92 posts tagged “design”

Following on from an earlier post about opening titles, here’s a quick examination of how things change when shows are remade.
   First up, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), with the original titles by Chambers & Partners and music by Edwin Astley:

Disqus is the latest site I managed to find a bug with (sigh).
   I have tried to upload an avatar to it. Now, I am pretty sure I had my photo set in Disqus a long time ago, but the site seems to have forgotten that setting and put me on to the default.
   Not a problem: let’s try reloading one.

Based on my experience, getting to this screen is a 2 in 4 chance. But that’s all right: maybe we can put the two failed attempts down to timeouts and other internet issues. I’ve now highlighted the part which I want on my avatar. I click ‘Save changes’.
   There is a 2 in 7 chance that I will get to the next screen, which confirms that the photo is saved. (The other five times, I was taken back to the screen that I had before this, with the old avatar in place. Reloads would not change it.) But on those two times, what’s happened? Did I ask Disqus to squash the photograph?    I don’t know how these websites work. I suspect there is a magic Harry Potteresque sequence of words I have to mumble while drinking spirulina to get the photograph right, which I utter while pressing the ‘Save changes’ button with my little right toe.
   Friends joke that I have a Frank Spencer reaction to computing (and I encourage the jokes, because I find it funny). But I also argue that I am doing what everyone else is doing, but that the sites themselves are imperfect and untested. The difference is I am less willing to tolerate it when websites go buggy, and I expose the errors. (I know our own sites are imperfect, too, but at least we believe people when they alert us.) And since support staff no longer listen to complaints (note: I have not told Disqus of this error yet but their instruction page is a bit hopeless), I use blogging to vent.

You just have to admire some ad creatives. There are some ads that aren’t particularly relevant which come in through the networks, but this one on Lucire’s website is very entertaining:

You do not expect to see an Iso Fidia in New Zealand—one of the 192 the company made. This is a 1970 model that I spotted earlier today in Christchurch, in incredibly good condition. I am not sure if I have ever seen one of the Iso Rivolta supercars before—if I have, it would only have been in a museum—so to see one in everyday use was a real privilege. The registration is from 1980, which suggests it was imported at some expense by a wealthy owner that year.
   Naturally it now has its own Autocade entry, with one of these as the illustration.

Someone has a beautiful 1963 Ford Falcon in Christchurch. This station wagon was beautifully restored, but also appeared to be now in daily use.

   I love the brightwork on this—this was a lovely American design before things got too gaudy at the end of the decade. This particular Falcon was, of course, an Australian model, possibly assembled in New Zealand.

I have to give props to the developers of the Mimbo skin for Wordpress—it’s a very good one that takes into account the needs of bloggers. Below is one of the sites we’ve been building—it’s not ready for prime-time yet, as it doesn’t have enough entries or contributors at this point. Mimbo needed little customization and we were able to make it look more distinctive than the out-of-the-box version.
   Prior to that, we were trying a German skin called Overstand, which was quite good in appearance, but not as easy to use. That might have been down to the language barrier. Mimbo seems to use the Wordpress features better and from what I could tell of the coding, is more logically structured.

I attended the opening of Formula 1: the Great Design Race at Te Papa Tongarewa, National Museum of New Zealand, last night. The highlight was meeting Chris Amon, whom to most New Zealanders is a living legend, and one of the great race car drivers of all time. I also met Jan McLaren, sister of Bruce McLaren, and the only person whom I have spoken to in New Zealand who knows about Peter Kaus’s Rosso Bianco collection in Aschaffenburg, Germany.
   One downer was having to offer a prayer for Dr Seddon Bennington, CEO of Te Papa, who was missing on a trek at the time (he has since been found dead). (As a clarification: praying is not a downer, but the fact that Dr Bennington was missing was.)
   You do not need to be a car nut to enjoy this exhibition: the Formula 1 vehicles on display are works of art, and I imagine that we enthusiasts simply are able to appreciate them more than the average museumgoer—in the same way a connoisseur of fine wine will know more about his subject than I do.
   The designers of the McLarens, Ferrari, Cooper, BRM and other models on display have provided them with either a sense of purity or aggression. And there are other treasures there, including the helmets that were worn by New Zealand’s most celebrated drivers, Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Chris Amon.

Someone at Jaguar’s ad agency in London sent me a link to this today: an interview with Jaguar design boss, Ian Callum, on the next XJ saloon.

This may well be the most anticipated saloon launch this year. I can’t wait to see what the new car looks like, especially as it will be very different to the Arthur Daley–John Prescott type.

Here are the photographs from the BMW launch on Thursday night, to which Devin, Natalie and I went.