No country for old men

Wanna see this as soon as poss.

5 Stars - Guardian

The Coens are back with a vengeance

Films I missed of 2007

I'm slowly going to get round to building up to make my lists of 2007.. but I thought I missed so many good films this year, I'd list some of the films of 2007 that I still want to see.

• Michael Claton
• Tell no one
  
• 3:10 to Yuma
  
• American Gangster
  
• The Assassination of Jesse James
• The Darjeeling Limited
  
• Superbad
• Knocked Up
• Once
• Air Guitar Nation
  

Doodles are the new paisley

New Size? Collection artwork by Burgerman

“The collaboration came about after I doodled a column in their Nottingham Store late last year,” Burgerman tells CR. “I think this is further evidence to the fact that Doodles are the new paisley,” he adds.

Boring Nielsen

Jakob Nielsen's suggests that ordinary sites would waste their time adding so-called Web 2.0 features if they haven't got the basics right.

The bottom line? While a modest 2.0 infusion can be beneficial, advanced features are rarely the most important contributor to good user experience or profitable websites. If you get caught up in the hype, you divert attention and resources from the simpler things that really matter. This opportunity cost is the real reason to take it easy on Web 2.0.

Before throwing spending money at "2.0" features, make sure that you have all the "1.0" requirements working to perfection.

I love the first comment from the guardian site..

Jakob has got to be the most boring person on the web. His website is boring, he talks about boring things, he states the obvious and makes it sound even more boring. He even makes something exciting like Web 2.0 sound boring.

His Christmas tree is probably 4 foot high because if it was 6 feet high it would be unusable - because he couldn't reach up to put his angel on it. It's probably a boring shade of grey too.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/12/18/jakob_trashes_web_20.html

New BBC homepage

In beta.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/beta/ Still seems to be some functionality missing.. but overall not too shabby.

TomTom and Google Maps

TomTom and Google Maps have launched a new service, where people can use Google maps to find businesses or addresses and then send that address to TomTom

As I've got a Tom Tom this is good.. although you need to use TomTom home and sync your TomTom - not tried it out yet, so don't know how painful this all is... seems like a goodish idea

"Drag"on

The new British flag? In the UK Parliament yesterday, culture minister Margaret Hodge pledged to consider a redesign of the union flag to incorporate the Welsh dragon.

Welsh MPs claim that their constituents’ identity has been suppressed by the current design which does not include a symbol to represent Wales. Albert Owen, Labour MP for Ynys Mon was reported in The Guardian as claiming that “We in Wales do not feel part of the union flag because the dragon or the cross of St David is not on it”.

50 Years of Helvetica

Total Geek Post... but kinda not..

Obviously Geek is the new cool, but even that aside I was surprised that Time Out had a film about a font as it's pick of the week. 5 Stars (out of 6).

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/84295/helvetica.html

... One highlight is an interview with German typographer and designer Erik Spiekermann who goes so far as to compare the uniform appearance of the font to Nazi soldiers marching in line. In fact, every one of Hustwit's shrewdly selected interviewees has extremely strong opinions on the subject, and there doesn’t seem to be any kind of generational or creative link as to why a designer will love or loathe the font; some see it as a design masterpiece which will never be bettered, others see it as emblemic of a creative drought and serves as nothing more than an easy design solution for lazy creatives.

http://www.helveticafilm.com/
http://www.blanka.co.uk/50_years_of_helvetica/