, here. More on the film at springbreakersmovie.com.

Post Supervisor: Anthony Gore. Production / VFX Company: Gentleman Scholar. Executive Producer: Rachel Kaminek. Producer: Tyler Locke. Designers: John-Patrick Rooney, Heather Aquino, Jordan Lyle, William Campbell, Will Johnson. Animators: Rachel Yonda, John-Patrick Rooney. Creative Directors: Will Johnson, William Campbell

The April print issue of CR presents the work of three young animators and animation teams to watch. Plus, we go in search of illustrator John Hanna, test out the claims of a new app to have uncovered the secrets of viral ad success and see how visual communications can both help keep us safe and help us recover in hospital

Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.

Canadian agency Cossette has launched a series of Instagram accounts that when scrolled through in slideshow mode, simulate a clip from a classic silent film. It’s all in aid of the forthcoming Toronto Silent Film Festival…

While the festival itself presents an interesting mix of some of the world’s finest silent films paired with music, improvised and played live by range of musicians, it perhaps remains a tricky event to promote.

But Cossette have come up with something quite sweet which both reflects the subject of the week long event and utilises today’s smartphone technology.

To view the ‘trailers’, simply visit the accounts at @tsff_1, @tsff_2, and @tsff_3 on the Instagram mobile app, tap the slideshow viewing mode and scroll down rapidly to produce a short burst of early 20th-century filmmaking. If you click the links on a regular browser, the pictures can still be ‘animated’ by clicking right – but the effect is nowhere near as good, so here’s how it looks on an iPhone:

“Everyone knows that showing clips of a film can drum up interest,” says Cossette co-chief creative officer, Matt Litzinger. “We wanted to create a sort of ‘trailer’ of our own, and thought this new and unique use of Instagram could bring the films to life and draw attention to the festival.

“It feels appropriate to be using a technology like Instagram to promote the silent film technique, which in its day was every bit as ground-breaking and innovative as digital platforms are today.”

Co-chief creative officers: Matthew Litzinger, David Daga. Creative director: Matthew Litzinger, David Daga. Copywriter: Sebastian Lyman. Art Director: Pepe Bratanov. Account team: Jason Melhuish.

The Toronto Silent Film Festival runs from April 4-9. More details at ebk-ink.com/tsff/.

The April print issue of CR presents the work of three young animators and animation teams to watch. Plus, we go in search of illustrator John Hanna, test out the claims of a new app to have uncovered the secrets of viral ad success and see how visual communications can both help keep us safe and help us recover in hospital

Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.