We’ve started a new initiative here called #makethingsbetter where each week we send out an email with an uplifting message and potentially accompany it with some added surprises.
The aim? Simply to inspire and hopefully spread some positivity.
To join our weekly smile brigade, sign up to our mailing list here.
My Great Auntie Eileen is my hero this week. Thanks for all the laughs and giggles we shared. I’ll especially miss the fresh batch of scrumptious Welsh cakes. Too-rye-aye!
After having bought a house last week with my lovely girlfriend, to my horror my Mother has already replaced me after a week. Traumatised by her baby boy’s departure, in steps Maggie the Miniature Schnauzer Terrier. A tiny white ball of fluff…Great stuff. Villain? Maggie for being so adorable. Uch a fi.
My Hero this week is cake, it was Huw’s birthday this week and to celebrate it I commissioned a friend of mine to brand some cupcakes and boy were they scrumdiddlyumptious. Shortly after this I came a across a website, ‘The Internet Sends Me Cake’, which sole purpose is for users to send a clever young cake-loving lady called Jessica Hische cakes. What do you get for your hard work I hear you ask? A photo on her website, a tweet and a link to your work. I’m now thinking of doing a similar idea with money and chocolate.
My Villain this week is the ongoing controversial rebranding saga at my hometown club, Cardiff City FC. This week saw the current owner, Tan Sri Vincent Tan giveaway free red scarves to every fan attending the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion. The reason given was to thank the fans commitment this season, however, many fans reacted angrily seeing it as a bribe and a continuation of the demise of the Bluebirds traditional identity.
You only have to visit eBay to see the marketplace flooded with red scarves starting at bids of 99p for evidence of this marketing blunder. As for the result, Cardiff lost 2-0. Karma?
My Hero is my son, Rhys, for achieving his 20 metre swimming badge this week. Brazil Olympics watch out!
My Villain is the chicken pox that have attacked my daughter this week.
My Hero this week is the launch of the travel website, Transun which I was fortunate to work on. The website is filled with remarkable destinations and memorable experiences and thanks to the exceptional photographs entices you to make a booking. If you’re looking for a trip to the Arctic Circle or a Whale Watching experience this is the place to go.
My Villain this week sadly goes to the passing away of Rosalie Enid Barbara Riddett or Auntie Barbara as my sister and I fondly called our Godmother at the age of 92. She was also a loving mother, grandmother and great-grandmother and will be sadly missed.
This week my Heroes are the people of Suma Aqualife Park, as they fitted a disabled loggerhead sea turtle with a pair of artificial flippers in a Japanese aquarium. After 4 years of persevering they were able to give the turtle a new lease of life. Check out the video here. Perseverance pays!
Sea turtle
Since being inspired by Hugh’s Fish Fight a couple of years ago, I couldn’t wait for the new series to begin. Unfortunately the damage by fishermen is having staggering effect on British Marine life. To find out more why not watch the first episode on 4Od or follow Fish Fight campaign on Twitter.
This week my Hero is Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday. I’ve always had a sweet tooth, so don’t really need an excuse to pig out. However, I’ve been trying to live a more healthy lifestyle lately, so treats such as pancakes have been quite rare. On Tuesday healthy eating was put on pause for calorie heavy, mouth-watering pancakes. 
My Villain this week is Valentine’s Day. I’m not much of a romantic (my wife will no doubt agree) and I feel that Valentine’s Day is just a generally pointless exercise. It all seems very false and staged for my liking.
My Hero this week is the Stork who delivered a bouncing baby girl, Ellie Mae Gregory this week to my good friends Stephen and Kat. Congratulations again to both of you.
My choice of Villain goes to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who last year made a song and dance about websites’ complying with EU cookie law, threatening legal action on those that didn’t. It now seems they’ve had a change of heart and instead of having annoying, intrusive, ugly pop-ups you now only require a link within your footer.
Last weekend I very much enjoyed Robert Zemeckis new film, Flight staring Denzel Washington. Not your average Hollywood blockbuster, but a great film nonetheless. Denzel’s performance has to be one of the highlights but another is the stomach turning special effects. Scared of flying? Well you’ll maybe safer better off staying at home for this one. Hero…Robert Zemeckis!
With all the alleged allegations in match fixing and drug doping, sport has to be my Villain this week. I have to question wether there is such a thing as a level playing field? Nowadays someone always seems to be a step ahead of the game. For me sport now lacks the purity it once had. Booo!
This week I’ve noticed that it’s not dark until after 5.30pm and that it’s also lighter in the mornings, which makes the 7am gym sessions a little more tolerable. This is great news. It finally feels like we’ve beaten Winter off for another year and that Spring is on it’s way. We’ve also enjoyed some more pleasant weather this week, so my Hero is the sunshine. Long may it continue.
My Villain this week is the story that continues to run and run (pardon the pun) in the news. That is that more and more meat products in the UK have been found to contain not beef as advertised, but horse meat. I’m fighting the urge not to go on a huge rant here as I see this more proof of cheap not being good and global supermarket brands again acting irresponsibly. The Good Life beckons for us all I think!
My villain this week is the ‘Baffling Benitez’. The results over the past couple of weeks have been difficult to take, with the back door surely opening sooner rather than later. Chelsea need a massive change of fortunes if they hope to compete for a major title this 2012-13 season.
This monday morning I was rolling back the years as I watched my childhood Hero ‘The Rock’ put boots to asses. After a 10 year absence he returned to his roots and laid the smack down to win the WWE championship belt. I definitely smelt what the Rock is cooking…and it was pie!
My hero this week is the Six Nations. I’m Welsh, I love rugby and I love the Six Nations. Tomorrow Wales will kick off the 2013 tournament with a match against Ireland in Cardiff. Wales won a Grand Slam last year, I can’t honestly see that happening again this year, but one thing is for sure, the emotional roller coaster of Welsh rugby is set to continue.
My villain this week is the ridiculously overhyped and over reported January transfer window. Average players being sold to struggling clubs for over inflated wages. The football world has gone mad. Credit though to David Beckham. Yet again he show’s what a class act he is by signing for Paris St-Germain and then donating all of his wages from the club to a kids charity. Apart from that, the whole January transfer window has been another circus.
My Hero this week is the latest Quentin Tarantino film, ‘Django — Unchained’. Filled with bullets, blasts and bags of laughter it’s highly recommended. As for the ‘r’ used in my image, all will become clear when you watch the movie.
My nemesis and choice of Villain this week is a nasty toothache I’ve been experiencing which probably comes as result of the sugary substances I indulged with over Christmas and continued throughout January. A sobering fact I found through the recent, ‘Change4Life’, adverts was that there are 17 sugar cubes in a bottle of cola. Looks like a trip to the dentist is coming… oh joy of joys.
My Villain this week is the snow we’ve endured lately. As much as I love formations of icicles, making snowmen and following my cat’s paw prints to see where he spends his time during the day you can have too much of a good thing and after 2 weeks enough is enough. It’s time to pack up your belongings Jack Frost and find another country to nip the nose and toes of.
Terrestrial television is pretty dire at the moment and is summed up with the dreary reality show, Splash! where z-celebrities compete in a diving competition led by Olympian, Tom Daley. However, a glimmer of hope (my choice of Hero this week) appears at 9pm on Sunday with BBC’s drama series, ‘Ripper Street’ where the Whitechapel police fight to bring law to the lawless. Recommended weekend viewing.
Unfortunately my Villain this week is Chelski’s Eden Hazard. The incident in this week’s Capital One Cup, has over shone Swansea City immense effort and left Chelsea without a Hazard. Bad day to be a blues fan.
The snow this week has caused utter chaos. If it hadn’t been for my trustee side-kick, my poor clio would have been left in the wilderness… So my Hero this week is my snow shovel. Journeying into the unknown it was ready for action when called upon. Until next year… Adios amigo!
My Hero this week is the snow we’ve been having. Yes it’s a pain. Yes it means you can’t do everything you want to do. Does it really matter? No. We don’t get much snow, so we should enjoy it whilst we can. Get the sledge out, have some fun and enjoy a break from the rain.
My Villain this week isn’t the snow, but it is snow related. I hate the way this country overreacts to the smallest flurry of snow. Supermarkets experience shoppers panic buying bread, milk and horse burgers, fearing that we may all be cut off from the world for weeks on end. The reality is that we just have to wrap up warm and walk to our local shop. No big fuss.
It’s the second day of the poor weather conditions affecting the roads here in Wales, making travelling to work nigh on impossible. Thankfully, our staff are all equipped with internet access and email make working from home a viable option. With this is mind we thought we’d share some of the invaluable applications we tend to use. If you have any further suggestions feel free to leave a comment, we’d love to hear from you.
Dropbox
A cloud based file storage service which enables us to easily share and access files to team members and clients from a central resource. Another great benefit is that files are synchronised across multiple computers negating any confusion e.g. which file is the latest version.
Skype
A software application that allows us to make video and voice calls over the internet, perfect for conference calls between clients and members of our team. Additionally, the app allows the ability to share files and send instant messages.
Harvest
Whether working at home due to the snow, from our office, or via our smartphones, Harvest provides us an easy way to track project time through its start and stop timers. Other features we use from the app are creating invoices, automatically pulling in project hours and expenses, exporting reports in CSV format and tasking which projects our team are to work upon.
Gmail
A cloud based email service which we use to back-up our studio email accounts, thus giving us the ability to access all office emails wherever we are and on whatever device we have to hand.
YouSendIt
A secure app, which helps us send, receive and track large files sent to both clients and suppliers. You simply enter the recipients’ e-mail addresses, attach the file and send it; the recipients receive an e-mail notification with a URL that lets them download the file.
Spotify
Music tastes within the studio are eclectic to say the least so to cater for this problem we created a Spotify channel enabling each member of the team to add their own music to a playlist, which can be listened to within the studio or at home. However, as great an idea as this initially sounded it soon became evident that some of the tracks added were never going to have a universal appeal and multi-coloured headphones began sprouting themselves from every computer. Needless to say we’ve now ditched Spotify and now our solution is a first in, first to choose the internet radio station. However, should you have a team of like-minded musical souls then this may be an option to look at.
This week has seen the quite depressing news that more of the UK’s largest and well-known high-street brands have entered into receivership. Jessop’s, HMV and Blockbuster have all called in the administrators with thousands of job losses likely.
A quick glimpse would suggest that the economy is to blame for the demise of these brands. However, a closer inspection reveals that the major factor would be these brands inability to change.
In recent years the way that their core products are consumed has changed, massively. Consumers are still purchasing the products that these brands became famous for; it’s just that it is purchased in a totally different manner to the traditional high-street store. The money is there, it’s just the shoppers have moved.
Online sales are increasing year on year. Why go to the high street when you can download your favourite track or film? Why bother renting a DVD when there are cheaper, more accessible and convenient alternatives online?
Big brands are like oil tankers moving through the ocean. They take longer to change, are slower to adapt and maneuver. These are their weaknesses. Their strengths lie in that with their bigger crews and more sophisticated navigation systems, they should be aware of stormy seas and able to prepare properly.
Smaller businesses on the other hand are like speedboats. They can change course quickly, are more nimble and responsive. Their weaknesses are that they are not prepared for long voyages across the rough seas.
Sadly for HMV, Jessop’s and Blockbuster, their early warning systems have failed. They failed to respond to the storm clouds that were assembling, they failed to change course and as a result, they’re on the verge of sinking.
How could they have changed?
A high-street store will never compete in a price-matching situation with the online store. So why bother?
The high-street store should be about the experience. Shopping should be fun and memorable. If you visit a store you should feel like you’ve had an exciting or enjoyable experience and been dealt with by informative and knowledgeable staff providing an unrivalled service.
Instead of competing on price with the Amazon’s, iTunes, LOVEFiLM’s and Netflix’s of the world should HMV, Jessop’s and Blockbuster have played to their strengths?
Should they have made shopping there more of an experience? Invest in knowledgeable staff, experts that love their job, have a sense of purpose and help to build a brand experience that you can’t get online.
Who knows? But if high-street brands are to survive it seems that one thing is sure, cost cutting and price matching only leads one way, down.
Some bad news came my way at the start of this week. I heard that a friend that I’d played a lot of rugby with over the years had died on Sunday night. My hero this week is dedicated to the memory of this man. A loveable rogue, a character, a great rugby player, a leader and possibly the best Tom Jones impersonator the world has ever seen. Thanks for the memories Lyn.
My villain this week has to be Lance Armstrong. This week brought the confession on the Oprah show that he had used banned, performance enhancing drugs and been involved in blood doping in all of his Tour de France wins. A man who turned the yellow jersey into an icon has now brought the whole sport into disgrace. I’m sure there’s more to come from this story, for now we look at yet another disgraced public figure who’s built a career based on a lie. You’ve let us down Lance.
My choice of Hero this week is the birthday greeting card I bought my colleague, Harry this week from Splimple. The card I bought comes from the ‘Cheap and Miserable’ range and uses clever, amusing copy that pokes fun at the current economic recession. In a week filled with doom and gloom it’s nice to have something to raise a smile.
Sadly, my Villain this week is the continuation of the economic crisis which saw the demise of high street giants, HMV, Jessop’s and Blockbusters. Hopefully, they can re-invent themselves in a new revitalised format.
I have two ‘Heroes’ this week. They are none other than the ‘Huw David Design Team; Huw and Graham’, The team treated me to some gifts and sweets, making the trip to work definitely worthwhile. Thanks again gentlemen!
I’m a victim of my own guilt this week. Sweet, delicious and very tempting, my birthday cake meant a tough second week back in the gym. Abs to flabs…
Both my heroes and villains this week follow the same theme. ‘I feel the need, the need for speed!’ My hero is our new fibre optic broadband that we’ve had installed in the offices. Finally our corner of deepest, darkest South Wales has fast broadband. 37 mbps download and 8 mbps upload is already making a difference here in the studio.
My Villain this week was confirmation that I’ve been nabbed for speeding. 36 mph in a 30 mph zone will result in a fine and a speed awareness course. Not the best of news, but it’s a fare cop Guv, I’ll come quietly.
Normally I’m not a ‘McFly’ fan, but this video by lead singer Tom Fletcher, has really set the bar for all men to follow. Great stuff…Hero!
My villain this week has to be none other than Swansea City’s very own Michu. Not a good week if your a Chelsea fan… Boo!
My choice for both Hero and Villain this week is myself. On the outside I may appear to be a confident young-ish chap, but deep down I’m a shy, sensitive, quiet soul and this was illustrated on Thursday when I attended Nesta Cardiff’s event, ‘Innovation in Wales’, at the Millennium Centre. I’m the sort of guy who feels more relaxed talking in small groups with people I know but on going to this event I found myself thrown into a alien scenario, confronted with a room filled of people I had never met. So to expand on my choice this week: Hero, for going to the event and getting out of my comfort zone but Villain for being a shy guy and not schmoozing. As they say it takes small steps to achieve greater confidence…
My Hero this week was seeing in the New Year. Like most people, I have a long list of things I would like to accomplish this year on both a personal and professional level. I was also glad to see the back of 2012 which on the whole, had been a pretty crap year. 2013 gets my vote as a Hero this week, let’s hope she can live up to the hype!
Whilst I was glad to see in the New Year and excited to start a new working week, I was less than impressed with hearing my alarm clock on Wednesday morning. I’d enjoyed the Christmas break which consisted of lie-ins, no alarm clocks and even the odd afternoon nap. My Villain this week was my 6.15am wake-up call.
I was fortunate to enjoy many presents over Christmas and the one stand out iconic item which I’m choosing as my Hero this week is the pack of Tunnock’s Teacakes I received in my stocking (yes I’m 36 and my Mum still gives me a stocking). Not only was it a tastebud sensation but on closer inspection (and this is where I sound geeky) the packaging was an unexpected graphic design delight. Visit their Flickr page to see more.
My choice of Villain is a personal one and goes to the hospital visit I had to endure today with my Mum, hopefully the impending results will vanquish this Villain and make the trip worthwhile.
My Hero this week has to be one thing and one thing only… Beecham’s Ultra All in One. These little beauties probably saved me on more than one occasion this week and hopefully will continue too, as I battle against ‘Man Flu’.
My Villain has to be Mr Huw David himself this week. The studio became a battlefield for lurgies, chemical warfare at its meanest. Luckily Beechams are on hand to save the day.
We always like to keep challenging ourselves and pushing forward here at Huw David Design, especially if we can make it fun. So we’ve decided to slightly tweak our weekly Favourites challenge for 2013.
Our Favourites will now become (drum roll) ‘Heroes and Villains’.
Each week, we will present a graphical representation of our favourite thing from the week (Hero) and something that has annoyed us during the week (the Villain). We thought this may help to give a better reflection of our own likes and dislikes and would also build into quite a nice retrospective view of our year.
So there we go, tomorrow (Friday), will be the first run of Heroes and Villains. The pressure is on.