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Maida Vale at 75

First of all let me say this is my first post using the wordpress app so excuse spelling mistakes and I’ll keep it brief.

One of my last projects as a junior designer at the Beeb was to design the website to celebrate 75 years of Maida Vale. Given next to no assets I decided to go and get my own. I spent a day walking round the studios and was lucky enough to sit in on a Radio 2 session with Chris Rea.

Fully inspired I got to work brainstorming an sketching back at the office. I enlisted the help of SE come Photographer Beth from the office and the two of us set off on the Monday morning to try and capture the shot I had in mind. Beth did a fantastic job with very little preparation and once I had the perfect shot it was up to me to turn it into a suitable web design. Many iterations later I was really quite chuffed with the outcome and the radio networks seemed to be too.

The event got some great coverage all over the BBC and I was delighted to see that they took my work and turned it into some fab intro and outro cards for the video content.

Check it out!

Maida Vale at 75

Unfortunately the video content has been taken down but I may be able to nab a screen shot and throw it up.

David BBC Work maida vale bbc 75 years radio 1 radio 2 ferne cotton snow patrol

I have decided to make use of the Nike+ feature on the iPhone 3GS in an attempt to get fit again. Made this little dude on the Nike+ website. Picked myself up these little beauties from Nike Town in London.

You should be able to see how I am getting on via this little widget. No excuses now!

David Misc apple, fitness, iphone 3gs, nike+, running

So for the past couple of months I have been working with Duncan Robertson to produce his first iPhone application. Duncan came up with the idea and worked tirelessly to make this app work as he had imagined. I was delighted that he wanted my help with the design.

“It’s a simple concept. Hydrate helps you manage your daily water intake. Something I don’t do, hence the app. You can use it to keep track of how much water you drink a day. Every time you have a drink, you just log it with the app. You set goals, get a summary of your drinking habits as well as being able to look back over previous days. Simple!” – whomwah.com

Duncan has done an amazing job with the functionality and I am very proud to see it all working so beautifully. Thanks must go to David Johnson too for his work on the 3D glass render. Fingers crossed we will work together in the future to produce some more apps.

Hydrate is in the app store now! – Why not give it a try. We would really appreciate any feedback.

Version 1.1 will be released soon with a shiny new icon I have worked up so keep an eye out for it.

David Misc

Adam & Joe Blog

It has been a while since my last post I know but I have been really busy and kept putting off updating my blog.

Anywho, 6Music have launched the new Adam & Joe blog which I worked on. It’s great to see that the loyal listeners seem to enjoy it. Some really funny stuff on there already so you should check it out on a regular basis.

Having met with Adam and Joe to discuss the design, they were keen to bring back their classic magnet letters. The banner is designed so the coloured badge on the left hand side can be changed with new graphics to keep it looking fresh. If the Stephen! thing ever burns out then they can replace it.

Anyway all parties seem happy with the result which is great and it fills me with pride to have produced a design for what I consider to be the funniest show on Radio.

David Misc 6music, adam & joe, adam and joe, blog, design, stephen!

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to sit in on the Adam and Joe show on 6music. I was meeting with them to discuss the design for their new blog page which is coming very soon.

It was great getting a behind the scenes view of such an excellent show. As a regular listener myself, it was a treat getting to meet the guys and see in person just how incredibly funny they are.

Adam and Joe are such creative people themselves that I felt it was important that they had a big influence on the design.

Oh and download the podcast to hear the little mention Joe gives me!

David BBC Work adam joe 6music blog design

1Xtra's 30 Years of Hip Hop

1Xtra’s 30 Years of Hip Hop event site is now live. This is the first using the new events template designed by my colleague Matt Isherwood. I was responsible for skinning it up using illustrations provided by an indie. Radio 1 & 1Xtra seemed very positive with the outcome. Looking forward to working on the next event now!

David BBC Work 1xtra, 30, BBC, hiphop, ishmatt, radio, template

Big update this time!

I decided to go ahead and create as many as I could to hopefully satisfy most peoples needs.

I also added a few extra sizes too. You now have 20px, 35px, 50px and 100px.

Icons added:

bebo, digg, dopplr, hi5, jaiku, livejournal, skype, technorati, typepad, vox, yahoo, youtube, zoomr.

Download here ,enjoy and pass them on!

Follow me on Twitter for further updates!

David Misc digg, dopplr, icons, jaiku, livejournal, network, skype, social, technorati, typepad, vox, yahoo, youtube, zoomr

I have just updated my social network icons and they are ready to download. (free to use!)

Included in this update:

- stumble upon

- linked in

- google

- friend feed

As i have said before I will continue to add more upon request. Hope you like them!

David Misc social network icons google stumble upon linkedin friend feed free

So we headed over to 6music this morning excited to see The Doves in session but upon arrival it was apparent that these chaps were not them. Apparently The Doves are playing later on the Steve Lamaq show but we stayed to listen nonetheless. In the end I was really glad we did. The band was called Milke and they sounded great! They had a very Electro/Indie sound and the two tracks they played sounded fab. The lead’s voice sounded so good you would swear he was miming but of course he wasn’t.

I highly recommend you have a listen on their myspace page.

Here’s some snaps (not great i know but I don’t want to use a flash while they are playing).

Check out my other session pics on Flickr

David Live Music milke 6music hub session george lamb show

Decided to post up some screenshots to show how I made the Tellybox OSX icon. This was my first time using Google Sketchup and I would like to thank Tim Broom for all his guidance and encouragement.

Step 1 was to begin building a basic television shape in Sketchup. I was trying to create a TV with a 50’s retro look.

Step 2 involved adding the screen (tricky) and details such as buttons and the front panel. I knew most of the work would be done in Photoshop but I wanted to make the model as detailed as possible so the perspective would be right.

Tim had already created an icon for Radio Aunty, (another one of Duncan Robertsons quality apps) so I was using this as a starting point to help get the camera angle right and to make sure they sat well together in the dock.

Step 3 was exporting the model as an eps so I can edit in illustrator Note. You need SketchUp Pro  to do this.

This illustrator step whilst essential was a bit of a time waster as I preferred adding the detail and polish in Photoshop. It did however mean I had a 2D vector drawing to refer back to.

Step 4 really involved redrawing most of the icon in Photoshop but adding lighting, more detail and making the screen look realistic.

Step 5 was all about the detail. I could have got carried away with this (and prob did just a little) but it’s the little things that make the difference.

I added scuffs to the wood, marks on the front and top panels and my personal favourite, grubby finger print marks on the buttons and dials. Not that any of this would be noticeable when it’s a tiny little icon in the dock but those using coverflow view would hopefully notice those little touches.

Finally here is the finished article:

Now go download it to see it in action!

David BBC Work icon, osx, photoshop, sketchup, tellybox