David's stag in the Highlands

Having just come back from David and Fi's Wedding (#davidandfi), I'm a little behind on the posts here. So bear with me while I rattle through a few pictures from the stag.

At the end of March, us six city boys headed up to the lower Highlands for a long weekend of drinking, shooting, and excessive amounts of tweed. It's got to said, tweed offers zero insulation or protection from the elements, but we certainly looked bad good. Pitlochry didn't know what hit it that snowy evening.

Words can't even begin to describe how cold it was up the hill during our clay pigeon shooting. I didn't know if the camera was functioning, I couldn't feel my fingers or the trigger. Luckily beautiful light is all you need sometimes. Even in the howling sleet, with wearing dress shoes on fresh snow, somehow I managed to get these pictures.

You can see all the pictures on my Flickr.

EyeToons baby

I thought I'd share a great little book that dropped through the post this week. EyeToons (say it right, don't get sued) is the brainshild of Six Creative aka Ian Traynor, a fellow designer from Edinburgh. As one of the launching projects on the UK Kickstarter, Ian secured the job and went on the produce this marvellous little product.

The concept is simple, guess the song title and artist by the illustration alone. Ian has rendered a stagering amount of these clever, quirky, and genuinely heart warming illustrations that have kept me puzzler all week trying to guess what the heck song I'm looking at. Thank god the answers are in the back.

The books illustrations are simply great, restraining away from unnecessary textures or filters so currently found online. A simple uncoated paper provides enough texture without having to add this falsely.

But wait there's more

Who doesn't love a good email newsletter? Unfortunately the art of the newsletter has fallen down by the wayside by companies who should know better. The EyeToons emails are a shining example of brilliant copy writing, inforgraphics, animated gifs (they're coming back in a big way in case you didn't know) and most importantly use bright yellow.

Check out 'The Infographic Issue' which was my particular favourite.

I could have quite happily photographed the entire book, but that would be giving it away, so you'll have to make do with two of my favourite pages. Can you guess what they are?

Buy the book

Krispy Kreme comes to Edinburgh

By the time I've posted this, hopefully the doughnut craze that has swept the city has subsided. Krispy Kreme Doughnuts opened miles outside in of Edinburgh and has consistently caused massive traffic jams to an already troubled part of the bypass, but hey, at least it for something enjoyable for once.

Luckily Cait caught on invite to the opening party a few days earlier, so we headed there bellies rumbling on Monday evening. Hats off to the planner for this evening. Never before have I wanted to stay somewhere for so long on sugary delights and coffee alone. Being located at Hermiston Gait, I'll still never really understand why, driving is the only option. Eric even mentioned, its difficult to walk there is you're already at Hermiston Gait, but I guess they're going for a certain demographic.





Dip that doughnut















This was one of the few boxes we left with. For my taste to be honest this is all a little sweet, the kind of sweet that makes your teeth tingle and want a toothbrush. But as far as a slice of Americana goes in Edinburgh goes, well done Krispy Kreme!

Adobe future tools for the web

Last night I went to Adobe's #CreateTheWeb tour, which was set against a particularly beautiful Edinburgh Castle sunset. I've been using Adobe print and publishing applications for years, but have never really been too impressed with the web offerings. Handing over files exported from InDesign would make a developer hiss with distain, and the idea of trying to build a serious website on your own using Dreamweaver almost laughable.

With every new release it seems there's more for designers trying to get into the web, but the cross over between designers and developers more confused. This relationship stops with Adobe in my opinion. I was shocked to see more than half the room's hand go up when they asked in anyone was using Dreamweaver [really?].

As someone very much interested in the web, I've just never got my head around writing code. I'm looking for an easy life, or one with a skilled developer in the same room.

My own experiences aside, Adobe have come up with some interesting tools which promise to make not only designers lives easier, but promises to be OK for developers to pick up too. I'm not sure of the full journey of using all these applications together, but baby steps, baby steps. Here's a few of my favourite future applications that Adobe (and partners) are working on.

Hogmanay in the Highlands

Every year most people go through the same dilema of what to do for Hogmanay (New Year to those outside of Scotland). Whether you're standing on a street you could any other day of the year with a half glass of disappointment, or playing it safe and staying in, I'd go as far to say its always underwhelming.

Cue 2012. It was suggested by Lucy we rented out Carn Dearg Youth Hostel in Gairloch, and make the best of three days being cutout from the rest of the world. Seriously though, unless you were with Tesco mobile, thats the only way your phone worked.



Six of us set off from Edinburgh on Sunday 30th through a blizzard on the A9, to reach the remote setting along the west coast. This many people even into Becky's people carrier was a push. Food and precious booze tucked away into the roof rack, we still managed a quick stop to buy more food just in case.

Naturally arriving last as everyone else had ventured over from Aberdeen, it didn't long before the shelves were stacked high with alcohol, and we turned this quiet hostel into a ripping house party. There were 25 of us in all, 27 on the last day, so when it came to cooking meals were graciously cooked for everyone by a few allocated chefs. A trio of soups, cheese and bread, Mexican night, followed by Curry night kept the good times rolling. Cleaning crews were formed, and there was hardly an opportunity missed to collect wood to start a fire. Or simple pick up the fire and move it to the less windy side of the house – thanks Slav!

Through the day so well deserved rest was had, recovering from the year gone by. Quiet rooms with nothing other than the whistling of the wind, and occasional bit of water through old windows, made for the perfect place to disappear for a few hours before it started all over again. Enjoy some of my favourite photos.

Highlights and observations

• Slav's fish soup – best ever
• Stu has a spirit animal, a house cat that blew into his ear and kept him awake
• Neil is a massive cheat at musical chairs
• Turns our I can pick up a box with only my mouth thats 2cm shallow, without letting my arms or knees touch the floor
• The term "old lady wine crotch"
• I will only be referring to a ferret as a futret from now on

Lastly, on new years day we made it down to the beach, on what seemed like the mildest weather for January. I managed to shoot a few scenes and throw a video together in iMovie. The next few pics and video were all shot through our new Lensbaby Spark which has manual squeezy focus. This gives a slightly unpredictable but beautiful out of focus, somewhat analogue feel to your photos.



Good times, friends, drinks and food. What else do you need?