My week in tweets

This week it was ALL about the iPad
Create your own Apple iPad rendering in Photoshop http://bit.ly/bEwq8
Peter Serafinowicz's take on the iPad http://bit.ly/cUssOT
The iPad Nano!
Quick comparison between the iPad, the Amazon Kindle and a rock http://bit.ly/b7FUBg
What Stephen Fry thinks http://www.stephenfry.com/2010/01/28/ipad-about/
Feminine hygiene iPad jokes? http://bit.ly/daZaLj
How to fake your own Apple rumour http://bit.ly/cYbd9H
I think this company might do well on the back of the Apple iPad… http://vook.com/vook.php
The Newton, Apple's first iPad (with a better name!) http://bit.ly/6jNv6Z ahead of it's time? And is that Iggy Pop doing the voiceover?
If the iPad didn't float YOUR boat,  check out these cool computer concepts… http://bit.ly/7UkdWJ
Rumour versus reality http://bit.ly/bzHtPn
And finally, you did read my post,  didn't you?  http://post.ly/L1gW

I still managed to fit in a couple of non-iPad design posts…
Superb collection of film title sequences designed by Saul Bass http://icio.us/hc4elt
I love the animation for BBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics… http://bit.ly/6xwV9y
This font is absolutely PANTS http://bit.ly/cbTGe3
11 Creative outdoor advertisements... http://ow.ly/10v0u
The best design articles from the best design blogs: http://bit.ly/GkNbg

Lovely animation for dutch children charity

Steve Jobs on Paul Rand http://bit.ly/6JFKRm
Designer biscuits anybody? Helvetica cookie cutters http://bit.ly/7HqkaL
Over 100 truly stunning skateboard designs | http://tinyurl.com/yd8sktu
Designworklife… a lovely video that makes you think about the way you work http://bit.ly/5PfzUg

Everything else
Is Apple’s snubbing Flash all about money or a sign of things to come? http://bit.ly/9IpMdb
Somedays, I wish I could pop one of these… http://bit.ly/cvzDQN
Is this the scariest thing ever? http://bit.ly/d6KfM2
43 ways to simplify your life… http://bit.ly/5ZDZzU
Quieting the lizard brain, great post from Seth Godin http://bit.ly/aQRBYI
Nice online writing tool http://www.writerhymes.com/
Rude subliminal images http://bit.ly/9QsIZJ
You got apostrophe's down, right? Now learn how to use a semicolon http://bit.ly/5FNLFV
Hackney's response to the latest Tory poster campaign (contains colourful language)
The Internet in 1969 http://tinyurl.com/23uldp
What would the iPhone look like running mac OS 1.0? Find out here: http://bit.ly/6fAjLT
Coolest teabag ever? http://bit.ly/aSIXAr and the scariest teabag ever? http://bit.ly/6Lbp5t
Funny stuff
God's computer http://bit.ly/cNjOJg
Sex, explained by pens http://bit.ly/d1qhEb

Freebies
30 handrawn sketchy web icons: http://bit.ly/6Ss6JS

And the feelgood story of the week
Charlie beats his target… by over 22,000%! http://bit.ly/8XlwoF

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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The iPad… Apple's 'third device'

Right, just what you need huh? Another blog pots pitching in an opinion on Apple's new, already overly hyped iPad. Ok, if you've had iPad overload… I understand, I'll let you off, just skip this post. 

Pitched somewhere between iPhone and a MacBook, the iPad not only occupies  a "third space" it fills a gaping hole in Apple's product line. As most Apple products tend to be, it's a thing of beauty, but does it live up to all the hype? Here's a couple of things that struck me after watching Steve Job's keynote, and reading some early reviews.

Form Factor 

This is one of the big surprises for me – a lot of the pre-launch mock ups were in a more widescreen format, and at first glance it would seem sensible to go for a 16:9 format over the apparent 4:3 ratio they've chosen. But 4:3 work great in portrait, as a screen for books, and in landscape allows more room for the virtual keyboard at the bottom of the page, so I'm guessing that was a good call.

Price

Nice. The entry level price was actually the biggest surprise for me. $499 (No UK pricing announced yet). From Apple? That's unexpected. Great positioning in the market, sits nicely in their product line between a top end iPod Touch (£306) and  an entry level MacBook (£816). Will it cannibalise low end MacBook sales?

Possibly, although it's just as likely buyers impressed by the iPad might choose an Apple branded laptop over a cheaper PC one.

Games

While not a dedicated gaming platform (neither is the iPhone, and look what's happened there), the iPad looks like it handles games very nicely, thank you. And once those clever, creative types really start writing games that play to it's strengths… I think we'll see a whole slew of new games developed specifically for the platform, or ported from other platforms with unique iPad only playability. There's a lot of independent developers who've done very well selling games for the iPhone/iPod touch, and this is a great new revenue stream for them too. Which brings me on to…

Apps

Apple's new iWork software demo's nicely, but let's be honest, this isn't a serious workhorse of a computer. Wouldn't you rather do 'proper work' on a 'proper computer'? Me too. (This is where Apple might sell some laptops, on the back of the iPad). Although at only $9.99 a pop for each component of iWork, they're pretty good value, and probably worth having 'just in case'.

The real Apps to watch are the tens of thousands that already exist for the iPhones & iPod Touches (they work right now on the iPad), the ones that's will be rewritten to work best with the iPad's bigger screen, and the new Apps especially written that just wouldn't work on an iPhone. Now that's exciting.

eReader

Well, it's the screen isn't e-Ink is it? For some people, that's a dealbreaker. For far more people however, I think the extra features and functionality over say, Amazon's Kindle will far outweigh the e-ink issue. The top end Kindle is only $10 cheaper than the entry level iPad (Expect price cuts soon from Amazon!). I know which I'd choose!

Accessories

The cover – meh. It turns the iPad into a rather nice digital photo frame, or presentation device, but I expect 3rd part developers will come up with something a little better, or funkier, or both. The keyboard/dock combo – now that's the gamechanger. Suddenly the iPad becomes a different device altogether.

Niggles

I find Apple's (albeit beautifully rendered) quite literal translations of concepts like bookshelfs a little bit twee. My colleague Luke pointed it out, and since he did, it's started to grate. Nice eye-candy, but be true to the device guys, we all know it's not a real bookshelf.

More serious perhaps is the lack of multitasking. I'm sure we'll see this addressed in future OS updates. Flash compatibility is also conspicuous by it's absence, as is a front facing camera. Actually, any kind of camera. Remember though this is iPad version 1.0. The original iPhone was a bit lacking in similar regards too.

And Finally (at last)

They're saying you can't comment properly on the iPad until you've held one in your hands, and used it for five minutes. Well, if you get hold of a spare one, send it to me and I'll promise I'll do a decent review, warts and all. Go on.

Posted via email from CrocodileJock's Blog

The Bond Bug

My recent post about the Smite microcar got me thinking about some of the great small cars of the past. I mentioned the BMS Isetta, the Messerschmiddt KR series, and the original Fiat 500. I've always been a bit of a scooter fan, Vespa's and Lambretta's – and these postwar bubblecars have shared many of of the styling notes that I love in scooters. What I thought I'd do is research the subject and write a bit of an overview on the genre (which I still plan on doing). Then I came across the Bond Bug – and was stopped in my tracks!

How  could I have forgotten this 70's classic? And it is intrinsically 70's. From the bright 'Outspan' orange colour, the seats that look like they are from a suspended animation pod in a 70's Sci-Fi movie spaceship, those wheels, the type decal that runs behind the door and most of all the wedge styling… it's as 70's as Space Hoppers, Chopper bikes and Blakes 7. And for a brief period at middle school, it was all I ever dreamed of owning.

Designed by former Hotpoint washing machine designer Tom Karen and Ogle Design, who later went on to oversee the design and production of Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder.  Manufactured between 1970 and 1974, aimed at a young, sporty motorist, the Bug was not particularly practical or even cheap. Costing £629, you could buy a 'proper' car like a Mini 850 cheaper… but nothing turned heads like the bright orange bug. Certainly nothing costing £629. 

Although hardly a sports car, the bug was certainly no slouch in the performance stakes, it's 700cc engine produced up to 31BHP, and it was capable of a respectable 78mph. 

As with most of these things, there's a lively, passionate group of aficionados who own, restore, maintain and run Bugs. There's a nice website Bondbug.com with all the information you would ever need, a forum and gallery which includes the images I've attached in this post. I love the beautiful hand lettered type so typical of the period. 

Maybe the Bug is ripe for a revival. With a modern (electric?) power unit, and a few design tweaks… certainly not too many… could the Bug be the car to save the world? It's certainly got a bit more style than the G-Wiz.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Thanks

There are eighty million blogs to choose from. Thanks for picking mine to read today.

This is a single line picked from a Seth Godin post. It made me think, (as Seth's words are prone to).

He's always an interesting read, and although a lot of what he said seems to be 'common sense' that's sometimes a surprisingly rare commodity. Then again some things are only common sense in retrospect, once they've been said. 

Anyway, I thought I'd take a moment and say thank you for your attention.  

Thank you to my readers. Thank you especially if you've taken the time to comment on something you've seen, or decided to subscribe. I appreciate it, I really do.

One final thought… is there somebody you should say thank you to, today?

Posted via email from CrocodileJock's Blog

Crocodile Jock's week in tweets

As well as blethering on about bubble cars, being stupid, AKA studio and the best logo ever, here's what caught my eye this week.

DESIGN

The Paul Rand designed Ford Logo that almost was http://bit.ly/8qpUBz

How detail and realism can distract from meaning http://bit.ly/53GWQb

Colour Identifying System For The Colour Blind - http://bit.ly/67ybPX

The rather good "Internet Online Website" http://bit.ly/59nyGu

In case of nuclear attack…  1980's Civil Defence poster http://bit.ly/6PxPmp

The notebook, redesigned http://bit.ly/5c3eAX

Mega Shark infographic http://bit.ly/4rPxeY

Stunning little film… but be careful… it might make you a bit sad! Lucky http://ow.ly/1ndos6 

A collection of great retro look websites http://bit.ly/58Aqlg and 35 examples of creative doodles in Web Design http://bit.ly/4HDprR

A rather nice typographic penguin illustration from Steven Bonner (AKA Studio) http://society6.com/r/yhzpfywg

TYPE

Type Tweets: everything Type related on Twitter  http://j.mp/6EeXQI

Can you tell Arial from Helvetica?  Take the quiz. http://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/

Typographic playing cards http://tinyurl.com/yg9xqaw and while were talking cards, I love this business card: http://bit.ly/8fMAnZ and the funnest card ever http://bit.ly/59C2Cd 

A couple of ampersand blogs http://ampersand.gosedesign.net/ and http://bit.ly/8zoF6T

Are these the most beautiful tits ever? http://bit.ly/H1od3

Beautiful old school typographyic eye candy  http://bit.ly/66urGn

Seth Godin talks about the importance of good typography http://bit.ly/4BYLNK #typography

Jessica Hische's lovely 'Daily Drop Caps' are now available to buy as prints http://bit.ly/5MuCSF

ADVERTISING

I love this cheese advert… http://bit.ly/diifv

Cool interactive billboard cool interactive billboard http://bit.ly/8PouB9

EVERYTHING ELSE

Is this the worlds funkiest house? http://sweethomestyle.tumblr.com/post/344418233 …some more beautiful, funky houses:  http://bit.ly/WVrZO Work pod (this would look good in my garden) http://bit.ly/5ooj94

Cool jewellery for the geek in your life http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/geeky-jewelry-the-nerdies_n_429408.html

The worlds cutest kitten/budgie pics http://bit.ly/8R5hD4 and a cat on a cat… http://bit.ly/4LEcFq

Man buried in Haiti rubble uses his iPhone to treat his wounds and survive! http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/dGkbUFFl680/

FREEBIES

25 New High Quality Free Fonts - Smashing Magazine http://bit.ly/61QsAg

70 Free High Quality PSD File Design Resources http://bit.ly/69HHFD  

and finally, as site packed with free vectors http://is.gd/6waLG 

Thanks to everybody who drew my attention to these!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from CrocodileJock's Blog

The Bubble Car is back!

I've always liked the bubble car's (more properly called microcars) of the 50's and 60's… cars like the Messerschmiddt KR's, and the BMW Isetta. Now it looks like we might be a step closer to getting them back. With ever rising petrol prices, and people getting more and more conscious of their carbon footprint, the return of this kind of vehicle seems long overdue. I've often though how silly it seems to drive around in a four seater car, with just me as the single occupant, 95% of the time. Of course, many mainstream car manufacturer today offer a 'City car', and models like the Smart Car, Toyota's small and neat iQ are great examples of the genre. But they're not true microcars. Perhaps the closest thing we've got at the moment is the astoundingly ugly G-Whiz electric car, or the slightly more stylish MyCar.

BMW has long been rumoured to have a "city car" in the pipeline, variously called the I-setta, or  iSetta, which we may, or may not see this year.

But I've been alerted by the excellent Retro to Go site of another contender for the bubble car crown.

This one is called the Smite, and it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Messerschmiddts of yesterday. Which in my mind, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Designed in Sweden, and pitched as being an eco-friendly, light weight, high tech material vehicle, weighing 90% less than a standard mid sized saloon, and very cheap to run… it's ticking all the right boxes for the green lobby. Full detail on the website.

The one thing I'm not sure about is the vinyl graphic panels… which look a bit tacky to me. Maybe they could take a leaf out of Fiat's book… they've got a lovely colour palette for the latest Fiat 500. IMHO, of course.

What do you think? Would you buy one? I would… like a shot!

Click here to download:

YouTube - Smite.webloc (0 KB)

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AKA Studio

AKA Studio… Also Known As Steven Bonner is a freelance  "Designer, Illustrator, whatever" from Stirling in Scotland. His work has been featured across the web, in print, and in books such as Custom Kicks, 1001 Restaurant Bar & Café Graphics, Vormator: Elements of Design, Semi-Permanent, and Black & White Freedrawings. 

If you like the images I've posted… (and why shouldn't you) his website is definitely worth a look. And if you've got an iPhone, he's even put together a selection of iPhone wallpapers for you to download. For free.

You can get in touch with Steven here.

Thanks to Cat Higgins for the heads up about AKA studio.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from CrocodileJock's Blog

Best logo ever?

I love the simplicity of this logo device. I'm afraid I don't know much about it, other than I think it's for a Sportswear/swimwear manufacturer. If you DO know who the company is, and or anything else about it – the designer for instance, I'd love to know. Oh, and if you see anything 'rude' in this, that's just your filthy mind… it's just a letter A and two dots!

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What the croc's been been Tweetin' this week

A quick round up of links I've posted this week that don't really warrant an article in themselves, but are worth a quick look…

Type & Typography

20 great sans-serif free fonts: http://bit.ly/6sSwEB #typography

Download a free font Type Zero and helpp the environment! Become part of the Journey to Zero movement http://bit.ly/7gLZZ1 

Nice new merchandise from House Industries… I really like the new Maple Valentine Blocks http://bit.ly/6Mr2U8

Funky Alphabet prints from Paperfingers http://bit.ly/7iZ9LO

History of the Ampersand, with showcase of intersting examples http://bit.ly/55jvRt and one of the best the 'Spampersand' http://bit.ly/7KFoRK

New punctuation mark to indicate sarcasm? http://bit.ly/89zqBi

ABCing: Seeing the Alphabet Differently: http://abseeing.com/

New type foundry Commercial Type http://bit.ly/7f3S9N

And ever had one of those "oops" moments… French Anti-Piracy Organisation Hadopi uses a pirated font in it's own logo: http://bit.ly/hadopirate

Graphic Design

Chilling collection of Nazi stationery discovered: http://bit.ly/7W13dL

The process of redesiging N.Design http://bit.ly/4FNy93

A nice infographic that might just save your life…  How to spotting a hidden handgun. http://bit.ly/7KrCju

Nice collection of 2010 calendars with a retro feel http://bit.ly/6exRUM

A little more bespoke than the old PG… Nice packaging for Steven Smith, teamaker. http://bit.ly/4BKmKP

33 typography effect Photoshop tutorials http://bit.ly/6UqW1w

Jawdroppingly good collection of classic Penguin Science fiction book covers http://bit.ly/12NMU2

Apple price mark-ups info graphic.… Aren't you glad you don't live in Brazil! http://bit.ly/7N3qbU

Flickr, but different… http://bit.ly/6Nfg4W

Showcase Of Beautiful Vintage and Retro Signage - Smashing Magazine http://bit.ly/6iVAG1

Freebies

12 amazing and FREE stock photo resources http://bit.ly/8unqTf

225+ Free Adobe Illustrator Patterns http://bit.ly/5QHP0j

Odds & Sods

Only in America: How to get your luggage looked after better on internal flights, by packing a pistol! http://bit.ly/8uMzvk

Sky cycling. http://bit.ly/8QfUAP C'mon Boris, sort it out, you know it makes sense.

First Person Tetris! http://firstpersontetris.com

Silly man  gets glasses tattooed on his face http://bit.ly/4u9ubF http://bit.ly/5Uwv0C

More common sense, (this time on the topic of complaining effectively) from Seth Godin http://bit.ly/7cZZty

Four-year-old girl lives in cage with crocodiles from birth (http://cli.gs/VPDj3) http://cli.gs/VPDj3

A couple of Lego ones… Lego on Hoth http://om.ly/eAUn and a iPhone/Lego gaming mashup http://bit.ly/8RMaph

26 Rules for writing gooder http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2010/01/rules-for-writing-well.php

10 words you need to stop misspelling http://bit.ly/4ZLDZ8 and a ruder version (be careful here, boys and girls) http://bit.ly/4ZLDZ8

This is creepy: World's first "Sex Robot" unveiled in Las Vegas http://bit.ly/8WykJB

The best http://bit.ly/8fHFs2 and the worst http://bit.ly/6maBlo of CES 2010, and the most pointless (but oddly hypnotic) gizmo ever http://log.emonk.net/post/319917350

…and finally, a great one if you want to do something for Haiti 

For the next week 100% of sales from will be donated to helping Haiti. http://bit.ly/4Nk4ft #Haiti

Acknowlegements:

Thanks to Cat Higgins, David Airey, Typography Echo, SignalNoise Art, Freeload this, Paddy Donnelly, Derren Brown, Guy Kawasaki, PSD Tutorials, Vector Tuts,

I Love Typography and everybody else that brought these things to my attention.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from CrocodileJock's Blog