Creative Cape Town communicates, supports and facilitates the development of the creative and knowledge economy in the Central City of Cape Town.

The WDC2014 Initiative is aimed at getting Cape Town voted as the “World Design Capital 2014″ as a recognition of the advances in use of design to enhance society. Seoul was voted the 2010 World Design Capital and Helsinki for 2012.

Also View some of the Case Studies posted on the official website to see how the vision outlined above is coming to life

• WDC2014 Case Studies

Visit the Following 2 Websites which are currently spear heading the initiative to find out more about the why and how of the project.

• www.creativecapetown.net
• www.capetown2014.co.za

Cape Town’s World Design Capital 2014 bid concept, “Live Design, Transform Life”, focuses strongly on socially responsive design. – www.capetown2014.co.za

Join the Facebook Page and become part of the effort to get Cape Town recognized on the World Design Stage

• www.facebook.com/pages/Cape-Town-for-World-design-Capital/348553012789

Grab your supporter’s badge and be part of the team

• Get the Badge

Now go out there and slap some design on The Mother City! And don’t forget to share!

Hillman Curtis has done an excellent video piece on the BMW project to give you an insight into the world which Joshua Davis inhabits

The HTML 5 <canvas> element

Onto the scene steps HTML 5 and more specifically it’s Canvas element, turning the blank screen into a virtual blank canvas of 2D vector expression which allows artists like Joshua to unleash their special Brand of digital creativity. Add the brilliance of the Mix Online development team and you end up with a blend of creativity and modern web technology which allows the rest of us to enter the realm of the digital art space.

The Mix Digital team has developed a Javascript framework which plugs into the HTML Canvas element

Okapi is an open-source framework for building digital, generative art in HTML5 brought to you by Joshua Davis Studios and MIX Online. Mix Online Labs – http://visitmix.com/Lab

Okapi.js was commissioned by Microsoft to celebrate the launch of their latest and most HTML 5 compliant browser IE9. Finally a step in the right direction for Microsoft in the browser battles.

endlessmural.com

Using the Okapi.js framework, Joshua Davis created the Endless Mural project, where the drawing platform can be used by anyone with an HTML5 compliant browser to generate their own unique artworks to contribute to and enter the drawing competition.

The Interface allows for manipulation of vector symbols and pictograms, and controlling the patterns and textures they create by setting their speed, angle and rotation in various ways. The results are very random and abstract right down the alleyway of Joshua Davis’ unique style.

Here’s what I muddled together

You can watch my creation process online by visiting – http://endlessmural.com/#8833 to see how the elements spiral and grow, sprout and burst into the final chaotic vector garden which I created.

The Digital Space is surely getting really interesting with these new technologies opening up untapped avenues and making it more accessible to the rest of us. This is just one example of how HTML 5 is being leveraged. I’d like to hear what other interesting examples you’ve come across recently.

When I saw this video I gained a much better perspective, and almost an instantaneous appreciation for the value of consciousness art, something as a web designer for the last decade I have almost completely forgotten about.

the cape of good hope from rowan pybus & faith47 on Vimeo.

The Cape of Good Hope tells the story of the tragic and sometimes horrific newspaper headlines that people are faced with every day. It captures the darkness while suspending the headlines in time through a visual installation in the grimy district of Gympie Street in Lower Woodstock, Cape Town. The music for this video was produced by Inge Beckmann. – found on designindaba.com

This video presents a street art piece, captured in an intensly emotive video presentation. It takes a deep look into the messages which litter our street lamps and signs about the ugly side of life in South Africa.

No further comment!

He passed on a really great online business idea

It was Something really simple and with potential to make some good dosh online, which got me thinking about the way I have been approaching my career. I’m not about to share his idea with the world to run off and make it irrelevant to me, but after coming across the following post written by Bud Caddell on whatconsumesme.com, I also re-thought whether just any good business idea would do for me.

This Venn diagram gave me some serious food for thought in terms of how to go about sticking to what I do well, what I love doing and still making a decent living out of it. The post is entitled “How to be Happy in Business“. Apart from being a really well designed piece of informaton design, the concepts really hit me hard and also made me think back to my business ideas convo with @naeem. Would it do to get into just any type of business just to make money?

Budd lists the 3 problems highlighted by the diagram:

• We can’t determine how to make enough money from the things we want to do, and do really well.
• We’ve found things we want to do, and can be paid for, but we’re not the best game in town.
• We’ve come across things people want us to do, that we do well (or at least better than the competition) that we really don’t want to do.

I’m the type of person that generally comes up with business ideas connected to a direct need I have, and also most times relating to something which I’m really interested in, which helps me get my head fully inside the whole development process. Ok so I haven’t really succeeded with any of my crazy business ideas yet, LOL, nor have I even progressed to prototyping phase with some of the more serious ones, but this means that something disconnected to what I love doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of even featuring. Then comes the problem of monetizing what I’m really truely passionate about.

Me gots lots to think about regarding this diagram!

On the same little stroll around the interwebs, I also found a really great way of identifying my own special business model, and applying my efforts in that direction. Gina Trapini, “software and self improvement junkie” wrote a piece on Freelance Switch where she says,

“While I do plan to make money as a freelancer, my ultimate goal is to generate satisfaction.”

(While money is a part of that, so is learning, service, and creativity, so we’ll just use the umbrella term “satisfaction.”)

She shares her personal “business model” in plain & simple terms, What’s important to her is more than just paying the bills while doing what she specializes in.

This particular concept highlights the importance of consantly tracking your activities based on what’s most important to you. Of course knowing what’s most important is step 1, having a plan to engage more in those areas comes next. I found in the last 2 months, tracking my activities in detail has given me huge insight in where the problem areas are. I’ve started taking a few steps in a new direction and these 2 posts/diagrams has helped wrap my head around the way forward.

Information Design to make your mouth Water

This is a masterpiece of information design

The Web Trend Map is a yearly publication by Information Architects Inc. (iA). It maps the 333 leading Web domains and the 111 most influential Internet people onto the Tokyo Metro map.

I can’t wait for this to be finalized so I can get hold of a printed copy for my office.

What the Map really means.

According to the creator’s of this map of juicy web goodness, countless hours of research was undertaken to assess to most effective, profitable and traffic generating websites and web gurus to put together a resource which is filled with the web’s most influential spaces and faces.

These web trends have been intelligently super-imposed over a map of the Tokyo Metro System, aligning those web venues which have similar characteristics to the actually Tokyo Metro spaces they virtually occupy. For example:

Google is placed in the busiest, most highly trafficked train station in the world: Shinjuku.

The width of an entities station represents it’s stability in the web space.

Trend Lines/Genres

Metro lines were established to group similar web entities. Upon investigation you’ll quickly realise what a mammoth task of information architecture this must have been. Further more, characteristics like the height of specific stations on the Virtual Map, represent the web entities success in terms of both traffic & revenue, which explains of course why Google towers above the rest. The use of various coloured lines and the position of certain stations at intersections of 1, 2 or 3 lines expresses which trend lines specific web entities actually cross or overlap.

Just a quick glance across the Trend Map reveals a wealth of information and insight into the current shape of the web sphere. I can see this map being presented in thousands of boardrooms and strategic sessions world-wide. It’s got that buzz appeal which the Orielly Web 2.0 Tag Cloud held at the beginning of the entrance of Web 2.0 into the mainstream. The many so called “social media gurus” out there are gonna eat this one up for breakfast lunch & supper.

This is very much still a work of art and feedback is being taken currently to make it as accurate, error free and apt as it can possibly be.

I’ve spent only a few minutes glancing at this web wonder and have already foreseen endless hours of my future dissappear in the journey this one is about to open for me. I’ll stop myself from using the cliche’s of beautiful, stunning, elegant to describe this one, even though these and more over used adjectives definitely apply in this case.

I think the tagline says it all, “the best ideas get paid”. So what is this all about then? The website www.ideabounty.com says it short and sweat:

Clients: Get thousands of minds thinking about your brief and only pay for what you use.

Creatives: Get paid for your best ideas with no long term commitment from you.

Crowdsourcing is a growing scene which is maturing of late, but locally we are yet to tap into the vast intellectual and creative ocean out there. I’ve had the idea of an ideas network for a while, like many I suppose, and though mine has a slightly different spin on it, it’s encouraging, though not surprising, to see a company of Quirk’s stature venturing into this kind of territory.

I’ve just registered, check it out and see what you think.

Just off chatting with White Africa, A.K.A. Hash, blog master of AfriGadget.com who lives in the US. I thought I’d take another look at AfriGadget and see if I can find anything which sparks my interest.

Step onto the scene a Sugar & Yeast Powered Generator

This invention(by Dr. Cedrick Ngalande’s) has massive implications for South Africa, not only directly related to the problem of charging of mobile phones in rural settings but in general, for the energy crisis we are experiencing locally.

This shows that Africans are very much innovating and working towards solutions to some of the most crucial problems mankind will be facing in the very near future.

“The rotor moves slowly most of the times but does pick up at certain intervals. This process continues for many hours. Since the rotor is quite heavy (and hence more inertia) a small geared DC motor can be connected to the rotor to generate power for cell phones, $100 laptops, and other things in Africa. People can leave this thing to charge their phones/$100 laptops overnight.”

The blog post where I found this little invention has a hot commenting debate about the actual viability of the invention, but like “Hash” the blog author responded, we need to be talking about what people are doing and maybe by spreading the word others can contribute and help build on these ideas.

Anyone out there know of any other cool low tech energy solutions? All I can say is Go Africa, Go!!

found on http://www.theethicalagency.co.uk

No this is not my business, of course not, not yet that is. I’ve come across quite a few UK based agencies of this nature in the last few years and it’s been my mission for a while to start one here in South Africa.

TEA – The Ethical Agency, is a UK based ethically motivated advertising company which promotes ethical business and lifestyles and does so in a really thought provoking manner.

Visiting their site has pricked my imagination somewhat and helped further crystallise the idea which has been brewing in my head for way too long.

So who out there has any ideas regarding ethical business?

Does this interest you, do you see a need for it?

Anyone passionate enough to take it a step further and do something?

We are all agents of change in our own right and have the responsibility to create a better space for all of us to live in.

I found these inspiring quotes on TEA’s website:

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, for as long as you can. -John Wesley

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. -Greek proverb

This is the start of my nomadic BLOGUMENTARY, a journey through the world of the web, creative thinking, social networking, business strategy and personal self discovery.

On this digital journey I aim to take myself from amateur blogger / professional web designer with little direction, to what I always envisioned myself to be. I aim to become an agent of positive change and innovation, and to find true meaning and purpose to what I do.

How do I plan to do this you may be asking yourself?

I’m still in the process of figuring all the steps out and plotting my course ahead. I know coming out with this self challenge is a brave move, one I could very possibly be very sorry for if I don’t keep up with the challenge, or fail to achieve the goals I set.

Therein lies the secret. I plan to drag you all along on this journey, get your feedback, give you advice and ask for some as well. I might even involve a few of the Guru’s out there to help make this journey an action packed adventure, which we can all benefit from.

I hope to cover everything from the initial idea / vision phase, on to a little bit of a business plan with clear goals. I will be developing a strategy including the steps which I will need to take to achieve certain goals.

What will I be sharing with You

• my Brand building endeavours and the lessons I learn
• selecting & shaping my niche
• the technologies & methodologies I will be using
• the tutorials, tips & advice which shape my decisions
• my favourite resources & influences
• The tools I use to make my tasks easier

Sharing the Experience

I’ll be sharing the troubles I encounter along the way, the feelings of failure if any(I’m sure there will be), the stumbling blocks & challenges faced and the stresses I experience.

Sharing the successes, stats, milestones & profits

Any success achieved along this perilous journey will be shared with all of you. I’ll let you now when I earn my first paycheck, which I hope will be soon, in fact I desperately need it to be soon. I’ll tell you about what this project does to my web stats and when I’ve made a major breakthrough in learning or self development.

What do I want from YOU

the visitors to this site have pretty much kept their identities to themselves for their own specific reasons. I hope this will change.

Involvement. I hope you will share this journey with me. To this point the visitors to this site have pretty much kept their identities to themselves for their own specific reasons. I hope this will change and that you will start to engage with me and get to know me as well as help me to get to know you better.

Feedback. I’d like to know what you think about what I have to say, about the decisions I’ll make and the advice I’ll be giving. I plan to put in place a few incentives if and when I am able to make it worth your while to get involved. I started with a little experiment in the form of the Logo Design Q & A competition which I ran recently.

Inspiration & Advice. We can never achieve much on our own. We achieve things by learning from others and benefiting from others, and then by sharing this with others. I hope we can develop a mutually beneficial relationship where we influence each other and inspire each other to achieve great things. Where there are areas which you could help me I’ll appreciate it and if there’s anything I could do for you I hope to be able to help as well.

So where do we Start?

Well we kind of have started already. I’ve met some great people already and have a few of you subscribe to my RSS feed. I’ve just crossed the 4000 hits mark since starting out blogging more seriously a few short months ago and have a few more RSS subscribers but have no idea who they are.

I’ve just completed negotiations with a few parties to get into my own office space and have just moved in. I’m also in the process of re-designing my website to empower me on this journey.

I’ve gotten started on a few post series and have some great ideas for interesting and value adding content to help you guys out there with your journeys.

What I’d like to know from you guys is this:

Who are you all out there?

What Can I do for you?

Do you have any advice for me in getting started?

• Who are you out there?
• What do you guys do for a living?
• What can I do for you out there?
• What would you like to see on this site?
• What would you like to hear about?
• How can I empower you all to excel in what you do?
• How do we develop a platform or community which can be a springboard for us all to achieve something good?
• Do you have any advice for me in getting started?

Lets start talking and start something meaningful!

The person should be independent, or looking to go independent. Someone with a wide skills or knowledge base and a solid network of strategic connections would help. Someone with previous experience in advertising, brand development, web development or journalism would be suitable.

Are you an entrepreneur in the making? If you’ve thought about starting an agency or consultancy more than once a month in the last few years, then this may be your chance to do just that. If you don’t need to do a wikipedia search to know what Design Thinking means then I’d love to pick your brain and maybe develop a business together.

Someone with a highly ethical approach and positive outlook on the environment and development of positive values in society would be ideal.

Interested in chatting, mail me on nur@nomad-one.com or contact me on skype with “one-nomad”. Looking forward to chatting soon.

Ogilvy Cape Town’s art director Jennifer Macfarlane and copy writer Cuan Cronwright are the winners of The Times Young Creatives Competition, held 23 – 26 February 2008 at this year’s Design Indaba Expo.

A PR stunt no doubt saw creatives pitting their skills against each other in a fishbowl style space with Public onlookers. Pity the procedings had to be screened on Plasma screens which would have used a fair amount of power themselves. Kind of defeats the purpose a little but I suppose it was about driving a message home and this little stunt certainly did that.

The winning agency was rewarded with a full page ad they can use for any pro bono client of their choice worth about R50000. Check out the article with all the details.