Alloy will be attending The Front End of Innovation conference in Boston next week, if you are there, or in the area, get in touch as we would love to hear from you !

We’ve been wanting to refresh our meeting rooms for a while. Following the shift to an employee owned company, we, the team, decided this was something we wanted to lead. So, like any strong democracy, we spent a lot of time debating what needed to be done, and who was going to do it !

We asked a select team of Alloy designers to create the Alloy 2012 Advent Calendar – hoping for a smart interpretation of the concept - something we could all admire. The result was the Stella calendar…. Not something many of us would immediately associate with Christmas, but one that has tugged the heart strings of the team here.

Alloy to speak at ‘Designing a People Centred Future’ – Helsinki, 2012 World Design Capital. Alloy will outline how future services will be delivered, and how the roots of such behaviour lies at the heart of ‘personal computing’ borne from the counter culture revolution in the 1960’s. The event is curated by The Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network and the Science & Innovation Network, both bodies supported by the UK Govt.

Take a look at the speech by Alloy's very own Geoff McCormick.

Inspired by the TV programme Man Vs Food, Alloy team members have been regularly attempting to consume ‘The Mulberry Challenge’ – a mammoth burger and chips created by one of our local pubs. To date, many have tried, none have succeeded, but like true pro’s, this hasn’t put us off. Nor has the ever increasing size of the dish. Our Health & Safety representatives ensure that this doesn’t happen more than once a 1/4 to ensure we don’t kill any staff members .

There are quite a few petrolheads and boy-racers in the Alloy team, so we often drive (slowly) down to Thruxton to determine who walks the walk, and who can only talk. It turns out that Paul used to race competitively, so the rest of us are left ‘chasing the silver’. Those of us who aren’t such keen racing drivers are amazed to learn how tiring sitting down can be.

Alloy will host a stand at the forthcoming TETRA World Congress in Dubai, and will speak at the congress on the importance of understanding the rapidly changing technology platforms, the resultant change in human and organisational behaviours, and how this will affect the delivery of ‘Blue Light’ services.

Having created the employee ownership trust to share the ownership of TheAlloy amongst it's people last year, you might have expected Gus to have been taking it easy in 2010. However, in October, Gus took on the role of Chairman of British Design Innovation, the representative body for British industrial designers. Gus confirmed that "A key priority for me will be to improve our internal communications in both directions", adding "I want to ensure that members, who own the organisation, are fully aware of what is being done on their behalf, and give them a stronger voice in deciding the collective activities we should focus on."

You may remember that in an earlier article we mentioned our work with the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network (CIKTN). Since then we have completed our first project exploring the future of digital content distribution & experiences...

Touchscreen interfaces have changed the way we interact with our mobile devices, but do they represent the best possible user experience? With the Fuse handset, TheAlloy have set about solving two problems which blight the usability of current touch screen phones...

TheAlloy team up with T3 & Medion to design the Future Tech Akoya netpad. As part of T3’s FutureTech ’09 campaign, T3 and Medion commissioned TheAlloy to create a vision for the future of netbooks.

TheAlloy launch the Beacons for Innovation survey at Power to the Pixel. This morning TheAlloy announced the launch of its first consultation with the creative industries as part of the Beacons for Innovation projects it is carrying out in conjunction with the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network.

The first episode of Electric Dreams – BBC4’s new series charting the life of a family as they live through the technological development of the last three decades will air this evening (Tues 29th Sept.) at 9pm...

TheAlloy are pleased to announce the latest product from their automotive design programme: The Type 35 Soapbox. Senior designer, Ben Griffin, lead the project in response to a brief for a compact, emission free racer with which to take on the grassy bends and bumps of a welsh hillside...

TheAlloy bid to launch a Cambridge Wireless SIG on Tuesday 2nd July, in the old music room at St Johns College Cambridge, TheAlloy held a special event on the topic of User Experience prior to the Cambridge Wireless Founders Dinner...

Siemens NX were looking to demonstrate the work of a consultancy they considered to be a 'best practice' intelligent user of their product. They chose us because of our long successfull track record in NX and the innovative, open minded ways we use the tool. Visit the Siemens case-study of Alloy's practices here

Future Gazing for T3 – Welcome to the world circa 2019 Following on from the success of the 01 Phone T3 magazine turned to TheAlloy to see what the future might look like ten years from today, in 2019.

Lean Innovation: more human insight, less risk In this article for Business First magazine, TheAlloy’s Gus Desbarats describes how design in the form of lean innovation, can be used to mitigate risk and provide opportunities for businesses to move forward in a recession. Read the full article here

TheAlloy deliver new insights into social networking for elders. Director Nina Warburton delivers a paper on social networking for elders at international inclusive design conference Include ’09, held at the Royal College of Art in London...

TheAlloy wins Best Creative Industry in Surrey Business Awards. On Thursday 2nd April TheAlloy joined a host of other leading Surrey based companies for a night of cork popping at the lovely Saville Court Hotel In Windsor Great Park for the unveiling of the Surrey Business Awards. TheAlloy beat strong competition...

TheAlloy chairman Gus Desbarats looks beyond the ubiquitious touchscreen handset for differentiation in the mobile market. Read the story here.

TheAlloy have been shortlisted as one of the three creative industries finalists for the Surrey Business Awards. Whilst we have won many awards in our 10 year history, this is the first time we have been shortlisted for an award that is to do with the way we run our business, rather than specifically for our design skills...

The launch of the 01 phone elicited countless emails and comments to message boards, and hundreds of emails to T3 and TheAlloy.com websites. Some were seemingly sent by Bill and / or Ted “Yo Alloy, you rock, dudes !”.

Others offered a more considered form of constructive criticism. The idea of integrated wireless headphones and a self contained ‘mini-phone’ was seen as challenging by many, and like all good designers, we have reacted accordingly.

The results can be seen in the March edition of T3 and we are sure they will be passionately discussed by ever more people. In fact, we are taking it to Barcelona to the Mobile World Congress to show the big boys how it should be done.

We’ll let you know how we get on.

Download the full pdf of the article here. 
www.the01phone.com 
www.T3.com

Yesterday, Monday 2nd Feb, TheAlloy were forced to call a snow day when Surrey was swathed under a foot thick blanket of snow. A few gallant souls made it in, but most were snow bound and trapped...

Following its exposure on MSN, the 01 phone project continues to gain momentum as the latest visuals and specifications for the device are revealed in the January edition of T3 magazine. Reader feedback on the design will be incorporated into the next design generation, so watch this space...

TheAlloy designed BT Baby Monitor 150 has scooped gold in the Mother & Baby magazine awards - beating a number of top brands, including Tomy, Phillips-Avent and Tommee Tippee. BT Retail senior propositions manager Daniel Sanders, who collected the award for best baby monitor, said: “The award again demonstrated how excellence in design and usability can underpin sustainable business success...

TheAlloy collaborated with gadget magazine T3 to create their vision of the ultimate mobile phone. A couple of months ago T3 had got a bit tired of reviewing the various mobile phones on offer and thought they might have a go at creating the perfect gadget themselves. Their first attempt got a bit of a lukewarm reception so they decided that they had best hook up with some professionals and have another go...

Nina Warburton is a Director of Product and Interaction Design consultancy TheAlloy. She is also one of the leading proponents of inclusive design. In this article she outlines the importance and potential impact of inclusive design and highlights the breakthroughs that can be achieved by embedding inclusive design principles into the creation of technology products and services...

TheAlloy at Siemens PLM Europe 2008 TheAlloy shared their experiences with NX Industrial Design at the Siemens PLM Europe 2008 conference. TheAlloy chairman Gus Desbarats explained how classic Industrial Design is viewed as an up front process, then the data is sent to engineering for completion....

In September ’08 TheAlloy were invited to talk at the Universal Design Business Symposium in Tokyo Japan. There, Gus Desbarats gave a talk entitled ‘Breaking down the barriers to real and effective universal design’...

Leading design consultancy TheAlloy has won, in association with strategic partner British Telecom, a silver award in this year’s DBA Design Effectiveness Awards. TheAlloy secured the award for BT’s Baby Monitor Plus by rapidly establishing 20% share in a new market through the excellence of the design and product execution...

TheAlloy have designed the latest Home Hub from BT, launched last week in a barrage of publicity. The successful completion of the BT Home Hub project marks another highlight in the longstanding strategic partnership between BT and TheAlloy. The two companies have worked on numerous projects over many years...

How user-focused innovation can accelerate mass adoption of IPTV When it comes to mass market consumerism there are four products that chart modern life; the car, the mobile phone, the PC and the television. Each, to varying extents, is experiencing levels of convergence, especially from the pull generated by the broadening distribution of digital content...