Loughborough Sports Directory

The Loughborough sports directory came back from print yesterday and was sent straight out for the first Loughborough University open day of the new school year.

The directory will be used by the University as a yellow pages of Loughborough sport in a bid to attract new students to study at Loughborough, and to showcase all the fantastic facilities they possess.

Easy, Free Wire Frame Tools

All web designers and developers know that the initial stages of building a website are the most enjoyable, mocking up the wire frames and designs, and letting your imagination run wild! And what could make this even more enjoyable? That's right, free stuff! So after years of mocking these wire frames up with a pencil and paper, there are some new and exciting on line tools beginning to emerge that can do all that for you for free. There's the 'Pencil Project', which is a free and open source Firefox add on tool and is a good bit of kit yet my personal favourite is 'Cacoo'.

Cacoo is an extremely user friendly online drawing tool which allows you to create a variety of diagrams, not just wire frames, yet site maps, UML and network charts. However probably the best feature is the online collaboration feature which allows multiple users to edit the page at the same time (much like Google Wave) which is a real time saver, as you won’t have to email the image between everyone in the design group anymore!

So if you’re looking to add a little bit extra fun to the design aspect of web design have a little surf and see if you can find, there’s a lot out there.

Lightning and England Uni's Blogs

Loughborough Lightning and England Universities football, two projects that we are heavily involved in here at 5or6 have been working hard on and off the field/court and have both released new blog's to keep everyone up to date with their latest news.

To view there blog's just follow the links below:
Loughborough Lightning
England Universities Football

Griffin Posters

The Griffin a local pub part of the Marston's Brewery chain ask 5or6 to produce new posters for there newest nights and new years eve.

'Happy Mondays' is a new indie night at, whilst 'More Fun Than Ya Mum!' is a new student night with up beat funky house and dance music.

New Years eve at the Griffin is a fancy dress evening where everyone is encouraged to go as there favorite small screen star.

Lightning Storm

The grand season launch of Loughborough Lightnings season is fast approaching and the new e fliers, posters and postcards have been sent out to promote the event.

The event takes place on the 21st of November in Loughborough Universities Netball Center, with an All star netball match, fashion show, IMS grudge match and sports auction.

December WOW posted on myebook

The december issue of WOW has been posted on myebook. This months magazine was 20 pages long and featured EuroHockey winner and Loughborough student Richard 'Smudge' Smith on the front cover.

November Issue of WOW out

The November Issue of Lougborough Students Athletic Unions magazine WOW is now out. The magazine has interviews with current Loughborough student Richard 'Smudge' Smith, who recently won the EuroHockey Championships with England in Holland. Smudge and England, which include 4 ex-Loughborough Students including current captain Barry Middleton beat the Olympic Champions Germany in the final 5 - 3.

The issue also features articles on the currently high flying Loughborough Students Tennis team, the Students Womens Football side and an article on encouranging students to drink more water, 'winter warmer'.

WOW will be released online next week, so keep an eye out here for the link.

CSA'09 Video

The video for the Charnwood Sports Awards 2009 is up on YouTube now, so you can view it here.

Charnwood Sports Awards '09 Tickets go out!

The tickets for the Charnwood Sports Awards '09 have gone out this morning to everyone that has been nominated for an award.  The event is in 2 weeks so all the design work is coming together, with the programmes for the event, along with the video being produced at the moment.

We have also sponsored an award for the event, the prestigious 'Senior Sportsperson of the Year' award.

Charnwood Sports Awards Tickets

The Charnwood Sports Awards tickets are in and are being sent out on Monday morning to everyone who has been nominated and invited to the event. Here at 5or6 we are sponsoring one of the awards and when we find out which one we will let you know.

Google Wave in the future...

Over the last few years Google has been raising the bar constantly in the way we use the internet. Yet their latest project the Google Wave, which is set for release soon is set to completely change everything. It will revolutionise the way we use our browsers, exchange information and communicate with each other via the internet.

Google Wave was previewed earlier this year at Google's annual Google I/O conference to rave reviews, and has been described as "a personal communication and collaboration tool". Yet from the description it might seem hard to understand what Google Wave actually does. As a personal communication and collaboration tool wouldn't work together, right? Wrong, Google Wave allows individuals to talk together at the same time, yet alter the conversation or "Wave", add others to the Wave, share images, maps and documents via the Wave, and so much more.

So be prepared to wave good bye to your email client, say "sayonara" to your instant messager and hello to Google Wave.

Thinking inside the box - Are branding guidelines a restriction on creativity?

All designers will know that when designing for a client there can be some perceived pit falls, namely the dreaded creativity destroying, 'brand guidelines'... Brand guidelines can seem like such a restriction on ones imagination, you always have to stick to the guide. You're never allowed to 'think outside the box' or 'push the envelope' so to speak. Yet is having guidelines such a restriction? Are they terribly detrimental to the overall design?

I have always found having a simple set of rules to govern or guide my design work, an aid rather than a hindrance. I often find myself setting out simple rules for myself when I begin a project, that way I can focus on what the client really wants. This way it stops me from getting carried away with what I really what from it, and there is often a big difference between the two. Remember rules can give order, direction and a purpose to a design.

So next time you're given 'brand guidelines' or restrictions from a client, boss or even a friend don't think of them as a hindrance. They're there to focus your design talents on what is really needed from the finished product, customer satisfaction.

Rolling with the times...

Being a design consultancy and constantly having to search out new technologies out there, you often stumble across a few gems (and quite a few pieces of deadwood), that not only aid your work yet make it easier and far far quicker. At the moment the most popular net based technology we use here is Netvibes, with this you can have all your social networking pages (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs etc.) all on one page, along with almost anything else that you find interesting, for me thats BBC Sport and Sky News. This makes it so much easier to update everything in one go and get your voice out there on the net. Social Networking is one of the fast growing ways to connect to your customer and having a platform in which you can reach them instanly is always a plus! So give Netvibes a go, or you can always search out your own Social Networking gem, it will save you time, effort and most certainly stop you from seeing that frustrating little character the Twitter 'Fail Whale'.