Yesterday, we did the first promotional shoot for my new web series project, 2 Girls Kissing.

I have to admit that I was slightly stressed about it all.  The location that I chose was the riverside area around the Southbank Centre.  For those of you that are unfamiliar with my fair city, the Southbank Centre is a huge complex housing 21 spaces of creativity, including Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery.  The riverside area often has street performers entertaining swarms of families and groups of people enjoying the vibe and the views.  And, despite the morning’s torrential downpour, yesterday afternoon was no exception.  Add to this two people that I’ve never worked with and that have never done a shoot of this nature before and, well, let’s just say that I left it to fate to play a much bigger part than usual.

I have to say that my fears all amounted to naught – we had a great shoot, it all ran relatively smoothly and everyone was very easy to work with (the pics below are from my Blackberry).

So, on the offchance that any of you have to undertake a similar endeavour of photographing two girls kissing in one of the busiest parts of the metropolis with the ever present threat of rain, here’s what you need for a successful shoot.

A photographer that knows what she’s doing

2GK is blessed with the creative talents of Gerry Alexis.  Gerry’s day job involves playing with cameras for Sky.  She is also one of the best graphic/illustrator talents that I know – her artwork first graced my schoolbooks when we were eleven years old.  I’ve been wanting to work with Gerry for years and until now has only done my promo headshots, so I’m very grateful that she has jumped on board.



Research

I had originally conceived a photo shoot at night, but then I read about the experience of the Seeking Simone team who photographed two of their girls kissing and decided to can that idea. One afternoon, Gerry and I walked down to the Southbank, which is one of my favourite spots in London, and took some photos around monuments and spots that might work for us.

A cute, comfortable couple

I first met Susan and Jasmin at a gig that Greymatter was playing in London last year, and again at an event for Eurout in January.  I asked them if they were up for being photographed in the name of furthering lesbian visibility efforts, and the rest, as they say…

They are a very cute couple – I thought it was a good omen that they were, ahem, ‘getting some practice in’ whilst Gerry and I were setting up the first shot – and so comfortable and quite oblivious to us that it was a very easy shoot indeed.  I gave them very little direction, save some poses I really needed to get, and Gerry just shot them having conversations and making each other laugh.



An idea of what you need to get

I am developing the look for our website at the moment, so I knew what shots I had to get out of this in order to fit with my concept.  But there were a lot of shots that we got out of this that will probably work much better, especially with some of the print materials that I’ll be developing to support our promotional activities.

A flexible plan

We had planned to do the entire shoot around a circular stone sculpture outside the National Theatre.  However, when we rocked up, there was a group of free runners practicing backflips off the rocks.  Our photographer was running late so we took refuge in the espresso bar at the front of the theatre.  Whilst we were sitting there, I noticed that the wall of the National Film Theatre next door was full of circular vents and thought that that would make a great background image.  It had the added advantage of being away from the main path of traffic, so we did the bulk of our shoot there and moved back to the stone sculpture later in the afternoon.



A disregard of the weather report

It doesn’t matter if the weather report tells you it’s supposed to rain or shine in the afternoon; it’s sod’s law that the worst will happen (this is London, baby!).  We were blessed with no rain and, at around 8 degrees, a positively tropical temperature.  But bring a big umbrella, and plastic bags containing towels for your models to sit on, even if you think it’s going to shine all day.

A sense of awareness

Nothing draws more attention to ‘something going on’ than setting up a long shot. There’s no getting away from it – two girls kissing (or even looking like they might kiss) will cause people to slow down and stare or stop and wolfwhistle, both of which we got.  In between checking shots, I spent a good portion of the afternoon circling our models and photographer whilst they got on with it, watching for people’s reactions as they walked past for anyone that might kick off, quietly telling everyone to hang on, first when groups of the stag party variety bounded past and then when small children were hanging off the stone sculpture, curious to see what we were photographing beneath it (but that was more because I didn’t want to have to deal with an injured toddler).



For all the planning, the meetings, the concepts, the pow wows that happen when preparing a web series, there’s nothing quite like going out and actually doing something or making something to re-inject your excitement for a project again.  

Thanks to Jasmin, Susan and Gerry for chalking up the first ‘making of’ experience of 2 Girls Kissing – here’s to many more!

My favourite social media meet-up is undoubtedly NFPtweetup, a mixer of individuals interested in the potential of Twitter and other social media to further and support the missions of organisations that want to do good things in the world.  People are talented, sponge-like, generous, sharing and learning and are ridiculously down to earth; I always leave feeling like I’ve learnt something new and I’ve been given a blessing and the benefit of someone else’s experience to go out and apply it.

A few weeks ago, I heard that they were getting their own t-shirt, so, when NFPtweetup’s Rebekah Hah extended an invitation for me to attend the next event, I leapt at the opportunity to get in the queue for a t-shirt.  Rebekah suggested that I propose my own design, so, one snowy afternoon, fuelled by hot chocolate and ice cream, I had fun coming up with the designs below.  They don’t exactly fit with the brand, but I’ve always wanted to use my own rendering of a Twitter bird and this gave me a great opportunity to do so.

They are a little varsity inspired because – let’s be real – such t-shirts always end up being worn at the gym.  Married with the whole learning theme, it was a bit of a creative fit waiting to happen.











The official t-shirt for NFPtweetup was released last weekend and a very smart design it is too – I want one!!

** Just to clarify...**
Thanks for the tweets, messages and DMs about these.  But just to clarify, these were done on a lark, and the official t-shirt for NFPtweetup was produced by the beautiful people at Beautiful World (and I still want one!).  I won't be printing them, however, if an ethical t-shirt company wants to come forward and donate their services, I will happily licence these to be sold in support of NFPtweetup... :)

Three months in the making, Bee Charmer Productions recently unveiled its first fully comprehensive website showcasing all of their audio and video production work.  It's one of the biggest design projects that I've undertaken to date and, I have to admit, has become one of my favourites.



You’ll notice that I appear on the team page; this is because, in my other life, Regan Latimer, BCP’s owner, is also one of my production partners.  So it was interesting working with her in a different capacity.

This post summarises the elements in the new design.

Identifying the audience

The first step in my design process isn’t a sketching session, a trip to my mood folders, or even a brainstorm – it’s all about the research.

I jumped online and looked at the websites of audio and video production companies in Toronto to identify potential competitors and to get an idea of the industry standard in terms of design, style and tone.



I then looked at BCP’s clients and spoke to Regan about the clients they would like to attract.  BCP has a range of clients, including charities, arts organisations, financial institutions and schools, as well as blogs, productions companies and actors.  One of the challenges of the design was to appeal to such a wide range of potential clients while keeping BCP’s personality. 

I also went through their visitor data to ascertain which browsers their visitors use in order to identify any coding considerations.

Theme and style

Although I had previously designed landing pages for BCP in keeping with the style of their logo, Regan wanted to move away from ‘Web 2.0, slick and shiny styling’.



Instead, the new BCP aesthtetic needed to be more organic, natural, colourful and creative, reflecting BCP’s way of working. 

Headers images

I decided to use the imagery of the bee and its natural habitat.  I chose different photographs of beehives for each section of the website.


Homepage header


About Us header


Services header


Portfolio header


Clients header


Testimonials header


Contact Us header

Colour

As the predominant colour in each header is green, I chose a dark green to use in the header text, and blue and yellow as highlight and accent colours.

Hand drawn elements

To contrast with the polished photography, I decided to hand draw elements on the site to evoke a creative ‘work in progress’ feel.

Each bio photo of BCP’s team was made into a Polaroid and I doodled over them different ways of attaching them to an imaginary wall.



Each section of the portfolio has its own hand drawn icon.



The quotation marks used in the testimonials are also doodles.



The footer is the only part of the website in which bees appear.  Because actual bees look slightly scary (!), I drew some cartoon bees and placed them alongside photos of flowers.



These bees are also repeated in the header of BCP’s blog, The Beehive.  The Beehive is a self-hosted Blogger blog (the URL is seamlessly integrated with the rest of the site) and the theme was adapted from the Blogger Minima theme to fit in with the rest of the site.  The Google based platform also allows users to leave comments using their Google user name as well as OpenID.

Layout

One of the challenges of the portfolio was displaying the sheer amount of content without resorting to javascript or Flash carousels.  The layout of each portfolio section was inspired by the four column anchor layout of Rob Morris’ Digitalmash portfolio.  ‘Back to top’ links improve usability and take the user back to the full portfolio offering.

One happy client

"Our website had a difficult brief - an organic aesthetic with a playful but professional feel - but we are absolutely thrilled with the result.   Rochelle was very patient in guiding us through the whole process and suggested solutions to issues that we hadn’t even considered. I was impressed at Rochelle's ability to think holistically about our site's design and her decisions were always well-researched. I am looking forward to working with Rochelle on BCP's next website!"
Regan Latimer, Owner/Executive Producer, Bee Charmer Productions

Before I start, I should make it clear that this post isn’t just aimed at charities – in fact, everyone should keep their browsers up to date as much as possible for lots of reasons, some of which are outlined in this post.

The two main reasons that I’m talking to charities is that, firstly, smaller charities are more likely to have ‘inherited’ or ‘come by’ their computers and this includes the browser that is on it. Secondly, less well-resourced charities don’t have anyone in charge of ICT, so people are often reluctant to change the set-up of their computers without anyone officially sanctioning it.

Charities are not alone – from personal experience, universities and public sector organisations are among the worst offenders for refusing to upgrade their systems.

The one browser that is the proverbial thorn in the side of web developers is Internet Explorer Version 6, or IE6.  Originally released in 2001, it became the standard web browser of choice across the globe until its successor, IE7, was released in 2006.  By today’s standards of web browsers, it is clunky, inefficient and insecure, yet, because of the sheer numbers of people that still use it – often by default – website owners are choosing to support it, which is slowing down the implementation of advancements being made in the web development field every day.

Now, you may think that because your browser appears to work just fine there’s no reason to upgrade it to the latest version; in fact, if, after reading this you're still keen to keep IE6, please leave your reasons in the comments because I'd be keen to hear your rationale behind it.  But here are three issues that will hopefully make you think again.

Accessibility and usability

Developments are constantly being made in the way websites are coded to improve usability and accessibility which are unsupported in older browsers.  Whilst this affects the way the information is displayed on the screen, it can have a knock-on effect in the way screen readers interpret the information for visually impaired users; depending on the focus of your work, this may have an averse effect for your service users.

A lengthy part of developing any website is ensuring it works across different browser types.  Increasingly, many web developers are choosing not to support IE6 in the course of their work (or may charge premium to support it) as it slows down the testing process and can restrict the possibilities available in a web design.  Worse still, a web developer may have to employ (or overuse) various scripting techniques they would otherwise do without in order for the website to appear the same in IE6 as it does in all other browsers, severely slowing down the website and possibly interfering with screen readers.

As developers are using the latest techniques to ensure more efficient and standards-compliant websites, browsing in IE6 could soon mean that your favourite website no longer displays the way that it used to (YouTube users beware!).

Security

Browser development teams are constantly working behind the scenes to ensure that they stay one step ahead of potential security threats.  Anyone that has had a virus on their computer will tell you that the inconvenience isn’t worth putting off that upgrade. 

Yes, you should have anti-virus software running on your PC already (if not, you can download AVG anti-virus software for free); however, having the latest browsers ensures that you are up to date with all of the security patches that the browser has issued in order to protect your work and your PC.

Efficiency

Simply put, more up to date browsers are more efficient and more streamlined; they run faster and are often packed with a raft of features that can aid your browsing experience.  Updating your browser also opens up the possibility of running free and/or open source applications and plug-ins that won’t work in older browsers as they have been especially designed for newer versions of your browser.

How to upgrade from IE6

If you are still browsing with IE6, you can upgrade free of charge to the latest version of Internet Explorer.

If you’re keen to try something else, you can find a whole host of free browsers that you can download for Windows including

• Firefox – a free and open source browser with a plethora of plug-ins
• Safari – Apple's browser, although there is a free PC version
• Opera – a lesser known but still widely used browser
• Google Chrome – offering seamless integration with other Google apps e.g. Google Docs.

In the same way you wouldn’t watch a recent Hollywood blockbuster on a black and white television, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be working on the very latest browser, especially when it’s free of charge and so easy to upgrade.

I realised recently that a lot of my 'work in progress' tweets were about the new website that I'm designing for Bee Charmer Productions.  I've had a few tweets back asking for sneak previews but, because of my NDA, I haven't been able to share... until now.




If you follow my work, you'll realise that Bee Charmer Productions is the production company of Regan Latimer, best known to you as the creator and writer/director of the web series, B.J. Fletcher: Private Eye (on which I am also Associate Producer).  BCP's website has taken a number of guises over the past year - first a holding page, now a one page intro site - and I am pleased to announce that we are now in the home stretch of putting together its first full website.

I'm sure I'll write this up as a full case study when it's up, but for now here's a sneak peek of a work in progress...

Part of the main website's footer

BCP's new icon set

This year, I surrendered to peer / work pressure and joined the ranks of the Crackberry users. One of the nice things about this was that I always had a camera to hand and, as you will see, I got well into recording even the most random of events.

So here are some choice moments from my year as seen from my Blackberry.

January

Saw the New Year in at a house party in Toronto.



We saw snow in London for the first time in years - this is an excited me in front of my house.

March

The opening night party of Priscilla Queen of the Desert - The Musical in London with tiny cupcakes.



Dim sum in Chinatown on Mother's Day.

May

First trip to Prague.



Me and my brother, Oliver, impersonating Japanese tourists in the courtyard of the castle on top of the hill in Prague.

June

Because of the Tube strike, river boats were running free of charge so I enjoyed gorgeous views on my way to work in Tower Hill from Westminster.

July

Summer in the city - people hanging out in St James' Park.



View from the bridge at St James' Park.



One of the many floats preparing to join the parade at London Pride 2009.



The 2009 London Pride March reaches Oxford Circus.

August

Dessert with visiting family members in Paul's near Covent Garden.



Me and my mohawk at the fancy dress 30th birthday party of my friend, Caroline (left), with our friend, Siobhan (right) - although from this picture you would've thought it was my birthday!




Hanging out with designer and photographer, Gerry Alexis, in Soho Square followed by our routine trip to Ed's for gravy fries.

September

Hanging out with Shirin Papillon (founder of One More Lesbian) at Eurout's first birthday in Hamburg; needless to say, much alcohol and jetlag played a part in our dishevelled state. The next day I made friends with a statue in the courtyard of St Nikolai's church.



The old PayPoint.net office in Tower Hill shortly before the move.

November

A rainbow graces the view from our new office in Finsbury Square.



Inspecting the new business cards that I designed for Regan Latimer at Bee Charmer Productions.



Me in Budapest for my Mum's birthday weekend.

December

Celebrating my brother's 27th birthday near Covent Garden.



My neighbourhood sprinkled with the sudden snowfall.



Anticipating Secret Santa in the office.



Anticipating Christmas at home.

Who knows what my Blackberry will see in 2010...?