henry chilcott

Two fingers to the competition

This is a very nice little digital idea from Twix. Brilliantly constructed and nicely acted - it even has an uncontrived role for two chocolate caramel coated biscuits.  Well done Twix, competition (exc. Drumming Gorilla's) take heed.Takes a while to load but worth the wait. 

Wordle

Wordle creates word clouds but lets you play with how they're presented. Just stick your chunk of text, your site (or someone else's) into their little machine and out pops something like this - usual rules - the more you've / they've rambled on about something the more it'll stand out:

More Image Google than Google Image

There's a new site sending its tentacles all over the web which promises to do for images what Google has done for words. Unlike Google Image which searches for images from the words you enter, with Tin Eye you upload an image into the search field and it lists everywhere on the web that that image has appeared (even when modified). Which is kinda clever.

If you're wondering why the image above - it's what Google Images gave me for the entry 'Tin Eye' - and though not exactly what I was looking for, I liked it. Just goes to show that part of the the fun of the internet is unexpected results (so please let's not remove any chance of a bit of chaos with laser-razor sharp search).

Noticing Project

This is a nice idea, and about noticing, so take a look: The noticing project

Data, beautiful data

There are people who argue data is interesting. But probably more who consider it dull. But this is changing. As computers get more sophisticated and powerful, data is getting cooler. I wrote about wattson months back - I'll concede that watching your real-time electricity consumption doesn't sound particularly cool, but with wattson it certainly looks that way.

There are more and more examples of this - and I'm not talking about the world of computer game programming but real world dull-as-dishwater-data carved up and presented in such a way that it catches the eye and captures the imagination. 

It's all about simplicity and beauty of presentation. Here's something I stumbled upon the other day - a depiction of the UK's national telephone network coming to life on an average working day:

It's one of many chunks of data Britain from above (tonight on BBC1) will be bringing to life - another being our national electricity consumption; wattson on a grand scale. 

Now clearly brands are getting in on the action, Nike+ being the classic example; but one thing is certain - in a digital world where brands' hard drives of consumer data are growing ever wider and deeper - the opportunities to manipulate, chop and reform this data into beautiful, interesting and engaging stuff are huge.