Weekly Round-up November 28 2014

Hello there everyone. Well, it seems that I'm pretty bad at following my own advice about blogging regularly to increase business outreach. The last couple of weeks were a blogging #fail on my part - yikes.

No more excuses, let's dive straight into it!

Updates

I'm very happy to announce the completion of the Red Studio branding upgrade, which involved revamping our logo, brand colours, business stationery and website. The "refreshed" website is live at www.red.gd with a brighter, bolder look. Drop us a line and let us know if you like it.

Also... we're now on Instagram as well; be sure to follow us at @redstudiogd.

Interesting Links

We supported Grenadian graphic artist Alleyne Gulston and his entry in the Science Superhero design contest organised by the U.S.Embassy in Barbados.

Over 100 years of Caribbean history is documented in this photo-book 90 Degrees in the Shade. Thought-provoking and introspective.

There are some company logos that are so well-known, you don't need to see the name to identify the brand (Nike and the swoosh, Apple and the bitten apple). Take a look at some early versions of brand logos that are now instantly recognisable.

How should you respond when someone mentions your business on social media? This infographic breaks it down for us. (Pro-tip: respond calmly and professionally)

For a little humour, take a look at this animated short for a new e-book "EuroNightmare" by Aleix Saló.

Apps and Software

Homes is a fun iOS app for kids, showing how other people live all over the world.

Just in time for Cricket World Cup 2015, it appears that ESPN is looking into a streaming subscription service for cricket.

Silicon Valley start-ups are full of people with the weirdest job titles. This fun website helps you pick your own.

Fellow designers will get a kick out of this online font kerning game.

Snapshot

As you may have heard, the latest version of Google's Android OS, Lollipop 5.0, has been released, with a brand new aesthetic based on design guidelines called Material Design. Look for material design to start popping up in artwork and design portfolios everywhere soon; personally I am quite smitten with the look and feel of it.

Here's a peek at a smartphone wallpaper I made; the wallpaper is available here as a freebie download for your personal use. Enjoy!

---

That's it for this week's round-up post. I hope to see you again next week around this date and time. Don't forget to follow Red Studio on Twitter, Google+, Instagram and check out my Behance portfolio. Have a fantastic week!

Weekly Round-up November 7 2014

After a few false starts and many half-written draft posts later, here we are - the first full post on the Red Studio blog. Phew!

Interesting Links

So with no further ado, let's plunge into a quick list of links that we tweeted this week. (If you're not following us yet on Twitter what are you waiting for? Tweet us and say "hi"! We're at @redstudiogd.)

A good reminder of why a great (not a so-so or just OK) website is so important.

Speaking of websites, do you know about these other costs of operating a website? At Red Studio, identifying these often-overlooked fees and bringing them to your attention is a priority, even before your project gets off the ground.

As the number of freelance businesses grows, the demand for co-working spaces is also growing. In a nutshell, a co-working facility is a place where you can "rent" a space to work from, whether it's just a desk with wifi, or use of a printer and a fax machine, hire a secretary for an hour, or use a private office to meet with clients. I've always felt there could be a need for co-working space here in Grenada (that's a good thought!). Here's a look at a cool, eco-friendly co-space, outfitted with reclaimed material.

As a freelancer, I'm always looking for tips on how to simplify my working process. Here's a great article on streamlining your workflow.

Apps & Software

Any web-devs or coders reading this? What's your favourite text-editor? I'm fond of free app Brackets with the Emmet plugin. [Update: Since I tweeted this, Lifehacker posted an article on the release of a new version of Brackets. Quite a few of the commenters recommended an open-source editor from the folks over at GitHub called Atom. I'm here to tell you that Atom may just overtake Brackets as my fave tool. It's fast and smooth and has quite a few add-ons and plugins to simplify your flow.]

News

The Caribbean islands are a-buzz with the news that Cable & Wireless Communications has acquired Columbus Communications for a staggering US$3bn - essentially LIME (telecom/mobile/data) now owns Flow (cable tv/data). There has been some concern about what this means for the regional customers and employees of both companies and LIME's chief competitor Digicel has wasted no time in sounding the alarm. (Pretty ironic coming from Digicel who themselves have been acquiring smaller cable operators throughout the region.)

Snapshots

A little peek at some typography flair we're working on for a small, local business.

---

That's it for this week's round-up post. I hope to see you again next week around this date and time. Don't forget to follow Red Studio on Twitter, Google+ and check out my Behance portfolio. Have a fantastic week!

We're live!

It's taken some time but The RED Studio Blog is now online!

We've set up a blog at Blogspot, powered by Google's Blogger framework. We already use Google Apps for our red.gd domain and Blogger functionality is built into many aspects of the Apps experience. I must confess that we didn't have much hands-on experience with Blogger, as Wordpress is our go-to blogging platform. However we seized this opportunity to dive in and play around with Blogger's customisation options. As you can see, we've kept the simple look and feel, and of course the colour scheme, of our website.

The main aim of The Blog will be as a central hub for our social media updates. Additionally we will be posting our own articles, with special emphasis on web and graphic design information that we hope will be helpful to readers and clients. We may also share peeks at ongoing projects and insights into our particular design processes. (They're not textbook best practice, but they work for us!)

We hope you'll make The Blog part of your regular online reading list and we'll see you soon!