This is the Blog of Practically
A Lazy Canoe Trip Down the River
A wonderful day canoeing and larking about on the beautiful river Wye. Photos from the day...
Cheltenham Office gets a facelift
Wow – look at our building!
Git Repository Clean Up
After you have been developing a project for some time your local git repo becomes detached from the repository on ‘origin’. Having loads of local branches that are not needs because they have been merged in already. Or all of the remote branches that are no longer on the remote. There are a few commands you can run to clean things up a bit when you feel things are getting cluttered.
History of Porsche
The JBR Capital History of Porsche piece is a real peach of design and content. Just launched we hope it will become a little bit of viral history in its own right.
Our Partners Arobaze get a new site
With a little bit of help from our designers, and some of the photos we took from a trip, with Arobaze to the Cowes Festival of sailing.
Data is the new sugar? People are the new data, surely?
Essentially the article argues that we marketers are hooked on gathering data, which is true, but that this has become the end goal in many cases. In other words, like sugar, we are all addicted.
Ich Bin Eine Berliner
Sam was part of a week long trip to Berlin with the students from University of Worcester, visiting the many museums, studios and, er, pubs.
Goody Water Branding
A new Brand, identity and strategy for a fantastic product – A water filter like no other.
UCL EngINS.org, Live and kicking
The site (uclengins.org) has been live now for a few months, and is being used by students, academics and geeks everywhere.
Brand Research in an Exhibition
Our research work on brands is one of the finalists in an exhibition.
The Design Diamond
Simply stated this model we have created aims to convince design students and practitioners of the process of design.
HTML5 Banners for The FA
We have been busy creating a series of banners for The Football Association (The FA) to promote all sorts of things, from upcoming games to the joining of the supporters club. This has been a great opportunity to debate the pros and cons of the HTML5 Banner.
4 Playful Designs?
A student-led seminar for graphic design students on playful design. Here are our thoughts.
Adapt2 Digital Engagement Map
I have been privileged to be shown in person the Adapt2 DEM or Digital Engagement Map. I cannot emphasise how blown away I am by the progress made and how useful it would be.
Crystal Palace Vision
We have been helping out various parties with some strategic, high level creative thinking. The vision is of a sustainable, unified and supported Crystal Palace regeneration scheme, linking new and old activities in the most famous of London's parks. Exciting!...
Dr Men – Heroes and Heroines of Science
Designed as a set of Top Trumps, with 52 famous and infamous scientists from history.
Logos + Marks
A series of our own favourite logos from across the years.
Down Sizer Film Premiere
You are under review. Run.
Digital Brand Review on Medium
An explanation of the DIY version of the Digital Brand Review
Digital Brand Review goes Open Source
The Digital Brand Review is released under a creative commons licence.
Afri-Kokoa
Time for a new flyer set for Afri-Kokoa, but a reminder of the branding work we did last year. We thought we would share as its very different to a lot of the work we do and as a brand pretty much unique. We love emulating that African craft feel and learning about a...
True Story
We here have been doing a lot of navel searching just lately. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly we have finished a long-term job which has kept us busy for a few years. We learned a lot on this project but also needed the space for something new and to...
Voice recognition – we get closer to HER?
An interesting aside from this morning's news. IBM's Watson, arguably the pre-cursor but almost definitely the competitor to Siri is being used for one city rather than a device. This made me think (again) of one of the most underrated but important and haunting...
The FA
We have created quite a few banner campaigns for The FA. This one is our favourite of the set. Simple clean and to the point they lived on The FA site but most importantly on the network of sponsors and fan sites that go into promoting, in this case, the road to...
Timpani
A new brand and a new way of hosting and managing wordpress.
Timeport
Introducing a unique, fun yet educational visitor attraction & online world for children and their families.
Oddizzi
Oddizzi is an online travel guide and learning resource for kids. It is designed to be used in primary schools. Phenotype were brought in to create, dream up and execute a series of games for the first launch of Oddizzi.
UCL Engins
Engins, or Engineering Inspiration is, or will be a collaborative community for engineering news of all flavours. Owned, sponsored and by UCL (University College London) it is the reincarnation of The-Briefing which has run for many years. Our new logo works within...
Worcester Degree Shows
We have just help curate and manage the Degree Show for Graphic Design at Worcester University. As ever a stressful but incredibly worthwhile time. We thought we had better show off some of the students work as well as the branding we helped create. Check out their...
Sales enablement – a new term?
Clients struggle with being objective when analyzing their processes.
What makes a brand?
How do we describe a brand, and make it into a repeatable pattern? A do-it-yourself guide This is the main issue we have had to come to grips with and evolve with time. We take each channel that we find - Facebook, Search results, Site, Mobile etc. - and then find a...
Golly what a lot of interfaces!
In random timescale and order, here are some of the many interfaces we have designed over the years. Or at least the ones we are allowed to show.
Two technologies that have us really excited
We have passed the big wave of excitement that these technologies have brought these last few months. In actual fact as ever it’s not the invention but the use of that technology that is exciting – often this happens some time after the initial buzz, so here goes…
TypeStackr
Description Typestr is a simple game, where – you guessed it – you get to stack type. Just place the letters on top of each other and get to the win bar. Each level features one of our favourite fonts. Perhaps you will learn something about their forms, find out some...
The future of Social?
As ever the future is here.. http://bcove.me/6n5fwdro
Tweet this
I was intrigued by this article found as ever on LinkedIn. What intrigued me was not the content so much as the way the content was laid out - pre-packaged for our sharing generation. For example: If you steal knowledge, it will be with you until your last breath....
It’s all about content: Which may have more uses than you think
One of our key recommendations when talking about a company’s online content is heavily supported by this rather good article supplied by The Wall, a source of many sensible articles.
London is where it is at
There has been much press just recently, good and bad about London. The BBC Documentary Mind the Gap, though ridiculed on GoggleBox has been a very interesting and eye-opening documentary.
The Death of Social Sharing, Apparently
So here is an article from the rather great WallBlog, that is a little light on data, but is never-the-less thought provoking. I found interesting largely as I thought it would be about something completely different. Here is why…
Think usability not just aesthetics
There is simply no point to having a beautifully designed website which is impossible for users to understand and find what they are looking for. The main definition of a ‘great website’ has shifted from pure aesthetics to usability, due in large part to changes in...
The death of the slideshow?
The rise and fall of the Slideshow, on a par with the rise and fall of responsive, is in my opinion what next for web design in 2014.
Sam loves Infographics
Infographics seemed to us to be one of the hot trends of last year…
So Long 2013, Happy 2014
So begins the minor silly season news wise when everyone sums up the trends from last year…
Wild West Casino
Our concept for a poker and casino game, using the power of avatars within Facebook. Running as a prototype Facebook Game App the plan is to expand into mobile applications and also a world of other games – the Town of Wild West Casino.
Manic Mundi game
Launching the Mariah Mundi book from G.P. Taylor, together with online TV competitions and online activity. A tricky but highly addictive puzzle game for kids (ahem). One of the most beautiful pieces we have created, you must turn off all the gas lamps in the Prince...
100ml Sprint
An odd concept but rather fun and utterly unique. A game played at a man’s urinal with the control being via your very own stream. Best explained by Captive Media’s website and video. Our first game is a retro running game named 100ml Dash. You race against computer...
Pantene ‘Make a swisssh’ hub
A simple online campaign aired across the Hearst network to promote an in mag feature. The idea is that the room changes with a makeover and a fair bit of colour!