Category: Concepts

  • Book covers

    Book covers

    Sheep-and-other-stories-WEBDoing a book cover design must be easy. Dead easy-peasy lemon squeazy. After all, if it was hard only professional designers would do it. As such isn’t it great that designing your own book cover is a task open to all.

    Or is it?

    We were recently asked to produce an eye catching book cover for Kenneth P Stephens collection of short stories set in the undiscovered parts of Scotland. So what else could we do than start researching book cover design in the post-print world.

    We were amazed, astounded and apoplexy that so many authors are choosing to cut corners on their cover designs. All that hard work, slogging away at their laptops producing wonderfully crafted word smithery and then they wrap it up in something that they bash out in MS Paint in the final evening before the deadline.

    We couldn’t let Kenny suffer that fate so we snuggled down with a decent malt, fired up the iPad, devoured his prose and set to work the following day. The result is above.

    We’re looking forward to the arrival of his second collection of short stories and will serve up the creative solution here when it’s published.

  • Picking even sides is a hassle no longer

    Picking even sides is a hassle no longer

    It’s no secret that I love my football, but every week we have the same dilemma on a Monday night. Working out who is coming is a doddle thanks to RocketSports, but picking the teams is always a headache. If you have even sides, it’s usually a bit easier, but when it’s odd numbers the problems are increased. Who to side with whom?

    Luckily technology can help us with that problem and we’re super excited to be working with Keiran from IntoHand in Bath to develop a prototype Team Picking app for iOS and Android. Current offerings are hideously ugly and unbelievably bad to use – as if the people making them have never hear of UX or UI design.

    Below are sample screenshots of what we hope to launch in the January.

    The Load screen:

    01 Intro and load

    Your team screen, say who’s there and rate each player on your team:

    02 selection screen

    Pick those sides – a nice BIG button!

    03 selection screen complete

    Adding a player is a simple tap or two:

    04 adding a new player

    Edit your squad easily:

    05 editing squad

    Voila! Your teams, picked based on your ratings. Get your ratings right and you’ll never have an uneven game again. It’ll work for any sport or occasion.

    06 Picked teams

  • Graphic Clinic and Original Designers Workbook iPhone 5 wallpapers

    Graphic Clinic and Original Designers Workbook iPhone 5 wallpapers

    For the last year or so I have stuck rigidly to a really nice iPhone 4 skin produced by the guys at Effektive in Glasgow. I liked the dark grey one.

    Today I upgraded to an iPhone 5 and they’ve not yet created a new grid, so here’s my homage to their initial idea. Pantone’s have been turned into hex colours using this site. They use the Graphic Clinic Pantone’s of 427 and 485 plus – because I really prefer the dark grey one Effektive did – Pantone 433.

    I thought I’d share them. You’re free to download them and use them. If you do I’d appreciate a tweet to let me know @GraphicClinic. Thanks.

    I’m happy to do a specific Pantone version, should you wish. Requests on Twitter to @GraphicClinic.

    Graphic Clinic iPhone 5 Pantone 427 wallpaperGraphic Clinic iPhone 5 Pantone 485 wallpaperGraphic Clinic iPhone 5 Pantone 433 wallpaperOriginal Designers Workbook iPhone wallpaper Pantone 433Original Designers Workbook Pantone 2925 iPhone wallpaper