I’ve been meaning to look into Clearspring’s widget platform for a while, so when I came across the In Rainbows widget on Mashable I thought I’d give the platform a quick test run from the end–user’s point of view. If you don’t know or care what a widget is then switch off now and wait for me to post about some more pretty pictures.

Posting the widget to my MySpace profile was really easy – I just popped in my username and password and chose which area of my profile I wanted to add the widget to. It was like taking candy from a baby that was asleep, and was giving away free candy.

Facebook was a different matter. I had to be logged into Facebook, after which posting the widget to my profile was straightforward. What actually ended up on my profile page was a bit of a joke however. An item appeared in my mini–feed declaring that I had “ posted a video”. The title of this video was “Widget”, and had I not written “Testing the Radiohead In Rainbows widget” in the optional “comments” field, my friends would have been left with no idea what the hell I had posted. This is quite simply crap.

Next I tried to post it as a blog post on Sleevelessness, which is powered by Blogger. I was expected to construct a blog post in the world’ smallest form and I wasn’t able to add any HTML tags, which meant I had to log into Blogger and edit the post manually. I would have been better off copying the embed code.

Don’t get me wrong, I think widgets are a great idea in principle – the idea of being able to create one application and plug it into a range of platforms is a very powerful one. It’s just a matter of both the widget platforms and the social networks working on their respective sides of the integration.

After finding piece of work I liked, it was once again well worth while digging around the studio responsible’s website – in this case One Fine Day. James Joyce's (great name) work is simple, fun and refreshingly direct in nature. I particularly love this "dials" image from the contact page:



You can buy one of James’ limited edition screenprints in the One Fine Day shop.

Get Involved is a monthly club night at The Social in London. They approach a different designer or image–maker to create the poster for each event. Build, Anthony Burrill and Jon Burgerman have all had a go.

I particularly loved this contribution by James Joyce / One Fine Day:



Build's contribution turned the idea on it's head once again, inviting anyone to download their template poster and create their own version.





You can see all the versions of Build's poster at the Get Involved site, where there's also a full archive of all the monthly posters.

I just finished this month's user–generated flyer for my long–standing client Sancho Panza's monthly night at The End/AKA club in London. This month we're hopeful that spring is kicking in (despite today's shocking weather). Users can create a typographic flower from their name. Why not add yours?

I had intended to write a post about interactive music videos – but guess what? There are hardly any. In fact I managed to find around five, of which “Black Mirror” by Arcade Fire was the clear winner. This and Rektor's Princess (2003) were the only ones which kept me engaged throughout the length of the track. Arcade Fire's other contribution to the world's smallest genre had a certain charm but ultimately became very dull very fast.

While searching through a thread of comments on Digg I found this quote from a user called “bitcloud”:

“I'm pretty sure there's a reason the rift between interactive and passive media exists - too passive to be interesting, and too active to be passive...”

Is this true or have we just not cracked the interactive music promo yet?

Scott Hansen has an article on this brilliant viral project by New York based designer Nikolay Saveliev. Saveliev created sleeves and inserts carrying faux–academic material on the state of the pop and music industries, but actually promoting indie radio stations. 140 copies were then “snuck” onto the shelves of record shops for browsing punters to discover. Check out the original post for lots more images.

Following up on my last post, I had a dig through Yes Studio's website and they've done some really nice work, particularly in the areas of music and art. I'm a firm believer in the theory that a designer or agency's portfolio should reflect the type of work they want to be doing, and I reckon Yes Studio's portfolio is a great example of this. There's probably some more mundane work going on day–to–day to pay the bills, but there's no reason why anyone has to know.


“Conceived as a reaction to the glut of new bands called 'The... ', Yes Studio created a list of 99 classic band names prefixed with ‘The’”

Excellent artwork by Yes Studio for The Stands’ 2005 album. I especially like the fact that it's called “Horse Fabulous” – it's almost enough to make me buy it despite the fact that I don't even like the band.



Originally posted by Scott Hansen.

Loads more at the Song Charts Flickr pool. Picked up at Swiss Miss.

Once upon a time, if you were working for the British Antarctic Survey you'd be pretty isolated from the rest of the world. Now we have the interweb, you can create a piece of eerily appropriate music to your setting, (largely based on objects you found lying around the place) and upload it for all the world to hear and see. Now that's progress.

Picked up at Listening Post.

It's not often you get a chance to show the “unboxing” of a book. My eagerly awaited copy of “Things I have learned in my life so far” by Stefan Sagmeister arrived yesterday and I was delighted to discover that it was not merely a book, but lots of little books in a lovely die–cut box.

Genius video for the 2008 remix of Utah Saints’ Something Good. Expect to see the running man on a dancefloor near you from this weekend onwards.