Posts written by Gavin Shinfield
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A tasty new client for Kyan
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on February 11, 2010
We are pleased to announce that we will be working with local firm Squires Group on their International Kitchen Schools website.
Squires are a forward-thinking company with a great understanding of how the Web can compliment and augment traditional marketing channels as well as streamline internal business processes. We look forward to working together on this and hopefully several other upcoming projects.
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MMIX mix — So long 2009
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on December 31, 2009
Well, here we are, last throes of listmas and just time to publish the annual Kyan Festive 50. It’s been a great year for music, bring on 2010.
So, without further ado here are some of the tunes/tracks/jams (delete as per your sensibilitites) that have gained heavy rotation on the office jukebox over the last year.
In some, but no particular, order …
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New cards for Christmas
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on December 16, 2009
Our new coloured stock business cards with white foil-blocking arrived today. Blue is the new black.
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Freezing fingers, the solution
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on December 01, 2009
So, we’re all addicted to handheld touch-screen technology here at Kyan, but now that the weather’s on the turn we’ve got a problem on our hands (literally) — you can’t use your iPhone whilst wearing gloves. Or can you?
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Antique browser still has 25% market share
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on October 02, 2009
Unbeliveably, Internet Explorer 6 (IE6 — released August 2001) still has 25% market share according to Net Applications (via Mashable). Come on people, this thing is 8 years old, that’s antique in internet years.
Are you one of the refuseniks? Upgrades to good, Standards-compliant browsers are free and will greatly improve your online experience: Firefox 3 or Google chrome or IE8
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Random Typography Spot:
No. 03Posted by Gavin Shinfield on May 22, 2009
Oh err… My local Post Office (Guildford High Street) has come over all touchy-feely. You no longer have to queue up, you take a delicatessan style ticket and relax on the red faux-leather banquette sofas. The good Burghers of Guildford however still prefer to form an orderly line unencumbered by bollards — Gawd bless ‘em.
To go alongside this new customer experience the PO designers have left their traditional typographic shackles behind and opted to use Chevin Bold, a cracking little font from Nick Cooke’s G-Type collection, available from purveyors of fine typefaces Font Shop
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Lego vs Frank Lloyd Wright
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on May 21, 2009
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Random Typography Spot:
No. 02Posted by Gavin Shinfield on February 24, 2009
Old enamel signage spotted in Guildford the other day. They don’t make ‘em like this any more… I love these old gothic faces, somewhere between Gill humanism and Futura style accuracy.
Note the juxtaposition with the ‘tasteful’ incised house number. Street furniture needs a little TLC.
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I love lamp
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on January 20, 2009
On Jan 13 the Royal Mail issued a new set of commemerative stamps celebrating British design classics.
You can see the full set here: Royal Mail British Design Stamps
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Follow the Free, Chris Anderson on Radio 4
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on January 08, 2009
OK, so I listen to too much Radio 4, I can’t help it. But every so often they really come up with the goods, like this week’s In Business which has an interview with Wired editor in chief Chris Anderson.
Really worth a listen to anyone interested in the changing economic oportunities provided by the developing Web, copyright issues (good input from Creative Commons chair James Boyle) and the importance of Open Source and other ‘for free’ business models.
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Random Typography Spot:
No. 01Posted by Gavin Shinfield on January 08, 2009
This odd choice of typeface drew my attention when walking over the Hungerford Brige recently. I wonder what the designer was thinking when they opted for this somewhat incongrous font style?
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Kyan Jukebox Festive 50 2008
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on December 13, 2008
Alright pop pickers? Not ‘arf!
Well, it’s that time of year again, best of 2008 lists abound so I thought I’d put together some of the top tracks to be rocking the Kyan jukebox from this year’s releases and now that Saint John no longer graces our airwaves the top 50 tracks seemed like a fitting tribute to the great man.
So, in no particular order…
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Say no to ugly widows &ndash
Widon't for the massesPosted by Gavin Shinfield on November 11, 2008
OK, this may sound a bit funny and it may be considered over-attention to detail, but it can really spoil a design and potentially hamper reading when a headline doesn’t quite fit on a single line and leaves you with one word hanging underneath. That’s what we mean by a 'widow'.
This is particularly relevant to newspaper sites or blogs where the headline may form a central feature to the look of a whole page. It’s not just headlines though, even in body copy widows are generally considered poor style and should be avoided. But how to control them in a content-managed site? Luckily for those of us that worry about such things there’s Widon’t.
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iPhone lowdown - Do we believe the hype?
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on August 19, 2008
So I’ve been using my ‘breakthrough mobile internet device’ for about a week now. Does it live up to expectations? -
3G iPhones: They're he-re...
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on August 11, 2008
Our long awaited iPhones arrived on Friday.
The phones arrived with blank O2 SIMs that had to be activated, for my part (because I was porting my old number from Voda) this meant waiting over the weekend.
So, after a frustrating 72hrs of having a non-working iPhone the device finally started working at lunchtime today.
We’ll let you know how we get on…
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Boxwish - Cool stuff you saw at the movies
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on July 23, 2008
We are proud to announce the launch of boxwish.com — ‘The world’s first movie inspiration site’.
Tim and the rest of Team Boxwish have been working really hard to find all of the cool things you saw at the movies, but the real driver behind Boxwish is the user generated content, it’s a community site after all.
So get involved — sign up, and get Spotting!
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New iPhones for all
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on July 04, 2008
When the last iPhone was released it was a bit lacklustre as far as I was concerned. No 3G, no GPS, small memory, too expensive… Now Apple have fixed all of these shortcomings we figured it was time to jump onboard with the ‘breakthrough internet device’. In fact we decided to follow Carson’s lead and get them for everyone in the office.
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Go Ape! The Return of Webmonkey
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on June 15, 2008
It’s good to see you back! Wired network have resurrected every web designer’s fave resource and tutorial site Webmonkey.com
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Type on the Web: Don't fight it, feel it.
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on May 06, 2008
One perennial web design issue that continues to vex and frustrate designers and clients alike is the limited number of typefaces available for text when set in HTML (i.e. without resorting to images or Flash).
But please don’t struggle against the tide. Go with the flow.
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Size matters (again!)
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on December 19, 2007
Well it must be Christmas because the parcels are flowing thick and fast through Kyan Towers. Our nice postie left a particularly sweet little package on my desk the other day
in the shape of the tiny new sub-notebook from Asus, dubbed somewhat peculiarly the eeePC. -
Raffle.it goes live
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on November 23, 2007
It’s live! We have launched a brand new reverse raffle website with our friends over at Raffle.it (raffle.it)
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The tyranny of the new (file format)
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on August 17, 2007
So, all geared up with your bright shiny new Adobe CS3 and Word 2007 then? Buyer beware, new is not necessarily better, especially if you plan to share your documents with other users.
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Shake Shack NYC
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on August 08, 2007
Feeling hungry? Get down to Shake Shack, the architecturally significant burger joint …
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More widgets: SpringWidgets.com
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on August 03, 2007
Got RSS? Turn it into a widget.
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'Font Font' FontBook
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on August 03, 2007
The ‘Font Font’ foundry reference book is back …
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Last FM widget
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on July 21, 2007
Ok, so this post is really just an excuse for me to try out the last.fm playlist widget.
Pretty soon we hope to be working on some music sharing widget technology with our friends Carbon Logic, if you haven’t checked out their site yet it’s really worth a look, and it’s free!
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My new chair
Posted by Gavin Shinfield on July 06, 2007
I’ve been suffering a bit lately. Following hours of being hunched over infuriating flatpack furniture, on my hands and knees searching for tiny bits of dowelling I sustained an Ikea-related injury to my lower back.
