Hello. this is me, Ben Linford.

graphic design student. benlinford ^(me)

// A creature did stir

December 24th, 2011

Twas the night before Christmas, and something was stirring…

Contrary to Clement Clarke Moore’s Christmas Eve. poem, a creature did stir earlier today, and it was in fact my mouse.

After stumbling across a photographer’s portfolio website today I came across a photograph that instantly triggered a joke that required a spot of targeted, private messaging on one of the better-known social network websites.
Upon loading the private messaging page, I noticed what looked like one of those unfortunate curly, dark things that sometimes comes a cropper on your unfortunately-white MacBook. This one (or so I thought) was on my screen, but after a bit of night-fever-esque page scrolling, I noticed that it was something much more deeply woven into the fabric of my screen.

This anonymous, thin curly black thing was actually the top part of an obscured ‘S’.

This letter was a prerequisite, to forming the word, ‘Success’ on this particular occasion.

A tad ironic that without my knowledge of web technology and the way in which frames work alongside an unwillingness to explore, I wouldn’t have found ‘Success’. I thought this was a nice little moral, what with Christmas and the New Year being just around the corner of a clock face.

Since it’s a gooey time of the year, and I still have just under an hour before I have to have read this famous poem as part of a festive family tradition, I thought I’d make a couple of send-off statements…

This year has been a rather odd one, so much so that I cannot really recall any key life-moving occurrences. I’ve even had the blessed ability to wake up, having had nice dreams removed from me until very recently.

So… For next year, I aim to put my heart and soul into everything I do – this blog and my online presence, my presence in general, my hobbies, my health, my career and my relationships. Expect to see more of the Ben Linford you’ve seen glimpses of, or aspects of he that you’ve never seen before that exist.

Have a great Christmas and here’s to hitting the ground running in the coming year!
Peace be with you.

Posted in Uncategorized |

// Family Business

June 13th, 2011

I’ve officially finished my second of three years at university and managed to successfully navigate my way back home, a couple of days ago. After much deliberation, I seem to have found myself doing a considerable amount of nothing (out of the ordinary).

Anyway, after heating up a few flaps of outdated mackerel that my mother removed from the fridge and slapped onto the kitchen side, I flew up the stairs in the usual fashion and flung myself onto her bed. Cordially greeting ‘dog #1′ with an appetiser, I voiced my generosity through the floorboards, to ‘dog #2′ also. Since my mother had specified that the fish was now only suitable for consumption by my pedigree chums, I thought it was only fair that we each had our fair share of oily lips.

During the feed, I flicked on the television and settled for channel 4 in my search for some daytime dynamite. To my absolute joy, I found a programme fittingly called, ‘Super Scrimpers‘.

This programme is me down to a, ‘b’.

It’s a television series, which shows people how to ‘scrimp and save in these straitened times’. I prefer to refer to it as making the general public aware of their gross mass consumption. An increasingly strong belief of mine, is that quality and/or craftsmanship, should regulate our wallets and gear our consumption.

Send me a 99p ‘Birthday Boy’ card from Wilkinsons, or an over-priced, cheap, novelty gift item from a department store, and you’re behind what I believe to be, the excrement of the ‘gift horse’.

I do appreciate the very odd moment when someone wishes to treat me, however, I do not appreciate the wallet and the tail-end of the brain, being used, to fish out the decision.

One of the ladies from the programme, (Mrs. Moneypenny), has attached herself to the following motto; ‘run your family like a business’. I think this is a revolutionary little-big concept, and I firmly believe that the adoption of this principle would benefit the wider population, on so many levels.

So… I now have something-over three months to tighten the house up (whilst making the odd stingy-nettle pasta).

Posted in Business, Concepts, Reviews, Technology, Television |

// Blue Hedgehog

March 22nd, 2011

My BLuehedgehOG hasn’t been updated for a while, so I thought this would be a great ice-melter.

What’s with the blue hedgehog?

Well… just discovered a website (quora).
In short, it’s a website in which questions are asked and answered by the people who are really in the know.
Most of the things that are talked about revolve around decisions made in technology.

So… What’s with the blue hedgehog?

Well apparently, Ezra Callahan who worked for Facebook between 2004 and 2010 reckoned that Sean Parker (one of the big men behind the social networking site), wanted to use a blue hedgehog as a mascot for the site, much like Twitter’s bird and Android’s robot.

Thank god the poor guy wasn’t adopted, as there are probably enough pr!cks to watch out for on Facebook already (and blue ones in particular).

Tags: blue, design, ezra callahan, facebook, hedgehog, mascot, quora, sean parker
Posted in Humour, Technology |

// Flikr

September 13th, 2010

Google must really hate Yahoo!

This is how they link to my Flickr photos, from my Google Account profile.

Google might as well knock the, ‘n, w, e and r’ off of Answers.

Tags: flickr, google, profile
Posted in Humour |

// Sweetening the deal.

September 13th, 2010

Well why didn’t you say!?

When you’re browsing Google’s shopping results for the perfect, white headset for use with Skype, your Mac Mini’s USB port is not the only input that needs something else to function.

That is exactly why topcomms.co.uk, is providing its buyers with a free chocolate bar when you place an order. It makes perfect sense.

Now that’s what I call (nope, not music), but sweetening the deal.

P.S. – There aren’t any 14p products on the website, so there’s no loophole for getting cheap chocolate bars, delivered to your door. :(

Tags: google, lol, product, search, shopping
Posted in Humour, Reviews |

// Protected: Bogey Art

July 12th, 2010

Tags: art, bogey, human, insect, nose, nostril, sculpture
Posted in Concepts, Methods, Traditional |

// No longer the Wimble Don.

June 17th, 2010

As far as I can remember, the Wimbledon Tennis Championship‘s website had always been a spectacle in its own right. I used to love scaling through its purple and green exterior. This year, the Wimbledon website looks like an empty shopfront, neglecting stock buying due to unstable economic conditions.

Maybe it does have something to do with the economic climate.

Maybe it’s a cost-cutting measure that’s been implemented to ensure the bank can provide the prize winners with their share of this year’s; £13,725,000 overall kitty. I have no idea whether general ticket sales have increased much over the years but a 9.4% overall increase in prize money (compared to last year), has got to be accumulated from somewhere.

I’ll be making my first trip Wimbledon this year, having been a consistent follower of the tournament on TV. It’s always been something I’ve wanted to do in my lifetime and it’ll be the first live tennis event I’ve seen, outside of the box – ohhh, so close.

Posted in Reviews, Technology |

// Got it?

May 24th, 2010

Basically, there’s a Get Fed™ and a Got Fed™ range of nutritional energy enhanced foods. One of them is consumed by humans (yep), and one of them is consumed by, (the then) perfectly sane farmyard animals who now love to rave at the discotheque.

I can see why it had a few people baffled (pigs), but the backbone of the concept is strong.

Briefed by WMH (Williams Murray Hamm) a number of weeks ago to promote a range of three natural energy drinks.

In business terminology (well, in layman’s terms), we effectively cut out the middle-man.
We went right to the energy ‘sauce’, (which is where the idea generally came from).
We ditched the idea of the energy being in the form of condiments due to their perceived artificial nature. Whilst maintaining the link with foodstuff, we came to the idea that if we fed our natural food sources with our energy concoction, not only would the lower end of the food chain benefit during the span of their lives, but we would also reap the natural infusion of energy, embedded within their make-up.

The agricultural industry faces tough times. The onset of accelerating Global Warming is going to test farmers like they’ve never been tested. Supermarkets, looking to reward shareholders with unnecessarily huge dividends are constantly eating away at their livelihoods.

With our framework in place, willing farmers could invest in the Get Fed™ feed and take their livestock to market as niche goods labeled as (new tense), Got Fed™ produce, to be sold at a much more rewarding price to the farmer.

Not limited to just the consumption of (dead?) livestock. The whole concept could ring true (rather like a cow bell) with dairy products and fruit and vegetables.

If its roots are in the ground, it can Get Fed™

Tags: agriculture, brief, drinks, energy, farmer, farmer's den, get fed, got fed, williams murray hamm, wmh
Posted in Concepts, Digital, Methods, Uncategorized |

// Multi-million pound heel insert.

May 23rd, 2010

For one of my University projects in the Autumn of last year, I was tasked to increase the monetary and perceived value of an item typically retailed at one pound or ninety-nine pence.

Although the actual value was unknown to me, I settled for a cushioning and supporting heel insert, for the inside of ones shoes.

With a cotton-based layer at heel contact, and a solid gel base. The object was unusually shaped.

My solution was to put the majority of focus on the gel layer at the bottom of one of the inserts, and rebranding it as a one-off conceptual model for a multimillion pound boating lake and leisure complex.

The product’s value has been increased by no longer being retailed, and being perceived as being bespoke, with an astronomic monetary value (indirectly), due to the overall build-cost of the complex.

The logo was designed to appeal to a wide range of consumers, whilst reflecting the energy and watery nature of the complex.

Tags: Architecture, boating, Bucks Colleagues, concept, design, drawing, lake, logo, model, money, tulip, uni, university, value, water
Posted in Architecture, Concepts, Digital, Methods |

// From Print Screen to Screen Print.

May 5th, 2010

Midway through the first, of my last four weeks as a first year student at Bucks New University, it is becoming ever-more apparent that time shifts through tenses like a zoetrope. It’s been a mystifying two years since I last used the ‘Print Screen’ key on a Windows based computer. After taking my first bite of the Apple, with the purchase of a glossy white Macbook, back in early 2008. Apple products have become a core ingredient in my creative crumble.

After flirting with some design ideas for a personal logo last week in the studio (in the hope of leading to a design for the 16 by 16 pixel, favicon .ico format), I came up with an initial mark. Once mocked up in Illustrator and printed in monochrome onto acetate, the design formed the basis of my screen, to be used in gaining a founding in the silkscreen printing method.

I had sketchy knowledge of the screen printing process from my two GCSE years at school. Having been tormented with diagrams of seemingly cuddly squeegees and precariously floating pots of coloured gloop, it was nice to finally penetrate that mesh.