Beautiful Interior + Shit Food + Crap Knives = Zizzi

So me and my two friends thought we'd catch a bite to eat before we went to see comedian, Shappi Khorsandi and Jon Richardson at the Nottingham Playhouse.

Various places were tossed around but we settled on Zizzi's after I remember going while I was in London a few years back.

What a mistake that was!

Zizzi, if you've never been, looks nice and modern on the outside, very very beautiful inside and very comfortable too. The furnishings are clean, cream and bright with a very expensive twist (such as trees growing in the restaurant and various alcoves and, I counted, three seperate stair cases). The staff were very welcoming and inviting, maybe this was their downfall.

Now when I go out for a meal with my friends, I like to think I'll have a good time, so when the waitress asked if we would like bread or olives to begin with, I eagerly said yes. Having just placed my order for a refreshing lemonade.

Conversation flowed, innuendos galore, lots of gorping at the men... the waitress brought over the beginnings of our meal. This is where things went pairshaped.

My glass of lemonade was the size of a small mobile phone, the bread that came was fairly dry and bland, of which only had two of each type of bread, not much use for three of us. The olives came too, I promptly found out that my two other friends don't like olives, great! More for me!... Not so great when they tasted like they'd been sat in vinager all their lives and you had about 20 to eat before your main course.

After discarding the "starters", our main courses arrived fairly soon after!

Whilst ordering my Sophia pizza, I was asked if I wanted the thinner but slightly larger base, I said yes, thinking the price would probably be the same, considering they're using the same if not less dough...

Looking around at my friend's food options I thought I had a pretty good choice, their food came with rather small and bland looking salads, I thought my rather massive pizza would just be enough to fill a rather average sized appetite.

5 minutes later and I'm still sawing away at my pizza with the worlds bluntest knife. My two friends are happily gobbling away at their lasagne and calzone... I'm still here, sawing into my pizza. Eventually, my calzone friend had finished and I was no further into ingesting my pizza, I signaled for the waitress to come over. Still in fairly high spirits (mainly due to the dehydration and good conversation) I asked the waitress for a new knife, but in doing so, in fact said "Do you have another knife? Something like a steak knife, because this knife is crap." A slip of the tounge, but none the less, completely acurate! To kick my mood down several pegs, she said "No sorry" and smiled a concerning smile. I had already gone around my friends and tried their knives, so once she brought back a knife of the same cutting ability, I was less than impressed.
I proceeded to tear off the cold, tasteless pizza with my teeth to try and ingest some of the money I had paid to get this pizza.

Finished my "meal" and asked for the bill. £41.50 for three people. Fair enough. But once I totalled my meal's price it came to £20! What on!?
Well, the pizza on it's own was £9.50, plus another £1.50 for the extra thin, slightly wider pizza. My drink was £2.00, £3.00 for the bread and a staggering £4.00 for the olives!

Dissheartened at the terrible meal, I was in too lower spirits to give Zizzi's more than a hard pushed 5 / 10, and maybe the interior helped push it towards a 6, but half those points are probably made up from the conversation we had and the fairly average talent available across the other few tables.

Think I'll stick to at food Trent Kebabs or Food Factory for a good night out!

Trent Barton Review

Well well well! It's about time Trent Barton revamped their website!
Their old site was very outdated and was quite unfriendly to use, it felt as though it was stuck in the mid 00's with their simple drop down menus and confusing bus time tables, however the story is different now.

Their new site offers the user a modern soft design, with the use of sliding menus and databases to remove unwanted clutter. Their new features removed all the excessive and unrequired data, and presents the user with options to find what they're really looking for.

Diverse menus that are simple to use and easy to understand have turned this website around. Their graphics have been improved a sense of strong brand has been created through their graphic design and web management. Check it out!

10/10

http://www.trentbarton.co.uk/

3 Designers - Non-Web Design Specific

Joel Schafer

As stated before, I really like Joel Schafer's work as he uses very simple, minimal design which is effective and usable. It appeals to me as I try to design sites that are simplistic and accessible. This sounds like an easy way out, but in fact it's probably more difficult. Creating a site with a reduced quantity of text and imagery makes it more difficult to portray exactly what you're trying to get across. It's like writing an essay in just 1,000 words, when you really need 2,000. It's about being selective and creative - which is what Joel Schafer designs like. Only the relevant information is there, but uses layout and creative design to portray his messages.

http://www.designinterviews.com/interviews/599

Saatchi & Saatchi

Creating alternative advertising campaigns, Saatchi & Saatchi have worked with companies varying from Cadburys to T-Mobile. They've produced adverts for Cadbury where a choir walk over a hill, emerging dress up in Christmas costumes. This was sure to grab attention in the summer of 2009. Along side this was their powerful T-Mobile campaigns that utilised the flash-mob culture by getting thousands of people to sing various songs in London's Trafalgar Square and New York's Grand Central Station. Huge crowds formed and performed a song, before disbanding and continuing their daily routine. Those not involved with the event were confused as to what was happening and watch in surprise at vast hoard of people performing in routine together. I like design that surprises people too, the use of shock tactics or clever design usually sticks in the viewers mind and in turn convince the consumer to invest.

http://www.saatchi.co.uk/

3 Designers - Non-Web Design Specific

David Airey

A brilliant graphic designer, he works mainly in brand and print design. I'm really excited by his work as he is very open about the way he designs. By visiting his website, it's clear to see how he works, mainly on graph paper so he can plan new logo designs and develop his ideas through mind-maps etc. His outcomes are usually great logos and simplistic but strong design. Using very specific brand colours, layout and fonts - he has created brand identities for many companies. His simplistic design is similar to Joel's as states above, however David is more methodical and strategic when it comes to design, which is an approach I would like to follow - having specific things you do to create new media items is a good way to get ideas flowing and design created.

http://www.davidairey.com/portfolio/

Designers Republic

I love designers who aren't afraid to push the boundaries and create something really off the wall. Designer's Republic's own website is very much it's own style. With unclear links which do what you'd expect, this website becomes strangely usable. You'd think with such a confusing design it would be confusing, but in reality it works with a bit of concentration. They've also used constantly changing image files which can be quite frustrating, but at the same time it's intriguing as you have to sit and watch the pictures cycle through of and over to see what's being shown. Designer's Republic have also done various advertising campaigns such as projecting words and phrases onto the sides of buildings. Having companies out there who perform these sorts of stunts is important as it keeps designers thinking of new and innovative ways to promote a brand, which keeps the industry moving forwards. No doubt I will think of Designer's Republic when thinking about creating something a bit off the wall.

http://www.pho-ku.com/

Daniel Libeskind

This is an architectural designer who likes to challenge the view of buildings and how they're used. For example, Libeskind's design of the Jewish Holocaust Museum in Berlin isn't what you'd think a normal design for a building would be, he's managed to represent the contents of the building with the exterior design, using metallic materials and sharp diagonal edges creates a very industrial and uncomfortable feeling to the building. I love design that evokes feeling and is intrinsically linked to the focus of the project, by combining the two, design really comes to life and the projects can become more successful from that point forward.

http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/projects/show-all/jewish-museum-berlin/

Coffee Date: Review

Coffee Date is a brilliant film!!

It's obviously been filmed on a fairly small budget, but the acting is fine and the camera work is great enough for this sort of film.

It's like a gay guy's chick flick. A lot of "in" jokes that are quite frankly, hilarious! It's a must see film for anyone with a fun sense of humour, especially the LGBT communities.

The film follows one man's journey from being single and is set up on a date with "Kelly". Only, when he gets there and meets up with them, he's actually male!

After much deliberation, he realises who he's on a date with and they end up seeing each other as friends. The word spreads that he's now gay and no one will believe him that he's infact straight. After trying out gay sex for the first time, he realises he's not gay. Unfortunatly, Kelly falls in love with him and this is where the emotion takes place.

Overall, a great narrative, great script and a must-see-feel-good movie!

9/10

Boosting your career with social media

Check out this great article I found on the .net magazine website.

It talks about the importance of being up-to-date online when it comes to finding employment, especially in this tough economical climate.

It's becoming rapidly clear that if you don't have an online presence, it will be so much more difficult to find work and be involved with your network, especially in the field I'm wanting to enter, Interactive Media.

Being accessible online, gives potential employers the ability to quickly access information about you and contact you instantly, resulting in work hopefully!

Of course, being in the web industry, it'll be very important to have a professional online presence, and therefore the way you conduct yourself online will be very important to consider.

Inspiration Music: Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna

I bought this album yesterday after only hearing the song "Music Takes Me Up" on YouTube and I thought it was hilarious.

Very occasionally, I'll invest in some music that I've only ever heard one song of in hope that the rest of the album will be as to the same high quality.

I was pleaseantly surprised that this album is actually quite so good! I found it in the dance section at HMV, but as I'm listening to it, most of the songs actually make me smile while I'm sitting here typing.

Music Takes Me Up is track two, and is actually longer than the single version which is great! The video features dancing singing fruit, and the main singer is a singing lemon! For some reason, I found this rather amusing and proceeded to show all my friends!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojl2KLCGT4I

The rest of the album is fairly upbeat and sound quite experimental, it's almost drum and base, but it's got quite a latin salsa vibe going on with some cool base lines and a scratch from the DJ through out.

Overall, it's a great album to put you in that "classy London" mood or excellent music for a more upmarket style party where people may network in the background. Or a fashion show come to think of it!

Quite a diverse album and some great sounds!
8/10

3 Sites with User Content

1. DenDen
This website offers users a forum to share their views and opinions about the music industry, focusing mainly on the Spice Girls, this forum has been the central location for the latest goings on and rumours for the band for the last 7 or 8 years.
The site has strict copyright rules and so therefore a lot of it is fan made content where a fan has found a rare piece of music, video or created a remix or video to share within the community.
There's a lot of support and loyalty on the site which is reflected through sharing the content with each other. Overall, quite a nice site to keep in the know and get frustrated by all the rumours.

2. Mod The Sims
A great social networking and sharing site where users can upload their own Sims objects and skins to the server and other users can download and add it to their games.
Users are able to search for specific items to add to their game or they can submit their own. It's also a place for people to chat and share their own stories of the game and get help and advice.
The site design is quite bad, with adverts overcrowding the website and various design aspects such as the very square like features make the website look flat and unbalanced.

3. Share My Lyrics
This site is soley based around lyrics and poetry. Users can sign up to the website and submit their lyrics for other users to read and rate at their leasure. It's an interesting alternative to making a music video or writing an actual song as the user only needs the access to the internet and some creative flow. Useful for people who need some inspiration when writing music or just want to get their stuff seen. The website looks quite simple to use and fairly colourful. There is also a forum for users to log in and talk about collaborations, writing songs and getting noticed. An interesting concept, however I'm unsure as to how successful this site can get due to its text based nature.

Joel Schafer: 'I'm into minimalistic clean design' January 15, 2008

http://www.designinterviews.com/interviews/599

Love it, love it, love it!
Joel Schafer has pretty much captured my vision when it comes to design. Just like Joel, I love the simplistic but effective design. Using just a couple of colours and adapting space is one of the best ways to design as it keeps things minimal and the information and data you need is right infront of you where you need it.

Even though Joel's interview was short and to the point, I liked that. He told you what you wanted to know but kept you wanting more, which is another great design aspect.. keep the user coming back for more!

Dan Saffer: 'Interaction design is an applied art' August 13, 2008

http://www.designinterviews.com/interviews/interaction-design-is-an-applied-art

Reading this interview with Dan Saffer was really interesting to see how someone who works as an Interactive Designer thinks and uses his time.

What I thought was just as interesting is how similar Dan Saffer is to myself. I found myself agreeing with almost everything he said. On comments I hadn't thought about on my own, I read what he had to say and found myself understanding and wanting to know more about what he had to say. For example,

"What are the core elements of an interaction that web designers measure during the creating process?

Usefulness, usability, and desirability. If your design fills a need in people's lives, works well, and looks beautiful, you've got design gold. There are lots of secondary characteristics that fall under these headings, like efficiency and balance and trustworthiness and a whole host of other traits, most of which can only be fuzzily measured but are important nonetheless."

This was really interesting for me as its gives you 3 main aspects to try and work towards when designing for interaction and general application of creative skill. Usefulness, usability and desirability are the essence of design within the industry and can be applied to almost any interactive content. Even on something such as an electric hand dryer. Usefulness as the user has wet hands and doesn't need to press the button. Usability is simple as the user only has to place their hands under the dry and desirability is there too as it's novel and makes us feel ever so slightly more technically advanced, life's simple pleasures comes to mind.

I also found Dan Saffer quite inspiring in terms of his principles he follows in his work,

'The Way you know is not The Way.' –Tao Te Ching

'A body in motion tends to stay in motion.' Newton's First Law

'If it was easy, then everyone would do it.'

Reading these three really struck a cord with me. Recently in my personal life the first of the three has been quite a prominent feature and something I will have to work on to change, so it was refreshing to see it written by someone else completely unrelated. Also, I think that all 3 of the statements are very true. At the end of the day, if you're working hard and pushing yourself continually with the ability to critically analyse yourself, you're going to go far and develop as a designer and that's why were at University, to learn, change and advance.

The Onion

Taking Unencyclopedia and spinning it on its head, this fantastic website gives the citizens of America (and the rest of the world) a good laugh at almost anything you could imagine in the news.
From the war on terror to Google's dominance, the Onion website is a great place to log on to for a quick laugh.

The site has been made very well and the content passes a very high standard, looking very professional with the use of video clips and it's strong branding.

One of the best video's I've seen on this site was about Google taking over the world, and the only way to get out of Google's tracking is to join an opt-out scheme, where people who don't want Google to get them can be placed in a mini village where there's no computers or hospitals etc. A brilliant spoof idea that works very well in convincing the audience that Google really are taking over and it's getting beyond a joke now.

The Onion website will not only make you laugh, but make you think, and I believe that's one of the most important aspects of web design.

The Onion website

8/10

Gone In 60 Seconds

Watched this film for the first time last night.

I was expecting a lot of car chases, guns and sex... what I got was lots of guns, a couple of car chases and not much sex, but that, for me, was a good thing.

Not being into action films that much, it was quite refreshing that the story line wasn't too in depth and complicated, it was simply "Steal 50 cars and your brother lives". Easy enough to follow.

The car chase at the end was a great sequence, if not a tad over done but I enjoyed watching it and actually found myself quite intently watching it.

The relationship between the main character and his love for cars is frequently refered to, especially at the end when his brother buys him the car he loves just as a thank you for saving his life. A very warm and pleasent ending to an emotional and comic film.

There are various stereotypes that are fulfilled, what with the token black man saying stuff like "my black ass" and "what up?", and of course, the pin-up Angelina Jole working as the bad girl and sex interest.

Over all, I enjoyed the film and found it not too much to take in on a Sunday night with your mum.

6/10

Loose Women

Having been introduced to Loose Women from my boyfriend, I've become some what intrigued and interested by it.

It's interesting to me to see a program that's so successful being shown as day time entertainment. Maybe this is opening a new slot for a peak time or the show appeals as it's light hearted comedy that could be shown in waiting rooms in places such as Doctor's surgeries and hair salons for example.

A differing panel on each day of the week offers a fresh and appealing show that is always unpredictable and often takes the viewer by surprise.

I think the heart of the success in the show is that ITV have selected female celebrities that are not incredibly famous, and are therefore more like the average UK citizen. Through this, we as an audience are able to identify ourselves with them through the universal issues they talk about by giving candid opinions on subject matters that would occasionally be taken too far on an evening show, but kept to a good humorous level at lunch time.

Would the success of the show be the same with equally famous men? I highly doubt it. For some reason, I don't think this time slot would accommodate 4 middle aged men talking about their life experiences including the humorous sexual innuendos as the women manage to pull off. Instead, the show may come across as a dirtier show simply because it's men talking about their experiences and I can imagine a lot of middle aged men finding it hard to talk about similar subjects of interest in the same way, creating light hearted lunch time entertainment.

Overall, Loose Women attracts a massive audience and a good following with their ITV website which includes a forum for the audience members to get involved with and various competitions to keep the show uplifting and fun.

There's no doubt in my mind this show will go from strength to strength, it's just a shame they don't offer a Catch-Up service for the show on the ITV website.

9/10

High School Musical

After watching High School Musical for the first time today, I have to admit it was quite watchable in places.

Clearly, from my first statement, that doesn't mean I thought it was a good film. Maybe because I'm probably the wrong target audience, I couldn't appreciate it's full glory, but I can see why there's a massive following with children in secondary schools wild about the films.

The film did offer a nice light hearted and typical love story about a typical popular sports Jockey and the geeky scientist girl falling in love through their differences, finding a common interest in the arts, with necessary intervention from the "stuck up" popular girl and her male sideshow, less intelligent, brother.

What was nice about this film however, was the inclusion of more flamboyant characters being closer to the main roles, with various hints towards a gay character for those older than the demographic. A refreshing change for films targeted at a younger audience.

The plot itself was fairly basic, using the typical strict female drama teacher and the goal-focused sports coach.

Modern twists on old stories were also included, such as the moment where Troy gets up onto the balcony after being told to leave by her mother, very Romeo and Juliet.

Overall, a nice film for a rainy day.. we'll see what the second and third films are like.. if I actually make the effort to add them to my rental list.

5/10

Website Reviews

It's time for my few website reviews.

You would've thought that with all the pressure on countries to expand their broadband connectivity that the whole world would be using a pretty speedy connection. This is the case in a lot of countries, however, some major website are still fairly basic. Let's take Google and Facebook for example.

Google is probably the most common and used website in the world, yet it's front end design is very very basic. The website literally is comprised of just the logo "Google" which changes very occasionally and then the search box beneath it. Google has been running for years and year yet it's main search engine's website is still very basic.

Facebook, another world-wide accessed website is also very simple, with a blue banner across the top and a very simple picture below to show the connectivity Facebook has with it's users. Each of these websites have to be accessible across the whole world and on many platforms such as iPhones and other mobile technology, and even games consoles. Therefore, the designs have to stay fairly simple to allow for that adaptation between devices.

As they are both world-wide websites, it could be said that as they reach countries that are less developed, they have to keep their website sizes down to make it accessable to places with lower speed internet connections.

Contrasting these sites to the BBC UK website, we can see some differences.

The BBC website has been created with the UK in mind. Before stating your location on the BBC homepage, its pressumes your in London and displays the weather for that location.

As we look at the website, there's a massive increase in colour and photography. This website has been created for a standard browser and for the UK population. As a developed country it is taken as standard that most UK citizens who are accessing the website will have a fast broadband connection and therefore will be able to see the entire website very quickly, and therefore the site size and loading times haven't been considered as much as the other two websites with larger circulation numbers.

The bright colours on the BBC website will attract all users and the colours change, depending upon what time of day, season or the main headlines are. All in all, the BBC website is made with the UK in mind, considering the standard broadband speed of each household, where as Google and Facebook have had to consider the entire world in their design and have adapted their size and imagery accordingly.

Love Film - Well I should do!

Doing a Media based degree and studying Media Studies ever since Year 10, when I was about 14, you'd think that I would have seen a lot of films and would be quite a big film buff.

That's totally not the case! Infact, I've seen less films than an average business man who works around the clock.

In fact, it's so bad, I havent even seen some basic films such as the Matrix, Bambi, American Pie, Austin Powers, Saw and Wallace and Grommit.

So I've decided to start a New Year resolution, to watch more films!! And to do this, i've signed up the LoveFilm.com. I figured that on their basic package, you get 2 films a month for about £4. As I'm quite a busy person, I'll start with just 2 a month untill I see how I go.

I've just received Run Fat Boy Run and watch that this evening. I thought the film was really interesting to see a breakdown of a marriage and being stud up at the alter from the male point of view and why men react in the way they do. It was also interesting to see him represented as the average joe, or someone who we can all relate to by having determination, but cutting out after a while.

All in all, the film was a nice one to watch with a very light hearted comedy streek going through it, well worth a watch for the men out there who could use a bit of a lift or a chick-flick style, but aimed at the guys.