a thirty-something graphic designer obsessed with interiors, chairs, butter, colours, china, oak trees, molten chocolate, roses and rhubarb living in Melbourne, Australia.
I have to dedicate a whole post to our new favourite ad on TV. Andrew and I love the updated feel to the M&Ms in their sexy ad on TV. Makes for an excellent screensaver, which I am working on, keep your eyes peeled to updates/comments on this post. You might just be able to download it!
The song is "Colour my World" and originally sang by Petunia Clark. You can download Clark's version from iTunes for $1.50.
M&M sandblasted the old feel of M&Ms by launching on River of Chocolate project where ONE song is taken by 6-7 different artists, remade and given a distinct individuality.
In Australia we get to enjoy the softer version of it. The "harder" version has been released in US... watch it here.
For all you guys praying for Krispy Kreme to open in Melbourne while we enjoy them a mere 5 mins drive from our home, here's something for you! Des, Agnes... you know, to enjoy Krispy Kreme, we're only a short flight away... and we always have the spare room ready for you!
A little about those yummy sinful creations Americans buy 11,000 dozen doughnuts every hour - more than 3 million a day.
Here's something I found fascinating. While the doughnuts may be kneaded, fried, and filled in a store in West Virginia, Nebraska or Sydney, only the people at the headquarters know what is in the dough! Every container of doughnut mix, icing, and raspberry filling comes by truck/plane from Ivy Avenue, the headquarters for Krispy Kreme in North Carolina, US. Even the stainless-steel equipment used to turn the ingredients into doughnuts is made in the HQ's metal facility.
Why? As a company, Krispy Kreme has one overriding goal: consistency. It wants a doughnut purchased in Pennsylvania or New South Wales to taste exactly like a doughnut purchased in Las Vegas. And it wants a doughnut eaten on 1 July 2004 to taste exactly like a doughnut eaten on 1 July 1959.
Ivy Avenue is so obsessed with consistency that before each batch of wheat flour is allowed into the building, a sample is tested in a second-floor lab. A quick check for moisture content, protein and ash, using an infrared tester... why? Because, according to their food technologist, while wheat crops vary; the doughnuts cannot. In fact, all of the raw ingredients are tested before being accepted... even the sugar.
Another quick info tip: krispy kreme do no formal advertising!
Here's something you can try to sooth that ache:
Krispy Kreme-like Doughnuts
2 pkg yeast
1/4 cup warm water (105-115 degrees)
1 1/2 cup lukewarm milk (scalded, then cooled)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup shortening
5 cup all-purpose flour
Vegetable oil
Dissolve yeast in warm water in 2 1/2-quart bowl. Add milk, salt, eggs, shortening and 2 cups flour. Beat on low speed scraping bowl constantly, 30 seconds. Beat on medium speed scraping bowl occasionally, 2 minutes. Stir in remaining flour until smooth. Cover and let rise in warm place, until double, 50-60 minutes. (Dough is ready when indentation remains when touched.)
Turn dough onto floured surface; roll around lightly to coat with flour. Gently roll dough 1/2-inch thick with floured rolling pin. Cut with floured doughnut cutter. Cover and let rise until double, 30-40 minutes. Heat vegetable oil in deep fryer to 350 degrees. Slide doughnuts into hot oil with wide spatula. Turn doughnuts as they rise to the surface. Fry until golden brown, about 1 minute on each side. Remove carefully from oil (do not prick surface); drain.
Dip the doughnuts into creamy glaze set on rack then when slightly cooled spread chocolate glaze on top. Can dip in sprinkles or other toppings after chocolate if desired.
Creamy Glaze:
1/3 cup butter 2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 4-6 tablespoons hot water
Heat butter until melted. Remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Stir in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency.
starting in the late 1980s and throughout the 90s, the big thing was functionality and usability in website design. this movement led by Jakob Nielsen glorified websites that were quick to load and less chunky and clean. with his bare-bones website www.useit.com, this movement stormed the corporate world. it features no more than 3 colours, no fancy fonts, no pictures, no fancy borders... no style... just bare text and links. his claim was that online surfers who intentionally or unintentionally seek information don't care to be entertained or their senses pleasured. his crusade was to promote an Internet with just information, bare-bodied, not candy-coated.
but one only needs to take a bird's eye view of history to see that human beings are turned on by their senses much more than "usability". if anything, our need to be entertained has only grown bigger. our appetite to be candied has expanded... our greed for pleasure increased by leaps and bounds.
so old-style experts like Nielsen now have to bow out and concede that visual entertainment is equally important as the information provided for a complete online experience.
why? because it creates a "come back" desire. so like krispy kreme donuts, consumers are left wanting more.
our society is a consumer society. we seek to be tantalised, to be seduced into staying, wanting more. in this throw-away society, we shop -or style- hop. everything is disposable. don't like that, move on, find something more.
a quick look at Nielsen's staunchiest followers, websites that are full of information and absolutely no intelligent work gone into design and style... websites like Microsoft (pre August 2004), Dell and government websites. these websites deployed the bare bones style: resulting in a world-wide community of people who hate their websites. thankfully, Microsoft have gone over to the bright side... kudos to their new look.
Apple.com on the other hand has always sought to tantalise the four senses (if the electronic devices could translate the olfactory sense, i'm sure apple will exploit that too!). they provide consumers with sleek looks and minimalistic modernity that goes a long way to portray the culture of the company itself. but don't be deceived: their website is chock full of information - in easy-to-find ways!
white space is used wisely: left as white space.
trend experts say that everything has trends... from furniture to haircuts to clothes to shoes to cars to book covers to kitchenware to wall treatment to flower arrangements to drink bottles. Target recognised this and hired Michael Graves to design high quality household products instead of churning out second-grade crap. now their sales have tripled.
we seek to fulfill our senses every way in the natural world, what makes people think that just by sitting in front of a screen that we automatically shift?
comments welcomed.
signing off from the train, drey.
when i was nine, i think i was still running around in shorts catching tadpoles and making pies from mud and sticks!
check out this nine year old. his toys are Dreamweaver and Flash!!! he's nine!!!!!! while a little crude, it is his design, his drawing and animations!!!! go here...
me personally i don't really like splash intros, especially those that take forever to load! Functional websites, imho, should not even consider using splash screens.. and I'm forever glad that auspost.com, dhl.com, hotmail.com, smh.com.au don't boast splash screens.
But Bryant Park Hotel's website starts off with such a funky splash screen that I don't mind waiting!
A personal style is like a handwriting—it happens as the byproduct of our way of seeing things, enriched by the experiences of everything around us.— Massimo Vignelli, designer (from Becoming a Graphic Designer by Steven Heller and Teresa Fernandes)
Here's a great tool for lunch breaks! I love this... it just is so mentally refreshing... and non-mind-power taxing! See how well you go at expressing your individuality!
as I was thinking of an appropriate comeback to VC's comment, it occurred to me that my father in law would only see grey on my site!! that would not do! (Plus the fact that VC is right!!!)
fact is, colour blindness is a gene commonly found in MEN! so. vernon, I have adjusted the background from pink to a warm green (!). if you have more problems with this, it might be that you're opposed to any other colour than blue :)
that got me thinking about colour. we depend so much on colour...
if the milk is green: something's wrong.
if one particular traffic light is suddenly blue, purple and pink: someone's gonna have an accident.
if someone walks in with a green tinge to his/her skin: she's a little ill.
if the rose your hubby/boyfriend gave you kept turning white and green and red, you might blow up anytime.
if the sky is green, you're looking upside down.
if your toes are purple and you don't seem to hurt and you haven't been near purple paint, you were born without pain receptors.
if your candy pink lipstick applies on with a slight blue tinge, take note that cosmetics have expiry dates!
if your nice white bread is now a lovely polka dot blue and white, you might need to do more grocery shopping.
anyway. you get the idea.
i could not imagine life without colour. kinda like God. He has the best colour invention! think about the orange and yellow ziraffe: it's got a pure black tongue.
Thank you 
Thank you 
