Website design

I posted some images of the new BBC Sport website recently, and I just found this blog on how the we site was designed, road-tested etc. I thought it was a useful insight into a process which often isn't made apparent in light of a finished product.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/02/bbc_sport_design_live.html

Promoting handwriting as an alternative to typing/texting

My campaign/brand/initiative will primarily focus on the way in which handwriting allows a much more personalised approach to words than the clinical world of type and text. Everyone has a different handwriting style, and this is to be embraced.

When writing something by hand, a personality comes through on the page – a personality that can't be achieved by using Baskerville, say. The brand will reinforce this idea, and go on to say that it is only by us embracing our own handwriting styles that we can truly capture the meaning of our words. That is, by penning our thoughts in our own unique hand, we have a much more personal connection with the letters, and can begin to take more ownership of the words which flow out of our minds, mouths, and fingers.

The target audience would most likely be those most influenced by the digital typography revolution, the young. It is in this demographic where handwriting is seen the least. The brand would therefore appeal to an audience more at ease with a Twitter feed than a hand-written shopping list, for example.

The overall aim of the brand is to encourage the audience to take up a nearby writing instrument, and see what they can create with it language-wise. It will spur viewers on to write more personally and to win back the meanings of the words they speak. These aims will be achieved by an engaging visual identity palette, which would showcase ways in which handwritten sentences can be more exciting and liberating than other methods.

Some practical ways in which this would be achieved would be by locating the initiative in an environment that the target audience is familiar with. Typed words would be reproduced by hand, and put out onto the internet via mediums such as Twitter (pictures of handwritten tweets could be posted), and references to popular culture could be made visible – all in a particular handwriting style.

Web Research

When considering how a visual identity palette could influence a set of webpages/microsites, the new-look BBC range of sites is a brilliant source of inspiration:

In particular, the new sport section has impressed me - a simple yet stylish design which both mirrors the style achieved on other areas of the BBC's webpages, and is totally individual (perhaps due to it's very yellow nature!).

As you can see, the home and weather pages feature many of the same design ideals - single colour blocks, with images partially cut into by text boxes.

Viral video research

Stumbleupon is a great resource for finding things like this - it sends you from site to site all linked by the topic you've chosen to "stumble". The sites tend to be of pretty good quality too.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1DDivI/www.techipedia.com/2010/viral-video-traits/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2Z7BCv/www.ugo.com/the-goods/the-50-awesomest-viral-videos-under-30-seconds-long-1?page=9/

This one specifically shows videos used for marketing campaigns:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/24bODL/www.blogstorm.co.uk/the-top-10-viral-marketing-campaigns-of-all-time/

Plenty of these videos are so well known that I haven't posted the videos themselves, these sites reference several more too, but I haven't time to watch all of them!

Paint Sculptures

I loved this - really imaginative and really cool. They attach a membrane over a speaker, and then drip some ink on the membrane. At the point the sound is played, a series of cameras take the photos.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/4z7uRk/www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/11774/dentsu-paint-sound-sculptures.html/