Friend of FFF, Matt W. Moore has updated his site with a whole host of stunning new work featuring his signature style of bold, angular “Vectorfunk”. Equally at home on Beer bottles, ski wear, urban sculptures, trainers, wall murals or ray-bans Matt’s art seemingly injects an energy to whatever it touches.

If you didn’t see it at the time, also check out our interview with Matt back in 2011 at OFFF.

The Mighty Pencil, run Ben O’Brien, Laura Barnard, Abi Daker and Steven Bonner, is an independent not-for-profit organisation that works together with a select group of professional illustrators, including Aaron Miller, Tom Hovey and Sam Gilbey.

They are not an agency. All of their illustrators work independently, coming together as a collective under The Mighty Pencil banner to produce self-published pieces, such as an annual book of their work. If you’re interested in requesting one of their books, get in touch here.

Interactive designer and founder of the excellent Typetoken, Mike Sullivan (aka Mister) has launched his slick new site, featuring a whole host of tight, considered work for a client list as long as Shaq’s arm.

Some of you may remember last month’s Steer feature, where we introduced the London-based team of developers and designers, who aimed to teach people to code. From scratch. In one week.

It was Steer’s one week commitment that most intrigued us, so we sent FFF’er Jack Daly – a complete coding novice – to check out the course and report back.

Find out how he got on…

Day 1

After a 3.30AM rise to make the Glasgow to London sleepless train I had been a little worried that a lack of Z’s might leave me a off the pace for the day ahead – those fears were only compounded when the train ground to a standstill for an hour, meaning I wouldn’t make the 10am class start.

I needn’t have worried.

Even turning up a full hour after the class began, the Steer team made sure I didn’t miss out. Rik went through the various lessons at a pace everyone could keep up with, and even though i’d missed the start Tim was straight on hand with one-on-one tuition to cover everything i’d previously missed. By lunch I was fully up to speed.

On the first day – and throughout the week – everyone was well fed and watered, with a variety of fresh fruit, pastries and nibbles available, before a lunch of salad’s, wraps and sandwiches. There was also a steady flow of tea and coffee.

The first morning was spent going through the basics of HTML or “the bones of the internet”. We learnt how to structure basic content, into head and body, while bringing hierarchy to our typography with headers, paragraphs and a variety of listing code, before introducing links, images and video content. Finally dealing with meta tags to ensure our sites links would be best represented in Google, Facebook and Twitter. Read more

Historically there’s been a clear divide between designers and developers, with the handover of static photoshop pages sometimes their only interaction. However, times are changing. With ever increasing platforms to design for and more possibilities for interacting with digital technology, there’s never been a better time for true collaboration.

That’s where Steer come in.

Having launched in Clerkenwell, London, Steer aim to “teach the world to code”. With an expert, multi-disciplined teaching team, Steer will be running a series of intensive, one week courses in front end and back end web development, from early April. The front end development course in particular is of interest, as it aims to teach complete novices to code in one week.

We spoke to Steer co-founder Rik Lomas to find out more about the project.

Q. There are a number of courses teaching people to code, but we haven’t seen any others which claim to teach novices in one week. This almost sounds too good to be true, what gives you such confidence?

A. Our courses are intensive, we pack a lot into 5 days to make sure participants get their money’s worth. All you need is a smart mind and a willingness to try. Coding is one of the most creative skills you can learn, you can make anything – from silly animations using cat GIFs to companies the size of Facebook. Children aged 9 are learning to code with initiatives like Code Club (http://www.codeclub.org.uk), so if they can do it, anyone can. Once you break the first few walls down, it’s amazing how quickly people pick it up, especially people who’ve already got en eye for design. It’s a natural progression.

Q. The Front End Developer course is likely to be popular with traditional graphic designers who have a background in print, what are the main benefits you’d expect them to take away from this?

A. By the end of the course, designers would be able to create the sites that they design. Learning to code will help them better understand the medium and context that they’re working in, and can only make them more valuable. It’s a bit of a no-brainer.

There was a great article called Designing With Code by Jeremy Bell from Teehan+Lax who said that “if great design is not only aesthetics but also how it works, then it’s time to make development part of the creative process”. This is something that we totally agree with. The best designers are the ones that truly understand the medium.

Q. There are online coding courses with good reputations, what are the benefits of learning at Steer HQ?

Learning online has one fundamental problem – what happens when you get stuck? Most people I’ve spoken to who have tried to learn online have hit a wall and stopped. Learning with a teacher fixes this, and, crucially, a big part of what we do at Steer is teaching them how to get over getting stuck.

A. When learning online, you have to plough in a fixed direction, but we want our students to ask as many questions as possible. Often they’ll have a specific goal in mind – a business or a specific process they want to fully understand – and we can help them get there. Online courses will never be able to do that.

Q. You’re currently based in Clerkenwell, are there any plans to branch out to other UK cities?

Not yet, London is currently our home but the whole team is from around the UK. I’m from Manchester and I know there’s a great design community up there. Calum’s from Glasgow and there’s some awesome designers there too. It’s something that we’re planning to do but in the meantime, we’re looking for affordable deals to let people stay over in London for the courses.

We’ve partnered with Steer to offer FFF readers 10% off their courses – to take advantage of the offer use this link.

A small but considered section work from the appropriately named, Well Made.

We’re loving the stunning still life and product photography from London based, Sara Morris. The recent 100% Design Ads work – commissioned by Form – is a particular favourite.

A big thanks goes to Lewie Evans for this submission, he’s the winner of our Eden Giveaway.

There are an almost infinite number of Iphone skins, covers and cases available today, but Hannover-based Eden aimed to do something a little different.

Looking to create something unique, Eden have produced a range of sustainable, FSC-certified, wooden veneer covers which actually replace the glass backplate of your phone. The iPhone remains exactly the same original width, meaning it can fit into docking stations.

FFF have one of these to give away, in order to win it, simply send us an FFF-worthy post. All we need is a link to an agency, photographer, illustrator or event who we haven’t previously featured. Not as easy as you might think! At the moment the covers are on available for the Iphone 4 & 4s (our giveaway cover is for the 4s).

We’ll pick and post our favourite submission tomorrow and a natural Eden cover will be on it’s way to the winner.

All entries to submissions[at]formfiftyfive.com Mark them “Eden – Giveaway Post“.

Better late than never. Longtime friends of FFF, D8, launched their new, responsive site at the turn of the year. In addition to the site, there’s a host of excellent new work on show. Our personal favourite is the comprehensive Helix identity.

It’s been three years since we last featured the work of New York artist Nathan Manire. In that time his intricately detailed line style has evolved to a more pointillism approach, before arriving at the current, measured graphic style. Lovely stuff.

Having watched Indie Game: The Movie last year, we were truly inspired by the process, creativity and dedication of the individuals who produce these retro games.

That’s why we were particularly excited when NAVE arrived in the FFF inbox. Created by Hernán and Máximo, the format is a classic shoot-em-up where the aim is to survive an alien onslaught for as long as possible, while the styling is reduced, monochrome pixel art. Hernán and Máximo ensured success is hard fought, with first timers are regularly obliterated within seconds.

To hammer home the nostalgia of the experience the game is only available to play on arcade. The arcade unit was created by four other creatives El Gaita, Goyo, Axtor and Fer, who kept a ‘making of’ video diary (in Spanish). The Arcade and game are currently on tour of Argentina, with the aim of continuing to the US, Europe and beyond.

“I’ve seen it live and I can say that just by seeing the cabinet, you can appreciate that we are dealing with a work of art.” Santiago Figueroa, Irrompibles Magazine, Argentina.

The NAVE collaboration is also the first project promoted through Author’s Bay: South. Formed by Tom Garcia and Nando Sarmiento, Author’s Bay: South is a latin american community of artists curating artists. Tom and Nando felt latin american creative talent wasn’t getting the international exposure it needed to survive and thrive, so Author’s Bay plans to curate and promote the best design, indie games and music from the region.

It sounds like a worthy project and FFF wish them every success. The NAVE tour appears to be the perfect start in spreading the word.

If you’re interested in helping NAVE continue their tour, contact navearcade[at]videogamo.com.

Absolutely loving the, clean, simple work of Helsinki-based Werklig. Beautiful site too, particularly like how their strategy is presented in the Approach section.

Founded by ex directors of The Face magazine, Suburbia are producing beautiful art directed advertising and editorial design for a whose who of fashion clients.

Loving the surreal quality and depth of Birmingham-based photo-illustrator Matt Walford’s work. Particularly intrigued by the architectural twist in the ‘Portal’ nature series.

Substance are a creative agency in Hong Kong specializing in identity, strategy, advertising, digital and interior design.

While their work is diverse, there seems to be a noticeable house style, of delicate, intricate detail which runs through much of it, certainly through the more recent projects. Well worth a look.