K-Voltage blog » design

Hostelworld mobile site

Ivan Frantar — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 23:02:42 +0000

Last week I finished putting up together a revamped hostelworld’s mobile site.

The work I did was to clean up old code, fix some functionality issues and redesign it with simple UI primarily aiming at devices such as the Nokia Z70, Sony Ericsson k750i and several others under the same category, which have basic level browsing and rendering capabilities and most likely very limited network connections.

The site should be very easy to use using only the numbers on the keyboard or other keys such as the * or # (except a few exceptions) to navigate through the pages. Should you take it for a spin, give me a shout how it goes or if there is anything to make it better

Milton Glaser’s 12 Steps on the Designer’s Road to Hell

Ivan Frantar — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:44:18 +0000

Designing a package that looks bigger on the shelf.
Designing an ad for a slow, boring film to make it seem like a lighthearted comedy.
Designing a crest for a new vineyard to suggest that it has been in business for a long time.
Designing a jacket for a book whose sexual content you find personally repelent.
Designing a medal using steel from the World Trade Center to be sold as a profit-making souvenir of September 11.
Designing an advertising campaign for a company with a history of known discrimination in minority hiring.
Designing a package aimed at children for a cereal whose contents you know are low in nutritional value and high on sugar.
Designing a line of T-Shirts for a manufacturer that employs child labor.
Designing a promotion for a diet product that you know doesn’t work.
Designing an ad for a political candidate whose policies you believe would be harmful to the general public.
Designing a brochure piece for an SUV that flips over frequently in emergency conditions and is known to have killed 150 people.
Designing an ad for a product whose frequent use might cause the user’s death.

Extracted from the book Glimmer.

The doors of perception

Ivan Frantar — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:41:23 +0000

This is a funny ad I took from Rory Sutherland’s TED Talk, in which he explain how changing the perception of a determined product can have a great impact on it. Specially as a rhetoric used in advertisement. He goes on with more examples as how intangible value replaces actual material value in very interesting ways showcasing occurrent situations. It’s worth seeing the presentation video rather than me explaining it .

Rockanrolla. The movie

Ivan Frantar — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:07:10 +0000

I rented the other day the latest movie by Guy Ritchie “Rockanrolla” and I couldn’t help but get completely blown away by the illustrations and the design of the intro credits. Here I post some of the screenshots of the movie.

Even though the movie is not that good, the intro credits is the only reason that makes the movie worth seeing it, of course, if you are a designer or illustrator the more you’ll enjoy it.

Next, I’ll have to find out which design studio did the work for it.

UPDATE: Just found out that the designer of the film credits is Danny Yount.

Home-holidays and counting

Ivan Frantar — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:55:46 +0000

I was a bit bored last night and put up a counter until my departure to Mendoza, Arg. Can’t wait to get there. Check it out