Blog

Flying high, with our fresh starter Jade...

Posted: Jun 13th 2011, 16:18

“Here at Fresh we know how important charity is and like to do our bit. So as a new employee, I thought I’d kick off my career with some sort of extravagant gesture, and decided to do a sponsored sky dive to raise money for The Christie, our local specialist cancer hospital. I have absolutely no clue how I came to the conclusion that doing a sky dive was a good idea, as I’m scared of flying and tend to avoid planes at all costs. I can only presume that I was a) drunk, b) joking or c) both, when it was suggested to me. As the weeks went on, the panic may have got the better of me and I considered leaving the country and changing my identity, but I couldn’t decide on a new name for myself and had to stay put. So eventually, the day came and we arrived at the sky dive centre in Weston to meet our fate. I do however blame the extra nerves for what happened next. When we were asked whether we wanted a cameraman to jump out of the plane with us and film the experience, both my Dad and I said yes. However, this confused me greatly and before I had time to think, I had asked how the cameraman would get back up to the plane in time to film my Dad’s jump after he had filmed mine. At this point, the instructor fell about laughing and told me we would each get our own cameraman, and he wouldn’t be required to defy gravity and get back up to the plane to film the next jump. Who knew?! As the day went on, we were kitted out in a jumpsuit and an oh-so-attractive helmet complete with goggles, so we at least looked the part (if ‘the part’ actually means ridiculous). It took 20 minutes to reach the altitude which we were jumping from - a mere 13,000 feet - and then the door was opened. Luckily, it all happened very fast and we were out of the plane in second, and…I never thought I’d say this but, it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. After all the build-up and nerves, I’d do it again tomorrow if I could, despite that when we landed the wind was very strong and we ended up being dragged backwards for a few metres, meaning I ended up in a heap on top of my instructor. Not the classiest of landings but I’m fairly sure he expected it from me after the day’s events!
All in all, it was an amazing experience and I managed to raise £600 for Christie’s, which I was very proud of. However, in case anyone’s wondering…jumping out of a plane at 13,000feet definitely does not cure a fear of flying!"

What will you Wordle?

Posted: May 17th 2011, 16:42

Wordle is a tool for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds work by having larger font size representing the words that appear most frequently in the text. What’s great is that you can play around with the fonts and colours, as well as the direction of the text. It's a really quick way to summarise a document or design brief, or to tell people about yourself: ours was created using recent news posts from the fresh website, in a variety of fresh greens!
Wordle is riding on the new wave of data visualisation that is taking over the Internet - check out www.informationisbeautiful.net/ and http://flowingdata.com. In a nutshell, data visualisation is all about designing ways to communicate complex information in the quickest and simplest ways possible, while also making beautiful graphics. Its a new fresh fave!

Introducing Rick Matthews, aka Guitarist from Eskimo Smile

Posted: Mar 4th 2011, 15:11

With recent musical events such as the Brits and the Grammys, we thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase some of the musical flair at fresh!

Rick Matthews, one of the fresh designers and his band Eskimo Smile have just released their new ten track album on itunes and Spotify! As you can imagine, this involved a lot of work including writing, recording, mixing and mastering. All done in their own south Manchester studio. In total, 18 months of long nights, lots of beer and a total loss of hearing. Rick and the band will performing at the official album release party this summer. All the tour dates will be available on the Eskimo Smile website along with all the songs!

www.eskimosmile.com

The Golden Cone

Posted: Feb 3rd 2011, 15:40

This month’s Golden Cone Award winner is.... Helen! This coveted prize is awarded by the Fresh Management team every month to a member of staff that goes the extra smile. A person that goes out of their way to help without ever moaning or kicking up a fuss!

The winner receives the Golden Cone, or more importantly is entitled to the first car parking space in a very overcrowded car park for the month!