This is pretty old now but a great example of how a light installation can quickly go viral via the power of the dreaded social media. Clever old Absolut.

London without roads.

Dan Mall, speaking at New Adventures Conference in Nottingham, spoke about deliverables, saying “The client-facing deliverable isn’t always the most important thing to make” (see his presentation on Speakerdeck) adding that the tools we use are sometimes more important than the final product. The tool can actually help us improve the final product. At Nixon, our tools are invaluable to us; this is why we have decided to build our own little demo site so you can see what we’re capable of and the tools we use. In the current climate of emerging standards and technological advancements, we’ll also use the site to show you what we learn and where we put these things into practice as well as a way to share knowledge. Nixon Design Demos is this place. Our tools, our code and our knowledge.

The site is purely for demonstration, and as Trent Walton also said at NAConf – “Break Everything”, so we will. The demos may not seem very practical or even useful at times but in combination they are helping us build and showcase new fun pieces of functionality.

Introducing the first demo:

Google maps are, in our opinion, beautiful; they’ve got a simple and easy to use interface and are instantly recognisable. However, sometimes the default just doesn’t cut it, so Google lets you style the maps, whether it’s to fit your branding, to make a point or to highlight some important areas. This can be very useful – our demo here, shows what kinds of things can be styled on a map and how to implement such features yourself using the Google maps API.

Using the image above as an example, it’s sometimes good to strip things down and start from scratch, removing elements like roads and place names to highlight the amount of green space in London. Using the same map but in a different tab option, you can also provide the standard map for users who want to see the standard layout and allowing you to make comparisons between the styles.

The sky really is the limit, and what you would the world to look like once you’re up there. Map styling demo: demos.nixondesign.co.uk/styling-maps.php

At Nixon we make beautiful things and we appreciate the beauty around us. Maybe that’s why Martin Nixon is a patron of the Jubilee pool in Penzance. It’s a pretty bonkers outdoor pool that’s filled by the sea. Yeah, brrrrr. The pool is an art deco sucker punch from the 1930s. You walk through the gate and bam! ART DECO. At any moment you expect to turn a corner and see Agatha Christie sunbathing with chums.

Art deco doesn’t have much to do with computers, but the ideas, execution, straight lines, white-rendered and sharply geometric shapes are reflected in how a computer thinks (or how we tell a computer to think.)

Often there is beauty in the simplicity of an idea. This holds true with algorithms. One of the most common tasks we ask a computer to do is to sort a list of things. There is a bunch of ways that we can do this, but my favourite has to be the Quicksort. It has simplicity that hides complexity.

This is how it works on a list of numbers.

Choose an item in your list, any item. This is your pivot. Next, move all the items ‘less than’ to a left list and all the items ‘more than’ to a right list. Your lists are now slightly more ordered than when we started.

What you do next is really clever. You take the ‘less than’ items (left list) and do the same thing with it. Then you take the ‘more than’ list (right list) and do the same with that.

As you continue chopping your input list into left list, pivot and right list, at some point the input list will be one item which must be in the correct order.

When you have lots of little lists all in the correct order, you simply recombine them: left list + pivot item + right list (your computer knows how to add lists together.) Out pops a sorted list of numbers.

Computers are fun!

Does this work with a list names? Inside your computer everything is a number, a binary number. So, yes, as far as the computer is concerned the letter A is less than the letter B so it can sort names.

2012 will be remembered as the year all computers came with multiple processors (each with multiple cores.) Phones, tablets, laptops, desktops and servers all ship with multiple CPUs inside them. So how does Quicksort, an algorithm from the 1960s, fair in today’s multi CPU world? Actually very well indeed, the list gets chopped and reordered and chopped and reordered, each processor can pick a list to chop and reorder. The more processors you add, the faster it becomes.

Elegant ideas are timeless.

We loved the integration of the twitter wall.

Some of our clients come to us with imaginative ideas about extensive rebrands, the latest website technology and fabulous print, and sometimes we say, “Is this really going to move your business forward?”

We like to help clients solve problems. So, is there really a problem with your brand, marketing, design or website? Is this holding you back? If there is we’ll help you discover the best solution through strategic thinking and design. However be prepared, sometimes we may say, “You know what, slash that marketing budget!’.

Welcome to Tamsyn, who’s just joined us as a Junior Designer. She’s recently graduated from University College Falmouth and we’re really excited about all that she’s going to bring to Nixon. And a farewell to Chris, our latest placement student, also from UCF.

Thanks UCF for producing such brilliant design heads!

On October 12th 2011 we were lucky enough to attend what is fast becoming the most talked about conference in web design we have ever attended, Brooklyn Beta. Obviously based in Brooklyn, New York. The event was held at the Invisible Dog Art Space, which in itself is an amazing venue and a fitting stage for such an inspiring conference.

Brooklyn Beta is a celebration of web design and development, tagged with the line ‘Make something you love’, the event was 3 days of inspiring talks, debates and conversation.

The organisers, Chris and Cameron go to great efforts to make every attendee of the conference feel as valued and equal to the speakers. Everyone is encouraged to mingle and create conversation and due to this the schedule is very loose and all the better for it. If lunch takes longer then so be it, we will stay later.

Set over 3 days the conference facilitates the ability for  people to meet. At every opportunity attendees are encouraged to share whats on their mind and create conversation. We came away with our heads full of ideas and a stack of new friends.

The talks were based around ideas, education and generally encouraging people to make their ideas reality, because if you don’t in six months Cameron Koczon will!

All of this was surrounded by amazing food from local Brooklyn retailers and some of the finest beers Brooklyn has to offer. On that note, the beer was kept in a large elevator so depending on which floor of the building you were on, the bar could come to you and thats genius.

You can catch up with the tweets sent during the conference

http://www.giveadamndesign.com/bb/

or login to attenderizer (one of the apps demoed at BB) with your twitter credentials to see a full line up for the three days.

http://attenderizer.com/brooklyn-beta-2011/info

Photos of the event are on Flickr here

http://www.flickr.com/groups/brooklynbeta/

Keep your eyes peeled for next years Brooklyn Beta.

I Believe I can Fly ( flight of the frenchies). Trailer from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

Or if that isn’t too easy to come by, how about some luxury alpaca socks, a cashmere wrap or an alpaca hot water bottle cover? Mmm, explore our latest website and tell us what you think.