I have just completed a new project involving the design and build of a new website for Quartz-Lite. The company specialises in providing quartz, granite and stone worktops for kitchens in the south west of England. The quartz worktop is a lighter version of quartz made with resin to provide a thinner and less expensive alternative to quartz, granite and marble. It’s also more durable, scratch and heat resistant. It is designed to fit around existing worktops or can be specified as a new worktop for a new build.

For the website design, I went for a simple design which aimed to include a large number of pictures for visitors to see previously completed kitchens, both new and renovations. The website navigation is simple and the content is aimed at driving visitors through the website and onto a contact page in a logical order. There are a large range of products available to view in detail and a gallery which showcases in detail many different projects.

The website employs a number of different javascript features. These include jCarousel and cyclelite which use the jquery library and lightbox 2. Using these various javascript libraries I have hoped to allow for graceful degradation as much as possible.

If you’d like to take a look at the website, you can do so here: Quartz-Lite - The ultimate stone work surface

I’ve been a fan of Seth Godin’s blog for some time now, and it’s on my daily, if not weekly, reading list. After reading little snippets here and there I wanted to sink my brain into some more volumous text along his lines of thinking. General out of the box, lateral thinking. He’s not always spot on the mark but he definitely helps open up the mind to possibilities beyond the obvious. So I ordered his latest book, Tribes.

I found this book a very interesting and motivating read. Seth looks into how Tribes are formed, how they grow and what inspires people to start tribes. It’s full of real world examples which show just how possible it is to start and to lead a tribe. The key it seems is having an idea and a belief. Believe in something and give it 100% and you get 100% back from it.

The book not only looks at tribes but also what it takes to lead a tribe, and importantly what the difference between leadership and management is.

The book isn’t like a regular book. Seth’s disgarded the contents page and just jumps straight into the text. The book isn’t in chapters or any sort of chunky divided content areas. It’s nice and small, and short… but not too short. It’s almost like a series of long blog posts on the subject, a method of writing which Seth is very good at. Perfect to read for five minutes here and there or even all in one go.

I’d like to thank him for writing the book and also recommend anyone interested in innovative leading, marketing, out of the box thinking or just general leadership having a read. An excellent read.

This is one of my photos from this years Scott Kelby’s world wide photo walk. I went along to the Bristol event along with a number of other bristol photographers and had a very interesting time.

My photos from the event can be found on the Flickr website in the World Wide Photo Walk set if you would like to have a look.

Here is a map of the photowalk:

View Scott Kelbys Worldwide Photo Walk - Bristol EN, UK in a larger map

The walk was made by around 30,000 people in approximately 900 cities all over the world, all on the same day. Peraps next year i’ll go to a different city somewhere else in the world.

I recently found this 15 minute TED talk about Charles and Ray Eames, in a talk by their grandson, Eames Demetrios. It’s a very short overview of the design thinking which Charles Eames adopted in his work. A very short overview of something which i found very interesting to read in a book I have - The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention.

Unfortunately the video isn’t very long and only a short glimpse, but it’s worth while if only to catch a glimpse of the Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera in one of the videos. The video can be played using the embedded version above, or found on TED.com here: Talks The design genius of Charles + Ray Eames.

What started out as an article by Geoff Colvin for Fortune Magazine about great performance in business turned into this wonderful book about raw talent, hard work, great performance and motivation.

I picked it up whilst browsing through a Foyles book store near the South Bank Centre in London, and through reading just a short part I was hooked. Geoff Colvin’s ability to write engaging dialogue about a series of subjects and people kept me hooked right the way through.

The book focuses on dispelling the myths surrounding raw and natural talent and using a wide variety of real world examples and research on the subject, Geoff Colvin explains the personal and corporate benefits of recognising how talent is achieved through hard work, deliberate practice and a focus on a goal. All the information and discussion put forward surrounds important research and real world examples including Mozart, Tiger Woods, Jeffrey Immelt and Steven Balmer to name a few.

The book does well to go through each of the topics surrounding talent, and explaining the steps involved in guiding someone to be talented. The book also looks at the culture of motivating and encouraging people in the corporate environment and how different methods of thinking can help to evolve new and better kinds of people.

I found this book an interesting read and a nice learned journey through how talent is earned and achieved. It’s interesting for anyone who wants to know more about talent and where it comes from.

If you would like to get hold of a copy of this book it is available through Amazon.co.uk - Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin

One of the most useful firefox addons I have used, and one which I use frequently when designing and developing websites is FireShot. It is especially useful when creating screenshots and measuring existing website dimensions when doing re-designs.

The main functions available with the free version of the program enable users to capture a temporary image version of a website and copy to clipboard, save as an image, or even email and print the output.

To use the website dimensions tool, install the addon into your Firefox browser. Then click the “Edit Capture” button which appears in the lower right hand corner of the browser window. This opens up an external editor which can be used to simply drag out a box and measure various parts of your website, or another website without having to use an external editor like Adobe Photoshop.

FireShot is also available for Internet Explorer.

It’s always struck me as strange, that the colours of the orange juice in ASDA seem to like being a little different. They used to be green, but recently they have decided to change the packaging to a predominantly blue colour (it is blue. picture is off colour). Now is it just me, or does this go against some sort of industry standard of orange juice being orange? And if there isn’t one, can one be invented?

I recently purchased a new Samsung SyncMaster T220 monitor. It’s a significant size and resolution enhancement over my laptop screen. An increase from 15.4″ to 22″ is quite a large jump, and very refreshing.

I was intrigued by two of the warning icons on the plastic software CD packaging. What looks like a baby and an adult with the plastic bag over their heads and choking. I quite like them because they are simple, effective and quite fun even though the message is strong and important.q2feakbnzq

I went to see Objectified the movie on Saturday at The Barbican. The film is directed by Gary Hustwit and about the relationship we have with all of the objects around us, all of which have been designed. The film takes a look at the world’s objects through various interviews with Designers, the people who originally conceive the idea and turn it into reality.

The film was at The Barbican and as I hadn’t been there before I made the mistake of presuming it would be similar to a normal cinema. I am usually careful to pick a seat about 3/4 the way from the screen and near the middle. This is so I can see the large screen and hear the sound in the best possible way. Of course, having a cinema within the Barbican Estate would of course pose limitations on height etc. The cinema is actually long and shallow (with a large possibility of someones head being in your way) so for future reference, Cimena 2 on Level 4 has an optimum seat position of only a few rows from the front.

The documentary is very interesting and offers designers and design fans a chance to see interviews with a few of the big names of the industrial world. Jonathan Ive, who rarely makes a public appearance in the UK, can be seen to explain many of the design features of the aluminium shell of the Macbook Air, iMac and Apple Keyboard and get rather lost in the process of explaining the rationale behind it. For designers it’s a chance to see the people who they have read and heard so much about actually talking about what they have made. For non-designers it’s a chance to see into a world constantly asking questions.

The film covers many different topics, but conveys the obsession that Designers have with their products very well. The film is a pleasure to watch, learning and understanding a little bit more about the designers and their products who are so well known through modern culture. Unfortunately I missed getting tickets for the London Premiere event with after show Q&A, which would have been a good chance to ask some interesting questions.

For now, we’ll just have to continue asking why.

It was nice to see the LC-A (Lomo Kompakt Automat) on the poster too!