This year was no different. Amongst all the speakers a few really stood out and definitely got me inspired to get out the old pencil and paper, or wacom and photoshop these days.

Frankie Magazine
http://www.frankie.com.au/
Although not exactly my sort of magazine, it was wonderful to hear from the editor Louise on how a small idea she had with friend/collague Lara turned into a hugely successful magazine. How they disregarded certain magazine rules (like never use green on the cover?) and the journey the magazine has taken and how it has still kept strong to their original idea. They even had the cutest little cook book “Afternoon Tea” plus a new version “Sweet Treats”. Beautiful work.

Travis Millard & Mel Kadel
http://www.fudgefactorycomics.com/, http://www.melkadel.com/
Absolute classics! Funniest speakers on the Friday. When one of the speakers starts by snapping open a six-pack of beers you know you are in for something interesting. This couple from LA are well known artists who talked about their love of drawing from an early age and how over the years found themselves always drawn back to illustration and were able to find a market for their passion. From a personal point, I loved the studio they had set up at their home, it seems all they do is draw all day and they have paper and art supplies strewn all over their house (or treehouse as they called it).

Ashley Gilbertson
http://www.ashleygilbertson.com/
The final speaker on the Friday and what a way to end off. A photo-journalist who has focused on the war in Iraq since 2002. From the way he spoke about his time there you could see how much it had affected him and how much emotion and passion he had invested into his work. He mentioned a story of one soldier who had given his life to save his whilst on assignment which is something that is really hard to grasp when you spend each day in an air-conditioned office. He spoke of the soldiers he met and worked with in the highest regard and felt that the general public doesn’t understand or respect the sacrifices these young man and women face and it was this that lead him to do a series of work detailing the rooms of dead soldiers back home. From each photo you could pick up so much about each soldier’s life and the collection was extremely emotional. Truly inspiring work.

Although all the speakers had their own style of presentation, one thing was clear. They all have a huge passion for what they do and even if the work was not to your taste it was hard not to walk out of there inspired. Unfortunately I couldn’t make Saturday, but heard from others that it was well worth going(there was free t-shirts, DAMM!).

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and start setting up my new studio

Project objectives

1. Redesign the BigPond Kids website in a more energetic and engaging way
2. Showcase other BigPond content such as games, music, movies, TV, mobile and sport
3. Provide an experience that makes kids return again and again
4. Create an environment where 3rd party content can be integrated seamlessly

Bullseye’s approach and solution

INTERACTIVE
Using elements from video game interfaces

ENGAGING
Create an experience kids will continue to use

MODULAR
Our design is both interesting and easy to publish

FLEXIBILE
Allows customisation (for kids and advertisers) further down the track

Results

Following the BigPond Kids relaunch in April, unique visitors had grown by 264% compared to March. Three months on, the cumulative growth in unique visitors is  394%.

BigPond asked what kids thought of the new site.  Here were some of the responses.

‘This site is the best most awesome site I have ever gone on you can go on comps sports and awesome games!!!!!!! MADDEST WEBSITE EVER!!!!’

‘The new BigPond kid’s website is fantastic, it’s way cooler than the previous website. This is more interactive and has got a nice look to it.’

‘This site is awesome – just discovered it and have told my friends about it also. Can’t wait to get home everyday to see what’s new.’

BigPond Kids home page

http://www.touchey.com/blog/2009/3/6/2009-logo-trends.html

And another showing beautifully illustrated & grungy websites…these sites look fantastic but there is debate about how user friendly they are. Packed with bright colours, users might find it difficult to pinpoint where they need to go and the price of beauty is often a lengthy site load time. But they still look damn good! Make up your own mind at:

http://www.touchey.com/blog/2009/3/8/30-beautifully-illustrated-grungy-websites.html

Touchey is a good place to stop off for when looking at current design trends across the world.

What is your most secret wish? To save the world, become a famous writer or to have another wish? It’s time to make wishes come true. Here is an award winning flash experience site with games and special features created by 2Fresh.

Beautifully crafted fullscreen goodness. Lots of added extras and surprises to keep the user engaged.  A nice use of After Effects for button rollovers makes the experience just that extra bit touchy feely!  Even though this site is rich in content it seems to function relatively smoothly.  However my machine is half decent, so I wouldn’t mind finding out how it performs on something with less grunt… or even a Mac.

Visit the site here: http://www.o2vanoce.cz/eng

Me likes!

Who said the banner is dead? I know some creative’s who would love to see it dead, come to think about it so would many viewers, but handled properly and your message targeted to the most relevant customer then you get traction.

Take this little number from Nike although it’s in a 300 x 250 banner they’ve managed to cram a whole mirco site in there, I spent around 5 minutes on the ’site’  (honest, I checked on my Nike watch) I checked out the range the styling, I could even buy the product at this point, now that’s pretty impressive, I got the whole Nike experience in a single banner ad, I also like the fact that the experience comes to the viewer and you don’t have to leave the comfort of your browser unless of course you want to buy and that’s exactly what I did, strong creative, that’s target specific that sells product. Long live the banner.

The widget is now on both the Victoria Premier’s home page as well as John Brumby’s (Vic Premier) facebook profile

Over recent weeks it was also  placed on other Victorian Government sites, providing good visibility of the bushfires as well as helping to increase donations to the Red Cross.

If you would like to place the widget on your Facebook profile page.. follow this link

Here are some key events from 10 years ago in 1999
- Mark Taylor was the 1999 Australian of the year
- Companies spent millions protecting themselves from the Y2K bug
- Google moved from their garage to their first office with a search market share of < %1
- George Bush criticised President Clinton on Kosovo saying “We need an exit strategy before going to war”

Dial-up connectivity was what we used for internet connectivity, making “doing internet” a task that was performed daily or weekly.

The latest ABS statistics, show that at June 20008 we had 7.23 million internet subscribers which according to Neilson figures reflect that 16.3 million Australians are online or about 80% of the population.

4.3 million Australians now use Facebook or 25% of the internet population.

Consuming media online 13.7 hours / week in March 2008 surpassed out weekly TV usage, at 13.3 hours  according to Neilsen.

From modest beginnings, blog growth continues with an estimated 440,000 bloggers in Australia.

We are indeed well and truly living in the Digital age, with historical information and events now readily available for consumption, such as this historical coverage of Australia Day.

Whilst Australia has a diverse range of cultures, I think we are becoming more nationalistic.  10 years ago it wasn’t that common to see Australia flags, and now it seems we are proud to show them, with temporary Australian tattoos helping the national expression.The Australia Day Facebook page, launched last year has an impressive 52K fans.

Embracing online content this year, the Australia Day organisation is running an Advance Australia Dare campaign – a consumer generated video contest inviting people to submit videos of themselves. You can even find some great BBQ or  Australia day recipes online.

The digital age has certainly changed things, even radically changing the way governments interact with citizens.  Getup.org in Australia is on

e such example which has over 300K members.  Not only do we celebrate Australia Day this week, but globally change is upon us with the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

There are lots of Australia Day events, which will generate there own digital memories.

I trust you enjoy your Australia Day,

Ian Farmer