dimedaily

done deal

2007-09-20T12:38:00.000+01:00

Ok after that break, there'll be little or no more posting on the subject of dime from me, I'm off to do some other stuff for a while.

I have in the past posted the occassional image here, more often than not images created by friends or myself but sometimes an image comes along created by someone else that just captures something for me. LOL

The Image below is from a recent Bank of Ireland Campaign (Briefly discussed here) and it's almost just right, it would be 100% perfect if the elf was overweight, completely disingenuious, ambitiously idiotic and a completely insecure egomaniac, I like to think her name might be Earene

cool d sac

2007-07-17T12:27:00.000+01:00

ok I just don't have enough time to work on this blog anymore - Also I can't afford to employ a blogging assistant to write it for me - but I don't really want to delete it just yet so I'll just leave it here as is for a while.

HPSU

2006-09-28T18:54:00.000+01:00

High Potential Start Up ?
So dime have been recognized as a HPSU, I fully understand the label and indeed the acronym, I just wonder what the implications actually mean for us. I've seen some weird stories about start ups and VCs on the next recently but possibly the most perplexing has been this one:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/27/odesk-announces-8m-funding-from-benchmark/

lots of interesting comments...too.

dance away

2006-08-23T15:47:00.000+01:00

Clever people solve problems, truly clever people avoid them.... I haven't deliberately avoided updating this blog, I've just been so busy with actual working priorities (& holidays) that it fell from any number of those action lists into the total inaction outbox. Dime have had a couple of months of really focused effort in an attempt to realize one of of first major internal development projects - with some late late hours and the creation of team dynamics being required to ensure meaningful progress. - I think we have achieved that now T.G.

The company is currently recruiting some key people and that is also proving to be a longer process than originally envisaged. (there's ads on GD.ie) The whole business/commercial strategy aspect has morphed into that central concrete tenant it should have been on day 01 and the age old question 'why are (would) we (be) doing that ?' has been flogged to death on several occasions - which as an exercise is perhaps overstatement of common sense but does mean you don't end up doing stuff that won't 'add value' in the longer term. (obviously my case for this blog was fairly weak !)

So after this brief respite, back to the grindstone but keep Dancing In Molecular Energy

A hole month

2006-04-27T15:19:00.000+01:00

Forget about butter, I can't believe that it's a whole month since my last blog entry, lots of stuff has happened in the interim. Our plans for the launch were overtaken by work, work and more work, Easter was also in there somewhere as evidenced by the chocolate hangovers. We put up a site for our company dime (www.dime.ie) partly because it's easier than continually explaining things repeatedly.

Tomorrow (Friday) was the day we had planned for the official launch - instead we'll be delivering some client stuuf and I'll personally be slaving over a hot printer ensuring we knock out some print materials for a particular gig we're off to: the interactive narrative content seminar or sagasnet in Germany. Which all means I miss a couple of gigs in Dublin tomorrow, the Irish Gamedevelopers Birthday shindig (GD.ie) and the IGDA Ireland Comittee meeting. Bit peaved about it but there you go.

So I don't know where the hole appeared from but it fitted nicely into the last month.

nonsense & incense

2006-03-27T16:11:00.000+01:00

Ah yes, after a couple of phone calls, a few meetings and the odd (or perhaps very odd) email, we're pulling together an official launch for dime. As ever there are favors to ask & to do, a venue & food to book, speakers & guests to invite and a whole load of other peripheral stuff to get organized but it's a strange sensation this time round.

I have previously done this event management thing on many many occasions for other people, other companies, other entities but it's my first time doing it for a company I'm so heavily involved with, - and I know this is pretty weird - each time I visualize the event under way, I get this under riding sensation of epitaph or funeral eulogy. Weird I know, but with the opportunity to gather friends, former colleagues with those whom you admire and respect, all together in one place for some stuff you yourself are central to, it does bear some semblance to an interning. Yuck… Is this how artist’s feel when they have opening exhibitions, here I am at what could be my proudest moment to date, a launch of a new era or chapter in my life and I feel like I look like I’m about to go down the pan ? LOL yes I wonder who else laughs at their own blog entries, most would no doubt go back and edit that out, I’m not most.

Please don’t misunderstand me this isn’t about lack of confidence, it’s just one of those gaping holes in my mental inhibitors and suppressors. If you had the opportunity to read Minsky’s society of mind and (perhaps naively) like me adopt it as a roadmap to provide the occasional way point to grow your cerebral processes in an alternative direction, you’re most likely smelling the incense or embers at the launch already. Anyhow that’s merely some of what's going on today.

Paddy's A Soft Day in EL Passo ?

2006-03-20T12:47:00.000Z

Let this blog lapse for a couple of weeks due to priorities shifting so for the 20 or so regular readers (that’s maybe 2 now !) apologies, here comes another rant…

Paddys Day..or is that Paddy's weekend ? or indeed as the drinks companies would like to have us now believe: Paddys week ! Anyway it all came and went and I worked right through it, national holiday's just don't put bread on my table, offer inspiration or liberation, future focus freedom or contribute a cent to cashflow, today's mass marketing debacle does not respect my sense of global identity or actually bond me to anyone, at least not now while I'm resident here surrounded by the other 4 million paddy's day patriots. (obviously if you find yourself isolated abroad the whole paddy's day celebrations offer completely different handles and hooks to hold onto and attach some fantasy about what it is to be born Irish - leprechauns 800 years of oppression, the land of saints and scholars, pints of stout, Celtic tiger cubs anyone ?)
My soft truth is that while I was some sort of nationalist in demographic and political analysis terms, I was raised speaking Irish and English in a working class multichannel area where all the clearest television singles were received from U.K. stations back when the UK was actually GB. The fact that my home town became known as El Passo, due to it's border location and gun slinging population didn't inspire confidence in bereft 70s and 80s Ireland. Whether certain people care to admit that or not, through 'the troubles', which were more than mere trouble my memory of that time was unrelenting bombing, maiming, shooting, deception, aggression, oppression, murder, collusion, butchery, sacrifice, terror, intimidation, evil, loss and sadness on every side, the in-human behavior that went on in the name of great states, struggling freedom fighters, community protectors or policy enforcers, somehow drained my enthusiasm for political rhetoric and the idea of politically motivated ownership of a fantasy island covered in green and gold. All we want is the power to determine our own future ?

IMHO personal choice is the only power worth having, often we deny it to ourselves because we conjure enemies and other adversarial ideas that thwart our course and restrict the range of choice, while social, economic and political factors will govern our material choices, educational standards build glass ceilings of knowledge and financial status encases us in a semitransparent demographic box, the hard choices come with spiritual freedom, decide to belong, decide to follow, decide to lead, decide not to decide. Forget about paddy all together.

F.E.A.R. Friday Evening And Rushing

2006-03-03T19:06:00.000Z

It's Friday evening late, I've (belatedly) discovered transliteracy today and I'm a very happy bunny, been working pretty hard all day and now I'm off for a nice dinner with friends (late as usual). Life is sweet at the moment and when things start going this well, I start wondering...... What is it I'm missing ?

Got so much to do tomorrow I'll just have to take some time out (breaking my no Saturdays rule) and blog about the whole area of transliteracy - after a bit more research obviously, I finally found a phrase which I believe actually applies to me.

Thought Trailers (Instantaneous Ireland 2)

2006-03-02T23:41:00.000Z

The OPA forum for the future gig (http://www.online-publishers.org/globalforum/) is on in London at the moment and finishes tomorrow, many bloggers, podcasters, journos and a large spattering of digeratti will be in attendance. And while, just like GSM in Barcelona, I had fleetingly considered attending, I really don’t need to be running off anywhere right now, listening to ‘visionaries’ tout their corporate philosophy while we’re still very much in start-up mode. I’ve got a huge chunk of work, broken into a small hillock of tasks to get through. Plus I’ve done my fair share of conferences and conventions down through the years and truthfully the major mitigating factor to attend such events is the networking aspect of proceeding, it’s the main reason why most would attend, new faces, contacts, maybe customers, possible partners, suppliers, some heretofore unknown yet essential fact, the flypaper that’s the rumour mill and other such stuff as product launches, statistics yadda yadda yadda….

All the very enticing sessions on offer begin to melt into each other, the mandatory ‘marketing,.(insert relevant industry) and the new ways we have learned to graft on our old thinking, the latest but greatest global outlook for (insert industry) the Revenue/ROI Tweaks thread ( more inserting) and of course the utterly insufferable lucky bald ox who despite himself made pot loads of dosh or somehow stumbled into the limelight last year will be spending one hour dispensing what he believes passes for wisdom.

The most intriguing of course are the future predictions and the thought leadership speeches, generally peppered with personality and often more entertaining than a Fox news report, most times keynotes. The mesmerized masses swallow it whole, hungry for any mental morsel that could cook in their own individual world domination dishes.

You know there was a time when I actually took some of that seriously, i.e. that someone else’s future revelations/predictions could directly impact, not only our company but me personally ! so I listened and absorbed assiduously, only to eventually realize that, most of this new thinking and innovatively uncompromisingly original perspective had probably undergone marathon endorsements by legal, senior management, co directors, partners, while also been written up in papers, outlined in submissions, etc etc etc, long before it ever gets to the keynote stage – furthermore soon as it’s said, it’s blogged, podcasted and reported in traditional media. If in any way a genuinely innovative or new thought is born, then forty clones are on it quicker than a rash, it’s old hat before it’s had time to dress for breakfast – it all sort of just spins itself round and round until we’re the ones that throw up. (our hands obviously)

So you see, Here in Ireland we have been guilty of similar thinking, we often coax the successful to share their insight and experience, often they are the ones who can’t prevent their ego from offering just a few snippets of future focus. We directly genuflect to superior insight, instantly compliant we immediately dream along their lines, we follow just behind, like a small silage trailer shadowing the john deer – cantona-esque in our impatient subservience to duplicate and replicate understanding. Having spent years in the long grass, I just want to plough my own furrow these days.

Instantaneous Ireland 1

2006-03-01T22:59:00.000Z

There's a lot of disappointed computer science students around Ireland today, the Irish (southern) Leg of the 'dare to be digital' competition is apparently not going ahead this year or so strong rumor has it. Which of course is a real shame, it was an excellent opportunity for some of the bigger games companies to spot talent, gave the students themselves a platform and generally raised morale around the GD community...that buzz has now ebbed away.......

Yes... so students although always working...I was one of those once…well twice...ok ok I admit it... three times, Engineering, Electronics and Theatre. Yes indeed it was at that time considered a bit of a strange mix (Micks?) of skills, which fortunately for me, time and technological developments have cultivated into a very apt skillset for today’s digital marketplace - add the creativity factors - Imagination: spirituality; discipline and belligerent self belief and you end up writing blogs about it. Oh I suppose you do need to throw in a few life experience factors there just to ensure it all holds together, plenty of disappointments, lots of tragedy, a good bit of travel, a sense of humor - a loving supportive family is essential, patience helps a great deal too.

And that’s the rub, when I was writing terrifically funny scripts at 18 years old, I was constantly and continually led to believe that irrespective of whatever I did, wrote or completed, I would never be taken seriously as a writer until I was in my forties, hence the engineering choice in the first instance – well that and I needed cash in 1980’s Ireland where there wasn’t that much of it spare. Thankfully all of that has changed, the hegemonic grip of the Catholic Church has loosened, the rate of cultural, social and technological change has increased to unprecedented levels, meaning what I’d call a new ‘Instantaneous Ireland’ has come to prevail in our collective cultural headspace, we can afford most things, (whether through low interest loans or indeed SSIA cash) so we want, we want a lot and we want NOW. Those expectations ripple right throughout our society even to the students who could gain a modicum of notoriety or peer endorsement through participation in events like dare to be digital. So all I can say is; what I had to readily accept many times over, “It’s character building ! Accept it ! Learn from it ! and move on !

Awarded on merit & marketing ?

2006-02-28T10:38:00.000Z

Developments abound ! (whatever that means exactly!) ok it's my shortest excuse for my blogging commitment slipping down the dime priority list. The last four weeks have been extremely busy - new clients and projects coming on board, office logistics and backend business stuff coming to the fore ! now that last statement surely holds hostage at least 2 of the eight parts of speech.

Obviously a few happenings in the world & world of digital media since last I blogged, official confirmation of the delays to the PS3 being of major financial significance to sony's share price, denial of the apparent decline in proper English language usage spreading to the Italian language, bird flu - or rather he stopped flying ! voting for the GDC front line awards opening up in the US, manufacturing facilities closing down here in Ireland and the revisitiation of the old 'higher value chain' and knowledge economy debates in the wider context of looming ECB interest rate hikes.

All that and I'm buried in the middle of flash, DW, Premiere, AE, etc totally oblivious to it all while trying to entice eircom to come and sort our BB in the office. Sp now that progress of sorts has been achieved I can glance out from my projects mineshaft and behold it’s The Oscars up this week. Which immediately reminded me that back on feb 02, there were 27 different categories in the Digital Media Awards this year in Ireland, one of the sites in which I regularly participate gamedevelopers.ie was invited to enter, or were selected for a long list (as opposed to a short list obviously)

I am lead to believe that the inital invitation/notification was accompanied by the booking costs for the evening and while internal discussions about whether or not the rather expensive table would be booked were on-going, the site didn’t make the shortlist – hmmmmm. nuff said there really. I long ago became aware that oscar votes can be as much about marketing to the academy members as the actual content and talent that they judge – seems this modus operandi may have extended itself into other awards ceremonies, even in little countries like Ireland.

I wait in hope & with baited breath for the frontline awards courting.... (-:

seemless web: this simple / that good ?

2006-02-03T10:30:00.000Z

How would I respond to the question: Who actually sees the internet or this world wide web anymore ? What I specifically mean by that is, are users/viewers/surfers actually conscious of the technologies employed in delivering the on-line experience ? Now I could go off to forester or IDC, MS research, Nielsen, etc, but staying put and offering some observations from my experiences I would have to say ...yes... maybe.... em... ..no.. ok then.. yes ! (maybe I should make that trip after all).

When people have to click buttons, input data, upload, download, unzip stuff they are acutely aware of the technologies they must use ... Yes ! whether or not they understand what jpeg compression represents, know the history of the gif or can tell one codec from another isn't paramount but this still represents a yes in terms of knowing that these technologies are in use to enable their on-line experience.

When the grey or sandwich surfers, joe soap, the suburbanites or casual net users (exclude ebay auctioneers, bloggers and podcasters) encounter some 'download this' or 'input here' pop up or alert do they know exactly what is going on, has their disbelief already been suspended ? Does the traditional media's insecurity agenda dominate and result in immediate closure of the offending interruption? Has previous conditioning ensured that an ' I don't need to know' attitude prevails and ignorance is indeed bliss. Has it all become automatic or can each tell the difference between dynamic and static, interactive or passive, determine quality by ease of use, clarity of information, engagement, if it's this simple - is that good ?

Become a paying customer who wants a cool on-line presence created. Cool means nothing without functionality. If I see the technology at work, does that mean there must be cracks or flaws inherent ? If I can't see it, does that mean it isn't there and the potential value of the on-line experience somehow seems less ? Any clown with a library of manuals can trot out back end or marketing mumbo jumbo if they want to. If it doesn't do what it says in the brief (or on the tin) then no amount of research, metrics, statistics or third party analysis will convince me it's any good. I may not always be right but I’m seldom wrong if I’m a customer and whatever my ‘correctness’ I fully deserve to receive what I’m paying for.

But do we fully understand that ?..... Maybe not..... although today most kids leaving school in developed countries have at least a passing understanding of html and are perhaps therefore much better equipped to begin understanding third level languages like xml and currently in vogue internet tech tools. A whole generation is out there cutting a swath through PHP, Java, AS2, etc in the name of amusement and participation. My own 12 year old son and his on-line mates from around the world build their own clan websites that can rival commercial examples delivered by top UK agencies only seven to ten years ago.

Value in Digital Media ?....tell me about it !

The emerging rites and wrongs of spring

2006-02-01T22:32:00.000Z

With the day that's in it, being not only st brigids day but also the beginning of spring, (for some of us any way) A sense of renewal has dominated. Lots going on in the world, Google down, credit still going up, and we're busy organizing ourselves while getting the work done for our clients.

I read today about the 5 media lab physicists who have set up a new company and how they are about to receive $35mio for their RFID stuff...interesting figure. The whole media lab Europe thing here in Dublin was a bit of a disappointment, I became involved a little with a couple of the researchers there when I was working for Microsoft and I honestly thought some of the stuff they were doing in the mindgames group around biometric feedback and alpha waves was absolutely amazing, I believed it had tremendous commercial potential, however there wasn't a mechanism to commercialize their research, like doah !!!! who should get a design slap for that one.

So some folks over at MIT are now also talking about the development of a $100 laptop for children from....and get this.....emerging economies...oh ok...where there is poor people in a country we'll call it an economy and in ireland...well...their research might not add up to much in any instance.... they're partners.... until the fan gets hit. Yes I did once share a page in the Irish times with Mr. Negroponte back in 1999, he upright receiving £25,000,000 grant assistance from the Irish Government towards media lab Europe and I prostrate begging for £2.3 mio VC money for the first ever officially licensed game development company in Ireland.....6 years later....only one of us is contributing to the Irish and European economy.

But enough of that backward looking whining, spring is surely about looking forward and after the day I've had I'm really looking forward to my bed......
Amarach.............

what a difference a weekend makes

2006-01-30T22:14:00.000Z

If anyone ever bothered to read this blog, or even the bits before this bit, you'd know the company spent a couple of days last week looking for a gig to do some work for an pretty excellent and very successfull local company, well we did the pitch and won the business, what else is there to say, apart from: we are now going to move offices soon also. More than likely happen quite quickly so we'll need to get extra furniture and all sorts of stuff like maybe one of those watercoolers on the right or similar for the hardworking staff ....and visitors...and ... who knows.....

Tomorrow......

2006-01-27T19:35:00.000Z

Technorati'>http://technorati.com/claim/9g6z9fkxyz">Technorati Profile

The fastest bun on the planet & lots of frog kissing.

2006-01-27T16:11:00.000Z

Probably the first crummy joke told to me almost 30 years ago when I worked with my uncle Jimmy who delivered bread & confectionary to shops, businesses & factories in our area...what's the fastest bun on the planet ? A scone ! (pronounced S..Gone, of course) yup a crumby job I wasn't in for the dough, which did teach me, even at that tender age, that if you are going to supply or deal with people it is a very very good idea to at least ask them what they think they might want........ before you actually arrive on their doorstep.

So it remains today, a simple rule that applied to buns 30 years ago has the same validity today, the cherries and fresh cream have been replaced by xhtml,CSS,PHP,DVD,HD, Media planning requirements and marketing management techniques. The flour and yeast of creative thinking, collateral and asset development may drive product and service offerings for our clients today and a lot of the time, the client doesn't fully understand the detail of our ingredients, But it sure is prudent for us to display potential prototypes and mock-ups, despite the time commitments.

Armed with such tools we all have a better chance of showing 'applicable capabilities' in context. The one drawback of course is you could find yourself in the 'kissing a lot of frogs scenario' before the prince actually appears i.e. you actually get the gig.

So that's my reason for not blogging yesterday, ( not kissing frogs!) we were actually that consumed working on mock ups for potential clients that would illustrate the 'general visual jist' of what could be achieved on a full budget, the clock passed 12 and a new bloggless day was born. doah...

We'll find out on Monday or Tuesday of next week whether they like it or not.

rib it.

One Black and White Button

2006-01-25T23:07:00.000Z

In the Ireland of yesteryear, people often tried to ‘blacken someone’s character’ by observing that the target of their distain, “would tell you black was white”.
Thank God today we live in more colourful and hopefully more tolerant times. Technology has contributed to that progress and evolution. Today’s technology is evolving at a faster rate than ever before. So you would hope the progress also.

Today’s digital media tools focus on ease of use, simplicity and intuitive functionality – you also hear the words productivity and value bandied about abit. Lots of talk and speculation in relation to what this tools zenith might actually be ? One button functionality ? Having literally grown up without the software, using something like flash, AE & premiere becomes a joy, no doubt today’s design students look at something like 3Dmax for the first time and recognise the implicit simplicity hiding between all those interface complexities. The promised mergers between technology, artistry, commerce and design are genuinely happening today. However tools remain mere objects until the skills, experience and insight are gained to allow them to become catalysts of expression. Somehow I feel continued evolution towards that ‘single button’ just won’t be as simple as black and white.

Click….

Kind of Blue Birthday

2006-01-24T23:18:00.000Z

Miles Davis was a tremendous soloist, innovator and free spirit, yet team player. His range, talent, motivation and improvisation has had few parallels in the world of jazz, either before or after – the man invented two new forms of Jazz.
An inspirational figure without doubt, the terrific truth was that when miles had led the music to a crescendo he was then able to melt back into the main melodies and rhythm of his bands ( All Stars, Nonet, etc) allowing others to shine and caress the limelight.One week on from beginning this blog and our company continues it’s progress apace, so this is a form of birthday blog, (I always feel blue on birthdays.) Yoday I’m playing the cog in the small machine, we’re looking to relocate and find a bigger home for the company, when that happens I’ll be looking for more cogs

the sound of the south of France from here.

2006-01-23T22:45:00.000Z

Yes, while people like me get their head down to the grindstone, on service work and internal development stuff, other creative people get to swan off to the south of France. Justice ! what justice ?
It's the turn of the musicians today, Midem is currently in full swing in Cannes, the location most famous for MIP and the film festival will play host to hoards of talented and chosen ones, the future of the European music industry will be decided in th evening along the beachfront over a glass of vino collapso.
So while Gerry (pictured) is off doin' his Muso thang, I got to work on some of his company's website today, it's at a sort of foundation stage, what builders in Ireland would call 'first fix' the structure is developing but it need lots of tweaking and loads of hours. Gerry will be out there lashin' out the hits, so you see, even though I haven't moved I pretty much know, at least some of the sounds, goin' down in the south of France.

oui oui bon nuit.

beyond the fifth dime mention.......

2006-01-21T17:15:00.000Z

The 'dime mention' pun begins to wear you down losing any initial impact, so to finish the above sentence:

beyond the fifth dime mention......you're floggin’ a dead horse. ...........Wasting your time........ milking it ......... burning bridges ....... it's run it's course.

Yes supporting the notion that all things have a shelf life, everything has it's time and you can eventually experience in real life some of the phrases your (grand)mother tried to teach you. The often slated 'stitch in time' or rolling stone' sayings and proverbs which were overlooked vehicles of wisdom to those of us previously too busy getting somewhere to actually bother with directions or a map.

A bird in the hand being worth two in the bush, making hay while the sun shines coupled with the myth that Solomon’s wisdom was based on his knowledge and application of apt proverbs for every situation totally reinforces Rumi's suggestion that understanding the word astronomy does not make you an astronomer.

Several developments are currently underway concerning dime that will take it into a different dimension of commercial reality – choices and decisions are now presenting, frankly……. I’m planning on being a bit wise about them.

The fourth dime mention

2006-01-20T10:11:00.000Z

I’m sure you, like me, understand the importance and indeed necessity of friendship. My old friend Mal Duffin from Belfast has developed a really cool 3d learning tool for shockwave & director which you can check out here:

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/director/articles/3d_in_30.html

I’ve known Mal for over ten years, very talented, driven yet someone who enjoys life to the full when the opportunity arises. He has worked smart for some of the best known companies in the world but for the past number of years he’s worked smartest in a company of which he is a significant shareholder – I suppose I’ve stolen back a leaf from Mal’s book in relation to dime maybe. One of my points is that, you need all of the three dimensions required to create something concrete but time is the essential ingredient in creating or developing anything of merit that will last, whether that’s test time, development time, certainly planning time, perhaps production time or even ‘face’ time as commercially focused people call it and you know IMHO friendship is really no different, if you want friendships to continue, grow or prosper, you need to put some time into them. Even the odd phonecall to a ginger git helps.

Thus there’s a whole ‘mix-em and gather em’ set of requirements to establish a successful business enterprise, a veritable potpourri of metrics, methods and management, the classic project management methodologies recognise, Time, Quality and Cost as thee controllable and interdependent outcomes, morale, drive, attachment, ownership, often get a mention but end up getting relegated to risk registers or change control systems – I can hear the artists and creatives screaming (in unison for once) with the programmers and techies – what about talent, foresight, flair, discipline, insight ?

Time will tell........

the turd dime mention ?

2006-01-19T12:03:00.000Z

yes, quite an afternoon (& late evening) of discussion (& coffee & biscuits), with the principles of artistic endeavor colliding with common commercial sense, techno-geekery*, a white board that wouldn’t wipe, passion for design, disregard for GMT, and a self imposed deadline that was somehow met, all resulting in the creation of our new, multipurpose commercial logo for the company.

We’ve had the ‘25st century star trek’* jibes, and after googling late last night, it’s neither that on it’s side, nor ‘the distant cousin of the Daihatsu car logo’*, we’re sure that there must be something out there in some remote way similar to it but for now the dime brand is to be represented with the logo/icon pictured above.

Obviously the logo has gotta work for print, screen,(various devices) broadcast (when it’s sexed up in VFX), support the whole ‘duel’ ethos of the company and also just be damn clever in someway, without blatant overstatement. It began with several archetypal atom style designs / icons, they got worked up in flash8 as an outlines, got fiddled about with in fireworks and Photoshop CS, got a quick run in AE and premiere pro and back into flash for some animation and interactivity tests. Out of all of the designs sketched and produced on paper, when fired through the above process, ‘the icon of the half-atom’* won out.

Obviously I’m pretty happy with the progress made there, I feel that it expresses the idea that there’s more to dime (& indeed Life) than can be seen, it seems to work well in interactive mode, and it’s the letter ‘D’ ! So what’s not to like ? I'm positive the quality will be further enhanced when the time is found to render it out in 3DMax or Blender, that’s when the third dime mention challenge hits home, just hope the investors like it and none of them mention the bronze position.

Until tomorrow.......

*(touchy, over-sensitive designer descriptions)

the second dime - mention

2006-01-18T11:28:00.000Z

Yes, absolutely no doubt that the third, fourth and fifth dime mentions will also be called upon to pun-ish readers of my dailydime blurt in the future. In the last week or two I've had a couple of phone calls from various people asking me when will I actually be doing something with this dime thing and what is it all about etc etc. One of my friends actually asked me to come and fix his homelan if I wasn't too busy - now there's a major misunderstanding for you.

The logo above comes from a discussion about the creation of the ATOM rss feed logo and in some ways, I imagined that using something in the same vein would be fairly cool for dime. ( you already knew/guessed that d.i.m.e. was an acronym for Dancing In Molecular Energy, right ?) Anyway while the design is really cool and the whole 'quantum mechanics buzz be with you' thing is going on, there's just too many of them - not atoms - logos that use the hydrogen atom or the lunar earth relationship scheme - used everywhere from travel agents to creche's. So unlike an encounter with the Borg, this specific idea will not add to our distinctiveness if used in it's current form. And I'm not taking about using the actual image above - as that has copyright - if you want to you can check out it's evolution here:
http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/AtomArtwork

We need to come up with something original and functional that will support both - Dancing In Molecular energy and Digital Interactive Media Enterprises - so that's going to form part of discussions later today I would assume, how can we support the first aspect while also clearly representing the brand that creates, licenses, buys, co produces, digital media content and products in the commercial world

The whole second dime is the truly commercial aspect to the company, the element that will allow it to survive and prosper in the real material world , while also respecting the true ephemeral nature of material existence. It's getting harder and harder to get away from the atom style logo but one major drawback is that it's a lonely logo, just a couple of small spheres, pretty much out there on their own, so for that very reason we need to consider something else.

should make for an energetic discussion.

In the dark.......but the future is bright

2006-01-17T12:46:00.000Z

Our new company has yet to publically launch our site or indeed the actual company into the commerical world - but since blogging is an essential opportunity to allow real people, both web vistors and those deemed 'potential' people, like poential employees/ customers/ partners/ investors, etc, to learn a little bit more about an individual (i.e. outside the standard sales spiels and marketing patter they must often adhere to under the guise of corporate communications) Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to set this blog up now before the official media/public launch of the company later this year. Obviously I'm as excited as a small child before christmas, but will maintain the exterior cool until we at least get out of the blocks.

This will also offer me the opportunity to document/blog and maybe even podcast some of the actual run up to that launch, it will be a while yet before I actually have a launch date so I won't begin with a t-minus countdown just yet..... I'll just literally keep you posted on any major developments and stuff.

You know, the theraputic aspect of blooging just doesn't receive enough publicity...... possibly because of the wee bit of html you need to know to get your templates and stuff sorted.

later ...well tomorrow PG.