Could the concept be any simpler? If you're a designer / editor / web developer / whoever and need to place a grey box style placeholder on a web page, simply enter the source as the placehold.it followed by the dimensions of the image. For example, enter "http://placehold.it/450x300" and you get the image above. Go on, try it in your browser bar now ...
Nice piece by we made this on the newly launched TfL / Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme.
http://www.wemadethis.co.uk/blog/2010/07/on-yer-barclays-bike/
I was alerted by Don McAllister to the usefulness of wordle.net as a promotional / marketing / analytical tool. Wordle call their tool a 'toy' so the emphasis is on play and experimentation rather than serious number-crunching or hardcore PR. And it certainly is quick and fun to use. Here's my work cloud for smallgoodthing.net:
Wordle takes various sources (pasted text, URLs) and quickly generates a graphic of the most common words, in 'tag cloud' style -- ie. the most used words and phrases appear largest. The graphic is customisable with your own colours and a choice of fonts.
Link to my Wordle page.
The iPad is an intimate experience for a user. The direct touch input removes a layer of abstraction, and that’s a really big deal. In this way, it was like going back to design for print – when you push it with your finger, it moves! – but it’s utterly unlike print in every other way imaginable.
Lovely succinct piece by Derek Powazek on his first impressions designing an app for Apple's iPad. It's nice to see this ongoing iPad commentary from designers as they happen -- again and again the impression seems to be of a new platform with entirely new rules.
I particularly like the egg in the mouse trap. Oh, and the smashing of the TV is very satisfying.
This reminds me of Tim Berners-Lee's call on TED Talks, to make our data available on the internet. Exciting stuff.
One of the many hidden nooks of the London Underground network has revealed some amazing old '50s posters.
At last Smallgoodthing has a blog. (Cleverly sub-branded 'Smallgoodblog'. How could we resist?) After thinking about it for such a long time (such questions as 'Do we need a blog?' 'Isn't Twitter enough?' 'How should it look?' 'What platform to use?' etc etc) once the decision was made it came together in literally a morning -- and that's with tweaking the template to include SGT logo and colours. This minor miracle is thanks to the choice of the blogging platform -- Posterous.
I won't go into detail about Posterous (more info at posterous.com) but here's why it makes sense for SGT: Part of the social networking sceneCaveat: Having said that, it may also be too simple for some. Other blog platforms are more fully featured and have more plug-ins and themes. If you need a self-hosted and fully customisable blog/website then Posterous isn't for you.
Customisable URLs and themes
You can use your own domain or subdomain (as we have) or use the Posterous servers in the yourname.posterous.com format. Customising the themes is simple enough (if you know HTML and CSS). This made it possible to link, through the navigation, the blog (at blog.smallgoodthing.net) with our main website (at smallgoodthing.net) so that the user doesn't notice that they're jumping from one service to another and back again.
