The biggest buzz word amongst developers and users at the moment has to be location based services.  Location based services, such as the GPS in your car, are certainly nothing new. They are,  however, becoming both more popular and more useful as devices embrace the technology and users become more location aware.

Mobile phones, such as the G1 and iPhone, have recently helped to boost the production of applications and web services solely build to deliver location dependant information.  Users have also become a lot more comfortable with sharing their location using services like Yahoo’s Fire Eagle and BrightKite.

So what is the benefit for developers in knowing a user’s location? First and foremost it enriches both your application/website and the user’s experience.  Because you are using multiple parameters (i.e. geolocation, time, search query) it helps you to quickly deliver the right results, without having to inconvenience the user with unnecessary form filling.  Secondly, it helps you to run a more efficient service as only relevant data is delivered to the user.

A good example of an application that would benefit from location aware services, would be something like the yellow pages.  A user would simply be asked which service they require, and upon entering a keyword (e.g. “plumber”) they would be shown a list of nearby plumbers.

LBS (location based services) are not just restricted to the iPhone and satnav, as browsers are starting to get in on the game.  Mozilla has played with the idea in previous beta builds of their browser, Firefox, and is set to roll it out in the next version.

Hot on the heels of IE’s Best Brand Award is a new competition, running for one day only, indeed limited to the time taken writing this short article. The Ironic (Possibly Deliberate, Perhaps Not) Shop Signage competition has just been opened, and here is the first entry. No image manipulation used here - just a good, honest photo taken on my iPhone whilst out and about today.

I was lucky enough a couple of weeks back to visit the Plus design festival here in Birmingham.

Not the most expansive design event, it still managed to bring together an exciting mix of eye candy. Housing a short collection work from students to industry, this concrete carbuncle turned out to be quite deceptive.

It was a small yet interesting mix of interactive and reactive media, hand crafted typography, photography and computer generated imagery. All of which managed to bring a big smile to my face.

The highlight has to be talking to a lady called Linda who at the time was demonstrating calligraphy. Not only were my eyes tantalised by the beautiful lettering, but also my ears were tingling. She informed me of a Museum in the Jewellery Quarter called the Pen Room that teaches calligraphy classes.

I also spoke to a group of students calling themselves “smile” who blew me away with a simple idea I wish I’d took the initiative to start whilst I was at University. These few elite gems started a design group whilst studying and now have an impressive back catalogue of work.

Finally my eyes were attracted to the arresting visuals on light boxes from clusta, which reminds me very much of images in a book recently published called Lemon Poppy Seed published by Die Gestalten Verlag.

Weird mixed visuals appear to be becoming a trend. The new James Bond film has a a very slick introduction and example of this, check out the design group who made it – MK12 at http://www.mk12.com/ to see some pretty interesting work!

We have had a couple of projects recently where Welsh language versions of publications have been needed. Now while we don’t claim to be fluent in Welsh ourselves, we always check with people who are to do the translation and double-check everything once we’ve rolled it into the design. This means that we are able to avoid embarrassing situations like the following, reported on the BBC News website:

“Swansea Council became lost in translation when it was looking to halt heavy goods vehicles using a road near an Asda store in the Morriston area.

All official road signs in Wales are bilingual, so the local authority e-mailed its in-house translation service for the Welsh version of: “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only”.

The reply duly came back and officials set the wheels in motion to create the large sign in both languages.”

“Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated”.

Original article: E-mail error ends up on road sign

I have a confession, I love biscuits. I love tea as well, so they go hand in hand- literally. However I have discovered there are people out there that have a love far greater than mine!

Not the best designed website ever, but they have a quirky kitsch idea going at http://www.biscuitboutique.co.uk/

My favourite has to be the Jammy Dodger rings and the Bourbon necklace.
Novelty design can sometimes be great fun!