V&A Decode : Recode awards!

Fantastic news!

Recent work for the V&A museum's digital exhibition Decode : Recode was nominated for a D&AD award.
Sadly it didn't win, but it does get into the annual for this year, so i'm really chuffed.



Plus!
The work also won a Bronze Cyber Lion at Cannes!


There has also been loads of chatter about the work, including a NMA site of the week (83/100), and a feature in both Creative Review and Marketing Week.

Here is a nice wee video made by Saint that explains what it was all about.

Scoring for the World Cup

Recently i got to work on a great brief for the BBC, building their interactive World Cup wall-chart, which was coupled with a predictor so you could decide for yourself who deserved to win, and not worry about the actual football.

Here is the link: BBC World Cup: Team Tracker 

You can view match highlights and share links to main BBC site content, as well as sharing your predictions with friends via the usual Facebook and Twitter links.

The work was really challenging: technically tricky, lots of design input, and not really enough time.

Geekily, one of my favourite bits was finding a way to make a compressed encoding of the prediction (which had to have two team names for every match in the tournament, together with who you thought won and lost each match), which i got down to two characters per match. Really geeky, but it was a major issue and an elegant solution using base 32 characters.

There has been some chatter about the work, some liking the design, but mostly just ordinary people using it to share their predictions, which is at least one brilliant result from the competition...

when i was 11 i could run about a mile in about 6 minutes

3 runs this week, and only 2 blisters so all-in-all i'm really happy.

i would never have thought i would be (willingly) running around my neighbourhood barefoot at all until a few weeks ago, so this is a success.

when i was 11 i could run about a mile in about 6 minutes.

stats for the runs:

1 - 1km in about 10 minutes.

2 - 1 mile in about 10 minutes. first blister on ring-toe (are there names for toes?)

3 - 1 mile in 8 minutes 20 - i remembered to check my watch properly. second blister under big toe as i changed the weight on my feet to avoid the first blister...

so, 30 years on and i am running about 2 minutes slower over a mile than my 11 year old self. i was a kind boy, so i hope i would have slowed down a bit for an old man and given encouragement. i was also full of energy and would probably have gladly run on ahead when the (still kind) old man told me not let him hold me up...

i am looking forward to catching me up. or at least drawing closer. but slowly does it. in my first ever race (my first real run) around a village in Cyprus i came 4th and still regret not getting a medal because i raced ahead too hard. the boy behind me just sat on my tail until the last bend, then sprinted past, having saved his energy. i learnt a good lesson that day. timing and patience matter at least as much as speed.

the first run was just around the block, to prove that i could / would do a barefoot run, and it turned out to be almost exactly 1km, according to this site here. having found a way to measure the first run, i wove a route around my local streets that was a mile, as i am a good imperial boy and prefer that distance to the new-fangled metric stuff.

i'm running with my shoes in hand, just in case i need to rest my feet, but no need for them yet, but it feels like a sensible precaution.

i am loving the difference in textures, temperatures, and other sensation.

the pavement feels really hard as expected, but the road feels softer which is down to texture i guess: the road has more texture so my feet have more to yield to and find grip on... maybe.

metal drain covers and such like, which i thought would feel harder again, mainly feel smooth and somehow softer, even those that have a raised pattern.

the streets have been dry, but near a washed car the pavement was wet. the cooling for my feet was good, and lasted longer than i would have expected.

i don't recall any of these variations in sensation when running in shoes. sure there was a difference between concrete and grass, but none of this range and subtlety. a great bonus.

i am trying to stretch after my run, and i'm feeling pretty good really, but i am conscious that i need to find out more about looking after my legs, especially as i extend the range. i'm happy with my small circuit for now, but have plotted a 3 mile route taking in the local park. the paths there are much rougher than the neighbourhood streets, so i'll need to build up toughness and distance first.

Never take the easy route

i haven't run for maybe fifteen years, because my knees just wouldn't let me.
however, the barefoot running thing i found in Born to Run has really called out to me, so this is my ambition...

before i'm 50 (closer than i care to think) i want to run a long way, barefoot.

a long way might be a marathon, it could be an ultra, but it might just be running as far as i can in a number of hours. no particular goal beyond that just at the moment.

barefoot. because it sounds right: we started off without shoes, and ran on both soft and hard stuff. it also feels amazing. i have made a very small test on concrete and my feet and running feel very alive.

first steps:

i have to toughen up my feet. years of shoes have made them soft. i'm walking barefoot on paths, pavements, in the forest. i'm walking until my feet get that little burn that warns you to stop before a blister pops up.

next week i'm going to start running...

3 reasons...

...i want to run again:

an inspiring book: Born to Run.

another inspiring book: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

A wee video full of nostalgia for my school days.