14c Studio

There are various projects in the pipeline, including a new short film by 14c member Douglas King called ‘Data Entry’, where the whole team will play a part, both in front of, and behind the camera.

Unfortunately, combing your skills inevitably brings serious procrastination sessions, but hey these usually lead to moments of creative genius. That’s just what we do.

More moments of creative genius to follow…

The newly-released design will be the face of Glasgow for the next 4 years on the run-up to the city hosting the 20th Commonwealth Games, so expect to see it ALL the time!

Good! It’s crisp, recognisable and legible from far away and at small sizes, in fact, it’s everything a logo should be. AND it was designed in Scotland by Marque Creative. We should be proud!

Plus, now that the Transport Museum is finally closing in April to move to the fabulous new Riverside Museum (see photo below), as a potential host for some of the games in 2014, hopefully KelvinHall will get some much-needed attention and the expansion (into the old transport museum) it deserves. It has, after all, held some world-wide competitions recently, and this is how we welcome them? (see photo below)

Here’s to a positive outlook on the next 4 years for a change!

Positive Mental Attitudes Logo

The team over at PMA now require easy access and control of the content that is displayed on their website, and have assigned the task of providing a new integrated website Content Management System (CMS) to Ramsay.

How we feel and think is central to the way we live our lives. Just like our physical health, our mental health can have ups and downs.

There are various other design tasks to be undertaken, with an arts activities leaflet high on a list of immediate objectives.

Check back here soon for results from the PMA project, or in the meantime visit their existing site at: positivementalattitudes.org.uk

A section of the Graffiti

This is the latest in a getting-longer list of Graffiti by Sam Bates in the Glasgow City Council area, with projects also found in areas such as; under the Kingston Bridge and in the Merchant City.

Ramsay discovered the new spray-art during a late-afternoon stroll through Kelvingrove Park, and was so impressed, he returned the next day to capture all 90 metres of it with his camera.

He then ‘photoshopped’ all the images together for everyone to enjoy, as you can see below.

To Sam Bates (and anyone else interested) – I have a high-resolution version of this stitched-together photograph/image, if you are interested get in touch with me – Ramsay

Let’s hope it a sign of things to come from Glasgow City Council, with more stunning street-art brightening up our sometimes gloomy surroundings.

PS: Sorry Sam, I couldn’t find a link to you anywhere on the web, otherwise I would’ve linked your name. Perhaps you’d like a website or something digital to keep a record of all your work?!

Aim high and make it your life’s work to bag Scotland’s 3,000(ish) Castles or why not try to bag ALL of Scotland’s 95 inhabited Islands in a year? By Bagging the 85 Malt Whisky Distilleries in Scotland, you’ll just happen to pass through some of Scotlands best scenery which is full of Castle culture, history and heritage as well. It’s simple, with Bagging Scotland.

The Bagging Scotland team will use a modified VW Transporter, AKA 'The Baggin Waggon', to tour Scotland and in the process 'bag' lots and lots of Whisky Distilleries and maybe some Castles, Munros and Islands too.

For instance, if Islands are your bag, Island Bagging’s website will enable you to put up your own blog, post photos or videos or demonstrate your recent Island conquests, all on your own Bagging Scotland page. If you’ve got a photo of you at the ferry terminal sign at Tobermory or at a recognised Island landmark like the Mishnish bar, then you’ve Bagged Mull! You can compete against others, find out the REAL truths about the Islands and see how others have Bagged the islands, to decide which one you’d like to do next! It’s the same with all our sites. Interactive, educational, organic and above all, great fun.

Build up your own exciting Island Bagging travelogue, get advice from others, develop friendships with liked minded people and be part of Scotland’s newest tourism trail.

Are you Gaggin’ to go Baggin’? Soon, you can!

Bagging Scotland is co-founded by Victor Brierley (of CullenSkink) and Ramsay MacFarlane (yes, that’s me!) and we are currently in the process of developing the business model and concept to attract investors, ready for launch in March 2010.

Lymekilns Cheesemonger

The Lymekilns Cheesemonger project was carried out by Ramsay, in association with CullenSkink, and consisted of;

• Logo & Brand Design
• Website Design
• Copywriting
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Product Photography

Lymekilns Cheesemonger website

Glasgow Caledonian University

After completing an HND in Visual Information – Design & Illustration at the Glasgow Metropolitan College (formerly known as The Glasgow College of Building and Printing), Ramsay went on to study for his Degree at Glasgow Caledonian University.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at ‘Caley Uni’, and feel I benefited tremendously from a well-rounded course. I would recommend it to anyone who is seriously considering getting into the multimedia design industry – Ramsay

The final year projects and investigations include (amongst many others!) the following two units:

Dolcis Website Prototype

Design Practice

This project involved following a ‘live brief’ supplied by a Glasgow-based design agency who were carrying out the same project at the same time. It was was aimed at providing experience in the industry and the process that must be followed to complete such a project.

This involved stages such as; project planning, identifying the target market and the tone/style of the brand, integrating existing material, technology consideration, interface design, and the prototyping and development process.

» View Dolcis Shoes Website Prototype

Design Study

Does dynamically animated interaction make a web-interface more enjoyable and effective for the user, compared to a static interface?

A screenshot of the Elite Hammer - Dynamic Prototype

Static interfaces provide users with an effective method for retrieving information. In modern society where web-use is becoming increasingly widespread and part of day-to-day life, static interfaces have become second nature to the average web-user. To stand out from the crowd of static websites and provide the user with a more enjoyable and memorable experience, a dynamically animated interface system could be produced, but at what cost?

After extensive designing, developing and testing (including using eye-tracking technology and large user-testing) the  conclusion could be summed up as:

It is possible to provide a distinctive, web-based interface by using dynamically animated interface styles, such as those developed in Flash. But by doing so, the size of the target market that can actually be reached may be adversely affected.

You can view two examples of a static and a dynamic website that were typical examples of the sites that were compared and tested:

» View Prototype 1 – Dynamic

» View Prototype 2 – Static

Another project that was completed earlier in the degree was Hippy Dave; an interactive animation for the Sequential Imagery Development module.