Digitally Refreshing

The deadlines were tight and the learning curve was steep, very steep, but all in all, the experience was fun and fascinating.

I can certainly say that designing for the iPad is probably the closest I’ve come to designing physical products, which was really what I always wanted to design, studying Industrial Product Design at Coventry Uni.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that I had complete control over the presentation – nothing could let me down – no dreaded IE6 (or IE anything for that matter), bandwidth issues, resolution differences, colour variations, the list goes on …

The PruHealth Quote and Apply app is (obviously) a quote and apply app which allows PruHealth insurance brokers to quote in real-time, explain the product and even complete an application on the spot.

The app includes:

• Individual and SME quoting
• Hospital finder based on your current GPS location
• Email, save and retrieve quote
• Apply through the app for Individual quoting
• PruHealth product content

Open up iTunes and search for PruHealth. You can download the app, but you will need a username and password to be able to use it.

The newly branded PruHealth website, in conjunction with a product launch went live yesterday.

The PruHealth brand went through a subtle colour restructure and evolution. I wanted to carry this through to our online space, which was used to reflect different areas of the business: Individuals, Employers, Advisers and Providers.

Taking advantage of some of the simple look and feel benefits of CSS3, I was able to add rounded borders with much less HTML than I was using before. The site works as it should in all modern browsers, and degrades gracefully for IE6. Where possible I’ve added IE6, 7 and 8 specific styles to mimic other styles such as CSS3 gradients.

I take a lot of photos, some of it I sell here, here and here, but quite a few shots never make it onto these sites because they’re not seen as proper stock.

So, in stead of letting them gather dust on my hard drive I thought ‘why not create a gallery of images that have been resized for Android desktops?’

In fact any mobile device or smaller resolution desktop screen could make use of these images, so please help yourself to a few. Visit androidartwork.com

Okay, last time I said I would build a new Ubuntu nature wallpaper using the GIMP, on my Ubuntu box. But I couldn’t find the time to get back in to the swing of it, so I used Photoshop instead. Hope you don’t mind!

Download this wallpaper now.

I’ve opted for a more natural look this time, a slight departure from my previous Wooden themed Ubuntu wallpaper.

I created a site for my photography called matthewbowden.com, if you’re using Firefox 3.5 or Safari you’ll see the wonders of the CSS3 @font-face rule. More browsers need to step up, come on Chrome!

I also make use of PNGs (this is old news though) so I can swap out my background image easily.

I can’t take credit for the workings of the POP-ups though, this is all down to Highslide JS. Highslide was great for usability but not so for Google Analytics. I won’t bore you with the details here but I struggled to get the onClick tracking for the thumbnails. So have resorted to using onmouseup to track clicks and onclick to launch the POP-ups. It’s not ideal as I still need to work out how to track when someone uses the left / right controlls. But the way it’s set up now I can tell that the image I’ve used at the top of this post is the most popular.

Next step, get random background images to load up behind the thumbnails.

Completed another great site with the help of Ron Olivier down in South Africa.

Esias & Esra Bosch’s work really appealed to me, and I suggest you have a look around for yourself!
Esra Bosch is a ceramicist known countrywide for her attractive range of individual and functional ware. Her work reveals excellent decorator skills, flair for colour and an impressive sense of pattern. Esra’s dedication to her craft spills over into her surroundings, and she has created a warm, welcoming atmosphere in the studio where her ceramics are exhibited. The Bosch Studio – which bears the inimitable stamp of her father, celebrated artist Esias Bosch – has been a sought after destination for lovers of ceramics and art for some fifty years. Personal attention to customers has become synonymous with the studio, so that visitors return to it time and again when they visit the Mpumalanga Lowveld.

Here you go, please take a look at my first natural wood style Ubuntu wallpaper. I’ve only built it at one size for now, which is: 1440 x 900. If you’d like any other sizes I’ll gladly make – just write down what you need on this blog post.

Update: New! Ubuntu nature wallpaper

Spice Lumb is an event production and design company, producing very creative bespoke events since 1997, winning awards along the way. The company deals with all aspects of staging a successful event from venue finding, concept and production, set design and art direction, show production, live entertainment, creative consultancy and catering.

So, they needed a website which reflected that! I worked closely with Hattie who supplied a great deal of the graphics as she wanted to ensure that her style was carried throughout the site.

www.spicelumb.com is a great example of a keen and involved client working directly with a designer to produce a fantastic experience.

I arrived in Vegas a few days before the MIX09 conference so I could revisit my birth country (my family and I left when I was 9) and take in a few of the sites.

Sunday was spent on an Adventure Photo Tour which was a great sightseeing opportunity but hardly a ‘Photo’ tour as the website suggests. Pitching up with my Canon 5D and tripod must have seemed odd to the camera-phone wielding group. I charming couple even asked me how to switch off the flash on their automatic so it wouldn’t startle the helicopter pilot.

Monday and Tuesday were really exploratory days. Me, with camera, on foot. The sun was out and it was hot, I mean really hot, so my bar stops were many and quite frequent. This obviously took it’s toll on me and I spent the rest of the week alcohol free. Probably a good thing as then I could focus on MIX09!

The conference

Watched a great opening presentation, setting the pace and excitement for the next three days. I especially liked Bill Buxton and all his energy. Stack Overflow (a bit like a Yahoo! answers for programmers) is technically great and a fab resource too. Netflix showed just how good Silverlight can be. And if you’re still not convinced take a look at the Rolling Stone back issues site (not live yet). Great design and love the way it feels.

See Expression Blend in action, from concept to production. Need too many words to explain, so just watch.

At the end of a long day I attended the launch party at TAO, where I met some great people – mostly Microsoft partners, all out to have a good time and talk about technology.

Friday was probably my favourite day. This was down to fascinating presentations by Luke Wrobleski (I even bought his book) – Web form design and Dan Roam – The way of the whiteboard.

Both sessions were packed full of great ideas and examples that I can bring back to PruHealth and PruProtect and implement on our sites.

Overall the conference was great, the venue fantastic and the people, both presenters and attendees friendly and interesting. I’ll definitely pester my boss for the budget to go again next year!

And finally, a big thanks to Conchango for inviting me!

Further reading and viewing:
A list of all speakers

Check out some photos taken at MIX09

I’ve been editing PruHealth (the company I work for) profiles on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn today. Although certainly not the first company to publish themselves onto popular social networking platforms – it’s certainly the first time I get to see what’s going to happen behind the scenes.

I’ll be looking out for:

• who joins the group, just employees?
• whether or not this becomes a platform for people to complain about or praise what we do
• suggestions around how to improve our product
• referring traffic from Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn to our site

I’ll keep this post updated with anything interesting that I find, which I can share with you.