
With a week before the Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicks off, I was impressed with my self that I had managed to hold off from putting up an article about the speculation around new features in the forthcoming version of iOS.
I had engaged in some speculation, yes. I pulled a little prank on Twitter a few weeks back, claiming to have a ‘leaked’ image of iOS7′s flat design.
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This post was written by Mark Thomson
Monday, June 3rd, 2013
A friend of mine sent me a message yesterday which happened to have the attached picture.
My old business card from my university days. The brief was to only use one colour and then tints.
That was about 7 years ago when single colour prints was a lot cheaper than full colour.
This post was written by Mark Thomson
Thursday, March 21st, 2013

Looking at how Apple’s designers evolve a product is something we’ve not seen before in this detail.
There has always been a mystery around Apple and it’s products and not matter how much that has slipped in recent years, knowing what they are up to and how they are thinking eludes the best of us.
The current court case between Apple and Samsung is currently raging on, with some fairly damming info coming out about Samsung’s practices. But the most important thing that has come out for me thus far though, has to be the design documents from Apple.
The information that has been released is like looking in to the mind of a company. Steve Job’s gift to the world wasn’t one product, it was the company. So to be able to see how it forms its ideas and develops products is vastly important for anyone wanting to emulate that success.
As a designer, the information that is being brought to the public is rather familiar. It all starts with an idea. The concept is then feverishly sketched and developed. If it makes the cut, it get’s worked up digitally. Challenges and issues hold back other ideas as much as they drive others forwards. Then comes the prototype. Does it work? could it work? could it be better? Read More »
This post was written by Mark Thomson
Thursday, August 9th, 2012

New
Am I being unkind? Overly critical of a well established global manufacturer? Or is is the fact that the ‘New’ 911 has come along with some slight modification of the last two iterations and, it looks exactly the same. Seriously, look at them side by side…

Old
See what I mean? Now back to this overly critical aspect. It’s hard work designing high performance cars and selling them in volumes across the world. but perhaps I’d have a bit more of an understanding if it wasn’t for the fact that in the past 5 years Porsche have designed and put their efforts in to the following:
- Watches
- Hard Drives
- Mobile Phones
- Sleds
- Lighters
- Sunglasses
- Shoes
- Powerboats
- Powerdrills
- Pipes
- Cigar holders
- Shishas (More smoking paraphernalia)
- Pocket knifes
This is to name but a few things! My issue is not with the fact that they try different things, its how you stay fresh, but it seems that the creative efforts could produce more products like the 918 Spyder or the classic Carrera GT. If they did that, rather than make a 911 with 4 doors, or stretch a 911 up or just chop the roof off we may get an innovative automotive power house. Rather than a band playing that one song they know, to death.
This post was written by Mark Thomson
Sunday, September 25th, 2011
Lets hit the giant ‘WANT’ button shall we?
For thoughts not in the know, Pantone is the defacto colour reference system for print in the world. its a Universal for consitant (as possible – print is not an exact science people) colour in print works. and now, avlable in PEN FORM! Pens are firends.
These come in a rather large set and it has to be said that every colour from the range is not represented. There’s a good few thousand these days, but for rapid prototyping and design i can see a good use for having a small selection for building tone and experimenting with out the need for a digital excursion.
Hit the break for my true feelings about pens and a link to buy your own! Read More »
This post was written by Mark Thomson
Saturday, July 30th, 2011
Some times you see a screen shot of a website with a rather nice USP and you think, well done! Then you visit the site…
Somos Gulosos were launching a new chocolate stout and to go with the launch their digital agency agency came up with the idea of creating a chocolate website to publicise the launch. There’s that great idea.
So you move to step two, production! And that starts of very well. Have a gander at the embedded below to see a master chocolatier take the designs from the agency and create all the websites components in scrumptious chocolate!
Sagres Preta Chocolate from diografic on Vimeo.
And when it was all going so well, the agency flung in a social competition to win a bite of the website and a 6 pack. Great engagement for the brand and i hope that he company has sold a lot of beer that way.
Now to my issues
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This post was written by Mark Thomson
Monday, June 20th, 2011
Really nice little piece here from a rather talented fellow. Do your self a favors and have a peruse of Lunchbreath’s Flicker Stream for some design related gems!
[Source: Core77}
This post was written by Mark Thomson
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
No more posts :(