Formkraft jumps for charity! We recently received a thank-you letter for our support of Formkraft's recent charity skydive, along with some pictures of the big day. Raising a grand total of £1870 which I'm sure you will agree is a fantastic contribution to their Safe @ Last and Amy's Retreat charities.
Well done to Dale, James and Sarah at Formkraft!

If you'd like to find out more about these charities, please visit them here:

Safe@last and Amy's Retreat.

Work is well underway for London's glass 'Shard', designed by Renzo Piano, one of the most respected of living designers and chief architect for the Qatari-backed development.

Having shot shot to international prominence in 1977 when, together with Richard Rogers, he designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris he has since gone on to deliver a sequence of highly acclaimed buildings around the world, notably the Kansai International Airport terminal, built on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, Japan and, at 1.7km long, one of the largest buildings ever constructed - and the masterplanning of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin - the symbolic new heart of the reunified German capital.
Indeed, having initially come up with the the concept and the dramatic form of the Shard in a few seconds (reportedly, on the back of a restaurant menu in Berlin itself), the Shard will be a tower like no other, both architecturally breathtaking and technologically advanced.

"The shape of the tower is generous at the bottom and narrow at the top, disappearing in the air like a 16th century pinnacle or the mast top of a very tall ship. The architecture of The Shard is firmly based in the historic form of London’s masts and spires".

"The tower is designed to be a sharp and light presence on the London skyline, and to be sustainable from every point of view: human, technological, energetic and economic".

"I foresee the London Bridge Quarter as a vertical city, for thousands of people to work in and enjoy, for hundreds of thousands more to commute to from all over the region, and for millions to take to their hearts".
- Renzo Piano

Follow the project at: www.shardlondonbridge.com (and download the excellent brochure pdf for more insights and interviews with Piano)

Together with Chelsea Barracks and One Hyde Park, Qatar certainly seems determined to provide a counterbalance to the turbo-charged skyline of Dubai with the latest property masterplan. Set atop London Bridge station and with not a car park in sight, Piano's utopian vision of a mixed-use vertical 'city' looks stunning and has the right environmental credentials too.

We like it, what about you?

Our e-mail marketing software 'mailbeanz' launches today!

Honed to perfection, we've created the perfect online marketing solution for companies that want to take their e-mail marketing campaigns to the next level and maximise their returns.

With customisable templates and bespoke designs also available you can easily add your own content, subject line, email address and then preview your email live.
Easily import your databases, filter your subscribers or manually enter email addresses. We'll handle the business of unsubscribes and bounces automatically and even add sign-up forms (for newsletters etc) to your website.
Real-time results as people open your e-mail and click on your links. Measure the success of your e-mail campaign (compare the effectiveness of subject lines, messages and links) and see who has opened which links and when - track subscribers, links and clicking habits to plan targeted email marketing campaigns.

With new research predicting that e-mail marketing likely to be one of the top areas for business investment this year, its clear that the global business community regards the web as one of the single most marketing channels available; one that no serious business can afford to ignore.

If you like to find out more about mailbeanz, visit our product page here or visit www.mailbeanz.com to sign up for you free account.

Recently, we've been busy updating our own e-mail management software system and have had time to listen to some of our customers views on their e-mail plans as we see more and more businesses abandon direct mail in favour of email marketing.

Whilst new tools such as Twitter, Blogging and RSS are being touted as "the new e-mail" its become apparent that they actually haven't supplanted e-mail but are instead, increasing its importance.
With e-mail acting as the 'hub' of our digital lives, hooking web apps back into this hub makes it more likely to be used than not (and all the while increasing e-mail's standalone importance), so we've taken our e-mail management system to the next level and will shortly be launching it alongside our other core products as an easy to use, fully manageable, end-to-end e-mail marketing solution.

Watch this space (and those little guys!)…

Straight out of Asimov, architects at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have a plan to build a massive digital cloud structure above London's skyline.

The Cloud, which has been shortlisted in a competition to build a tourist attraction in the Olympic Park with a lasting legacy, would feature 400 foot-tall mesh towers topped with solar powered plastic bubbles that show images, data and highlights including a "barometer of the city's interests and moods" outside (that latter bit comes courtesy of the group's partnership with Google).

As if that wasn't enough, the whole thing also promises to be funded entirely by micro-payments from the public (which would also determine its final size), and be completely self-powered as ramps, stairs, and lifts carry tourists to the top of the cloud. Once inside the structure, viewers would have a sweeping view of the city below. Despite displaying a constant stream of data, the cloud wouldn't take any power from the grid. Instead, it could generate all its own energy from a regenerative braking system and solar cells located on the ground and in the plastic spheres.

Even if the Cloud isn't chosen as the winner in the city's competition, the MIT designers are determined to build it. To that end, they have launched a fund-raising website in the hopes that millions of people will provide small donations. Want to help make the Cloud a reality? Check out the site at www.raisethecloud.org

Orion³ anyone? From people 'forgetting' to pay for goods to employee fraud, stores are using sophisticated software to target and deter shoplifters, says The Guardian.

Read the article online here

This cracking short movie from independent brand agency Moving Brands sure is a a timely piece and as the London Design Festival kicks off this week, catch up with them over at movingbrands.com

Quality stuff.

Over at well-formed.eigenFACTOR.org one can see the amazing and thoroughly mesmerising visual patterns brought on by representations of the ranking and mapping of scientific knowledge.

Based on the Eigenfactor^™ algorithm, which corresponds to a simple model of research in which readers follow chains of citations as they move from journal to journal. In effect, mapping the relative influence of individual scientific journals and patterns of relationship amongst the various academic disciplines.

Borrowing methods from network theory, eigenfactor.org ranks the influence of journals much as Google’s PageRank algorithm ranks the influence of web pages. By this approach, journals are considered to be influential if they are cited often by other influential journals.

Download an example citation pattern (the emergence of neuroscience) here (1.1Mb)

For more information visit eigenFACTOR.org

Is the Eigenfactor^™ score the new impact factor for Scientific, Technical and Medical journal publishing?

Seen as though we're celebrating, how's about a round of applause for our new site design and more importantly, our undoubted star of the show; the resolutely Euro-centric and blissfully solid typeface that is 'Helvetica' - it just IS!

Check out the New York trailer for the indie film 'Helvetica' typography, graphic design and global visual culture.

More about Helvetica and the film here

Just upgraded our Audio Visual exchange software at Derby General hospital, they can now access 40 cameras in theatre!!

Here's a few shots of the install under way...

Allows doctors and students to view live operations from separate training rooms while letting them speak live to those in the theatres through high-tech microphones. Facilities for record, playback and 2-way communication; all handled by rather nifty mobile cabinets!