via @smashingmag

While it is a big passion of mine to design for mobile devices, its best to collate this work – no matter how simple. So I’ve put a little collection together, for my personal use mostly, of a few little web examples I’ve built for the iPhone. Nothing to ‘exciting’, standard forms, interactive slide controls and jQuery touch examples are all that are there at the moment, it is in a little mobile sub section to the site:

sunkyspeaks.com/mobile/

These can be viewed on a standard desktop browser, but obviously best viewed on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Feedback is welcome.

Will we see artists “create” a new sound, new move, new style, new act that single handily captures the entire world?

Growing up no matter your age, most people liked or at least respected Jackson’s talent. I was born the year Thriller came out, I know my parents played that record so no doubt my infant ears were exposed to its sounds. In my household growing up I remember the days of everybody in the car from me (the youngest at 6) to my Dad (the oldest of 36 at the time) wanting to listen to Bad – it was the first CD my family purchased – the future was then! My brother and I would mimic the dance moves, shout SHAMON! on the top of our lungs. It was pure fun pop music and will always be the clearest form of that genre.

It was yesterday while listening through my iTunes at work I began to question ‘who is left in this elite group of artists’. Im not just talking about your big name acts of now, Im referring to those artists like The Beatles, Elvis, Madonna, David Bowie, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, u2 and Michael Jackson to name a few. These acts changed music, created new sounds, spawned millions of “copy cats” and are still as popular today. To look at this list it is pretty clear to see though, they are all getting older. In decades to come these artists (that are still alive) will stop touring, stop recording and while they’ll still be in the eyes of popular culture – it will never be the same.

The generation below me won’t know what is is like to grow up and have an artist like Michael Jackson part of your childhood, creating that soundtrack that you remember that everybody listened too. An artist who appears in movies you watch, TV shows you love and even the great computer games like Moonwalker. If any artist did that now they would be deemed a SELL OUT! Why would anybody bother taking that risk, just to kill their career. There are those artists that try to do this now, but never with the same impact as the previously mentions acts.

The naive love of pop culture has changed, we have become more judgmental about new artists or even elder acts too. If anybody takes a risk, change their look and changes their sound – every man and his blog is updated with an opinion. (Yes, I see the irony of posting this on my blog). I remember an interview with David Bowie few years ago where he said that ‘if the internet was around when he was starting out, he wouldn’t have taken half the risks he did’. I always felt that was an interesting statement.

No matter what our industry we always want to know what others think of us and if you’re a skinny white guy in the 70′s who might drop a hint on his blog that he is saying goodbye to the folk music sound of his earlier work in favour of recording a disco album … you’d expect a public out cry. Just stop and think if Coldplay came out and said their next album was going to be a complete reggae album. Viva La Steel Drums!

Yet all of this is about something bigger, with this critical nature within society we will never let an artist blossom to their full potential. The money makers will take their cut, the artist will be cautious about taking risks that might end their career and most importantly you’ll find it hard to find an artist that is going to be popular and loved by people of all walks of life. Im not saying we’ll never hear good music again, there will always be new and exciting sounds coming out. Yet, they will never be as widely accepted or loved as the music from Jackson, The Beatles or Elvis.

I sat yesterday with some of my wife (@_pants_) and tried to think of a list of ‘current’ artists who eventually could make into the ‘elite’ lifetime list. While we had a few, we realised they’ve done nothing but continue on the path of their predecessors. An artist like Pink or Britney who has stayed popular for many years now, is just following the path of Madonna in the late 80′s/early 90′s. Radiohead and Coldplay are following along the lines of u2, they are popular to a certain level but they don’t transcend genres or generations. Even the “music visionaries” of Kayne West will never make the same impact, personally I don’t see the mass appeal with him anyway. Close friends of mine will expect me to say that artists like the Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam or Nirvana would be in this list, but when you look at the comparison to some of these main acts – they’ve hardly made a dent into the wider popular culture. While these ‘new’ acts have influenced, have sold million, have provided the soundtrack for a generation … they’ll never reach that same mass appeal level.

Yesterday the news of Michael Jackson’s passing reminded me we should take life, or our icons, for granted. It is sad to look back at the public scrutiny he was put under for the past 15 years, you can’t help but think that perhaps the timing was right. Leave now, just before the upcoming 50 concert tour and be remembered for the amazing work he created in the music world.

So to typically finish this off with a song, I’ll sign off with Michael Jackson and Michael Jordon with Jam. Song was pure awesome, my love of music and love of basketball came together as a kid.

-Sunky

The two ‘extras’ Im reffering to is the use of Favourite icons in your web browser and web clip icons on your iPhone / iPod Touch. Below are two step by step guides in how create both of these for your next website.

Favicon

defn: A favicon (short for favorites icon), also known as a website icon, shortcut icon, url icon, or bookmark iconis an icon associated with a particular website or webpage.

Nothing new, these have been around for years but it still surprises me how many sites don’t have them. As I’m putting together these ‘little extras’ for Sunky Speaks I thought I would document a ‘how to guide’. I’ll go through this using Photoshop, sorry to all non-Photoshop users but it’s the easiest way to do it. Ok, lets get started.

1. Stop. Think. Begin. Take the time to think about what you’re going to be putting in as the favicon, I mean really think about it. This icon will end up being 16px * 16px, so if it is a thin line drawing that is your clients logo then its not going to look that great at such a small size. With Sunky Speaks I would love to include the logo as a small icon, but once it gets to that size it will be near on impossible to read the words ‘Sunky Speaks’, so I’ve come up with an alternative idea.
2. Plugin first. Next you’ll need the Windows Icon (ICO) file format Photoshop Plugin, this will allow you to export to the .ico file format. (download here) Make sure to install the plugin before you open up Photoshop. To install the plugin just copy it into your Photoshop plugin folder, for Windows: C:Program FilesAdobeAdobe Photoshop CS3Plug-Ins and for Mac: Applications > Adobe Photoshop C3 > Plug-Ins. Then open Photoshop and it will be installed.
3. Design time. 16px * 16px is a small canvas area, it can be very difficult to create something clear in that space. So instead we will start our project with a canvas set at 64px * 64px (this is because it is always better to use even multiples when you plan on resizing files). Do this by selecting File > New, and opening a new canvas that is 64px * 64px pixels in size.
   
4. Happy with the design?Best thing to do first is test the design, select Image > Image Size menu and enter 16px * 16px. Click on Resample Image and select “Bicubic Sharper” from the drop-down menu. This is the best setting for making sure that an image doesn’t blur as it’s being resized. If it’s still not sharp enough for you, always go back and oversharpen, oversaturate and/or heighten the contrast of the original image and then resize it again. Like with anything, you may need to tweak the design to get it to look just right.
   

   
   

5. Saving. Like with any file go to File > Save As and make sure you name the file favicon.ico. Under format you must choose Windows Icon (ICO) from the pulldown menu. (Note: This format will only be available in Photoshop after you download and install the plugin).
   

   
   

6. Uploading and coding. Upload this new file to the root folder of your website, and then add the following code to your website in the <head> tag.
   
   <link rel="Shortcut Icon" href="/favicon.ico">

7. Testing. You should now have this appearing in your address bar:

   

   But what happens if its not working, and you’re thinking “Wha Happened?“. Check your code and file first. Still no good, next thing to try is clearing your browsers cache and that should fix it. If you’re using IE6 (please upgrade) you will need to add the URL as a Bookmarked favourite before it can work.

iPhone / iPod Touch web clip icons

defn: The icon graphic that appears on your home screen when you add a web clip from Safari.

The biggest selling mobile device(s) in the past few years, that also boasts with the strongest web capabilities of any other phone out there and people are still not making sure their users get the full experience when visiting their site. If somebody loves your site and plans on visiting it on a regular basis, why not give them a pretty icon to view when using their phone rather than a tiny screenshot of your website.

Open up Photoshop, or your preferred editor.

1. Name your file to be “apple-touch-icon.png”
2. Set both the width and height to be 57px. If you’re resizing a larger logo or image, remember to set your resize option to be “Bicubic Sharper” like we did for the favicon, just gives your a sharper image.
3. Save your file out and then upload it to your root directory of your website.
4. To test that it worked, open up Safari on your iPhone / iPod Touch and add your website to your home screen. To do this, click the + button at the base of your browser and it will open the screen below. Finally select ‘Add to Home Screen’, if you’re doing this via your cellular network you might find it take a few seconds to display.

   

5. Go back to your home screen to your new icon nested next to all your other apps, now doesn’t that look more at home than a boring old screenshot?

   

Thats it, hope you’ve found these guides helpful. Any questions just ask away.