A while ago I shared with you one of my recent Architecture projects from my time at the University of Bath. I thought I'd share some of my third year work today, a group project title "Linking the Lands".

As a team of 4 Architects and 2 Engineers, we designed a conceptual journey across the natural landscape at Brean Down, near Weston-Super-Mare. An incredible cliffside walkway takes you to normally unreachable places for a close-up look at nature, and stunning views across the Severn Estuary.

You can browse my complete project brochure at http://random.alexbimpson.co.uk/uni/project302.pdf.

More images below.

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I know, I haven't written anything here for ages! But that's mostly because I've been so busy, which is a good thing! I also haven't tweeted much lately, which is a shame, because I've read a lot of interesting stuff on twitter. You can, of course, always follow my personal twitter account at twitter.com/abimpson for many diverse, impulsive and ridiculous tweets from myself.

I am, of course, currently working on a small array of different web sites, some under the Freeze Frame brand and some in partnership with other design companies. I'm also working on a few minor updates to the Freeze Frame site, so keep your eyes peeled for those!

Finally, I've also been hard at work on the IceBox Content Management System to power the sites I build. I'm actually using it right now to post this blog entry! It's largely usable, I just need to find the time to add a few more minor features, along with one or two major additions, and then start rolling the system out to clients for testing and feedback in managing their sites. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I shall have version 1.0 ready for testing in a few of our latest websites.

In the meantime, I'll be sure to post many more interesting blog posts your way!

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Over a couple of days last week I set to work on a small personal project.

I'm very fond of my iTunes collection - it's a thoroughly curated collection of music, films and TV shows that totals over 500Gb in size. As a designer, I'm also very fussy about ensuring I have good quality cover artwork for all the items in my library, so over the years I've built up a good collection of cover art, some of it very hard to come by, and some of it even edited and put together by myself.

Given the vast array of low quality cover artwork sites, I thought I'd throw my own hat into the ring with a simple but thoughtful site to share some of the artwork I've gathered.

The result of just two days work, Cover Whiz is a simple and intuitive way to discover high quality digital artwork.

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It's been a little while since I've posted any blog entries - It's been a busy time!

We're pleased to announce a new website that's been under development for a little while now for a new student letting company in the Bath area.

The site for Lacey Alexander Property Letting is an elegant and stylish site powered by Freeze Frame's new IceBox Content Management System.

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"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

- Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005



Steve Jobs was born out of wedlock, put up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college, then changed the world.

What's your excuse?

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For those who may have missed this incredible marketing stunt when it was released by Intel a few months back, I wanted to share it with you. Put simply, it's a short video clip that pulls together aspects of your Facebook feed into a visual museum gallery.

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Freeze Frame Design recently gave South Coast Contracting a site makeover. Taking the content and structure from their old site, we were able to give the company a more modern and elegant aesthetic by creating a whole new site design around the existing content.

You can view the finished site at www.southcoastcontracting.co.uk.

We can give any site a visual makeover in just a short space of time, so if you have a site you'd like updating, editing or redesigning, don't hesitate to get in touch with us!

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You may know that I'm a recent graduate of the University of Bath, having studied Architecture for 4 years. As such, I thought I'd share some of my final work here for anyone who may be interested.

Today I'm highlighting a group project undertaken in my 4th year, entitled 'Screen Machine'. The project was essentially to design a film institute for Bristol Harbour.

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Our latest website, www.sfxevents.com for SFX Events has been featured on Focus Designer! Please have a look, and give us a good rating at www.focusdesigner.com/sfx-events/.

You can also follow Focus Designer on twitter at @FocusDesigner. Thanks very much!

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Freeze Frame Design are proud to have launched the new site for SFX Events. SFX came to us a short while ago looking for a high quality site that would clearly put across their experience and expertise, showcase the work they had done and clearly demonstrate the services they provide.

We worked closely with SFX Events to ensure that the site gave off a personal touch, whilst cutting to the chase when it came to important information on the services they offer. Social elements such as Twitter integration and an image gallery feed are woven into the site, with the aim of broadening SFX Events' client base and keeping them in touch with every generation of prospective customers.

You can check the website out at www.sfxevents.com and follow SFX Events on twitter at @sfxevents.

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Having been using Apple's latest flagship OS for almost a month now, and having got used to all it's new and exciting features, I feel compelled to give a good analytical review of the new king of the jungle.

My overall feeling, though, is not really one of joy or excitement, but disappointment more than anything else. It's not that the OS is bad, per se - in many ways it's definitely an improvement over Snow Leopard - it's just that it feels a little half-hearted.

I think the problem is that it's edging towards a merger with Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, and Lion is likely the last in the line of OS X versions, incorporating some of the features that make iOS great, but not really fully committing to the task. I think it highly likely that Apple's next major OS (OS XI?) will be a complete new overhaul.

Anyway, I'll run through some of the new features and give my verdict on them...

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Freeze Frame Design is currently working on a high quality site and branding material for SFX Events, a lighting and special effects company based in Hampshire. Part of the site specification requires an integrated content management system to allow easy editing of material on the site by the client.

This has proved to be a great opportunity to start fleshing out our proposed new CMS, named 'IceBox'. Whilst still in an early stage, IceBox will soon be in a position to serve as the backbone for all of our websites, and, in our opinion, will offer the very best in efficient, elegant site management.

Keep an eye out for future updates on the development of IceBox, as well as the launch of the SFX Events website!

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Now that Freeze Frame Design is going full time, it seems appropriate that higher quality, more efficient ways of working are produced. One of the most time-consuming elements of the bespoke websites that we produce is the ability for clients to login and manage/edit these sites themselves. Previously, all our websites have featured simple, tailor made content management systems (CMS) built specifically from scratch.

Now, however, we're really keen to standardise our management systems. The problem is, most popular existing CMS tools are highly complex, offering vast arrays of options that we have no interest in. This goes against our philosophy of making things as simple and elegant as possible, for both the end user and the client.

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Having just finished my part 1 degree in Architecture at the University of Bath, I'm taking some time now to focus on my other passion - website design.

As such, Freeze Frame Design is going full time, looking to build itself into a respectable, high quality design brand. At present our portfolio may be small, but look out for some impressive stuff currently in development, coming soon!

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