December 15, 2009Gestalten – the lovely publishers of our book Airside by Airside – visited our studio a month ago armed with cameras, microphones and a notebook of tricky questions. The result is a video podcast featuring Airside’s trio of directors talking about the secret of our success (as in Airside's success, not the Michael J. Fox movie.

In between shots of Alex sitting on a stairway and Fred talking about ninja designers, you can watch clips from lots of Airside work, from NTV to Moblin and Live Earth.

Our favourite thing about the film is the tagline on the Gestalten website that reads: “Airside – More Than Just Hot Air”. About as good a description of us as we've ever heard.

Watch the video podcast.

December 02, 2009Airside recently won the pitch to help develop visual assets for the BBC Asian Network website.

The site is the online home of the BBC radio station and offers such services as live and on demand streams, programme information, as well opportunities to interact with the shows and presenters.

Airside was asked to pitch on the project to develop the presenter pages. BBC Asian Network were looking for a visual design system that would complement the existing brand assets, but also allow each presenter page to reflect the individual’s personality along with the specific show’s values.

As the station offers a broad range of content from daytime news and entertainment to late-night music and culture, the designs would need to match this breadth as well as the extraordinary diversity of its audience, whilst avoiding clichés and stereotypes.

Airside’s approach was to use the existing brand’s swirl and extend it to represent the various identities required. The illustrated swirl comes towards the viewer then opens and transforms to reveal a pattern or figurative element that brings the presenter’s personality to life.

One of the key ideas in our pitch was the development of a 24-hour timeline, derived from their brand palette, that determines the colour and mood of a show according to its broadcast time. This allows for a variation in tone for each presenter page, from bright and colourful for light entertainment to dark and atmospheric for more serious shows.

The pitch illustration on the right shows a sample page for late-night new music presenter, Bobby Friction.

Airside will be delivering final designs for the presenter pages in February 2010. The new look BBC Asian Network website is due for launch shortly afterwards.

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December 01, 2009London's Design Museum is currently hosting an exhibition dedicated to Dieter Rams.

One of the most influential designers of the 20th century, Rams is responsible for a host of iconic Braun products as well as the Vitsœ shelving system, whose website is designed by Airside.

The exhibition, entitled Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams, showcases 40 years of Rams' design work, as well as examining his influence on contemporary design. It runs until 07 Mar 2010.

To coincide with the exhibition, publishers Gestalten are releasing an accompanying book, which collects hundreds of images of Rams products as well as sketches and models. It also features essays on Ram's work by international design experts.

Less and More will be available to buy at www.gestalten.com from 15 Dec 2009.

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