Yearly Archives: 2016

Samsung’s successful and much-anticipated launch in August of their Galaxy Note 7 is shutting down all production, sales and replacement of their failed handset.

In the wake of a seemingly endless parade of bad news and damage control — due to their handsets exploding and starting on fire — Samsung has made the difficult and costly decision due to major safety concerns. The Galaxy Note 7 was supposed to be a massive step forward for Samsung as they were jumping straight from their previous Note 5 to the Note 7 — due to the impressive tech and fascinating new features.

Over a period of only two months, their exciting new handset is dead and leaving the company with a PR disaster and loss of ~17 billion dollars. On the 10th of October, Samsung officially asked retailers to stop sales and then officially on the 11th of October released their official statement.

In the interest of the public’s safety and pressure from the FAA and CPSC in the USA, Samsung had little choice but to close down production.

If you own a Note 7 and are wondering what to do next, please be in touch at [email protected]

We are pleased to announce the launch of the brand new website for the Wingate Business Exchange. Set in the heart of Clapham Old Town, Wingate Business Exchange provides small to medium offices with the capacity for between three – 11 occupants.

The design of the website is thanks to the talent at Metric who brought together the overall feel of work-life balance of the office spaces and their neighbouring area. We at DirectionForward are responsible for the build of the website and together with Metric are very happy to see this project come to fruition.

To check out this new website, visit here — wingatebx.com

If you are interested in more information regarding website design and build, please do get in touch with us at — [email protected]

Google has recently announced they have changed the name of their Google Apps — to G Suite. They say that the new name will better represent their ambitions for the future.

To improve their enterprise stakes, Google is leveraging one of their key strengths, which is G Suite (Google Apps) — and they will continue to improve and further infuse new machine intelligence.

Over the coming weeks, you will notice the new name and logo appear on familiar places. G Suite is still the same all-in-one solution that you use every day, with the same tools — Gmail, Docs, Drive and Calendar.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about what G Suite has to offer, please be in touch at [email protected]

Earlier this summer we announced that Instagram would be adding business accounts to their growing social platform. Instagram business accounts are now available and a valuable opportunity for businesses regardless of the size.

Instagram is an important and relevant social platform that shouldn’t be ruled out. The social platform is a growing resource for new products, businesses and inspiration for various needs.

Social media management is an important part of your company as it’s important to get the chosen social platforms up to date and to effectively and consistently portray your company on each platform.

Positives regarding having a business account on Instagram is that the format offers several bonus buttons, which allow users to easily contact and connect with the business from the profile page. The new contact button brings up options to call, email or receive directions — the directions brings up a map with your company pinned to your location.

Instagram insights (much like the Facebook insights) reports on critical information about post engagement and your follower demographics so that you can develop more applicable posts for your audience.

Impressions per post will show you which posts are the most popular and engaging over a seven – 30 day period. You can then find a high performing post and then easily convert it into an advertisement.

Overall, Instagram for business is a great opportunity for advertisement and to better compete and get exposure, for all business sizes but especially for new and small businesses.  It has the potential to drive traffic to your site, promote your business and generate sales.

As said previously, social media management can be an all-encompassing job. We offer social media management as one of our services as we understand it is an area that can get overlooked and requires extra time and detail to fully reap its benefits.

Please be in touch for information on this service or regarding Instagram for Business, at [email protected]

We have an important update now available for our cloud software for our Mac users. This Livedrive update will introduce compatibility with the new OS X (Sierra) software which was released last week. The changes from the new macOS operating system may cause some issues with the current version of cloud software.

The update will provide support for macOS Sierra, bug fixes as well as other features.

To perform the update, please click and follow this link: directionforward.com/download/updates/livedrive/

For any questions or enquiries, please contact us at [email protected]

Apple’s biggest software release yet to date was released Tuesday 13 September. You can find the iOS10 update by going to Settings > General > Software Update, on the iPhone5 or newer and iPad 4 or newer.

Many of the new features are quite practical and some are just for fun. One of the most obvious changes is the “swipe to lock” that has changed to “Press to unlock” — and you can now do more on the lock screen than ever before. Other home screen swipe changes are swipe “right to left” and the camera opens, swipe “left to right” open your widgets, which contain Weather, Transit times etc.

The updated design looks elegant and artful and very pleasing to the eye — one thing that differs them from the Android competitor. The Clock app also is more easy to the eye with its soft black, white and orange tones — which is more restful on your eyes, especially in the evening. The new bedtime widget also helps you set up a scheduled sleep and wake time where a notification then alerts you to start winding down — a useful reminder for many as technology quite often keeps us awake later than we want.

3D touch, which was first introduced by the iPhone 6 and 6S, has been better utilised through iOS 10. Notifications are now more useful as you can expand them individually to receive more information, as well as mass delete when finished. Email notifications allow you to see 4-5 lines where you can then Archive, Delete, Schedule, or Mark as Read. The WhatsApp notification also allows you to reply to the message without needing to open the app itself.

Siri is also more integrated and as more third party apps utilise it, Siri will become even more useful in the future. At the moment, Siri will summon an Uber for you and has become even more visible within iMessage.

iMessage has had a major overhaul with new features many of which are strictly just for fun. These fun new features could be to draw iPhone users back to iMessage.

A short list of some of the new features:

• Write it yourself — send a message in your own handwriting and watch it animate when delivered.
• Message bubble “moods” — your message bubble can be delivered with added oomph to get your intended expression across.
• Invisible ink — send a message or photo that remains hidden, then the receiver swipes to reveal.
• When messaging a phrase like, “Happy Birthday” you can now add an animation which will take over your and your receivers entire screen.
• Personal touch — send fireballs, heartbeats, sketches and more — much like Snapchat, you can even draw over your pictures and videos.
• iMessage apps — access your favourite apps to create + share content, make payments and more without leaving messages.

The Maps app has been updated to help you better along your travels. Now when you’re planning your route, Maps will proactively suggest where to go and the fastest way to get there. You can also search along your route to see what’s around the corner, and you can also find the closest petrol, food or coffee spot etc.. Maps will update you with how much extra time it will take to arrive.

The built in HomeKit allows you to set scenes and manage all of your smart home gadgets in one place, using Control Centre or Siri.

The Photo app has been updated to categorise and organise your photos based on themes, concepts and content. You can now search your photos for specific things ie: cat pictures — and all of the pictures you’ve taken of your cat will filter through. There is also the Memories feature which lovingly organises your past photos into collages to better remember past moments.

Apple’s iOS 10 has brought some fun, practical and personal updates with their latest software update. Many are saying the most significant update Apple has had for awhile. The new software is end-to-end encrypted, so you are kept safe from spies, which unfortunately is needed more and more. The layout and design is also being hailed for its artistry and beauty — adding that bit of extra something that Apple is known and loved for.

For more information on how to update to iOS 10 or if you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at [email protected].

Apple has officially released the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus, which has been available for pre order since Friday 9 September and will be in stores Friday 16 September.

The iPhone 7 brings exciting and some practical new features. One important new feature that should benefit many is that the phone is now water-resistant (not waterproof!), so you still cannot go snorkelling with your iPhone but it does mean that it should withstand a very brief full submersion in water, ie: sink, bath, toilet etc.

The body of the phone is not too different from the iPhone 6s but with the back of the device merging more seamlessly with the front glass display making it look and feel more smooth and sleek. For colours, the iPhone 7 is debuting in two different blacks — a shiny jet black with a stainless steel Apple logo, and a matte black with a black Apple logo. The standard silver, gold and rose gold are still available also.

The camera on the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus has been improved and has some impressive tech specifications —

• Optical image stabilisation, allowing for 3x longer exposure
• Six element, 1.8 aperture lens
• 12 megapixel sensor, 60% faster with a quad LED
• Flash with 50% light output

iPhone 7 Plus will also have —

• 7 megapixel front camera (up from 5 megapixel)
• Two 12 megapixel cameras on the back of the phone, which allow for both a wide angle and telephoto. One of the lenses handles 1x zoom and the other handles 2x zoom — with the zoom going all the way to 10x. The dual lens will offer DSLR quality bokeh, or shallow depth of field.

The iPhone 7’s screen display will also be 25% brighter with a wide colour range and continued support for 3D Touch.

Performance function has increased due to a 40% faster-processing rate whilst using only 1/5th of the power to save on battery life. Both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus have the best battery life of any previous iPhones.

Apple Pay is also supported using the NFC technology that is popular in some countries and slowly gaining momentum elsewhere — Japan is one of the leading countries where mobile payments are leading as one of the main forms of payment methods.

The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are available for pre-order but will be available in stores on Friday 16th September. The 16GB edition has been eliminated from this range and future ranges and will instead be offered in 32GB, 128GB and 256GB.

Interested in upgrading to the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus?  We are Apple partners and have access to discounts of up to 15 percent. Contact us to purchase and/or for more information at — [email protected]

If you’re a WhatsApp user, you may have noticed that their privacy Terms and Conditions have changed?

These are the basic facts you need to know and how to opt-out if you wish to do so —

In 2014 Facebook bought out WhatsApp, and at this time their CEO ensured that their original business model of an ad-free messaging service would stay in place. Two years later this plan has seemed to change as WhatsApp now plan to share their user data with Facebook for this purpose.

Facebook’s business model is solely built around monetizing usage via interest-based advertising fed by mining the personal data of its users.

The user data WhatsApp is sharing with Facebook is described as so they can track basic metrics, better fight SPAM and produce relevant ads. Specifically, the data being shared is the phone number used to validate your account and information about the last time you used WhatsApp. As Facebook does not require a phone number to validate a new account, some are saying this is also an opportunity for them to fill in personal information they are missing.

This data also may not be shared with strictly Facebook either as the Facebook family extends to products and companies such as the Virtual Reality product Oculus Rift and photo sharing app Instagram.

There are ways to opt-out to some of the data sharing, specifically for Facebook ad targeting and product-related purposes. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to fully opt-out, other than to stop using the app.

To partially opt-out, you will need to click the box at the bottom of the Terms and Conditions page which will come up as soon as you open WhatsApp if you haven’t already done this. Once the full page opens, scroll to the bottom and uncheck the box pertaining to sharing your information with Facebook, and click “Agree”.

If you have already accepted the new Terms and Conditions and wish to uncheck the box — WhatsApp is offering a 30-day window to make this change. You will need to do this via Settings>Account>Share my account info, where you will see an option to uncheck the box.

Also, ensure you have updated WhatsApp to its most recent version as this will ensure end-to-end encryption. As long as the person you are messaging also has this version of WhatsApp, then you are the only two people who will have access to your messages.

If you have any further questions regarding online privacy, digital services and information, please be in touch with us at — [email protected]

The Olympics are in full swing in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, and with its 306 sporting events, there is plenty of exciting action every day.

When an Olympics is held there are obviously many factors in making the host city put their mark on their year. The host city is required to have a logo which represents their city and the Olympics together. Throughout history, there have been many interesting takes on the Olympic logo — Milton Glaser, one of America’s most celebrated graphic designers, puts his personal critique on the host cities Olympic logos from over the last century. Glaser, is most famously notable for his iconic “I <heart> NY” graphic, that we see on millions of t-shirts and other merchandise.

Throughout the article Milton comments on the Olympic logos’ legibility, relevance, imagery, colour, typography and scale etc., then giving it a mark out of 100. This is a great representation of what graphic design’s many elements, which all play a role in the portrayal and visual impact a graphic can leave behind.

As you can see from Glasers’ critique, some logos come across much better than others but it’s still interesting to see the different cities’ logos from the past, and how design has changed over the years.

To view the full article, please visit— eyeondesign.aiga.org

If you are interested in discussing your logo or other design works, please be in touch with us at [email protected]