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On another, slightly more random note, check out this on Google maps, the guy is seemingly looking up at you, how come you can zoom in so close over Chad anyway?!

I’ve just put the finishing touches to the new look Caffeinehit. I thought it was about time it had a bit of a sprucing up and spring clean. Being the 1st birthday and all it seemed a very suitable time!

It would be great to hear what you think, so leave some comments here…

Check it out here: www.caffeinehit.com

Well, I missed it - Caffeinehit’s (official active) 1st birthday. I realised that I left MTV on 6th July 2007, although I didn’t start ‘working’ until August 16th 2007 but I guess my official freedom was 6th July so that should be the date.

Anyway, what a first year it’s been. It’s been great, so thanks to all my fab clients and my amazing grilfriend for her support.

Roll on year 2! Let’s see what happens…

I was just using Google Maps, as I often do and spotted a new addition to the interface, a neat little dropdown giving the option of viewing photos AND wikipedia content on your maps.

Now, I know it’s only going to be a matter of time before they introduce browser type ‘add-ons’ to your Google maps but for the time being this is a seriously sexy addition. One issue that I have with Wikipedia is that there is no way to view location based content in any sort of context, to have it viewable on a map makes it seem somewhat relevant.

Not only does it add interest to the basic google maps it does look pretty cool at the same time. I know this is pretty common place with many mashups but it’s nice to see Google finally adding a little bit more to the basic Google Maps.

Could be a sign of things to come…

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That small Finnish startup, Nokia, has bought German social networking location-aware site Plazes for an undisclosed amount, Reuters reports. Plazes is, simply put, a service that lets you know where your friends are; the last time we’ve reported on it, it was a story about Plazes’ CEO Felix Petersen allegedly being caught somewhere else than he’d said he’d be, exposed by none other than Plazes itself.

Cases such as this raise considerations about location-aware social networking. Recently, I’ve speculated on iPhone 3G’s GPS as its most important new feature, and many commenters have argued that users aren’t interested in exposing their location because of privacy issues.

Nokia doesn’t seem to think so, and its acquistion of Plazes can be seen as a direct answer to the upcoming threat of many new location aware services that will inevitably appear when iPhone 3G hits the stores.

Source: Mashable

OK, this is more of a rant than a blog post and has absolutely nothing to do with design whatsoever…

I bought a lovely new plasma TV from Pixmania on 16th March 2008. When it arrived it became apparent that it was just far too large for our small London flat. I contacted them and arranged to have it returned. That all seemed quite straight forward and someone from Dixons (their delivery partners) came and picked it up on April 12th 2008.

At this point I thought it was all going swimmingly. However, it all started going wrong when I didn’t hear / see anything from them for over a month (apparently they process it within 7 days. Bulls**t!).

After about 12 emails via their rubbish ‘customer care’ (wtf?!) service with the regular pre-filled reply they manage to ‘find’ the (42″ £1,200 plasma TV).

On the 14th May 2008, nearly two months after I originally paid for the TV they said that they would credit my account and that it would take a maximum of 21 days to be paid into my account. However, it’s now 18th June 2008 and there’s no sign of anything, nothing at all, not a jot.

3 months after ‘buying’ the TV I am still out of pocket and without the TV. So, where do I stand? What can I do? Apparently nothing. Pixmania are sitting on my money (and probably a hell of a lot of other people - just google “Pixamnia are rubbish” and you’ll soon see why!) and by the looks of it aren’t going to pay me any money soon, even though in my account it happily points out that they’re sending me a “gesture of good faith”. All I can imagine that’s going to come through the post from Pixmania is a steaming turd rather than a nice fat check.

SO. Pixmania, you tight f**kers. Pull out your finger and pay the money into my account, and pay all the other poor b******s who are waiting to get their money back. Fingers crossed you have Google Alerts set up. If you do, please give me my money. I won’t bother you again and I definitely won’t be buying anything from your site again. If anyone reading this has any sense, they won’t either!

Is there going to be an Indiana Jones 5?

Having recently seen “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” I must admit I’d kind of wished it has stopped about half way through. My girlfriend and I both thought “that’s like the old Indiana Jones”, then she fell asleep… Unfortunately for her (spoiler) she woke up at the point when the large UFO appeared and just looked across at me with a look of bemusement on her face… I felt totally the same, what the fuck was a UFO doing on an Indiana Jones film!?

Don’t spoil Indy you box-office-thieving-bearded-bastards!

To be honest, it was at that point I had to remind myself of the far from realistic storylines from Indy of yesteryear. I guess that you’re a lot more open-minded and less synical when you’re a kid but the giant UFO just seemed a little much.

Anyway, the whole point of this post was a quote recently by Mr.Ford. He’s reportedly said “Given the great box office opening, hopefully it won’t be that long long”. So, does that mean they have scripts in the pipeline for another Indy? Are they try to squeeze another addition to the franchise before Harrison passes on to pastures new? Or is it to put Shia Le Boeuf in a position to take on the crown as a young Indy? Who knows what they’re planning, or if they’re planning anything at all. For the time being at least I’m sure Mr.Lucas and Mr.Spielberg are watching their fat pockets fill up even more before thinking twice about adding another film to their CV’s.

Oh, one other thing. They’ve leaked the ‘original’ script by Frank Darabont, check it out here.

Mobile phone operator O2 recently lost a ground-breaking court battle over the use of its trademark bubbles advertising imagery.

The company was told by judges that it was legal for rival operator 3 to use its branding if comparing price plans - opening the way for any business to use a competitor’s logo. Companies must only ensure there is no risk of confusing the two brands, the European Court of Justice ruled.

02 took 3 to court after it used the award-winning blue bubbles branding in an advert comparing the prices of the two companies’ pay-as-you-go services. The EU judges ruled this was not trademark infringement as long as the branding was not abused.

So, is this right? Well, I don’t personally believe that a competitor should be able to use another companies branding in any way. In some way or form it gives the illusion of endorsement. Not only that but it does detract from your carefully constructed brand values. An obvious example are the top supermarkets like Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda. Having the Waitrose logo in some way or form in an Asda advert isn’t going to do Waitrose any favours, obviously very different audiences for each shop so maybe that’s a bad example but you see what I mean.

It would be great to hear your views…

Raise a cuppa to the tea bag as it marks its 100th birthday.

Invented by tea merchant Thomas Sullivan in New York City in June 1908, they can now be found in virtually every one of Britain’s 24million homes.

But if it wasn’t for a handful of confused Americans, the tea bag may never have made it into our cups at all.

They came about only after Mr Sullivan, in an attempt to cut costs, sent samples of tea leaves to potential customers in small silk pouch-like purses.

Unsure quite what to do with the strange little bag, the Americans dunked it into a cup of hot water. And so was born the tea bag.

After complaints that the mesh on the silk was too fine, Mr Sullivan developed sachets made of gauze - a method which was instrumental in today’s tea bag design.

But it was not until 1953, when British tea producer Tetley spotted the commercial potential of the bag, that it began to take off here. The firm now sells 200million tea bags every week.

William Gorman, executive chairman of the UK Tea Council, said: ‘Without a doubt the tea bag saved the tea industry.

‘There is no way in our busy lifestyles today that we would have had the time or inclination to make tea the old way.’

Tea drinking is seen as a quintessential British tradition, with 130million cups drunk every day. But the initial reaction from Britons who visited America 100 years ago and experienced tea bags for the first time was lukewarm.

Much suspicion surrounded the short string and branded tag attached to the bag.

And there were frequent complaints from tourists who were put out at being served tepid water in which to place their bag.

A major breakthrough came in 1930 when William Hermanson - one of the founders of the Bostonbased Technical Papers Corporation - patented the heat- sealed paper fibre tea bag.

But material shortages in the Second World War prevented mass manufacture, and Britain had to wait until after Joseph Tetley and Co was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1951 to welcome the tea bag revolution.

Convinced the tea bag was the future because of the way it allowed the tea maximum exposure-to the water resulting in a good, strong brew, Tetley persevered with perfecting the bag.

A problem finding a tea bag tissue which did not taint the tea was among the stumbling blocks overcome along the way.

Finally in 1964 the finely perforated bag was developed and the product began to fly off the shelves.

In 1989 Tetley switched from the standard square bag to a round one, and a handful of years later it introduced the drawstring tea bag - which contains 30 different teas.

Sara Howe, Tetley’s director of corporate communications, said: ‘Persuading the British to change their tea drinking habits from loose tea to tea bags was never going to be easy.

‘But when Tetley introduced the tea bag in Britain the adverts were quite simple: Tea bags were the new quick and easy way to make a delicious cup of tea for only one penny.

‘It’s hard now to imagine what life would be like without the tea bag.

‘Somehow getting up in time to measure the tea leaves, brew the tea, strain it and clear away the tea leaves from the sink afterwards does not have the same appeal.’

Source: Daily Mail

It’s a funny thing being a designer. You either have copy to work with, use a load or Lorem Ipsum or try and get creative and write some example copy.

For two of my current clients I have been trying to do the latter. I’ve never been much for a scholar (as I’m sure my English teacher would attest) so it’s come as a great surprise to see clients (and their competitors) adopting my copywriting.

A great example was for Kindo. I have been coming up with a number of bugs to encourage people to add people to their tree. About three weeks after we put it live the main competing websites had some scarily similar bugs themselves: Genoom, Geni and Itsourtree. See the similarities here:

I guess it should be taken as a compliment really. If someone’s copying you it must mean that you’re doing something right, however simple and obvious the idea.

My other client is slightly different. I have been writing copy to fill out the designs I’ve been doing. They are now asking their copywriter to copy the ‘British’ style I’ve been writing in to be used across the whole site. It also looks like they’re going to inherit the tagline I came up with to go alongside their logo. It’s great to feel like I’m going to have created pretty much everything on the site through from design all the way through to copy style and tagline.

A real sense of achievement, saying that, when it gets panned I’ll be deleting this post