Inside-out Architecture

The Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, the British architect couple Richard Rogers and Su Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini, the British structural engineer Edmund Happold, and Irish structural engineer Peter Rice. It opened on 31 January 1977. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture.

Inside-out architecture was innovative in having its services such as staircases, lifts, electrical power conduits and water pipes on the outside, leaving an uncluttered space inside.


The Lloyd's Building, London, was designed by architect Richard Rogers and built between 1978 and 1986. Bovis was the management contractor for the scheme. Modular in plan, each floor can be altered with the addition or removal of partitions and walls.

Ispiration
Both buildings were inspired by the work of Archigram in the 1950s and '60s. Plug-in-City is a mega-structure with no buildings, just a massive framework into which dwellings in the form of cells or standardised components could be slotted. The machine had taken over and people were the raw material being processed, the difference being that people are meant to enjoy the experience.

Insomnia Festival 2010

Insomnia Festival 2010 Titles from Toxic on Vimeo.

This is just a little bit cool.

Eek! I hope I'm in the right profession....

Conclusion: "What the flock?" Campaign

I think this was a smart campaign but it does have a few faults:
- the online survey "dragging" selection didn't work so i could only choose 1%...- the poll for where you found out about What the Flock? only let you choose one answer...
- the Research section was "coming soon...", how many people will actually visit the website again to find out the research?
However it has definitely proved to be a successful campaign and it was great to see a completely new approach to getting students talking about a boring/embarrassing/taboo subject.

My predictions...

So maybe the Magpie brief wasn't set by the Magpie I thought it was going to be, but I had read, and blogged about the Smashing Magazine article that Charlotte the client was talking about!

Say It LOUD: The one that got away...

My first (developed) idea was a viral campaign of pranks played my designers at the office. The idea of "Serious fun!" captured the spirit of working in the design industry with particular emphasis on how designers must design responsibly and sustainably in order to help save the environment...

Fashion Websites Trends

The great thing about fashion websites is that they have a licence to do pretty much whatever they want. They are about getting the visitor to experience the band, not to give them ease of navigation through to masses of pages. This article on SmashingMagazine.com highlights the current trends.

Tim Burton's Official Website

Tim Burton's website is really fantastic. To navigate through the site you have to use your arrow keys to walk "Stain Boy" around mysterious rooms and corridors. You are given the option of walking into either the Public Gallery or the Private Gallery, where you have to enter your email address to get in. A smart move that really works, even if most of us have a "spam email account".

Although navigation with arrow keys is nothing new, it worked really well in this case as it gives the user a real sense of walking around a gallery in a mysterious, Alice in Wonderland style building.

One Week Brief: Say it LOUD! - My inspiration

Seeing as you can't paste a video into a creative log, I thought I'd post it on here...
Click here to see the documentary that inspired me.

What the flock? (...by Magpie?)

Walking through Hyde Park to uni on (I think) monday, I was inundated with black, corriflute sheep hanging from trees, standing in flocks and painted on the floor with the strap line, "What the flock?" Although I thought it was pretty cool, I also thought it was a bit of a wasted opportunity as by the time I had waded my way through all the "flocking" sheep everywhere I was pretty ready to hear what it was all about...nothing.

Well I walked into uni again on tuesday at about 5pm and there where 3 students holding a giant banner saying that this "What the flock?" thing would be launch on 10.10.10.

A few minutes ago I was wasting time on facebook... and I saw one of my friends was following this "what the flock" campaign, intrigued, I checked it out. This then lead my curiosity to click on the website link http://www.whattheflock.org.uk/.


I watched the little video which features students' reactions to a mystery question with the answer of "17".

Still intrigued to find out who was behind all of this, and being a bit of web geek, I checked out the source code of the site...

< name="author" content="Magpie Comms">

The agency we are about to receive a brief from, Magpie, seem to be involved in this crazy sheep campaign... well the brief is on the 8th Oct so we shall see what happens...!

About the website, I really like the design, it's very cute and appropriate for students. Students can share their impatience to find out what the flock it is all about on the message board and of course connect online through facebook and twitter. The only thing it lacks to me is a little favicon...but that's not a massive issue.