Mark Forrester - Independent digital designer and online entrepreneur

Well they say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but when someone quite blatantly steals not only your design, but your idea it can be a little more insulting.

Regator, a new blog aggregator, has received quite some media attention today with articles in Read Write Web, Techcrunch and on Mashable.

None of the articles posted seem to mention its uncanny resemblance to our Afrigator.com. Perhaps because our service was developed and is focussed on deepest, darkest Africa they thought they could get away with it, without anyone noticing?

One of the more fun projects I have completed in the past couple months was a Zoopy profile page for South Africa’s much loved comedian Evita Bezuidenhout.

Zoopy is South Africa’s first and foremost video and photo sharing social network. I’ve always been a fan of their neat and usable design so when Jason, at Zoopy’s headquarters, asked me to take on one of their projects I jumped at the opportunity.

Evita requested her Zoopy profile page portray her Afrikaans heritage all the while beaming her support for the new South Africa and it’s bright future. Another way to put it: Boere Baroque – a fashionable but old school Tannie.

The end result was a collage of Evita’s memorabilia – including her photos, a string of pearls, a kruger rand and even her passport, sitting pretty on a pink wallpaper, with dashes of Biggie Best Kitsch throughout the content layout.

Make sure you visit Evita’s Zoopy profile page to view some of her great comedy skits, sexy photos, blog posts and even a sneak peak at her new perfume – Jeau Mour.

One of the reasons, amongst the many, I have been so quiet the last few weeks has been one of the projects I have been working on for Hillsong London.

Hillsong is the church I belong to in London. It’s services take place at the world reknown Dominion Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, Central London. The Dominion Theatre is also home to the show “We Will Rock You”. Going to a Hillsong service is like going to a theatre show every week, 2000 people packing out each service, 3 services a day, awesome live music, international guest speakers, flashing lights, smoke machines and a gigantic cinema screen. Of course at the heart of it, it’s much more than the glitz and glamour though. (more…)

Below is the article I that I wrote for the BizCommmunity blog after last’s nights awards party:

It’s the morning after the D&AD Awards and my head is telling me I should have stayed off the white wine last night.

The twitter posts from my mobile were a plentiful (see here and here), but alas the Internet at the event was non-existant and I was unable to live blog the event. Below is a summary of the night out.

At 6.45pm my colleague and I joined the queue of elegantly creative dressed folk on the yellow carpet outside the Royal Festival Hall, only to discover 15 minutes later we could have bypassed the whole thing if we had used the “Press” entrance. We were then presented with a press package which included an all access pass, a program of the night’s activities and even the winner’s sheet, two hours before they were even announced. I felt quite important.

Needless to say we went straight to the VIP room, on the 5th floor, to enjoy some expensive champagne whilst admiring the view of the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Waterloo Bridge and the River Thames. (more…)