BrewDog is not a shy and retiring brand by any stretch of the imagination – and we knew it was going to be a pretty competitive pitch process – so we decided to go out all guns blazing in terms of both design and content…

Si Scott Studio.

Seems like years have gone by since he’s updated. Now he has and his site’s still full of the amazing, mind blowing work we’ve become accustomed to.

Citizen Mag

Not my cup of tea content-wise, but damn if the flexible / collapsible grid didn’t make me smile… Go on, give your browser a resize…

Snugfits

Right, so this is a bit biased on my part, as my wife is due to have a baby in, like, 6 weeks, so forgive me – but how cute is this?!

You can keep up to date with our bookmarking here.

Last month I chipped in my two-penneth about what fonts we’ll all be seeing a bit more of in the new year. Well, it’s a brand new year, and my word new fonts and new type trends have just kept on coming.

This week has seen the launch of Commercial Type. A joint venture between Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz, who have collaborated since 2004 on various typeface projects, most notably the award winning Guardian Egyptian. Type foundries are kind of the unsung heroes of the industry, toiling away thinking about ligatures, with most of the attention and glory going to cutting-edge designers who dabble in type.

Now – i’m using ‘dabble’ very loosely here, as I love Non-Format’s experiments with type (especially OTTO), and Si Scott’s ‘Hunter‘ is fantastic.

BUT. I am never going to use these on anything I lay my hands on between 9 and 6. What’s great about Commercial Type is it’s place in modern day corporate design. Most of the faces available here are a refreshing alternative to the Helrutiger escape route, most of us are guilty of taking (I need to design a logo. If I use Helvetica, my work will be considered clean and tight).

I’m particularly fond of the Stag collection and it seems that 2010 is going to be the year of the slap serif. It’s been coming for a long time. Check out Adelle from FontShop. Packs a punch.

Another foundry brought to my attention this week is Radim Pesko. According to the website “RP is new small scale digital type-foundry established in 2009 by Radim Peško. The foundry is focused on development of typefaces that are both formally and conceptually distinctive.”

Personal favourite has got to be the Mercury font.

If you’ve got to this point of the post, you’re either my mum, wife or a fellow typophile, so well done. Here’s some freebies.

Smashing Magazine’s 25 New High Quality Free Fonts (check PT Sans & Tribbon above all else).

P.S. Ever seen a font and not known what it is? Here’s the handiest resource you’ll find this side of a glyph.

I don’t care that it’s in German. I want this clock.

The Finished Article

A new year means a new calendar, and what else would be adorning the Manifest Studio wall than the LDNnudetech 2010 calendar. It arrived, as promised, just before Christmas, and looks fantastic. Now, we’d only seen a couple of pages on press (see below), so had an idea about how good it was going to look, but, wow – we’re all very happy with the end result.

We’ve already done a couple of exhaustive posts on this project before, so we’ll keep this one brief (word-wise). Below are a few shots that sort of fill in the gaps between the Leap Anywhere ‘Making of Video’ and the calendar you’ve bought because you’re a nice person who saw this whole exercise the way it should have been seen. As an opportunity to raise a shed load of money for a great cause.

There are still a few left in stock at Firebox, so what are you waiting for? Buy one!

Calendar on press at Waddington & Ledger

Calendar on press at Waddington & Ledger

First proof arrives at Manifest...

...and goes on our Christmas Night out for a good 'Proof Read'.

Kudos from Milo

Miss March - Poppy Dinsey

Miss June - Hermione Way

Rogue's Gallery

Apart from coming in on a Sunday to finish off a pitch, this weekend we’ve mostly been playing with Google’s new Mac released browser Chrome and have been comparing it to studio favourite Firefox and Mac’s own Safari.

Now, lets get things straight first – this comparison is strictly how the normal designer sees stuff and won’t be an essay on how the tabs work. This isn’t Mashable. I am far too northern to wax lyrical or indeed technical about browsers. I was just feeling inspired. It’s basically my Tuesday today (did I mention I was in on a Sunday? Missing the Come Dine With Me marathon?) so the brain’s running faster than normal. Sorta.

Here goes.

1. Dock Icon.

The release of Firefox 3.5 made for a shinier, slicker dock icon of the Fox humping the world (that’s what it’s meant to be, isn’t it?) and goes along with the old addage, if it ain’t broke add a gradient. Safari’s icon has been the same for ages too – the compass. Yawn. Google chrome’s icon does two things. One – annoys the hell out of me while working as the red bit at the top looks like new mail in the corner of my eye. Cue disappointment when I realise. And B – it looks like that Simon game from back in’t day. Is that a good thing? I don’t know. Maybe they should have based it on Trionimoes. That game ruled.

Winner: Firefox

2. Add Ons.

Or lack of, if you’re Safari or Googley Chrome. I really, really wanted to scrap FF and start using Chrome at the start of last week, but it wasn’t until actually using the browser properly, on a day to day basis that I really started to miss things like Skipscreen and the handy Web Developer toolbar. What? I like to know how big stuff is exactly with the ruler! And the resize window is indispensible.

Winner: Firefox

3. Awesome Bar.

Oh man. I got nerd quivers when Firefox started the awesome bar. “You mean I can pretty much type ANYTHING in that bar, and it’ll find it? That’s AWESOME.” Plus, the search bar options were quality too.

Open up Chrome and what do you get? One bar. One awesome bar. One AWESOME BAR POWERED BY GOOGLE.

Winner: Chrome

4. Tabs.

Hmmm. This one is based on how cool they look more than how they function. Just. Safari & Chrome are pretty much the same beast here. Although I actually now prefer Safari’s restraint of the constant tab Firefox employed for 3.5. Just get rid of it! You’re making me click something that doesn’t close! Ahhh!!!

Chrome’s tabs are like Shark fins popping out of the water. CMD+T was never this fun! Duh-DUH. Duh-DUH.

And check out how sweet the little add tab icon is! That’s a winner for me.

Winner: Chrome

5. History / Top Sites.
Now, I don’t know if this really is a cool thing or not. I think loads of people are going to be in love with what Google Chrome does for your recent viewing history and if you compare it to Safari, it is pretty awesome. I mean, seriously, I am not the guy who built the matrix. What’s with the AWFUL curved top sites screens? It actually makes me nauscious. Chrome’s is nice and clean and the switch between thumbnails and a Delicious style list is really, really nice.

The good thing about having thumbnails is that you can see where you’ve been, but doesn’t really work if you view more than, like, 20 sites. Add to that all of your bookmarks. Now if you’re wanting to find something you saw ages ago, but can’t remember the name, but remember how it looked, you’re going to be frustrated. Chrome and Safari will tease you with recently viewed sites or most viewed site. Really, what use is that? I recently SAW THEM. I KNOW WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE!

Firefox doesn’t even bother with it. It just gives you a list. If you can’t remember what site you’re looking for, tough. Snooze you lose.

Winner: Firefox

6. Downloads.

Although Chrome has a very nice self-contained Download bar at the bottom of the browser, it doesn’t forgive the ‘Billy & Johnny’ use of icons to tell you you’re downloading something. Seriously. I’m not 7! I don’t need an icon bigger than my head to tell me something is downloading.

Safari & Firefox use a separate modal window for downloads (i’m talking bigger file downloads here, not saving images to yer desktop..) which is all good. Once again, if it ain’t broke.

Safari loses here because it still opens PDFs in a new tab. And that annoys me no end. So much that I think I actually stopped using Safari for that very reason.

Yes, I am that fickle.

Winner: Firefox.

7. Themes.
Once again, I am not 7. I’ll use my browser as it comes thank you very much.

Winner: Me.

Final result.

Winner: Firefox

Although I really do like Chrome, maybe i’m being lured by its new shininess. And the fact that I think Firefox is better is two fold. A. Firefox IS better and 2. I’ve used Firefox pretty much everyday for the past year, so when things don’t work the same way, I instantly claim it’s rubbish.

The same thing happened when Adobe discontinued Freehand and made us all migrate to InDesign or Illustrator.

But that’s a whole other blog post.

Japser Goodall
New site update from the godfather of digital illustration.

Cats Let Nothing Darken Their Roar Calendar
Fantastic 2010 calendar from Noa Bembibre. A whimsical phrase a month will make the year fly by.

Negative space in logo design
Shameful as it is, it was only after seeing this blog post that i realised there was arrow in the FedEx logo. Oh, the shame.

You can keep up to date with what we’re looking at on a daily basis via our studio Delicious page.

I should start by saying how proud we are at Manifest to be part of the team creating the first ever #LDNnudetech calendar. For those not in the know, it’s a nude calendar featuring some of London’s leading tech pioneers and (in)famous Twitter icons. Organised by Milo Yiannopoulos, sales of the calendar will raise money in support of Take Heart India: a tremendous charity providing and supporting practical, sustainable education projects to communities that need them in India. At Manifest, we’re doing what we do best to support the project – which means we are NOT taking our clothes off, but we are designing the calendar.

Once I heard about the project I immediately checked out Take Heart India and saw this video which inspired me to get Manifest involved. A quick email exchange with Milo later, and we were designing the calendar free of charge.

Martin Farrar-Smith is the designer in chief and although we can’t show you the calendar yet, the above image is a teaser of the design style we hope will do justice to the fantastic photography. Rumours of Martin walking around the studio in his birthday suit in order to ‘live the brief’ remain unfounded, but the design looks pretty good if we do say so ourselves. We’re making a few final ‘nips and tucks’ to the content and layout, but it should be ready in time for the calendar’s launch party on Monday November 16th. If you’d like to attend and see it for yourself then make sure you register via the #LDNnudetech network and Milo will keep you up-to-date.

Now, a nude calendar was always going to raise a few eyebrows I guess – but the controversy surrounding #LDNnudetech has come as a surprise to me. Maybe I’m being naive, but I thought a project designed to raise money for a worthwhile charity – whatever it may be – was something to support, not criticise. But apparently some people disagree. The controversy has only served to raise the profile of the project, however, and will no doubt contribute to its success. I’m not going to get involved in the debate here, but for any critics out there: it’s a nude calendar. Get over it.

It’s testament to the character of everyone involved (Milo, the guys at Huddle, Hermione Way, Mike Butcher, Lucian Tarnowski, Alicia Navarro, Sam Mathews, Poppy Dinsey the list goes on…) that the calendar will be produced in time for Christmas as planned – which was always an ambitious target for a project of this scale. Now all we need to do is sell them… so please do your bit and buy one

HARMAN technology is a client that often brings an interesting creative challenge – and this one was no different. Arising from a specific requirement for the unique Camera Imago 1:1 (not only the biggest existing camera in the world, but the biggest mobile ‘full-figure’ self-portrait camera), HARMAN asked Manifest to produce a brand and packaging for a new Black and White Photo-product called Direct Positive Paper.

Used in this ‘Walk in Camera’, Direct Positive Paper takes a direct positive image (equivalent to a slide film) of the person who is in the camera and creates images that have a real ethereal quality. The pictures really are stunning and it was essential we captured the same qualities in our concepts for the Direct Positive Paper.

The product is also to be sold to Pin Hole camera enthusiasts, as the process is extremely similar to the Walk In Camera, and with the same, beautiful results.

Above is the chosen mark for the brand – designed to represent the pin-hole and the ethereal nature of the shots it takes. We’re currently working on the boxes for these as well as a stand alone micro-site. All take a heavy influence from the works of Otl Aicher and Emil Ruder. We’ll keep the blog updated with further projects for this brand, as it’s definitely one of the more unique briefs the creative studio has had in a while.