Si Scott Design

Check out this guys illustration, it's amazing! If you get chance you have to visit his website and see some of the stuff he's done, it's gorgeous!

http://www.siscottstudio.com/

Justice - D.A.N.C.E (Version Finale)

This video from Justice (think they're a French group) is amazing! The songs pretty catchy too. Have a look for yourselves.

FIESA (Sand Festival - Faro, Portugal)

Its amazing what can inspire you sometimes. You wouldn't really add sand to the list but I've been proven wrong it seems. On my holiday to Portugal last week, I decided to visit the sand festival which was advertised just about everywhere. I wasn't expecting anything special, I generally find the photos on the adverts are always better than when you see it in person. Anyway, I was shocked at some of the sand sculptures created. It was breathtaking! Some of the work and skill gone into the display was amazing. Basically, in a nutshell, every year sand artists come from all over the world to create a sculpture based on the theme given. This year was 'the world'. They generally take place in Europe, mainly Spain or Portugal. Have a look at the website to find out more.

http://www.fiesa2007.com/

Here are some photos I managed to take on the day. The sand festival is also open late into the night when it is illuminated. If I had longer I would have stayed to see that, but I might have missed my plane back. Oh well, maybe next year.
(Click on any of the pictures if you want to see them in a larger format.)

Websites

I got a free cd with a design magazine a few months ago, but I'd never really looked at it. Sometimes you can get some crappy gimmicks with free cd's. After sorting out my desk though (I'm a cluttered person) I thought I better try it before I threw it away. Anyway I'm glad I did. It has a list of some amazing web sites which are well worth a look at. Anyway, heres some of my favorites below. Great for inspiration and also to sit in front of your screen and go "whooooaa.....cool...."

Triworks target="_blank">http://www.triworks.net

Aeon target="_blank">http://www.aeon.jp/biz/

FF000 target="_blank">http://www.ff0000.com/

WA007 target="_blank">http://wa007.com/

Gordon Ramsey's Lady Fingers

After Chris at work persuaded me to go out and buy Gordon Ramsey's new book, Fast Food, I decided to try my hand at making his tiramisu. It featured on the f word last week and looked yum. Anyway, my brother decided to film the end result.

On a more creative note though (as if making tiramisu isn't creative enough for me), the book is designed brilliantly and is so easy to follow even I managed it. It has some great photography in which features side by side before and after shots. Great to see if you're attempt has come out ok or turned out crap. Anyway, visually it's top, so you should all go out and buy it and cook cook cook!

Ramseys cook book, tiramisu, stuff yer face, DONE!

Radio 1's Big Weekend

I'm in way too much pain as I type this. I got slightly squashed and bumped around during the Kasabian set. But as tenderised as I am I will carry on like the hardcore festival goer I was pretending to be yesterday. That was until I fell asleep on the bus home.









It was an amazing day, and contrary to the weather forecast I managed to get a slight sun tan! Anyway, the show stealer's had to be Kasabian and the Scissor Sisters. Jake Shears has far too much camp energy for his own good. And I've decided that the guitarist Del is the coolest one in the band. I got some excellent photos, but on the basis of the Scissor Sisters stealing the show, I've added a compilation video of their performance. Cue lots of screaming from me and bad camera shake on the more up tempo songs. I've also included the one from BBC3 which features slightly better filming. Enjoy!






Also, a band which I would have liked to have seen is the Gossip, but they were on the same time as Kasabian. I dug this out from youtube only because it features the best ever burp mid vocal from Beth Ditto. That woman doesn't care! It's hilarious, shame I missed it!

Radio One's Big Weekend

I've managed to somehow bag myself two tickets for radio ones big weekend in Preston! Over the moon! I'm going to get to see The Scissor Sisters, Kasabian and loads of other bands. I registered for the competition about a week ago and to be honest wasn't expecting anything. I knew the odds of winning were a bit poor because so many people enter, who wouldn't, it's free! Anyway, it was a really nice surprise to find an email from radio one in my inbox. Heres the list of the acts who I'll be seeing on the Saturday.



For more details about the event, have a look at the site,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/bigweekend/about

And to top it off I got a shout out from good old Moylesy on radio one!




This is what Radio One had to say about where all the tickets went and which postcode areas got most.

We had almost 500,000 applications for tickets and we only have 8,875 pairs a day to give out which means that just 1.8% of people who applied were lucky.

As we've previously said, the majority of these tickets have been given to people in the North-West and the Preston area. We used people's postcodes to determine this. Here's the breakdown of where they went:

* 16,024 tickets to postcodes PR1 and PR2
* 7,100 tickets to postcodes PR3-PR9 and BB1-BB12
* 10,740 tickets to the North West of England area
* 1,636 tickets to the rest of the UK.


It will be televised on BBC3 and BBC1 (after you press the red button on BBC1) on both days (19th-20th May), so you might get a glimpse of me jumping around like a total nutter. Anyway, needless to say I'm pretty chuffed! Preston here I come!

Snake

Another strange sight when we were up in the Lakes was this, a big fat adder! My brother nearly picked it up thinking it was a piece of rope. After that my dad insisted on poking it with his walking stick. Needless to say it got fed up and buggered off. Very cool though. It made a change from seeing sheep....and more sheep.....oh, and more sheep.

Sssssssid the ssssssnake


I wish my camera lens was more powerful, this could have been a cool picture!

Chopper

Whilst on a recent trip up to the Lake District, we happened to get caught up in an air ambulance rescue. It was pretty impressive, more so when you saw where the pilot actually landed, about a foot from a tree overlooking a big drop in the hillside. Heres the video we managed to catch.

Surfs Up!

You have to watch this trailer, if only for the little fat baby penguin chicks, hilarious!

Steve Wright tells Stu, MAKE A BREW!

Our mate Stevey alerts Stu in our office to the fact that me and Chris are thirsty. Although he still refused to take a trip to the kettle!

The Fire King!

Ok, bit of silliness, but this clip had me laughing so much when I watched the film. It's from Ice Age 2, and it's worth watching, if not just for Scrat the squirrels acorn chasing. The animation though is amazing!

Aliens View Website

This will only work if you have Google earth, and I recommend getting it, it's very addictive. Basically once you have downloaded Google earth (http://earth.google.com/) visit www.aliensview.com and browse some of the stuff people have found around the globe. You can then opt to save the file and when you open it up, it automatically adds it as a places pointer on Google earth. Then you can view it at your leisure. I found some amazing things, but it can get a bit addictive. If you view some of the terrain ones and tilt the camera, you'll see everything all 3-D like, very cool! The best ones are by far the swear words written in crop fields, or my personal favorite, the giant bunny rabbit!

Dead Fred has a new mate

Ok, for a really crazy Christmas present I got bought a 'Dead Fred'. He's a little dead red rubber guy with a pen stuck in his chest, and he sits very nicely on my desk at work. (see piccy below....poor Fred.) Anyway, I found out that Dead Fred has a new mate, hanging Harry!!! He comes with a lovely bit of hangman's noose so you can tie him onto your bathroom light instead of the boring light switch which is there now. Very cool. I will add him to my want list.

Arcade Fire Website

The latest post on my blog is from Arcade Fire. They had a really successful album last time around and their new one, 'Neon Bible' is just as good if not better. They're latest website is great, it includes photo's taken by the band and small flash animations on each page. Its a great website because it's different, and I think more bands should take advantage of the online audience. With illegal downloading becoming more and more common, a new approach is needed for promoting the music, and this website is a step in the right direction.

To view the website go to www.arcadefire.com and have a look around.

The Selk' Bag

This is definitely on my 'want' list. Having many a time kipped on peoples floors and sofa's after a night out, the most annoying thing I find is a sleeping bag. They're either too short, or not wide enough, the zips always unzip when you try and move, and more importantly your head and arms get cold.

Its designed by Rodrigo Alonso (who also designs some other pretty cool stuff, check out his website, www.musuchouse.com).

He's a Chilean graphic designer, and has worked for people like Renault, Lucky Strike, Warner Bros, Sony, etc. I really like some of his other design work, especially his coffee cups with little legs.

I don't think I'd use the Selk' bag as a sleeping bag though, I'd probably bounce around town in it just to see the looks on peoples faces.

My first ever blogness!

This is my first ever post on my all new shiny blog. I hope you feel privileged to be sharing the moment with me. Wahay!

The aim of my blog is to eventually have an online reference of creative inspiration, or to put it more bluntly, stuff that looks cool. If I see something that I love in terms of fresh creativeness, whether it be a logo, website, magazine, picture or building, then it goes on my blog.

So let me introduce you to the first post of my blog.....(drum roll please..)

Pee and Poo!

Yes. Pee and Poo. For some reason this makes me laugh everytime I see it, but the design of the two characters makes me want to keep looking again and again. They're designed by Emma Megitt from Sweden. She originally created them for her degree show but they went down a storm and now have their own website.

www.peeandpoo.com


Now they've introduced Pee and Poo socks, so you can't go wrong. Therefore my first fresh new creative gong goes to Pee and Poo!