So. You’ve picked the music, pre-selected your outfit for the occassion and asked everyone to be happy and to ‘celebrate’ your death. Then you turn up in a mahogony box with brass fittings… so last year darling!!!
This article on the BBC website just goes go prove that there is a place for design even where you least expect it. I find this refreshing for 2 reasons. Firstly it provides an opportunity for humour to be introduced into what is always regarded as a sombre occasion. As much as many request it in their dying wishes, when did you last go to a funeral where everyone ‘did’ have a good laugh?
Secondly, I love the fact that we have created ourselves yet another medium for design. As an agency, this might not necessarily be a service we would usually offer but it proves yet again that there is a demand for creativity and people place a value on it. It also proves yet again that design is about telling a good story. I love the idea of designing a coffin showing someone holding a piece of paper saying ‘For christ sakes let me out… I’m not dead’. That lasting story/memory of ‘Fred Bloggs’ in the box is that he had a sense of humour, and that was delivered by design.
A custom category consisting of the 100 most visited Google-owned web properties in the UK accounted for 36.55% of upstream traffic to All Categories of websites in the UK during March 2008, up from 30.19% in March 2007.
Considering the domination of Google in the UK, the recent trademark changes to Google Adwords, could seriously damage traffic levels to brand websites, he goes on to discuss.
Wowsers… interesting developments on Google image search over at Techcrunch:
Google is now talking about using computers to analyze the stuff in photos, and using that to associate it in a ranked way with keyword queries. In effect, they’re talking about PageRank for images.
I loaded Google custom search engine on The Escape website in March - why not use the best in the business? Business edition starts at $100 per year, so for just £50 per year you can include a killer search facility on your own website.
Not only does custom search improve the user experience but if you integrate it with your analytics account, you can analyse what people have been searching for to further improve your site…
Stumbleupon is a great utility and I’ve stumbled across many a great website by using it. It’s also a great tool for the odd submission of some of your quality content for some short bursts of traffic that can start the whole permission thing for your marketing.
This video explains something that I find myself trying to explain to customers with websites, their hosting and their country audience… Over to Susan Moskwa of Google.
Do vertical markets play a large part in your business marketing online? Perhaps you are interested in how you can leverage your specialist skills to your advantage for marketing?
Next time you find yourself saying that social media won’t work for your business, you may be interested in these stats via NMA.
They are taken from some research by Universal McCann into social media, surveying 17,000 people across 29 countries, including the US, UK, Brazil and Pakistan during March 2008. Highlights include:
59% of internet users worldwide view at least one video clip every week
73% of internet users have read blogs while 48% read blogs every week
83% of internet users watch video clips, up from 62% in 2007
Podcasts are listened to by 48% of internet users
57% of respondents said they are a member of a social network
If you don’t start talking, sharing and collaborating online, perhaps your customers themselves will. And, perhaps your competitors will join in too.
Other findings include that 31% of respondents have started a blog themselves. Maybe one of those is already talking about you?
Could it be that UK coinage is getting a tad modern?
As much as people love to cling onto the past, especially when a nation’s identity is at stake, I like the new coin designs from the Royal Mint. There’s something very ‘three lions’ about them.
The new designs were chosen from an open competition which attracted 4,000 entries. The winning designer is 26-year-old Matthew Dent, originally from Bangor who now lives and works in London as a graphic designer
