BlobFisk.com

This picture (by tp1977) shows the new treatment of the Big 4, outside the Channel 4 building in London. The Big 4 is a large, steel 4 shape that Channel 4 invites artists to use.

The current Big 4 has been covered with umbrellas and I think it looks great! There has been a mixed reaction to it from the people I’ve spoken to it, but, again, I think it looks great!

It’s a work of art. It’s function is to promote Channel 4 and to promote the Channel 4 brand. It does these things in my opinion.

It is also meant to be a think that people stop and look at, a think that people stop and photograph, and a think that people talk about.

I believe it is doing all of these things. It is a perfect piece of branding, reflecting the Channel 4 mantra for experimenting and doing things first.

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Over the Christmas break I decided it was about time that blobfisk.com needed a makeover. Most sites go through a regular redesigns. Indeed, when I start my gig as User Experience Manager at Channel 4 the biggest thing that me and my team were working on was the redesign of channel4.com itself (more on this in future posts). So, the time came for blobfisk.com to undergo a refresh.

Up until now my tiny personal site had no content management system powering it and not even the slightest whiff of a blog. For a long time I wasn’t the biggest fan of blog sites (you can read some of my misgivings in On rethinking the homepage), but I’ve changed my mind! I was not against the concept of blogging, but the aesthetics and usability of blog sites. I felt that blog driven sites tended to overwhelm users with information and lacked clear navigation, often throwing away the common website paradigms that people are used to.

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