on the business of web design

The EU cookie directive — unnecessary and futile, but it’s the law

Posted on: May 10th, 2012 by nick No Comments

 

On the 26th May, Arti­cle 5(3) of the Direc­tive 2002/58/EC of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and of the Coun­cil of 12 July 2002 con­cern­ing the pro­cess­ing of per­sonal data and the pro­tec­tion of pri­vacy in the elec­tronic com­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor (amended Decem­ber 25th 2009) — more commonly known as the EU cookie directive — will come into force in the UK. This seemingly innocent bit of EU legislation purports to be for the benefit of all web users in the European Economic Area, however I believe all it has done is give government departments yet another piece of pointless legislation to monitor and add an unnecessary burden on website owners.

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Online marketing and a good story

Posted on: April 6th, 2012 by nick No Comments

 

Sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...

A little while ago I was grabbing some lunch from the Marks and Spencer food hall near my office and noticed a series of four in-store advertising posters stretching along the wall. Each of the posters drew attention to one food product type and one M&S producer/supplier of that product.

A photo of a poster advertising Marks and Spencer cox's apples

One poster featured John Mearns, a pig farmer from Oxfordshire, another strawberry producer Marion Regan, a third featured Robert Hinge, an apple grower from Kent, and the fourth highlighted Orkney crab fishermen.

I was immediately impressed with how effective the posters were at communicating their message.

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Decode @ The V&A

Posted on: January 22nd, 2010 by nick

 

On Wednesday I visited the Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum co-curated by onedotzero.

Decode

It was an fascinating collection of amusing and thought-provoking work, and I have to confess to having never witnessed an exhibition like it before. The range of pieces all fall under the term "digital design" but that, judging from this exhibition, is a large umbrella, as each work is so different from the other. One common thread, however, is the level of interactivity so many of the installations offer. If you are used to walking around galleries passively staring at one work of art after another, Decode will make a surprising change as the majority of works require that you engage physically with them in order for you to experience them.

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Cloudmakers.org

Posted on: January 3rd, 2010 by nick

 

During my research for a paper on the online documenting of viral marketing campaigns for film and television, I came across a site called Cloudmakers.org. The site was founded in April 2001 as "as a discussion group for the intera[c]tive web game centered around the film A.I."

A.I. (or Artificial Intelligence) was a movie released in 2001 produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, and originally a collaboration between Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick until Kubrick passed away in pre-production. To accompany its release Jordan Wiesman (at the time at Microsoft, now at 42 Entertainment) and his team (including lead designers Elan Lee and Sean Stewart) created an intricate online puzzle that tapped into the story of the film and, over a 2-3 month period, drew 3 million players into the game making them "active participants in the fiction before the film’s release". Appearing in the credits on posters and in the trailer was the fictional credit "Jeanine Salla — Sentient Machine Therapist". That tiny clue lead players into a murder-mystery story that was tied into the narrative of the film and ultimately included a plethora of webpages, email addresses and live events.

Cloudmakers was an online forum for players of the game to share information, collaborate in puzzle solving, and, since the game finished, be an archive of the game and the process of solving the puzzle.