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Here's a sneak peek at some beer pint designs I'm working on for the Freelance Friday Xmas party invites...

Lately i've been obsessed with the panoramic images created by Photosynth, or downloadable from Google Maps Streetview. (As below, via Jamie Thompson)

But for me– more interesting than capturing a panoramic image would be drawing a panoramic image and then playing it back in some kind of 360-degree renderer.

Ok, so the concept is straightforward enough, but the execution has been turning my brain inside out.  I started out trying to draw perspective grids– which quickly exhausted what little recollection I have of geometry, so I decided to go back to basics and just take some pictures.

The above picture is a 180-degree view of my table as rendered by Photosynth.  Below you'll see the grid I set up with equally spaced dots, and coffee cups to represent equal heights.

(download)

Click here to download:

perspective-and-deconstructing-photosynth-in-the-too-much-free-time-series-AxtEIxIrjnFacDBuqsry.zip (1.89 MB)

Next– let's see if I can actually use these observations to draw something. 

It would be an understatement to say I've bored my friends to death talking about wanting to make this or that video game idea.

The biggest hurdle has always been finding a coder to actually build it for me.

But looking at other designer/makers like Shaun Inman made me realise I've got all the tools at my disposal, if I just pull my finger out.

Even more than that, it was the decision to do it as a *hobby* that was my watershed moment. It gave me the liberty to fool around and not worry about making something that stands a chance in an overcrowded marketplace.

I'd written some basic code in Processing when it occurred to me that I had enough there to bring my friend Loz's football graphics to life.

And here's the result - a really basic football game that's /almost/ playable.

[UPDATE]

With a few more tweaks I've made it into a complete game.

I'm working on a branded YouTube channel, but there's surprisingly little info on designing for it. 

and here's a look at how HBO's channel looked before Cosmic Panda –

and after –

There's not a lot to say about Google+ as a product – other than that it's just like Facebook, no more, no less.  And yet, as a Google product, that's exactly what's remarkable about it.

Google– who usually try to reinvent *everything* by shooting for the moon, but hitting themselves in the foot– has simply made a well-designed, easy and intuitive Facebook clone.

And this suggests that Google is finally maturing in its approach to product development.  That is to say– Google is realising that it is a utilities company, not an innovation company.

It has been a long-standing conflict for Google to come to terms with its inward sense of identity and its outward perception– and that its unconventional corporate culture doesn't reflect the practical use of its applications.  Like a middle-aged man on a skateboard– how Google sees itself doesn't always match up to how the rest of us see it.

You can't blame them.  They've hired the best and brightest talent of the digital world.  Of course these guys want to push the boat out.

We don't want innovation from Google. We want scale, reliability, ease of use.  We want web apps like search and mail to behave like always-on utilities.

So how do you behave like a utilities company? Just as you don't want your energy company to start changing the voltage on your power outlets in a 'beta test' or your water company changing the scents and flavours of your tap water – we don't want Google mucking around with the core services we depend on.

A utilities company adopts standards and pushes them out to its customers. And that's exactly what Google has done with Google+.  Facebook has spent the last 7 (nearly 8) years refining and promoting the standard of social networking platforms.

Google can't not have a social network.  It's a hygiene factor for them at this point– you can't have a service without social integration of some sort. So it was the right decision to not call upon their considerable brain-trust to 'reinvent social networking' – and just do what works.  The web savvy public already 'speaks Facebook' – so don't invent a new language.

One thing Google does very well, however, is openness of data– and by acknowledging that Facebook's social networking model is the fabric of the current online universe– they've exploded a giant 'g' shaped hole in Facebook's social data monopoly.