Nur Ahmad Furlong

Tag: Design

  • WDC2014 taking Cape Town Design onto the World Stage

    You may not have heard but there’s a City down South, at the very tip of Africa that’s been buzzing with the sound of creative innovation for some time. It’s a really beautiful place like none other, almost laid back and extremely friendly and hospitable. It recently hosted thousands of International visitors as part of the Soccer World Cup and is about to make an even more ambitious Bid to launch itself into the creative psyche of the globe. You guessed it, yes, Cape Town, the place I currently call home.

    Creative Cape Town communicates, supports and facilitates the development of the creative and knowledge economy in the Central City of Cape Town.

    The WDC2014 Initiative is aimed at getting Cape Town voted as the “World Design Capital 2014″ as a recognition of the advances in use of design to enhance society. Seoul was voted the 2010 World Design Capital and Helsinki for 2012.

    What is WDC2014?

    This prestigious status is designated biennially by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) to cities that are dedicated to using design for social, cultural and economic development.

    Also View some of the Case Studies posted on the official website to see how the vision outlined above is coming to life

    Visit the Following 2 Websites which are currently spear heading the initiative to find out more about the why and how of the project.

    Cape Town’s World Design Capital 2014 bid concept, “Live Design, Transform Life”, focuses strongly on socially responsive design. – www.capetown2014.co.za

    Join the Facebook Page and become part of the effort to get Cape Town recognized on the World Design Stage

    Grab your supporter’s badge and be part of the team

    Now go out there and slap some design on The Mother City! And don’t forget to share!

  • Ideas for nomad-one redesign.

    I’m starting to get carried away with look & feel design on the nomad-one redesign. This is even before my wire-framing is properly completed, but I just can’t help myself at the moment. I’ve just really enjoyed working on this design. There are a load of changes I want to make to my site, graphic design, functional, content and information architecture & usability, so it’s all over the place at the moment. This post lists a few of my thoughts, but I hope to get more ideas from you about what you think would make my space special. I’ve suggest how the best advice might be rewarded down at the end of this post.

    nomad-one-new2

    Look & Feel

    I suppose explaining where I’m going with this desert scene might help for starters. The nomad concept has been with me for some time, though not in this form. As you may know, I’m no city slicker. I’m also very much set on remaining as independent as possible, something the Bedouin values extremely highly. I’m a traveler at heart. So this is partly where the desert scene comes in.

    Saving Space with some Ajax/Design Patterns

    Regarding the layout and general interface, there’s a few space saving design patterns I want to build into the homepage, which include using some jquery tabs, a slider and an accordion to fit everything into a smaller space. My current design is way too long and lacks a few features above the fold. I don’t want to loose anything but feel I need to tuck lots of excess away in a more logical manner.

    Integrating Social

    I definitely need to integrate my social links into the interface much higher up the page, as well as include a twitter feed, what would we do without twitter. I like the idea of a user generated feed or post wall but am uncertain how this might impact the space on the homepage.

    Showing my Portfolio work

    Something I have failed hopelessly at s keeping an up to date portfolio area. I don;t even have a latest work feature on my current site so this is a must have i think. Of course it needs to be coded in such a way that it’s easy to maintain as well me always being pressed for time.

    Quick Contact & Chat widget

    I’d also like to include a few quick ways of getting in touch, like a mini form as well as skype me & gtalk widgets which allow people to chat with me directly when I’m online, which is like all the time.

    My Blog area will remain pretty much the same in terms of it’s location and general functionality, but of course in needs some space saving neatening up. I also need to get a featured post sorted. I’ve been toying with the idea of having 3 main areas of featured posts, and running titles of these in the header area somewhere but haven’t fully embraced this idea yet.

    Menu with Subtext

    I really love the idea of menu links with sub text explaining the links in more detail so these are almost definitley going to be part of my next menu. I also need to rework the way I display my pages, what stays, what goes and what needs to be added. Lots of information-architecture work lies ahead, and the dreaded writing!

    Header Message

    My header will have to have a brief explanation of where you are and who i am, some kind of elevator pitch style slogan. I’m considering having a few messages, one for first timers and a few others for returning visitors. I like the way yoast.com addresses the visitor based on where they have come from.

    What do you think? Want to earn your own design/redesign?

    I’m thinking of turning this into some kind of competition, asking for feedback and awarding the best advice a design of their own. What you you think? Would you be interested in participating in something like that?

  • Checkout the new WordPress Meetup site

    Heads up. Today is WPCPT3 at the Bandwidth Barn from 4pm – 7pm. We’ve just launched our new theme designed by yours(that’s me) truly and coded by Paul Weingartz who did a fantabulous job. Check us out at www.wordpress.org.za

    meetup-site

  • WordPress Meetup T-Shirt Design, what do you think?

    tshirt-design

    I’ve become so bogged down with client work lately that doing this little T-shirt Design for the upcoming WordPress meetup was a nice little break from the norm.

    I’d like to know what you guys think of the design. Those attending will be receiving a free T compliments of the Sponsors (FormFunction, Radiiate & World Wide Creative), thanks to our generous sponsors. We’ve catered for 30 people attending.

    To register for the WordPress Cape Town Meetup which will be happening on 28th May, 4 – 7pm at the Bandwidth Barn, click here and add a comment saying you’ll be there.

  • What does the communications agency of the future look like?

    When companies, organisations and even individuals want to get a message out to the public or some specific target audience, they approach a number of different types of companies & professionals to assist them in doing so.

    These range from PR consultancies to advertising agencies, branding agencies, media companies, new media, event managers, design studios and general communications consultancies.

    question-iconWhat influences companies to use a specific type of communication? Why do certain companies naturally gravitate towards PR rather than new media, or above the line rather than direct marketing? It’s not always the appropriateness but sometimes they just haven’t thought about anything else. It also seems there is a fear to reach out in new ways.

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