Archive for the ‘Making Life Easier’ Category

We stumbled across “Ecofont” the other day. It’s a program that adds holes to a system font such as Arial, Verdana and Times New Roman, and prints them out as if they have been involved in a shootout at the OK Corral. They don’t lose their form, just use less ink to make up the inner shapes. And because it’s been designed to work on regular body text sizes, their website claims it saves up to 50% ink consumption.

We certainly like the idea, especially if it goes a little way to saving the planet. Although, maybe we should simply write and print less…

Even though the nights are getting darker and colder we are trying to keep things cheery in Masters Allen by brightening the place up. We are very fortunate to work in a lovely setting here at Swithland Hall but wanted to add some additional creative stimulus for ourselves and visiting clients.

With that in mind we thought some inspiration from Abraham Games would go down a storm. We’ve added several pictures around the halls which add colour, interest and an insider view into what makes us tick!

The newly launched decision making engine hunch.com has already helped some of us here solve a few long standing personal dilemmas! The site helps visitors make decisions based on how they answer questions from user created data. Hunch claims you only need to answer 10 sample questions for it to start delivering customised recommendations. It also functions as a social networking site, allowing you to follow other users and topics to see how they evolve.

There is an algorithm running in the background that learns more about your personality as you use the site. First, it tries to find a question which will discriminate well among the remaining possible decision outcomes for you – thus filtering the remaining choices from ‘many’ to ‘fewer’. Second, the algorithm looks for a question which can help optimise and rank the remaining decision results to present you with the ones you’ll like the most. It’s trying to ensure that you’ll like outcome number 1 better than outcome number 5. Basically, Hunch utilises information that it knows about you to improve the relevancy of results.

Although not really based on personality, and more of a troubleshooting question, the example below answers that age old question…

Obviously, steps have been removed in getting to the result,
but… it looks like it might be Bakelite!

Will the newly launched Wolfram Alfa search engine change the way we use the web, just as Google has done. Or will it just be another search engine that will disappear without trace?

We hope it’s the former. We use Google everyday and find it an essential tool for our business. But, it’s always good news when someone like the British-born physicist Stephen Wolfram comes along and potentially changes the way the masses think and use the internet. Google managed to do it, so why not Wolfram?

Wolfram Alpha is a computation knowledge engine rather than a typical search engine. The idea is to give users direct answers to their questions rather than send them to other sites where they may find what they are seeking.

It was unveiled in April and has been publicly demonstrated with some people having had a chance to run queries through it. Typically the results it returns are annotated pages of data rather than a simple list of other sites that might help resolve a user’s question.

For example, if you asked what the tallest building was in the world, it would come back with a result for the top 5 tallest building names, their height and number of floors. It can also handle complicated mathematical queries, plot statistics and produce charts of natural events.

It’s currently very American-centric with its results, but that’s to be expected at this early stage. As for ease of use, it seems very intuitive with simple prompts and search tips.

Let’s hope it becomes a successful tool.

www.wolframalpha.com

For the full story, visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8052798.stm

While society tends to become more complicated, brands seem to become simpler. Whether this is because of changes in taste, or the increasing pace of life, which makes fast identification essential, it seems that design and corporate professionals increasingly recognise that simplicity is a virtue, and that sometimes less is more.

If a brands’ conception has elements that hinder communication overtime without adding anything useful, these elements will eventually be removed for simplicity.

The link below has examples of some of the worlds most recognised brands, showing their design journey from birth. You may even be surprised by the changes over the years.

http://best-ad.blogspot.com/2008/08/evolution-of-logos.html

Taking care of your business as times get hard is not just about marketing your business more effectively, although this is of course one of the most positive things to do.

We came across an article in Design Week recently that we thought summed up some other useful tips that, although we all know are logical and almost already assumed to be taken care of, quite often don’t get a mention at the top level, so here they are:

1. Communication – make sure your clients know your financial position and that things are under control.
2. Admin – keep on top of expenses and invoices and keep your bank informed at every step of the way.
3. Work – efficiency and quality. There are many people out there who are letting down their customers. By keeping them happy they’ll come back to you and recommend you further.

In case you’re wondering our finances are nicely under control and everything is tickety-boo!

Have you noticed the increasing amount of 0870 numbers that are popping up?

Most of us will have committed to a phone contract that includes an allocation of free minutes to other mobiles or landlines. What we find really annoying is that these so called Premium or Lo-call numbers are excluded from any inclusive minutes that you may have. So more often that not, you end up with a bill at the end of the month for more than you expected. Not only are you charged an extra rate, but the company you are calling makes money from your call. This is especially annoying when waiting in a queuing system or when you are on hold.

Well, there is a solution. saynoto0870.com gives you the opportunity to enter the 0870 number and will than provide you with an alternative number (i.e. those beginning with 01 or 02) which will bring you straight through to the same number.

The search can extend to 0844, 0845 and 0871 numbers, giving you the opportunity to save
more money.

We would like to point out that it’s not always successful (or very well presented), but more often than not, it will provide an alternative number giving you a sense of enormous well-being!!