I recently managed to get my hands on Adobe CS4 (master/ultimate/uber) Suite. I usually use Illustrator, Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash and Dreamweaver which is a fair portion of what is on offer and up front I think there are some really nice new work flow features and productivity enhancements but over all I find the suite incredibly laggy.

It doesn’t take much from the overall resources of my machine (even with all the apps open), however the apps themselves (even running solo) come across as very bulky. Tacky. Wobbly to the point where you feel it is a little unstable and in some cases it does all come crashing down.

Flash has some really awesome enhancements, Photoshop too. Illustrator I have not used excessively enough to have spotted major differences or enhancements. Fireworks on the other hand comes across as refined, stable and slightly light footed versus the CS3 version.

Overall I am in two minds about CS4. I feel Adobe rushed this out to the public with some great ideas (especially around the GUI), however failed completely on execution. So I am stuck wondering if I want the speed and near good reliability of CS3, or do I want the sexy new features of the slow, vista-like CS4.

Would love to know what other designers / adobe product users think.

Sony Music required a cd folder designed for a collection of country rock music. Below is the final design. The concept was a “Tangled Journey” through the years of country rock. The cd holder and cover are designed to let the listener learn more about their favourite country rock artists as they sat relaxing to their music.

Cell C Sound of the cities was a microte created for Cell C designed and developed to cater for the content and brand requirements of Sounds of the City by Cell C. In a nutshell Sounds of the city was organising local artists performing on one evening at different cities across South Africa.  Each artist had to be featured on the site which included photographs, a short bio and of course samples of their music.

The entire GUI was created in flash, with some content beign xml generated to help on download speed and allowing for further last minute updates if required.

Below are some screenshots of the project and look out for a live version coming soon.

Ciza Kicka is a game I designed and developed for Cell C using Adobe Flash. The concept is to keep the ball bouncing on your mouse cursor without letting touch the ground. Each time a ball hits the ground you lose a ball. When all the balls are finished the game is over.

Ciza Kicka was created to bring awareness of a new product range of recharge vouchers being sold by South Africa’s mobile operator, Cell C.

(interact with the flash application below)

Lead design of www.nedbank.co.za including wire framing, information design, usability and user experience. The site was run by a propriety content management system requiring design templates for various areas. These were custom designed templates with a custom designed navigation paradigm to cater for the various divisions, products and services offered to the user.

The website generated close to a million rand return of investment each month with the below designs.

More screenshots to be added – watch this space