Design

Here at Dusted we can be a little geeky about typography. We like to think pretty carefully about what your typeface says about you. After all, in these digital days we rarely get the opportunity to scrutinise handwriting as we used to. Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’ is Simon Garfield’s Just My Type. A ...

On my day off I decided to reproduce the Dusted logo through CSS. CSS3 properties have allowed us to reproduce some images and icons purely with code — whilst it is pretty cool, it also has some disadvantages. From left to right: The original JPG, CSS and CSS — but without border-radius. As you can ...

Students completing degrees in creative subjects could be forgiven for feeling pessimistic about their chances of getting a job straight away, particularly as most are expected to undertake work placements for very little or no money, just to obtain the experience they need to get an actual job. So why aren’t universities teaching the skills ...

The iconic luxury brand, Orient Express, launched its first Stateside digital awareness campaign last week and Dusted were responsible for a key part of the development. Working alongside Chandelier Creative and Criterion Global in New York, Dusted built and integrated a microsite and various social media channels, featuring nine short films, which follow the travel ...

Dusted were in Wales last month, assisting Harrison Catering with their ISBA (Independent School’s Bursars Association) conference stand. Spanning two days, this annual event is an opportunity for catering companies such as Harrison, and other services relevant to the independent schools sector, to exhibit their company and network with clients, prospects and competitors. Last year, ...

IBM are currently celebrating the success of their latest super-computer. Its name is Watson and it won Jeopardy. Jeopardy, for the non-US based amongst you (and the rest of you that haven’t seen Groundhog Day) is a long-running gameshow where contestants are given the answers. Their challenge is to guess what the question is. Watson’s ...

Dusted USA continues to gain a foothold in the American market and just before Christmas, saw the launch of Donald Haack Diamonds & Fine Gems (DHD) – the highly respected jewelry store based in Charlotte, NC. Dusted were commissioned to redesign and build a new site for DHD, who were looking to update and drastically ...

It may well have been the hot weather but more likely the fact Design Week called asking for a Voxpop quote, but last week debate in the studio raged over designing the perfect voting system for the next General Election. Here’s my response which Design Week printed, followed by the suggestions from Dusted staffers. See ...

It’s that time of year again when a load of web designers converge to hear a little about what their future may hold. Not a geek psychic fair (although there are plenty of predictions) but the Future of Web Design conference. After attending a couple of these previously I was in two minds whether to ...

Adobe and Apple have been at each other’s necks in a sort of corporate, well-mannered wrestling match – and it’s all over Adobe’s ubiquitous Flash plug-in. Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs has gone on record saying that the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad will never support Flash, citing the abilities of HTML5/CSS3 as well as the closed ...

They say never work with children or animals, but this advice was quickly forgotten when Dusted was appointed to design and develop the website for the new kids collectables, Top Dogs – the first in a series of Ani-mates from partworks publisher, Mini-Mix. Anyone with younger kids will appreciate the collectable craze that can sweep ...

When I first saw the news that Google Maps’ Street View had gone 3D I thought it was an April Fools’ Day gag. But low and behold it’s actually a reality — and a pretty well executed reality at that. The above image is of Oxford Circus, London and shows off the effect pretty well. ...

We recently launched a brand new website for Depiction Lab, a design consultancy specialising in the creation of branded environments for the retail, commercial and leisure sectors. The site was to be quite standard in terms of its content, with news, a portfolio and company profile. However the visual approach was more adventurous, meaning that ...

On my MA seminar debate last week at Goldsmiths we discussed the ‘author function’ in relation to value-creation in the economic context, interrogating the notions of originality and distinctiveness posited by Foucault in his essay “What Is an Author?’. Curiously, that topic led the group to challenge the definition of brands, in the classic sense, ...

I had the pleasure of heading over to Area 15 in NoDa on Oct 17th for the second edition of BarCamp Charlotte. BarCamp is a user-generated conference, which encourages attendees to pitch for their chance to present a session on a topic of their choice. “The name ‘BarCamp’ is a playful allusion to the event’s ...

We’ve always prided ourselves on the longevity of our client relationships and so it can be quite a proud moment when a brand you’ve worked with for so long, gets a significant overhaul. This is certainly true of Harrison Catering – a brand I’ve worked with for over seven years – as the start of ...

All our hard work has pretty much come to a head on the various projects (album artwork and posters) for musician Kris Buckle and it culminated at the end of last week with the launch of his new website. Kris is clearly over the moon with his new online presence, exclaiming “I’m diggin’ my shiny ...

As we await in anticipation for London Fashion Week, I felt it was necessary to promote a major exhibition staged at London’s Somerset House with ShowStudio. Fashion Revolution is a retrospective of nine years of online innovation, invention and creation. Based around the themes of ‘process’, ‘performance’ and ‘participation’, the exhibition showcases a retrospective selection ...

Following Dusted’s appointment back in April, the new website for CEME – the Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence – recently launched with a dual presence covering two distinct sectors – the corporate and education audience and the conferencing and events market. The work consisted of a design and an online branding exercise for the ...