We come across a great new way to send large files over the internet without the arduous task of massive emails and FTP directories.

We Transfer is as good as it get. Not only that it looks great, (checkout the timeline animation) but, quite literally, it simply works brilliantly.

Needless to say with file size getting bigger and broadband getting faster it’s been a pretty useless tool. A definite contender for our 2010 Web Awards*!

wetransfer.info

*Not that we have any awards but if we did it would be contender.

I’ve been meaning to create this for a while and in doing so I offer it to all those that, like me, like working to grids.

The 960 grid as perhaps regarded as the web design grid. Workable, simple and flexible this Photoshop layout really helps when putting those first pixels to screen and the template saves a few minutes ’set-up’ time too.

So here, as a gift in this time of Yule, please feel free to download.

960-grid.psd.zip (16kb)

Artist, Friend of Provide Design and all round top bloke Simon Chambers opens his new exhibition on Friday 12th June. This new body of work from Simon is entitled ‘Portals of Perspective’ and shows a new route of development for his vibrant abstract style.

Having seen a sneak preview of some of this collection of work, we must say it some his finest to date. If you are passionate about abstract art, or you are looking for that original piece to fit that empty wall in your home or office, please go along and check it out.

The exhibition is at The Courtyard Gallery in Aylesbury town centre and the private view is on Friday 12th June – 7.30pm to 9.30pm. If you would like an invitation please email simon@simonchambers.net

The exhibition is open to the public from June 13th – 28th, Mon – Sun, 11.00am to 6.00pm.

Visit www.simonchambers.net for more info.

In the world of social networking it seems that Twitter is the web 2.0 app of the moment. A micro blogging service that allow users to add quick ‘Tweets’ about themselves, their lifestyle, job, company, breakfast, dogs etc.

3 years ago I was asked to put forward suggestions for a quick, personal, update app that allowed a company to put a ‘friendly’ face on their website and grow their social network. I put forward Twitter. At this time they barely had a 50,000 users and was very much in it’s infancy. However, the company in question felt it wasn’t ‘corporate’ enough and shelved the idea.

Moving forward 3 years and Twitter, with it’s few million users, has recently become an integral part of the companys website. This isn’t just a one off. Many companies are now using Twitter to reach a wider audience, to promote their products and increase their traffic. It seems Twittering is fast becoming the new blogging, so much so that the mighty FaceBook has restructured it’s homepage to rival it.

Twitter takes less time to write and perhaps more importantly it take less time to read and with the use of such tools, (FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace et al), the possibilities have now been totally realised by many companies, especially in the doom and gloom climate we all seem to be living in today. There seems to be a certain sense of urgency, to be a “part of it”.

But what about good old fashioned blogging? A well written blog will always attract more attention than a tweet. It becomes indexed by the search engines and it’s not confined to a user, it is far more global. The possibilities of using a blog (or blogging platform) when considering a website should never be under-estimated. We have had some great success from constructing sites based around blogging platforms and are continued to be amazed at the development that goes into them. Wordpress in particular is always highly recommended at the Provide Design camp. But now we have many more options/toys to play with.

With the amount of web apps available to web developers a company can reach their target web audience in more ways than ever before. We as web designers, can utilise this time of social networking to create that killer site that really works the way it needs to work as well as look darn pretty.

And that really does make us want to blog more!

This made me smile so much…. soppy but great : )