Interesting article over at Mashable about some new trends happening in the online news arena. There appears to be a paradigm shift from ‘global to local’ as far as some news-based sites go, with journalistic responsibilities shifting to members of local communities. No surprises that this trend coincides with increased uptake of smartphones offering location-based services.
We’re delighted to announce the launch of the Times Spelling Bee iPhone app – available here – http://bit.ly/bxsOMd. The app is based on the fun, interactive spelling games that can be found on the website we developed for Times Online [www.timesspellingbee.co.uk].
Screenshots taken from the game:
I am writing this as a stunned and inadequate adult who is completely in awe of the contestants in the inaugural Times Spelling Bee Championships staged in London yesterday. The standard was something to behold !! Words were being spelt which I didn’t even know existed never mind what they meant,
and therefore definitely couldn’t spell !!
We were kindly invited by our friends at The Times with whom we worked very closely to develop the www.timesspellingbee.co.uk website which proved to be a vital window to the world in promoting the whole event going forward. We even managed to be nominated for a Webby !!
They say the best ideas are the simplest and without doubt a National Spelling competition for schools seems obvious, but never before has an initiative been undertaken of this nature in the UK. Hats off to The Times and especially to the Editor James Harding who has been the driving force behind the realisation of this competition, although in his speech he did credit his girlfriend Kate with having come up with the idea !!
So he’s a gentlemen as well as a scholar !! Top marks James…
Congratulations to everybody who competed in both the heats and the final with the winners being St Martin’s School in Middlesex who have already made an appearance on BBC Breakfast this morning !!
Life will never be the same again……..
We launched a new campaign-based website for Cockpit Arts last week called Maker Difference.
Cockpit Arts is the UK’s only creative business incubator for designer-makers. Renowned for being a ‘hotbed of creative talent’ their studios are brimming with cutting edge fashion, jewellery and interior products.
As a registered charity they exist solely to nurture creative talent, from first beginnings through to international success. They house 165 designer-makers at their incubators in London all benefiting from affordable studio space, inclusive professional development support, one-to-one business mentoring and public selling opportunities.
Cockpit Arts is launching ‘Maker Difference’ a new campaign to raise awareness of, and encourage support for talented designer-makers.
The campaign comes to life on 12-14 June 2009 and 19-21 June 2009 when Cockpit Arts opens the doors to its renowned London studios, inviting the public inside. At these free summer ‘Open Studios’ events you can meet designers and see new trends in the making.
Right, here we are 2009. Set fire to the Christmas tree and discard all those gifts you didn’t want, we’ve got to get out fresh thinking caps on for the year ahead.
2008 saw us deliver some great projects. Knoll International and The Times Spelling Bee were highlights for us. We grew the Design and Technology teams and have got some really great people bringing with them their very own piece of the digital jigsaw.
By the looks of things we’ve got an equally great year coming up too, with several top projects on the go at the moment for clients old and new. It’s all very exciting.
We recently launched The Times Spelling Bee website for Times Online as part of their Spelling Bee Championship, a competition aimed at improving spelling.
Working on this project was (and continues to be) a highly satisfying process. This got me thinking about what factors influence how you perceive whether a project was a positive experience or not. The reasons for this project being enjoyable to work on from my point of view include the following factors (in no specific order):
Whether you enjoyed working on a project obviously doesn’t determine whether the project was successful or not. I would suggest, however, that if a project comprises at least some the characteristics mentioned above, it will have a greater chance of satisfying the following criteria:
And these are surely considered to be The Holy Grail when measuring a successful project….
We’ve recently launched a new site for our good friends Renault.
The site, which supports the launch of the new Kangoo Van, is in it’s first phase with more to come very soon.
When TimesOnline approached us to create a series of highly playable online games to promote Sony’s Nintendo DS Lite brain training games to an adult demographic, we jumped at the chance. The result is a campaign on Times Online that sees a new game added every month.
Says Dave McDougall, Creative Director at I-D Media, “the design and development challenge for us is to create highly playable games that draw on the principles of Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training™ series for the DS platform and that are deliverable in a browser”.
Both challenging and fun, the games provide a quick hit for puzzle enthusiasts and with prizes to win, and leader boards to raise the stakes, who can blame them?
Try them at www.timesonline.co.uk/surpriseyourself
Get more details about the project here
It’s all top secret at the moment though. We’re in the middle of scoping and IA for what’s going to be a really interesting editorial launch later this year.