We marketers have been using this to our advantage for quite some time: by labelling popular tweeters and bloggers the ‘influencers’ and reaching out to them to help us with our marketing. A recent study indicates that over 90% of the billions of tweets sent out every year originate from just over 20,000 accounts. These are the people marketers approach to help sell their brands – they have the power to convince others and influence a consumer’s purchase habit.

So it’s natural that businesses would want to develop an easy way of finding these people; and today, hundreds of tools are available that do just that, like Klout.

For those of you who don’t know (i.e. have a life outside of marketing), Klout is a service for measuring one’s influence across social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

The service gives users and brands a score from 1 to 100, with  higher scores corresponding to higher assessments of the breadth and strength of one’s influence. The analysis is done with data from Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+ and a few other social networking websites. In short, it measures the size of a person’s network, the content created and how others interact with this content.

The company creates profiles for individual users and assigns them a Klout Score. This is not an opt-in service, but the company does allow you to opt out of the service.

Although the company was launched over 2 years ago, it has recently passed some important milestones and gained significant media attention – it has just launched an iPhone App, had features published in reputable publications such as Wired and was recently injected with over $30million in investments from a host of venture capital firms.

The company also tracks the top influencers across popular topics.

Should you care?

Klout’s business model is set around identifying users with the highest scores and linking them with businesses. Businesses can pay to get in touch with these individuals in the hope that free merchandise and other perks will influence them to spread positive publicity for the company.

Scores seem to be becoming increasingly important for employers, marketers, and socialites. According to Seth Stevenson, the author of the Wired article,  a casino in Las Vegas (Palms Casino Resort) has secretly upgraded the rooms of people with high Klout scores, presumably in the hopes of positive Facebook posts and tweets about their experience. Klout Scores are gaining more supporters each day and will no doubt appear in many future job applications.

The company has been subjected to a lot of criticism lately, for the way in which it calculates one’s score and the overall societal effect this has. Klout for instance gives certain bloggers more influence than US President Barack Obama, showing the scores are not necessarily reflective of a person’s real influence. The company also received criticism for trying to quantify human interaction and exploiting users for its own profit.

Clever ideas are not always the best ones, and Klout is likely to both encourage unhealthy obsession with popularity within social media networks and unhappy competition.

Regardless of whether you love or hate Klout, the service seems to be growing in popularity. So pay the website a visit to see how you or your brand is ranking, or even if just to opt-out if you aren’t a fan.

Klouchebag:

If you’re more interesting in having a laugh, then check out Klouchebag.

Created by London-based Tom Scott, as a mockery to Klout, Klouchebag calculates “how much of an a**hat you are on Twitter.” The lower your Klouchebag score, the less of a douchebag you are.

Obviously the results aren’t as scientific as Klout’s results, but it guarantees you 2 minutes of fun.

Whether you have a go on Klout or Klouchebag, let us know your thoughts and scores through the comments box below…

—

Need help increasing your brand’s awareness? Get in touch and see how we can help boost your brand’s popularity online.

Ciao

HGC

We have spoken about the key steps to creating a successful site (part 1, part 2, and 3) and given you tips on how to improve communication with website visitors (here). We even shared some ideas on the basics of on-site SEO (here) and spoken about the importance of communicating through video on your site (see post).

Lately, some of our clients have approached us to ask for tips on producing content for their website, and so, to add to the above series of posts, today we’ll be talking about Content and how to create the right content for your website that will communicate effectively with your audience as well as being SEO-proofed and promote engagement.

1. How to start?

Writing content for your website is not just about telling your visitors what you do. It is about addressing the concerns your users might have at every step throughout their journey on your website, in the form of text or any other type of content such as images or videos for instance.

2. The Content Questionnaire:

Before you start writing content it is important to understand what you need to communicate. I always like to start by answering a Content Questionnaire. This sets the foundation for the editorial content strategy, voice, key messages and positioning.

Here are some questions from the questionnaire:

1. What pages will I need to create content for?
2. What services do your clients/prospects most want and need?
3. What are the core strengths of your business?
4. How do people respond after using your services?
5. Why do your customers buy your product/services? What are they trying to accomplish?
6. Customer profiles (needs, wants, preferences, concerns, pain, etc.).
7. List competitors (please list at least 3-5 competitors).
8. What sets your business apart from competitors? What are your USPs?
9. How do prospects find you?
10. What are the main keywords/keyphrases prospects might use to find you online? (I.e. what words would your target audience use to describe your key products/services/information?). If the business already has a Search Marketing strategy in place, this is where I’ll then take the keywords/phrases.
11. What is your target location (local/regional/national/international)?

Once you have addressed all the above questions you will have a solid foundation to build content around. The answers should give you an understanding of exactly what you’ll have to communicate to ensure you’ve covered your business aims and that of your prospects, and also give your business website a good chance of being found online.

3. What if I already have a website and content?

If the business already has content produced, you should conduct a Content Audit. The audit serves to determine whether the website has the content you need to answer the questions identified in the questionnaire and support concerns prospects will have.

This should also help in reviewing any existing content that is being used by other members (sales people for example) to support individual sales processes.

When reviewing the content, as well as looking for answers to questions identified in the questionnaire, I look for what’s good and bad (being as critical as I can) and I identify any holes (where we are missing content) to fill. Knowing this will help prioritise the work and I’ll know if I should spend time on this or not.

4. The Content Plan:

Following on from the previous step, where we look at the website and the messages we want to promote and review the answers to the questionnaire, lay out all the activities associated with producing the content, anything from big-picture to strategic ideas surrounding content.

For each idea you can then track the following:

• The content (all text, images and videos I’ll need and for which pages)
• What objective does it support?
• What are the steps I’ll need to take before I can start producing this content?
• How long will it take?
• Who is responsible for this?
• Do we need external help?
• What will it cost?

These ideas can be for specific pages on the website or anything else going on external websites (a video for YouTube or Blog Post on Tumblr). I like to lay it all out on a spreadsheet; I then assign each task to team members involved to ensure the resources are properly allocated and the content will get produced in time for the website launch.

5. Writing the content

Pre-writing questions: 

Before you start, you and your team should understand the main goal of the page you’re writing content for and to whom it’s targeted. What’s their plan? What’s in it for them? Where are they in their buying process? And what keywords or keyphrases would they most likely use to search for your solution?

It’s a useful exercise to put yourself in the visitor’s shoes and write as if you are having a one-on-one conversation with them.

• What is the goal of this page?
• Which audience/persona is this page targeting?
• Which phase of their buying cycle is this page addressing?
• Based on the topic you’re covering, what are the 3 primary benefits you want to communicate?
• What keywords and phrases do you need to include for SEO?

Here’s a typical webpage content structure:

Based on best practices for website, this template should cover most bases. Here are some core elements of a web page:

• Titles:  As with most media, a great title or headline can make or break a page. In the case of web content, it’s crucial to also remember the SEO aspects of it. Incorporating a main keyword/keyphrase, relevant to the content on the page, into a headline and programming the page title with a relevant <h1> tag can have significant SEO benefits.
• Sub-titles: As it is custom, visitors will scan the content before they read and creating enticing, benefits-focused sub-titles can increase the chances of the page being read. Visitors should be able to get the gist of the page just by scanning the tiles, sub-titles and calls to action.
• Images:  Pictures are a powerful way to get and hold a visitor’s attention and influence users to take action. Optimizing the image’s file name and alt tag with a keyword/keyphrase provides the context search engines needs and validates the relevance on your page.
• Videos: Like pictures, videos are another way of getting a visitor’s attention, but they are also great at communicating complex messages in simpler ways. A well thought-out video can simplify an offering description or talk about the company in enough detail while being appealing and engaging at the same time. Videos that are hosted on video sharing websites such as YouTube or Vimeo could also serve to drive relevant traffic to your website.
• Bulleted lists: I’m a big supporter of bulleted lists. Lists make content a lot easier to digest. Even the slightest indention and bullet can draw the reader’s eye; not to mention that search engines like these too.
• Calls to action: Obvious command-oriented calls to action are key in guiding users through a desired journey on your website. And don’t be afraid to use large buttons, they’ll catch the visitor’s eye and directed them to the appropriate page, creating an uncomplicated experience for the user.

Post-writing checklist:

Once the content for each page has been created, take the time to consider the following when reviewing the text:

• Is the page content 200 to 400 words?
• Is the page title or headline clear and memorable?
• Is the content relevant to your target audience and does it deal with at least one of their problems and encourage them to take the next step (call to action)?
• Have you used short sentences and paragraphs and broken up paragraphs with sub-titles and bulleted lists?
• Are images and videos that relate to the content used? Do they help engage the visitors?
• Is the main message stated in the first couple of sentences?
• Are you using a lot of industry jargon? (Answer should be “no” here, in most cases)
• Is the content conversational? Are you addressing the reader as “you”? And is it interesting to read?
• Are there any typos and grammatical errors?
• Is the call to action clear and prominent enough?

Please remember to always get someone else to read the content for you. If you’re writing the content, you’re now too familiar with it and may no longer be the best person to edit it.

Note that the format above doesn’t necessarily apply to every page on your website. If needed, modify your content structure and formatting so that it accomplishes the goals of the page.

At the end, you should end up with quality content that will engage and satisfy visitors, attract the right audience and help your business achieve its aims for the website, whether that is generating more sales leads or simply communicating general information.

Now take the time to think about your site: Is it working well for your business and your audience? If you’re unsure about any aspects of your website, why not get in touch and see how we can help?

Ciao,

HGC

We are struggling to come to terms with how far Photoshop has come in such little time. It seems only yesterday we were using Photoshop 6 (pre CS) and it took around 5 minutes to rotate an object 90 degrees (computer memory has also improved beyond compare)!

Here we’re going to take a sneak peak at the new features you can expect if you choose to upgrade to CS6.

The interface itself has had a major facelift. You can now switch colour styles for the interface itself, ranging from the current light grey to black (similar in look to after effects).

So the first major improvement is the ability to auto save at specified intervals.

We all know a Photoshop crash is a frustrating event so this looks to put that issue to bed, though the ability to rescue crashed files in the same way InDesign does has not be introduced.

Another big improvement is the way photoshop handles video content. There are now a range of simple video editing tools. Now this isn’t going to rip you way from final cut, but it has enough for simple cuts and edits, which should keep amateur photographers more than happy.

You can now search for layers if you so wish. This is a blessing in disguise when dealing with a PSD that houses over 100 layers (HGC design culprits will remain nameless!).

For those that design for the web, there’s now a lore ipsum generator so no need to constantly copy and paste from a lore ipsum website.

There are also a raft of minor changes to brushes, eyedropper, transform etc.

New Features

Brushes

- HUD brush resize and hardness can now change opacity

- Increase brush size to 5000px

- Change colour dynamics to per stroke instead of per tip (user option for old behaviour)

- Brightness/contrast slider for textures when painting

- Brush projection for static tips

- Brush cursor reflects brush dynamics for round and captured tips

Eyedropper

- Show the sample size popup for the various eyedropper tools (black point, white point, etc.)

- Add ignore adjustment layer options bar item for the eyedropper

- New mode for eyedropper to select layers current and below

Layers

- Add a contextual menu item that deletes a layer effect not just disables it

- Add dither options to Layer Styles for Gradient Overlay and Gradient Stroke

- Allow 00 or Shift 00 to work when setting layer/fill opacity (previously no way to get 0%)

- Add bicubic sharper & bicubic smoother options when free transforming layers

- Allow changing of blend modes for multiple layers at once

- Allow locking of multiple layers

- CMD+J to duplicate layers and layer group

- Allow changing colour labels to multiple layers at once

- Layer tooltips to include layer name (if defined)

- Opt+click on toggle arrows (groups and effects) in layer panel should close all targets

- Show blend if/Blending Effects badge on layer

- Show correct opacity and blend mode values for hidden layers

- Tab goes to next layer on inline layer rename, SHIFT + TAB goes to previous

- New command to raster layer effect into layer, merging the selected layers into themselves

- Reorder effects in the layers palette to match the Z-­­order style/blend mode (bottom most effects in terms of blending order, drop shadow is below the other effects

Presets

- Add new document presets for common devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, etc.)

- Add new Gradient Map presets for toning and split-­­toning

- Sticky reorganisation of tool presets (changes persist after re-launch) Add Contact Sheet II as an Automation option

Transform

- Improve dragging of vector curves

- Don’t hide smart object icon when transforming a layer

- Rotate 90 with even x odd pixel dimension to be smooth (bjango.com)

- Undo or disable auto -­­rotate on open

UI

- Remove the app bar and reduce the drag/app bar over 30%

- [Windows] New/open document to context click on a document tab (has always been on Mac, now Windows too)

- Add “Don’t show again” checkbox to Purge warnings

Miscellaneous

- Enable Split Channels for documents with layers

- Select Hex field by default and allow clipboard pastes with # in contents (i.e. #fffffff)

- Increased GPU stability by pre-qualifying GPUs on the fly before use

- Auto-­­select the best resample method based on the type of resize

- Enable Invert and Threshold adjustments for masks in 32 -­­bit

- Hold SHIFT during startup to disable 3rd party plugins

- Add warning message that 16 -­­bit images cannot display their file size in the Save as JPEG dialog

- Add command to insert “lorem ipsum” for type

So the ultimate questions is,…. is it worth upgrading?

Well in a professional capacity it’s always worth keeping up to speed with the tools of the trade.

Goodness knows how quickly Adobe will succeed this version so our tip for those on tight budgets would be to download the beta version currently available here: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/photoshopcs6.html  and see how you get on with it.

Do the new features have a bearing on how you use the programme and your efficiency?

If yes, then potentially this upgrade is for you. If no, potentially it’s worth waiting for the next full CS upgrade.

If we know Adobe it won’t be too far anyway.

Happy photoshopping!

HGC

We thought we’d take this opportunity to look into some of the new trends emerging in the area of motion graphics.

The combination of real time footage and graphical illustrations delivers a powerful aesthetic. Blending these two opposed styles allows companies to communicate on a more emotive level. The possibilities are endless for this type of animation and could see designers employing ever more complicated styles and concepts in their work. The recent Nissan Qashqai advert is a good example of this:

This leads us onto cutting edge technology employing motion graphics.

Although it was put together a while ago now, this next section looks at an installation which was designed by the Brand New School in San Francisco. The wall was developed in conjunction with the launch of Adobe CS3 in America.

As real passers by walk along the wall, motion graphics are produced and animate according to the persons movements. The designs become more complicated from left to right. An innovative use of motion graphics, the mural proved incredibly popular with passers by, grabbing their attention and delivering the message in a memorable way.

Utilising the next stage in motion graphic technology, 3D projection mapping, Carlsberg advertised their range of lagers on a building in Liverpool Street. 3D projection mapping is a new way of creating motion graphics that interact with the surface they are being projected onto, creating a visually stunning and eye catching event. It can be used to give the illusion that a building is crumbling and spiders are emerging from the cracks or whatever the animator wishes to create in their new world.

All in all, very exciting. The future looks intriguing and the possibilities vast. We can’t wait to get involved in some of these new developments!

Why not check out our video page on our website;

http://www.highergroundcreative.co.uk/hgc-tv/

Thats all for now.
Until next time….

HGC

For those of you who have been living offline for the past few months, or those who have little to no time on their hands to keep up with every single fad in the social media arena, Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) is the new image based social media platform to gain popularity in the last few months. But what are the real benefits of using Pinterest for your company and should you be concerned about what you share?
Every single news provider has in some form spoken about how amazing Pinterest is and how great it can be for your business, especially if you work in retail. It’s a popular topic on social media specialist news source Mashable, and it’s even made its way on to the pages of the Metro, London’s free daily newspaper read by millions.
Pinterest, as of today, is thought to be receiving in excess of 1 billion page views a month. In the UK alone Pinterest has over 250.000 users (source: Comscore 2012).
Although I could not find any official figures for the numbers of users of the website, this is estimated at over 12 million. (The likes of Facebook have over 700m, while last year’s talking point Google + have managed to build up a database of over 90m users).
It is estimated by ComScore that over half of these users (around 80%) are women – although in the UK this number drops to around 44%; and the majority of users are between the 25-44 age range -  a marketers’ dream.
They visit the website daily to share tips on travel, home decoration, arts and crafts, design, food and fashion mainly – and users spend an average of 98 minutes each month on the site(Source: ComScore 2012).
The popularity of Pinterest has gained the attention of large retailers, who’ve taken the opportunity to generate referral traffic to their site, in exchange for an affiliate commission given to Pinterest. Retailers such as Whole Foods and West Elm in the US are just some of the big names enjoying huge amounts of referral traffic Pinterest is bringing them.

Why should Businesses use Pinterest?
-    It’s a significant source of referral traffic
o    According to Shareaholic, in February this year Pinterest accounted for 3.6% of all referral traffic while twitter just barely edged ahead with 3.61%.
o    Pinterest drives more referral traffic than G+ LinkedIn and YouTube combined
-    Women’s lifestyle, home decor and cooking publications get a large significant piece of this traffic
-    It’s the fastest growing social network today
o    One of the top 10 social networks (according to Experian Hitwise)
-    Allows for affiliate IDs embedded on to pins

Pinterest 101

Step 1:  Consider your demographic
-    Does your target audience use Pinterest?

Step 2:  Create an account www.pinterest.com (you’ll need an invite – ask your friends if they can send you one)

Step 3: Add a Pin button to product pages on your site – make it easy for people to pin your content
(Add Pinterest to your Google Analytics account and start monitoring pins)

Step 4:  Get sharing:
-    Ideas
-    News
-    Tips
-    Products and services photos
o    Make sure to share the most eye-catching images

How can your business use Pinterest?

Travel sites / publications
Create a holiday wish list and share it

Fashion Retailers
Share your season collection
Promote sales items

Food outlets/publications
Share dishes/recipe ideas/menus
Promote offers
Distribute vouchers

Design/Artists
Publish artwork
Sell designs/paintings/photography

Charities
Share stories and inspire people to join up

Events
Publish event dates
Promote e-tickets

Finance
Share stats
Promote trading platform
Share your videos

Marketing
Great for crowd sourcing
Use it for focus groups
Share infographics and increase your brand awareness

Other retailers
Promote coupons
Share product photos
Distribute QR codes and make shopping online easier
Run competitions

When you look at the remarkable stats above and the many ways in which you can promote offerings on Pinterest, it’s hard not to want to jump in the and take a piece of the pie.

But….

Users, businesses or not, should tread carefully when using the social networking site if they want to avoid being the subject of a lawsuit for copyright infringement.

Pinterest Terms of Use clearly say that all members are solely responsible for what they pin and repin and that they must have explicit permission from the owner to post everything they share. Simply giving credit to the author of the image you pin or repin is not enough.

Pinterest Terms of Use also say:

“YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SITE, APPLICATION, SERVICES AND SITE CONTENT REMAINS WITH YOU.”

And they place all blame and potential legal fees ensuing of any lawsuits on its users:

“You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Cold Brew Labs, its officers, directors, employees and agents, harmless from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising out of or in any way connected with (i) your access to or use of the Site, Application, Services or Site Content, (ii) your Member Content, or (iii) your violation of these Terms.”

Meaning that if someone decides to sue you and the company for copyrighted content that you pinned or repinned you will not only have to pay for your legal fees, but also pay for Pinterest’s legal fees.

Pinterest does encourage users to share community photos, and come countries’ copyright laws will include a section on fair use of copyrighted material. In the US, copyrighted work can only be used without permission when someone is criticising it, commenting on it, reporting on it, teaching about it or conducting research. And Pinterest does allow you to write a comment for every pin you share. Repinning however does not fall under this category.

My advice is that if you are a business then stick to pinning content that you own or that you are authorised to promote.
Individuals should be extremely careful and familiarise themselves with the copyright laws of their own country before pinning anything they either do not own or have explicit authorisation to share, otherwise they’ll risk being taken to court, and we all know what happens when the giants of the arts industries (music labels, movie studios, TV networks, etc) catch people sharing content they do not own – no matter how harmless one thought it’d be to share with friends online that beautiful photo they found on some random website.

Happy pinning!

Interested in learning more about Pinterest? Head over to their website: www.pinterest.com Or contact us to find out how we can you help you drive yours.

 
A new piece of research from the University of Windsor in Canada has looked into the effect music has on software developers. According to the study, the designers quality of work was lowest and it took them more time to complete tasks when there was no music playing. Background music was reported to create a positive change in mood correlated with increased curiosity – an excellent thing to have when doing creative work.

 
It seems it is the type of music you listen to which has the most effect. It was found that listening to excitative music tends to increase feelings of vigour and tension while listening to calm music releases tension. Listening to your favourite music will lower tension, even if it is fast paced, although your heart rate and blood pressure will remain higher.

 
So it all really depends on preference and what type of project you’re working on. If your deadlines are tight, you might want to have drum and bass in the background to egg you along at a fast pace. If you’re working on some deep thinking concept work, something slow and thought provoking might be the way to go.

 
We’ve decided to share with you a typical Higher Ground playlist, one for a calming Monday morning and one for a manic last minute deadline.

Monday Chill Out
Steeley Dan – The Fez
Michael Kiwanuka – Tell Me a Tale
Black Uhuru – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Bob Marley and the Wailers – Waiting in Vain
Arrested Development – Mr Wendal
Gary Numan – Music for Chameleons
Robert Palmer – Every Kinda People
RJD2 – Clean Living
Sting – An Englishman in New York
Underworld – Ballet Lane

Deadline Dig Deep
UNKLE – Reign
Utah Saints – Something Good
Xzibit – Paparazzi
Seba – Snow
SL2 – Way in My Brain
The Specials – Monkey Man
Foofighters – The Rope
Prodigy – Warrior’s Dance
Michael Jackson – Got Me working Day and Night
James Brown – Get Up Offa That Thing

These are by no means definitive lists, some notable tracks have been left off (such as Nirvana, Oasis and Pearl Jam). We hope this has spurred you on to try out some music in your work place. You never know, within weeks you might have increased productivity by 20%!

Head over to our Facebook page
or hear the latest ramblings via our Twitter page

 
Until Next time….
HGC

It will be 10 years in April, since SWISS, Switzerland’s national airline was declared bankrupt and bought out by Lufthansa.

Although a tough period indeed, the company has taken it upon itself to re-evaluate its brand positioning and strategic plan going forwards.

The focus has been on enhancing and clarifying the SWISS brand message across all mediums.

Over the last 10 years, the methods of reaching their target audience have advanced considerably and SWISS are actively seeking to reach what chief commercial officer Holger Haetty calls ‘The Facebook Generation’.

Recognising a brand’s core strengths is essential and SWISS have looked to build on these.

Starting with the planes themselves, the whole fleet was re-designed according to exacting standards, utilising dark wood fittings in business and first class as well as bigger television screens and retractable dividers around individual seats. In a recent addition SWISS are adding USB connection s for iPhones to support video on passengers televisions. The food has been developed to use traditional Swiss ingredients and the menu reflects this with seasonal variances.

These changes have been supported by a brand overhaul completed in August last year.

The logo itself was stripped back to the cross itself, strengthened by its clear national identity.

The previous incarnation had 3 variances, the cross, a cube and a double square.

By purely using the cross, SWISS clarified their brand message and in-turn reflected the purity and excellence of a brand, which is enhanced by those connotations of Switzerland itself.

The logo

The re-brand of SWISS has lead to renewed respect for the airline in the public arena. Brand kudos is at an all time high but as ever, maintaining a brand image is a constant job requiring a dedicated team of brand specialists.

The sky’s the limit for SWISS airlines (excuse the pun).

Until next time…..

HGC

 
eBoy is the brainchild of three graphic designers, Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital, they founded this so called ‘pixel art’ company back in May 1997, which gave them a platform to convey their love for all things detailed and pixelated and made them into works of art, completing many complex illustrations into posters, shirts, souvenirs, and even giant display hoardings for gallery exhibitions across the globe.

So how do they make a living from this so called ‘pixel art’, well when you dig deeper and take a look a their client list you’ll see it makes for quite an impressive read, from the likes of Adidas and Adobe right through to drinks giants Pepsi, Coca-Cola and brands such as National Geographic and Microsoft. Now that’s pretty impressive for a bunch of pixels!

 
“We started working with pixels because we loved the idea of making pictures only for the screen. It’s the best way to get really sharp and clean looking results. Also, handling pixels is fun and you are forced to simplify and abstract things, which is a big advantage of this technique.” Based in Berlin, eBoy’s founders now find themselves collaborating with Peter Stemmler in New York to produce graphic design work for companies.

They have certainly generated and created a lot of interest on a worldwide scale over the past 15 years, and the good thing to see is how they’ve adapted to newer technologies. From giant wall posters to now producing downloadable iPhone apps http://www.fastcompany.com/1637328/eboy-brings-their-genius-for-pixelated-design-to-iphone-app

 
Check out the following clip:

 
In our old studio we even have two these giants posters adorning our creative studio walls…
Now check out the city pixel artwork below… Can you guess which city this? Answers on a post card please : )

You can purchase a whole lot of goodies via the online shop
or if you do wish to dig deeper then check out the recommended following links:
http://digitalthread.com/webdesign/pixel_design/eboy.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBoy

Or you can head over to the portfolio section of our website to see a preview some of our latest workings…
http://www.highergroundcreative.co.uk/our-work/

 
Alternatively you can head over to our Facebook page
or hear the latest ramblings via our Twitter page

Until next time bloggers…
HGC.

A pair of 22 year old technologically savvy bloggers working for Nickelodeon, have recently sparked an online trend called ‘Babies with iPads’. Yes this does exist!

“Whenever we see babies with iPads, we view them as social media rockstars in the making,” Stelios Phili, a web producer / co-creator the blog recently wrote. “Right now, they look real innocent… but really, they’re just preparing to take over the world, we think that’s cute, or potentially quite scary depending on how you look at it?!”
Phili and Jeff Luppino-Esposito, social media writers at Nickelodeon, have also posted nine pages’ worth of baby photos and written hilarious tech-related captions for each of them. Flip through the smile-inducing gallery below to see the babies in action, and be sure to read the captions for a good laugh. The duo started ‘Babies With iPads’ after seeing several Facebook photos of babies wielding gadgets, for now, they’re focused on iPads, but they might consider “expanding the crib” to include other devices or brands if they notice an increase of babies using non-iPad gadgets.
“We have so much fun bringing together two of mankind’s most epic creations in a helplessly adorable way and writing these captions that are practically direct quotes from our co-workers and from ourselves,” Luppino-Esposito says. “It’s awesomely cathartic to realise that these bombastic ‘social media expert’ claims seem as natural coming from an adult as they do from a baby.”
So what are your views on this? Is this something that should even be blogged about, let alone posting pictures of babies in an online environment, this could be quite a controversial topic. This poses the question, will something digitally displayed ever take over what is printed or aesthetic?

Here’s an interesting post we found from October last year, are we seeing the birth of the techno-baby?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049117/Baby-thinks-magazine-iPad–YouTube-video.html
If you do wish to dig deeper then check out the recommended links:

http://babieswithipads.blogspot.com/

Alternatively, off topic, you can head over to the portfolio section of our website to see a preview of our latest work…
http://www.highergroundcreative.co.uk/our-work/
Alternatively you can head over to our Facebook page
or hear the latest ramblings via our Twitter page
Until next time bloggers…
HGC.

Flickr’s new Pinterest-style makeover is due to be complete before the end of February in the form of a new justified view photostream. This newly styled photostream  positions and sizes images appropriately to fit neatly together, just as they do in Pinterest, and this newly rolled out functionality and styling shall be going live this week!  The images in the new photo stream are larger than before and are initially presented without heading text. Heading text and other data becomes apparent on image hover. It is good to see Flickr returning to its older days where uploaded images were freely viewable in there original large format sizes, something that Flickr had cut down on in more recent years due to photography ownership and copyright.
Flickr also has a tool that it has titled ‘Uploadr’, due to launch in March this year, the new photo upload feature shall function more like an app than the current form-based upload script, allowing users to drag and drop images anywhere on the page to begin transfer. Images are made available immediately for annotation as they are being uploaded – this includes tags and geo-tagging.

 
Flickr has stated that they’ll pursue Yahoo!’s “mobile first” strategy through 2012, suggesting that Flickr mobile will be getting similar updates later in the year.
Do let us know your views and comments on this subject, we’d be interested to hear what you have to say.
And whilst we’re on the subject of Flickr, you can head over to our very own Flickr photostream which is also under going various updates over the next few weeks.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/highergroundcreative/

If you do wish to dig deeper then check out the recommended following links:
http://theultralinx.com/2012/02/flickr-february-major-makeover-redesign.html
https://plus.google.com/105201176373156907412/posts/d1ChufdPeY2
http://blog.flickr.net/en

 
Or you can head over to the portfolio section of our website to see a preview of our latest work…
http://www.highergroundcreative.co.uk/our-work/

 
Alternatively you can head over to our Facebook page
or hear the latest ramblings via our Twitter page

Until next time bloggers…
HGC.