The nicest colours that were submitted are documented below. Winners will be chosen from this pool and notified by email today. Sorry if you didn’t win.

While I was there I designed and cut six iPad sleeves. The sleeves have a parachutist-inspired quick-out strap and a velvety lining that cleans your screen as you slide your pad in and out.

I had various grand plans to give them away. They were all trying to be too clever and they all never happened. So now, on this very blog, I am giving them away in a simpler fashion.

To enter the draw, you must do the following:

1. Pick the sleeve you would like the most. There are close-ups of each one in this Flickr set.
2. Start a new email to me at ipadsleeves@russellquinn.com with the name of the sleeve. Note that there are no pre-assigned names, you must make one up that also contains enough identifiable information for me to work out which sleeve you are after.
3. Also include your name and send it from an email address that can take replies.
4. I also require to you to send me your favourite colour in either 6-digit hex, RGB or CMYK format. There are three possible formats to avoid discrimination against digital or print designers. If you are not a designer at all and you feel discriminated against, then I am sorry. I like all people, but I also want to see colours. You can still enter, you just need to work out how to use one of the formats. They’re quite simple. It’s like a fun homework assignment.
5. Send the email.

The rules:

1. Each person can only pick one sleeve. No seconds or thirds allowed. I only want people to get their favourites.
2. Only one entry per person. This rule is strictly enforced by the Favourite Colour Security System. It is biologically impossible for a person to lie about their favourite colour, so I will know.
3. Your brother/lover/whatever can enter, but your dog can’t. This is also enforced by the Favourite Colour Security System because dogs have different eyes to humans and can only see dog colours, which can not be represented using either the 6-digit hex, RGB or CMYK formats.
4. The closing date for entries is December 25th 2010.
5. For each sleeve I will: pick my three favourite entries (based on your colour selection.) I will then put these entries in a small, empty drinking glass and randomly select one (eyes closed.)
6. That person will be the winner of that sleeve!
7. I will contact the winners by email to let them know the good news.
8. The winners will have to pay for postage by PayPal. We can work out which type of postage is the best for you. If you live in San Francisco, you can get the sleeve from me in person and therefore skip this charge.
9. No eBayin’.

If you are not lucky enough to win a sleeve, you can buy FREITAG-employee-designed-and-cut sleeves from the FREITAG online store.

The last iOS app I worked on as a freelancer before joining McSweeney’s has just been made available in the App Store. I designed and developed both the app and the server-side portion, which runs on the open-source Casein CMS.

Due to my relocation to San Francisco near the end of the project, Zürich-based Dreipol took over to finalise the design and implement the page-turn effect.

See the promotional webpage.
Watch a movie of the app in action.

This is their first mobile app and is a digital version of The Annual, a yearly retrospective of the best work in visual communication from the fields of advertising, graphic design, digital media, packaging, music videos and related media. The print version is also released today.

The application concept, design and development was done by me.

The work is arranged by the date on which the project launched or first aired. Those deemed to be of outstanding merit are featured in the Best in Book section. As well as a text summary and full credits, each project includes a selection of high-resolution, zoomable, pannable images. Where appropriate, the project is viewable on YouTube or the web. With a favourites section and option to share via email, Twitter or Facebook, the app can be used to quickly build up a personal inspiration book.

Firstly, I have launched a whole new version of my personal website. Hopefully it provides a better representation of what I do than my previous blog-only based site. I hope you like it!

www.russellquinn.com

Secondly, I have been working with McSweeney’s, the indie US publishing house, on an iPhone application. It has just launched and you can find out more about it here:

www.russellquinn.com/mcsweeneys

Anyway, I am pleased to launch the latest iteration of my website today. It retains the content of my previous blog, but with a fresh new design (with thanks to Casper), a little more information about some of the projects I’m involved in and big hopes for the future as I attempt to angle the content more towards a discussion platform.

For those of you reading this via the RSS feed… now is the time to actually visit its home. For those of you browsing by… syndicate here!

The above introduction already starts to list the reasons why feeds haven’t achieved the same degree of ubiquity. They are sadly still lingering around the fringes of ‘geek territory’ and still fail the explain-this-to-your-parents test. Feed, RSS, XML, Atom, aggregate and syndicate are all terms that do nothing to demonstrate the frighteningly simple concept.

The feed analogy should be as easy to grasp as electronic mail. For those of you still confused by the technology: a web feed is essentially being told about new information in a timely manner within the comfort of your own ‘home’.

We can consider browsing a list of bookmarked websites each day, to be analogous with routinely visiting several shops to see if they have what you want. The fresh milk or new jumper might not be in stock for days, but we have no way of knowing and so must keep checking back. Sometimes we are successful, other times we are not, but the effort is always the same.

In this same world, feeds are much like hand-delivered parcels. We’ve told the shopkeepers what we’d like and so the items are packaged up and sent directly to our door when ready. If receiving an e-mail should be like receiving a personal postcard from a friend, then receiving a feed is having magazines or goods delivered. An e-mail client will receive the former, and a feed reader the latter.

E-mail is of course heavily abused these days. It’s used for many impersonal tasks such as content mail-outs, update notifications, status notifications, etc. In fact it’s precisely because e-mail is so widely adopted that it’s become the landing ground for all these things. E-mail is now like a ringing phone constantly demanding attention.

If having a newspaper delivered to your door sounds preferable to trudging to the newsagents every day, or even having the journalist call you up every time there’s a new story then maybe feeds are for you.

This video is an excellent introduction: