The ever-so funky Holly Stanway was the lucky winner of a 24-piece Letraset Tria Visualization kit with a bleedproof marker pad.

Holly is an Illustrator & artist working with everything from pens & paints to fabric & textiles. If you’re looking for an interesting read, or want some instructables on making somethings yourself, check out Holly’s blog alittlestranger.com.

Anyway, I went out into the garden and up on the roof last night as there was an eerie orange glow where the clouds and snow had trapped the light pollution and though I would share some pictures (these were taken around 9.30pm at night!):

These are some plant pots snowed over in the garden after about 30 mins of snowfall (9.30pm)

A picture from the Loft/Roof

The shed in the garden coated in snow

For now, I will be sitting at home in bed with some hot chocolate and doing some work on my laptop!

Ok so we’re a little slow of the mark but Happy New Year from us all! We hope everyone had a good year in 2009 (Year of the OX!) but we hope you have an even better year in 2010.

I’ve been thinking about a few things that I would like to achieve in 2010. Whilst these are really specific to OxCreative, they are things that I think most of us could try to embrace:

1. Write more Blog Posts

More blog posts equals more content. More content equals more traffic. More traffic means lots of interaction, followers and good networking! It would be nice to start interacting with those in the community and so we are looking to post once every few days – even if it’s just a small update, just something to let you know we’re still here! Likewise, if you ever have a comment, question or just want a general chat you can get in touch with us via the website or twitter!

2. Take more photographs

Last year I bought a Canon 450d with a Canon 18-55 mm EF-S lens, Tamron 70-300mm Telephoto Lens and LowePro Slingshot backpack. I figured I was all set to venture off into the world of photography and in some sense I was… I managed to get some nice macro shots of the creatures that devoured my garden, but when it came to landscapes I couldn’t get it right. I realised I needed a tripod and some filters (UV and Polarizing) so my orders have now been placed and I should receive them shortly! You’ll be seeing more photography on the site and also I’ll be updating flickr.

(Photography is a pretty good way to learn about composition, imagery and creating different visual effects as well as being a great way to relax, get some fresh air and step away from the drawing board, desk or easel!)

3. Learn ActionScript

It’s something I have been on/off with for a while but I have decided to finally give it my all and have booked up with an Adobe Certified training company to teach me ActionScript 3 (a basic introduction) and also Objected Orientated (OOP) Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns.

If you are a web designer and have no coding skills, it is definitely worth thinking about learning some front-end development languages such as HTML/CSS, JavaScript and ActionScript. I have seen more often than not, Web design agencies are looking for multi-skilled and multi-faceted employees. The usual tends to be Designer/Front-end developer & Developer (Back-End/Front-end) which makes sense to have some degree of overlap and understanding of how things work.

4. Make an Application or game

I am not sure what I would like to make yet, but I think that in order to push my ‘yet to come’ ActionScript skills, I will need a project to challenge me and so will aim to complete an application or game by the end of 2010.

5. Exercise more and get healthy

Very cliché I know, but healthy body, healthy mind! I need to take my own advice on this one, cut down on the junk food and do some exercise. In the past few weeks I have worked on a few different projects (web design and corporate branding) and have spent the rest of the time eating, sleeping or playing Modern Warfare 2! Not a healthy lifestyle and so I am going to start cycling at least twice a week and see if it eases creative block, increases alertness & awareness and makes me feel a bit more like a healthier and a little less like a zombie!

6. Contribute more to Istockphoto

For those of you who don’t use Istockphoto you should really give it a try. They have an awesome community, a wealth of information and tutorials and also it allows you to not only save time by purchasing pre-created illustrations/photographs but also to contribute and generate some all important cash! Last year, I somewhat ambitiously joined the ‘race to gold’ where members actively try to gain a ‘gold canister’ which shows they have had more than 10,000 downloads of their files. This was a unrealistic of me as I only have 23 files on the site and so each would have had to been downloaded 434 times each (approx)!

This year I am going for the modest ‘bronze canister’ (250 downloads) and would like to get close to silver (2,500 downloads).

I would love to hear what others have for their New Years’ resolutions so why not drop us a comment at the bottom of this post and let us know what you’ll be doing to challenge yourself in 2010.

I am constantly surfing online and it would seem a lot of designers’ websites/agency websites are stale and boring – using the same ol’ colours, the same ol’ way – with the same “look at our bizarre layout… we’re quirky” designs.

Some of these “fantastic” agency’s websites are so similar you’d struggle to pick them out of a line-up.

However, whilst surfing the web I found an article on amending CSS for the iPhone on a website called www.squaregirl.com. It’s the first time in a while where I have been taken back by a website design, that in my eyes, is near flawless.

This is a good use of colours, gradients, textures and layout with a methodical approach to usability.

Check out the site at www.squaregirl.com

My business idea was to set up a creative agency which would source external work and give students and supply it to freelancing students. The agency would allocate the work and project managed each task (overseeing and ensuring it is to a high standard). For the project management and finding of work, the agency would take a slice of the revenue and would be self-sufficient and eventually profitable.

My idea was rejected and I thought nothing more of it. A few months later, in early 2006, I was discussing with a friend the idea that I submitted in the Enterprise Challenge and how I was unsuccessful. He advised me that the University of Portsmouth had approached someone to set up an agency in the same way my original idea was given to the University of Portsmouth – it even had a name… Purple Cube. My heart dropped… surely an educational organisation would not stoop as low to actually steal ideas from students through the means of a competition? Well it turned out they did.

I contacted the department in charge of the Enterprise challenge and was promptly called in for a meeting. They advised me that they had planned the idea a very long time ago and it was not anything to do with the enterprise challenge (this is important later).

I stated I did not wish to argue ownership of the idea but simply wanted to know why my idea was not good enough if it was already something that the University of Portsmouth was looking into? After all, my idea was to create a service/business that not only was profitable but also gave something back – in this case, it would allow students to gain experience and earn cash so when they graduate they are ready to start their creative careers. I certainly didn’t want the project to stop.

I was told that they would like me to be involved with the project but after lots of calls and emails back and forth they eventually stop responding to me and I did not hear any more about it.

Flash forward to today and I found the following in a University of Portsmouth document which you can download from www.port.ac.uk/aboutus/theuniversity/downloads/filetodownload,92912,en.pdf

The extract above highlighted in yellow discusses how the enterprise challenge can help students set up businesses and use prize money to develop their ideas. it then goes on directly to say that “Purple Cube is a student-run company that takes in external projects and gives the students to get used to working on real customers on real projects”. This would imply that a student submitted an idea, won the enterprise challenge and used the prize money supplied by the University of Portsmouth to develop Purple Cube… WRONG! The University of Portsmouth stole my idea (I still have emails and docs including entry forms as proof), approached others to implement it and after not being able to find someone to complete the project, set it up themselves.

For an organisation such as the University of Portsmouth, who even have a course unit entitled “business ethics”, it must be said that this is a disgusting breach of trust between the University and a student and such dishonest behaviour needs to be brought to public attention.

Shame on the University of Portsmouth!