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This month I bought myself a new DSLR camera, which is a big deal. Any “major” piece of technology like that requires lots of love and attention so naturally the first thing I did was start looking for bags, accessories and assorted camera swag.

What I found on Fancy is that there is a thriving community of people creating cracking leather goods, photo gadgets and more. Here are a handful of my top picks:

Got some camera swag you just love? Share it in the comments below!

The post Shopping Spree! Camera swag appeared first on dpgoodfellow.

Ice generally comes in two varieties – the one that cools your drink, and the one that ruins your life. In what many are calling the “latest luxury trend” though, the cooling variety has just gotten cooler. Enter Artisanal Ice.

So what is “Artisanal Ice”?

Put simply, it’s fancy ice cubes. Insanely fancy ice cubes.

“Artisan Ice” is meticulously crafted cubes of ice. The crafting process starts with specially filtered water that is frozen into giant 100kg+ blocks, stored in custom built and conditioned ice sheds and then cut by hand (or “harvested”, as they say – seriously) and served up into the finest cocktails.

Sound over the top? Watch the video below from Texan Ice House, Half Step, below and see for yourself:

Why would you spend money on that?

Apparently, it’s better. Customers of Artisan Ice bars have been known to get upset when supplies run out and according to the people behind the bars there’s good reason. Artisanal Ice melts slower, is much clearer, looks nicer and and produces a better tasting drink.

That’s why it can cost as much as $1 per cube.

*Wait, wait wait* That is pricey, but before you get all troll-y in the comments, it’s worth noting that ‘a cube’ is not your average cube – a single one can do you for a whole cocktail. And because its one large block, rather than lots of little ones, it also won’t water down your drink as quickly – making it more enjoyable for longer.

This blogger is yet to try it, but if the rumours are true then I wouldn’t mind forking out an extra dollar on the odd occasion. Hell, bottled water sells for more than petrol these days, so who am I to stick my nose up at ice for a buck a block.

How do I get some?

I expect it’s not the kind of thing that travels well, so you probably shouldn’t search for it on eBay. The only real way to get it is to go to a special bar that serves Artisanal Ice.

Such bars seem to only exist in the United States for the time being, like Second State for example. At this stage, it doesn’t look like there are any in Australia, though if there were I’d put my money in finding them in Newtown, Bondi or Melbourne. Tell me if you find one!

Have you tried an Artisan Ice cocktail? want to try one? Tell me in the comments!

The post What is “Artisanal Ice”? appeared first on dpgoodfellow.

I spend a ton of time creating social media content – everything from Facebook images to videos and full websites. Whether you do all that, or just a few things here or there, you’re bound to end up using the logos or branding assets for the major social networks. There’s tons of bad quality or off brand ones floating around the inter webs, so I thought I’d put them all together here to save me time (and hopefully you too!)

It’s worth noting that many of these assets change regularly, so I’ll try my best to keep this blog updated with the latest ones. These are all the ones I use regularly too, but if you’d like to request an extra one in the comments I’ll try to track it down.

Facebook brand assets and guidelines

Understandably, Facebook’s brand guidelines are probably the biggest, have the most individual elements and the most possible uses. At the FacebookBrand centre, you can download .jpeg .PSD and .EPS formats of the Facebook ‘f’ logo, ‘Like’ buttons, iconic thumbs up, icons for business and screenshots for Facebook apps.

To help understand all the assets and how they work, the boffins in Facebook’s graphic design team have even created an identity guideline ebook that features 71 pages of in depth details on how to use the branding.

Twitter brand assets and guidelines

The guidelines for Twitter are very detailed, and describe how to use the twitter bird, follower buttons, fonts, colours, naming conventions and displaying twitter content on-and-offline. You can download all of the twitter logos and buttons here, in .EPS and png formats and worth reading all the do’s and don’ts that are included too.

LinkedIn brand assets and guidelines

LinkedIn’s brand guidelines have lots of text, and a couple of icons. The professional social network seems to pride itself on its branding simplicity, and compared to Twitter and Facebook these guidelines mainly focus on how different entities should use the brand assets. There are different formats for developers, enterprises, media and other user groups. Have a look here, and see which one you are.

High res versions of the LinkedIn logos aren’t found directly with the guidelines, you need to go to the media-resources page here to get them.

Instagram brand assets and guidelines

The two images above are basically all you’ve got when it comes to Instagram. The guidelines display the written logo, but explicitly say “We don’t license the use of the Instagram logo from this website”. So avoid that to save headaches. There are still a bunch of helpful tips for using the different icons, so click here to check them out.

You won’t actually be able to download the Instagram brand assets unless you visit the press centre here. (they’re located at the bottom of the page).

YouTube Brand Assets and Guidelines

YouTube has a bunch of specific guidelines, but the ones that are relevant to you depend on what your relationship to YouTube is. There are different ones for Partners & Advertisers, Entertainment & Media, Device Partners and API Developers. Make sure you check which set of guidelines apply to you – there are a lot of similarities, but also a lot of differences.

You can download all the YouTube logos and assets here.

Google+ brand assets and guidelines

Remember all the multi-coloured logos that people were using when G+ first launched? Well they were waaaaayyyy off brand, apparently. Google+’s brand guidelines are neat and simple, there are a couple of variations on the +1 and a “sign in with Google” buttons but that’s it.

Pinterest brand assets and guidelines

Two images and a bunch of bullet points. Pinterest’s brand guidelines are simple, pretty and straight forward. You can download the “Pinterest” logo and the “P” logo in .PNG and .EPS formats via this link.

WordPress brand assets and guidelines

WordPress seems to have had problems with people “faking” their logo, so there’s a lot of notes on how to spot the bad ones in the company’s brand guidelines. There’s a ton of variations that are acceptable with the wordpress logo (which is awesome for when you’re working with a difficult background or canvas size!).

They’ve also made it really easy for people who have to create layouts for multiple devices, by making it easy to download the logo in a huge rage of different sizes to fit particular smartphones, operating systems and other environments. Click here to see the full set of logos and assets.

Tumblr brand assets and guidelines

Tumblr probably has the coolest brand guidelines of all the social networks. There’s very little you can’t do – they even let you play around with background colours and containers for the logo.

As well as giving you a bunch of styles and formats to choose from, they’ve also taken the time to create a bunch of animated .gifs that show you how each logo looks in different contexts. The do’s and don’t guide is a lot more visual than the other social media platforms, and looks a lot nicer too. You can check out all the different branding variations, as well as the rules for using them here

Vine brand assets and guidelines

As you’d expect, Vine’s brand guidelines are fairly small. Basically use the official files and give it the logo a 150% buffer and that’s it. The brand guidelines site does have some very useful tips on how you should embed vine videos, so be sure to check them out. The full guidelines and logo assets can be found here.

Snapschat brand assets and guidelines

At the time this blog post was published, Snapchat did not have any branding assets or guidelines available on their website. However, I have reached out to their press team for further information and will update this post once they respond.

Foursquare (and Swarm!) brand assets and guidelines

With one of the newest social media brands on the block, Foursquare and its new sister app Swarm have a brand spanking new set of logos and guidelines that are absolutely stunning. Like Facebook, they also have a helpful Brand Guide ebook that is a very manageable 19 pages long.

There are a number of variations on the foursquare logo, including those for businesses, developers and media. All logos are downloadable as .PNG and .EPS files here.

StumbleUpon brand assets and guidelines

The guys at StumbleUpon are pretty relaxed when it comes to their brand guidelines. You can download the three versions of the StumbleUpon logo in their press centre here, and there’s only six bullet points of guide lines you need to think about. Just use the logos provided in their press centre, don’t make out like you’re in business with them (unless you actually are!), and don’t make them look bad – pretty easy!

SlideShare brand assets and guidelines

Slideshare is fairly loose on its guidelines compared to many of the other social networks. The website only lists logo variations with black and white backgrounds, as well as LinkedIn combination logos. For those who weren’t aware, LinkedIn acquired Slideshare in for $119 Million in 2012.

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