Musings and Thoughts

The creative world of Vincent Ball

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 20:31:00 +0000

A short promotional video showcasing my services available at www.vincentball.net

An Appetizing Menu

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 22:57:00 +0000

This cafe in Waltham Abbey, England has a new menu item, Can I have a burger, fries and a pint of your best breast milk please. Where on earth did they get the sticker!

The Gambling Gurner

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Sat, 18 May 2013 05:30:00 +0000

Ladbrokes recently had a Gurning Competition, I think the Girl won.

Affordable Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 15:13:00 +0000

With the release of Adobe Creative Cloud a short time ago I feel that at last I am able to have the best tools available.

Adobe Creative Cloud is a God send for someone like me who has just started a design business and finds it quite a struggle to afford the thousands of pounds to have all the most up to date Adobe software. Up until now I have always trailed behind in versions bought from eBay and have not had all the software I wanted. With Creative Cloud Adobe are allowing you to have all the software at your disposal for a set monthly fee (Which I can afford, see price list).

You can download any of the 16 programs from an easy Download Application Manager and you don't even have to put serial numbers in, its really easy.

Good news and a great initiative from Adobe.

A New Industry Standard

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 22:39:00 +0000

Is Dreamweaver dead? I don't know, it certainly seems as if it's on it's way out. More and more designers are in favour of a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) style of web design. Designers are designers and techno geeks are techno geeks, those who want to mess around with coding are generally not design orientated (I know there are exceptions to the rule). There are a few software options out there when it comes to a drag and drop web design, see here http://web-design-software-review.toptenreviews.com/ and I myself have bought webplus x5 which is really excellent software for the money made by serif which you can do quite a lot with it, even small eCommerce sites, but it does have it's limitations. It seems that Adobe have finally cottoned on to designer friendly web design software and produced their own which is beta version at the moment and called "Muse" when they release the official version they will find an appropriate title for it. Anyway you can download it while in this trial stage for free and test it out. I've had a tinker with it and it seems quite an exciting prospect although there is still some work to do in order to compete with some of the other software options out there. However watch this space, knowing Adobe like we do, you can rest assured that they will probably become the industry standard in this arena too.

Quizzical Cafe/Restaurant

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:57:00 +0000

Is it new or is it old? Is it local or is it far away? Is it a cafe or is it a restaurant? Is this New Local Cafe Restaurant local? surely it is local to somewhere it is located? It was local to me this morning when I was there and now it's not since i am home. Perhaps if it was in a wilderness it wouldn't be local? Or perhaps it would be local to a wilderness, I don't know? Is it new? it's been running since 1990, When does is start becoming old? Is it a Cafe or a Restaurant? in the words of Harry Hill "Fiigghht".

Shrimp Magic

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:46:00 +0000

How lost we were in an era without Peel-A-Shrimp Magic, However did we cope without this revolution. I can't imagine life without a magic shrimp peeler. Everyone should have a magic way of peeling shrimps. I bet the guy who dreamed this one up thought "this time next year I'll be a millionaire, lovely jubbly."

Simple Wording

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:47:00 +0000

I have pondered this poster in McDonalds and wondered why the logo on it should have a right to display a trademark, I'm no expert in this field but it seems to encompass such broad terms? McDonalds come up with some really simple descriptions for their products and services like "saver menu" and then slap a trademark on them . They use such common words that you hardly recognise they are protected by trademark unless you take the time to look. They are so simple yet to arrive at the decision to use them takes a lot of time, thought, and money. You would think that a general term like "saver menu" to be such a generic term and be used by any one but you would be mistaken, Maccy D's hold rights to it.

Badly designed signs

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:52:00 +0000

What does this look like? Yes, I can see flowers but what's the mauve bit? An abstract shape? Some reeds blowing in the wind? Can you guess what type of shop should boast such a sign? Well it's supposed to be a hand. But somehow it's seems to have six fingers if you count them carefully. We take the design of hands for granted. To draw hands takes a lot of skill, they have so many subtle characteristics and trying to capture them in art takes some know how. I don't think this sign maker has quite managed to pull it off.

I find this sign quite comical, I can imagine the owner saying "I know exactly what I want" with complete disregard for the sign makers advice. Or maybe they just did the job themselves. I just love the textured finish and the bald man cutting the hair (or lack of) of the bald man, it's so funny.

Just in case you wondered about the hand! Despite the sign, they're terrific at looking after your nails, top class!

Stay Creative

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:17:00 +0000

29 ways to shift "designers block". Don't know about singing in the shower though.

Jacket Potato

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:36:00 +0000

Don't know if you agree with me, but this pet bed sent through to my email from Amazon looks just like a jacket potato with the just the skin left.

Nightclub flyer design

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:08:00 +0000

Although "clubbin it" aint my scene really, bit old for all that, can't help but find these flyers really attractive.

The designers must find it an excitement and a challenge to produce these eye-catching pieces of work. They're often more than just a flyer they're beautiful pieces of art.

What I like and appreciate is the way they are "busy" but slick at the same time, from a designers point of view its finding the right balance, sometimes "busy" can look messy.

This style of design always seems to accompany the "Club Scene" and it's influences reach to CD design but I'd like to see it used without the sexy women and in other scenarios.

A really useful miracle!

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Ball) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 23:13:00 +0000

mir·a·cle

noun

an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause

such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.

a wonder; marvel.

a wonderful or surpassing example of some quality: a miracle of modern acoustics.

See, I told you, miracles do happen, and they're really useful ones at that. Who couldn't do with a really useful miracle in their life, go to Poundland and get one, two, or even more, if you want you can have an abundance of really useful miracles.