It's coming

It's taking a while to show its sel! Whilst in Sinai, Danny who runs the Makhad journey's said that it can be instant or take a year or more for the experience to really show itself .... so I'm still waiting to write what happened. It was good, it was an honour to have been invited and I met some wonderful people, in an amazing place where we were very priveleged guests and it all happended on the Edge ... more to come:)

The picture was one of my many vistas! THe dark scar in the land midway through the picture was the oldriver gully that was my home whilst I spent 3 days and nights on my tod. I chose well.

Matt

Climate Radio

Recently we did a brief interview for RIchard Hoggett of Friends of the Earth who is running the Climate RAdio campaign. My radio career is very short and definitely not a vocation I should ever ever think about, btu good to have been asked and alos interesting trying to fit who I am, Leap, why we do what we do and how we fight climate change through our work in to a whole 25 seconds... I know I talk fast but wow!

If you want to read more or hear the interview follow the link....

Hi Matt

Thanks for helping with the climate radio campaign. Your interview is being aired on Pirate FM from this week and the website has now been updated with your story – the direct link is http://www.foecornwall.org/CLIMATE_CHAOS/Stories/21%20LEAP%20Media.html

There is a listen again facility on this web page so you can hear your edited interview.

Best wishes

Richard

Seasalted

Just a quickie as I'm supposed to be on a non-work weekend doing family stuff and not thinking about my laptop and the various projects to work on this week!

The above images are shots of the recent boarding cards we produced for those super Seasalt organic people. Neil form Seasalt saw some the ScillyWaste ones we produced when Lepa branded the Isles of Scilly based waste awareness initiative, and liked them so much he asked if he could have some too branded of course.

The cards are great as the reverse of each one has a reduce, reuse, recycle tip and an image with the front being functional for use in handing out to people before boarding the helicopter to the Isles of Scilly. And even better, they are made from recycled foamex/pvc, so look good, start conversations (hopefully) and help raise environmental awareness. We now have 300 of these in circulation at British International and they are viewed by over 100000 visitors a year. Not bad for a small and simple design project spend. Even the holders are made from recycled board.

Isles of Scilly Travel are the latest company to want some, this time part sponsored by Seasalt as well as Isles of Scilly Flowers. The latest set will be encapsulated recycled card to do a comparison on usage, print and longevity.

Happy times.
Matt

Another Leap

So far in our 2 year history we've done alot of varied projects, utilising, recycled paper, christmas decorations from recycled materials, pitch pine dredged from the Thames, solar interactive signage and our latest creations are above you!

It seems we've turned into a sustainble trophy design agency! After winning one award and being SME finalist in 2005 at the Cornwall Sustainability Awards, Leap was asked if we would sponsor the 2006 CS Awards, which of course we did (even though it meant we couldn't enter) through design. We designed everything, logo, paper based graphics, certificates and to top it off we tried our hand at making an award that would have a story and create conversations.

To do this we called in our long time super signage creating company Parc and between us we designed the 'flame or leaf' like awards made using local Yew from Heligan Gardens, recycled banknotes set in a resin made from melted car headlamp lenses, off cut acrylic and recycled PVC. Now how much fun is that, and marketing manager for Cornwall College Business, Tracey Johnsons (who organised the awards) commented:

Oh my god they are so sexy!!!!! Thank you so much.

Ok, I wouldn't call them sexy more distinctive.

And at the award ceremony, they were liked so much that local promo company Ecoincentives commissioned us to design and produce a further 16 in partnership with them for the Environment Agency, 6 for their recent Water awards (see close up above) and 10 for an award ceremony in July (still to be designed). Our paper based design days could be numbered ..tee hee:) which my girlfriend will be really happy about as she'll actually see me.

Powercast - wireless charging!

I came across a reference to this on the Howies site and found some more info, it could be interesting.. maybe not. We have two laptops and 2 imacs and the latter have wireless keyboards and mice which use rechargable batteries. However it's always slightly peeved me that although they no longer have wires they still need replaceable batteries! Hopefully this might mean the problem will soon be over. I'm sorted on my mobile and Ipod though as we have a solio solar charger in the office for those...

Word out:)


A Pennsylvania start-up says it has the answer to one of the biggest problems in mobile phones: battery life.

After three years of keeping its technology under close guard, Powercast has come to CES 2007 to get consumer and manufacturer attention. Powercast is a radio frequency that is transmitted over a small area, and its energy is "harvested"--wirelessly--to give power to small devices like cell phones.

While it's presented as wireless power, Powercast isn't just a replacement for a universal charger. Instead, it's meant to either continuously charge a battery or replace the need for them altogether.

It works like this: a transmitter can be placed anywhere--in a lamp, for example, that is plugged into the wall and sits on a table. The transmitter in the lamp sends out a continuous, low RF signal. Anything with either AA or AAA batteries set within its range--and equipped with a Powercast receiver, which is the size of your fingernail--will be continuously charged.

"Our solution is, if talk time (on a cell phone) is 5 1/2 hours, by trickle-charging (it) at work, now talk time is 10 hours because the battery never gets to dead," John Shearer, CEO of Powercast, said in an interview.

There are many applications for Powercast, said Shearer, but the company is making the PC peripherals market a priority. Think a wireless keyboard or mouse with no battery, or a hermetically sealed battery that the customer never need access again.

Major CE and IT manufacturers will have to agree to build Powercast capability into their products, and thus far Powercast is revealing only Philips as a future partner. The first Powercast product will come to market by the end of 2007, the company says.

Hidden Art

I saw this (online not in real life) and I love it, goes by the name of Blu.