There is nothing I like more than a nice bit of illustration, some sweet texture goodness and publication design. Throw these things together with a great little story and you get The King’s 6th Finger. This is one of the best children’s storybooks I have come across. It is great to see a story with a moral.
When I was shown this book by a friend of mine, I knew instantly I needed a copy. I ended up getting five copies. Being an uncle I am always on the lookout for a great gift for my nephews. Being a designer, I always want these gifts to be the coolest things ever. Unfortunately, this leads me to owning a whole bunch of cool kids toys and books. Hooked for kids and children-at-heart.
Based in a kingdom far, far away, The King’s Sixth Finger tells the story of Mortimer, a King with an obsession with the number 5. Everything in his kingdom needs to be found in fives from the moats around his castle to the hairs on his head. That is, until one day, when he is dealt a sneaky sixth finger. The story goes on to tell the tale of the dilemma that the king is in. What will he do to resolve this most perplexing of issues? Don’t worry; I wont spoil the fun for you.
Illustrated by Jolby, who aims to “tell a memorable story” and “make people smile”, their artistic work is full of fun, lathered with texture and bursting with colour. This book is no different with great character illustrations and awesome hand-drawn typography that perfectly complements the story, co-authored by Rachel Roellke.
If you have kids, grandkids, nieces or nephews, this is a great present - if you can bear parting with it. Not only is this book super entertaining for all ages, it has, like all good stories, a moral.
You know you want to buy 5 copies from Amazon too.
http://www.thekings6thfinger.com
Originally this was going to be a single post about tips and tricks for people starting out with Jquery, however I quickly realised that this was going to be the mother-of-all-posts unless I separated it up a bit. Instead, I have decided to turn this into a blog mini-series called Jquery-fu over the next few weeks. This initial post just touches on what Jquery actually is, why you would use it, and how to set it up. Enjoy! :)
Testing Web-based Software Interfaces with Atlassian Bamboo and the Sauce Labs Bamboo plug-in.
Well it's been a while, but here's what's been happening ...
We had a glorious day out for our Christmas staff do to celebrate all our hard work in 2010.
We wrapped up the year with a wine & Supa Golf tour of the Swan Valley on the 17th of December.
After getting picked up from our Subiaco headquarters we headed straight for our closest wine country, hitting Lancaster first for wine tastings session one. My favourite was their late picked Chenin which was a delightful accompaniment to the cheese platter they kindly made for us.
Second up was Heafod Glen where we enjoyed tasting session two, the highlights of which were their Viognier & 06 Cabernet Sauvignon.
It was then onwards to Supa Golf, which I have to admit was far more fun than anticipated.
Think giant mini golf; The clubs & ball are plastic, the holes are short & relatively simple.
Good golfing fun was had by all :)
We worked up an appetite sweating it out on the golf course so a late lunch at Sandalford is just what we needed.
As always their food, service & wine was delightful.
We especially appreciated the occasional spritz from the misters in the grape vines above our dining table. Very refreshing on a hot summer arvo in Perth.
We recently heard the wonderful news that our Simplisite Business Solutions logo has been accepted into the LogoLounge "Shapes and Symbols" publication. It's the third book in the new Master Library series.
The fantastic design team at Dessein created the iconic logo for us. We've worked on many design projects with Dessein including the Black Swan State Theatre Company site.
We asked Dessein to work on our logo because we like many others suffered from the 'too many cooks in the kitchen' syndrome. We designed our own logos since starting the business but were never really inspired by the results. Everyone had an idea of what they wanted our corporate identity to be & none of us could agree or agree to disagree about it.
After working with Dessein for some time we could see the amazing work & design outcomes they were producing time & time again. We decided it was time to bite the bullet and hand it over to the experts. It was the best thing we ever did!
It took Dessein no time at all to come up with 3 independently brilliant logo concepts for us based on the requirements we provided. We wanted it to stay in the autumnal colours & maintain the circular like movement of our previous logo but that's all the info we gave.
We all agreed on the logo you see today. Some of us thought it looked like a giant complex cog representing our technical machine like abilities. Others felt it looked like a marigold, or beer bottles in a spiral or a vortex of paddles. Perhaps it's all of those things.
It feels great to get external confirmation from Logo Lounge that we made the right choice. It's a logo we are proud as a company can get behind & be represented by.
With the expansion of Simplisite to now include two offices & with how busy we've been recently we haven't had the opportunity to all get together like we used to on a Friday afternoon to relax & catch up over some tasty food & beverages.
I thought is was about time we rectified the situation & did something fun. So I booked the private room at The Suite for us. Luckily for the Subiaco office Suite is right next door. Team Inglewood trekked over our way & graced us with their presence.
It was a wonderful warm night in by the open fire, sipping on cocktails & nibbling tasty treats. It was great to chat with all the people we no longer get to see everyday. Definitely the downside of expansion.
Last night the Simplisite team enjoyed a night at the Playhouse theatre for the opening of The Black Swan State Theatre Company's The Clean House.
We are proud to announce the opening of a new Simplisite office in Inglewood.
In the past couple of years our team has grown exponentially to meet the demands of the Perth corporate market. Our Subiaco base that we love so much & has housed us for so many years just wasn't large enough to house everyone comfortably anymore.
So we decided to expand our empire & now boast two Simplisite offices.
You can still find our design & management teams at our Subiaco office. That includes myself, Cam Worth, Jack Faulkner, Siong Eng & Boz Yates.
We have a fabulous coffee machine if you're ever in the neighbourhood and feel like a chat & a cuppa please pop in. I'd happily demonstrate my mad coffee making skills!
But it's our new Inglewood location that is our piece de resistance.
It has been beautifully fitted out and custom designed for us by one of our client's Rain Projects. Who make high end boutique offices & homes for a living.
It's fresh, new, minimal and modern decked out in whites, greys & charcoal and has plenty of room for our developers. Perfect for our tech team!
Our software development & IT teams can now be found at our new Inglewood location on the corner of Sexton Street. The Inglewood team includes Daniel Mende our IT Manager, Adrian Kirk-Burnnand our Software Development Manager & his team of Developers; Brendon Lee, Tom Garner & Francis Dao.
Please feel free to pop in for a visit to talk with one of our Managers about your next project.
We'd be happy to show off our fabulous new office!