Helicopter cameras

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

I’ve been bumping into clips and bits of footage of people strapping expensive kit to helicopters for a while now. So I thought I’d jot down some of the good stuff.

There’s an exciting Camera Revolution that’s been unfolding for a few years now. GoPro’s and SLR’s with full HD video all contributing to cheap, accessible film making. Now expensive chopper shots are achievable as well. Extreme Sports in particular have been understandably quick on the uptake with some amazing results, and tons of potential.

I  think the current push will open doors for new camera work in the world of big blockbuster movies. Less CGI and more stunts, all shot from multiple angles with fly by, close to the action choppers. I can picture epic car chases through city streets and passages…please!

Some (there are so many) examples of what’s fuelling my excitement:

Standard chopper (2 blades) with a red on

I think this is a normal chopper as well, it was shot during the billabong pro at teahupoo in Tahiti

All these ones are using the multi blade gyro copter style stuff:

Octocopter with a red doing some test shots, nice shots of the rig

Quadrocopter filming some BMX stuff

Good footage of a GoPro on a Quad Rotor

There have been some pretty crazy developments in standard (without cameras) gyro copters. For example due to their superior stability and control they can use GPS to fly pre determined paths. I expect to see all these things used with cameras soon.

Oh, and this is sort of related, but some epic slow motion footage of a massive day at Teahupoo shot on a Phantom.

http://video.mpora.com/watch/5Pgs2slxu/hd/

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A visit to the London Art Fair 2012

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

This weekend I attended the London Art Fair to have a look at some pretty exciting Modern British and Contemporary art.

My hands down favourite piece had to be by artistic duo Rob and Nick Carter called the Paint Pigment Photographs. The piece is composed of 25 photos of different coloured paint pigments thrown up in the air and captured at 1/1000th of a second against a bright blue cloudy sky.

The series is easily understood to be about the expression of colour, but what I also love about it is the different stages the work goes through to reach the end result. Kate Bryan of FAS London explained the complexity of the work  - the idea that the piece starts off with paint references a more traditional medium, but it then transforms into a performance piece as it’s thrown into the air, becomes a sculpture for a brief moment, and ends up as a beautifully captured photograph.

Also noteworthy was the series Tokyo Lights by Marco Bettoni showcasing a collection of photos documenting different Japanese taxi cab lights.

Posted by Alexis in Events | Comments (0)

On giving people design that looks like it was made for them

Friday, January 13th, 2012

This morning our User Experience (UX) Specialist, Nathan Sellars, taught our first School of Digit class of the year, a short introduction to UX. An interdisciplinary field by nature, Nathan took us through some of the variables that have helped to shape it; elements of psychology, design, strategy, user research and engineering, among others.

What is User Experience? In short, it’s the art of delivering design that looks and behaves as if it were made for the user. No small feat, considering that web users in particular form first impressions of web pages in as little as one twentieth of a second. Design pyrotechnics don’t necessarily guarantee that users engage successfully with products and services. Digital studios like us are therefore concerned with intuitive, clean design, information architecture, content strategy and technology in tandem, without losing sight of clients’ business goals and user needs. Enter the interdisciplinary field of UX, which strikes me as part shrink’s couch, part two-way mirror, part creative solution.

As an industry rookie with a passion for producing/curating content and (here it comes) engaging communities, I’m personally drawn to the aspects of UX that acknowledge user integrity. I’m not naive enough to assume that user research can’t be used to exploit the very people in search of design that was made for them, but Nathan’s class seemed to suggest that the field of UX is underpinned by a drive for creating better experiences. I often say that I entered the ad industry through the back door (after stints in non-profit organisations, and a not-quite-earth-shattering-enough two years in Graduate school). I’m here because we make things. Thankfully, brains like Nathan’s mean that we have the capacity to make things well.  

He mentioned the influence Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things has has in prompting designers and users to look at ordinary objects in a new light. I read it as an Undergrad as part of a project I did on re-designing retail spaces, using a hippie supermarket I used to frequent as an example of poor user research. I never looked at a produce aisle the same way again. Working at Digit has had a similar effect on how I interact with and shape digital spaces. And I’m psyched about it.

After class I asked Nathan if one needed technical training and experience to specialise in UX. His answer? ‘No, because people from different fields can bring valuable insights to the discipline.’ I guess I know what I want to be when I grow up, then.

#ThanksNathan.

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Impress with impress.js

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Impress.js is a new browser based presentation tool created by Bartek Szopka. Inspired by Prezi, Impress.js takes it to the next level with CSS3 3D Transforms and transitions.

At Digit we had a little play with Impress.js to see what’s possible out of the box. Here (use your arrow keys to navigate) is our first experiment with it. Currently this tool only works in Google Chrome but shouldn’t take long for the rest of the browsers to catch-up.

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Green Fingers

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

We’ve got tons of light in our studio and zero greenery, so we decided a garden would be brilliant. I’d like to take personal credit for this idea, but it was entirely Phoebe’s, x-Digiteer turned expert gardener, turned mum.

Building our garden turned out to be a little like building an agency website: tons of opinions on what works,  a huge time investment. Our garden didn’t quite reflect our ambition — an automatic watering system, remote feeding system, hooked up to twitter etc. Nonetheless, we did grow something. Joss (5 yrs) donated his tiny tomato plant, and I was given a chilli plant kit for Christmas. Add a bag of compost from Brick Lane and we were away.

evidence - a few tomato additions to this from my garden

It was great fun, a bit messy, a little high maintenance, but best of all we could eat everything we grew. We had big California-style peppers, those pointy sweet ones, jalapeño, some other kind of short hot ones (Birds Eye chillis?), and some mega hot Scotch Bonnets I almost killed myself eating. Our tomato crop was pretty lame but still had enough for one pot.

Indian vibes

Green & red

 

Jam, Indian, Green & Red

We have (what’s now turned into) an annual event celebrating cheese at Digit. It was started by Claire and Elly one Christmas and entails eating as much cheese and it’s accompaniments as possible — until you feel sick, really — around the last day of term. It’s only fitting, then, that the last part of the Gardens Story involved making stuff for this festive occasion. Personally, I can’t believe how much sugar goes into some of this stuff! Chili jam, green & red tomato chutney and an Indian vibe onion seed and tomato chutney. They’re all pretty tasty, too. Bring on the cheese!

Last but not least massive thanks to Amy the only person who helped tend our oxygen creating, good looking and amazing tasting friends. And Iyla.

x

 

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Happy Christmas from Digit

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

This year, our Christmas card takes physical journeys and real-life relationships and transfers them to the stars.

Using representations from Google Maps, the Digit Celestial Almanac shows some of the routes we’ve taken over the past twelve months, and plots them on an imagined galaxy.

Staring up at the sky fills us with insatiable awe. Stars never lose their sense of magic. We wanted to relate that same magic to our everyday relationships — to the stars in our universe on Earth.

Here’s to the people and places we’ve encountered this year, near and far. And to the magic of the everyday.

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Bah Humbug: A Little Yuletide Rant

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

December is here and folks at Digit are getting into the Christmas spirit. At least some of us are.

Last week I was beyond excited; pinterest boards gathered for inspiration, recipes scoured over, Christmas party finally agreed upon and booked, presents lists written. But when I came to actually doing it all, to putting my shopping plans into action, I thought, what’s happened to all the shops?

Firstly, decorations: I’m very keen on making things physical and digital, but when it comes to getting crafts supplies, where do you go? Online, that’s where. To a million different stockists; to trying to identify something from a grainy picture which can only really be decided by looking at the real thing. Size, texture and colour can’t be replicated on a screen. And then there’s the delivery and waiting. I wanted to buy a single box of paper fastners the other day priced at 99p, but was expected to pay £2.95 for postage! Same goes for our £5-budget office Secret Santa. Marvellous.

A nice Christmas outfit was bound to cheer me up. With news that one of the Kings of the High Street is planning on closing 260 stores next year, I thought I better enjoy it while it still exists. After trying on lots of things I found the perfect dress, and it was 20% off for one day only. Worried it may be slightly too tight come Christmas day, I asked the assistant for a bigger size. Sure enough, there were none, and the line, ‘have you tried online?’ popped up. Instant let-down.

I don’t know what the solution is, with rents going up and the economic benefits to businesses going online. I suppose I can see why they do it, but they simply can’t take away all the joys of doing things in real life or people will stop bothering altogether. I love shopping. It’s a hobby of mine. I don’t want it to become over-convenient! I want to discover and to be spontaneous. I want to buy myself a frock at the drop of a hat, and I want to have fun doing it. I don’t want my shopping experience to become a confused trawl through websites only to get the wrong thing and be forced to queue at the post office to send it back (if post offices continue to exist in due time).

Luckily last night I did restore some of my Christmas spirit with a trip to Columbia Road for some festive late night shopping (every Wednesday night in the lead up until Christmas). A chance to get some lovely, really unique gifts with twinkly lights and mulled wine thrown in for good measure.

I know that this post will cause some debate in the office as there are online consumers and retailers who have taken shopping to a whole new level. But for me? I just don’t get it.

(Image courtesy of TimeOut London)

Posted by nholroyde in Thinking | Comments (0)

Digit on teaching our kids to code

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

When Digit  got word of Emma Mulqueeny’s petition calling for teaching coding in schools at a younger age, we all sat up.

Many of us identify as ‘creative,’ and have come to think of ourselves as such through a combination of experience, pride and learned helplessness. More than a handful of our strategists claim to have been fairly poor at mathematics in classrooms as kids, and a few designers were discouraged from fully exploring and developing their talents until well after they’d left school. While people outside of our industry likely have similar feelings, due to the often restrictive nature of curriculums in the sorts of classrooms Sir Ken Robinson problematises, we don’t think it’s a reality we have to accept.

There is a need to #changetheratio in the tech community, and as a design company driven by technology, we take this cause close to heart. It should come as no surprise, given our passion for expressing creative ideas through the medium of technology, that we all responded passionately, and in unison, when we saw Mulqueeny’s petition. She argues that teaching coding at a younger age, and transforming computer science class into something more meaningful than basic office skills, will empower youth to better navigate and shape the future. She also brings to light the very serious gender imbalance among coders. Young women are overwhelmingly channelled towards other subjects by year 8, reinforcing the pressing need to teach coding at a younger age. This might in turn help to shift perceptions, which act as deterrents to young women and students from disadvantaged backgrounds who believe they simply can’t be coders.

The petition indeed sparked our imaginations (‘what would we teach kids, if we could?’) and Digit designer, Christina Winkless, and Creative Technologist, David Rosser put their thoughts into action. They designed a poster for the petition (now a campaign?) that shows design and code side-by-side, allowing kids to easily understand how they are interlinked.

‘We thought it would be amazing to show kids an example of how a short piece of code can create beautiful images. The minimalist design of the poster emphasizes the simplicity of the code in contrast to the image. Using syntax highlighting visually links the code to the design, making it even easier to understand.”

Teach Our Kids To Code Poster

Download the poster here.

We’re currently exploring this issue actively and openly at Digit.

We think that instilling kids with the confidence they need to approach coding, and engaging them with code is key. And we don’t think coding should be taught in isolation! What about coding in maths, biology or art class? The poster Christina and David designed is a start. We normally hate it when people say ‘watch this space,’ but please do.

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Understanding Lindenmayer systems

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

Ever wondered how every tree and plant on the earth is different?

Lindenmayer systems, more commonly known as Lsystems is a mathematical theory conceived in 1968 by Astrid Lindenmayer, a theoretical biologist and botanist. Used as a tool, Lsystems can model the growth processes of plants which can be further used to explain the underlying structure of their cells.

Although there are variants of Lsystems (this is something I will discuss later) they all have a similar set of principles:

The axiom – The inital value of the re-writing process
The rules – A set of production rules that contain a successor. The successor rewrites the production string
Generations – The amount of growth generations

Lsystems use a recursive rewriting system to generate the structure of an object. For example, in a turtle drawing interpretation, it uses a string of letters for rewriting. For instance: take the axiom A and apply a production rule of A = AB. The first generation of the Lsystem would be AB, since A = AB. Below are the first 3 generations:

generation 0: A
generation 1: AB
generation 2: ABB

The turtle would then interpret the final generated string as a set of commands. If you applied the following commands: F for draw forward, + for turn left and - for turn right on the following string
+F-F-F+F+F+F-F-F+F-F+F-F-F+F-F+F-F-F+F+F+F-F-F+F the outcome would look like this:

There are a few variants of Lsystems. The most commonly known are DOL-systems. A DOL-system means deterministic and context-free where deterministic referes to the generation of the structure being linear (without randomness), and context-free means that the growth of the structure doesn’t rely on a selection of probabilistic outcomes. Other variations, such as Stochastic L-systems, were included to solve theoretical issues (ie. if more than one plant using the same deterministic system would look identical to the rest). Stochastic L-systems introduce probabilities to the production rules. For instance, take the axiom A and apply the following production rule:

A = AB (0.6) and A = BB (0.4)

You can see above that the A = AB production rule has a 60% chance of getting selected over A = BB. This technique creates randomness within the Lsystem, but only slightly, so the topology of the structure can never be too drastically different. Below are a set of plants generated using Stochastic L-systems.

Lsystems can be also used to generate complex sophisticated fractals. Below are a selection of fractals generated using Lsystem.js.

Resources

If you would like to know more about Lsystems have a dig through these links.

The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants
A highly detailed paper about the history, theory and principles of modelling Lsystems in 2D an 3D.

Lsystems.js
An Lsystems fractal generator for Scriptographer.

Online Lsystems generator by hardlikesoftware The most advanced Lsystems generator I’ve come across, which supports all types of Lsystems.

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School of Digit session 1: an introduction to brand strategy

Friday, November 25th, 2011

We held our first School of Digit class this morning, an Introduction to Brand Strategy led by Digit’s Strategy Director, Laura Tan, and Strategist, Tom Barnes. Our Senior Designer, Alexis Cuddyre, had these thoughts about this morning’s session.

Today’s class was about brand strategy, something I should know quite a lot about, given that I work for a studio that handles a fair amount of this sort of work.

It’s easy to list the brands I like and the brands I don’t, along with specific campaigns I think worked well and vice versa, but understanding their architecture was a bit of a mystery to me. Today’s workshop gave me a structure and process to apply to branding from here onwards.

Things I learnt:

  1. Branding doesn’t need to be complicated, and actually, trying to be over sophisticated and clever is the opposite of what the consumer wants. Being simple and clear is best.
  2. Some of the best insights are the most obvious. Take an insight about Facebook for example – ‘the internet is for socialising.’ Duh. But it’s true! So why try and say it in more words, pages, images or complicated diagrams?
  3. All in all, today’s first session (of what is to a be a range of internal workshops for Digiteers) was not only informative, but gave us an opportunity to learn from each other, and understand people’s roles better.

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