alix martin: designer & developer

gio compario blog

Ever wondered what the ‘Gocompare Man’ gets up to in his spare time?

To help build the PR and marketing around the character of Gio Compario we created a blog for him.

We wanted the blog to be completely bespoke and tailored to the design of the adverts that were live at the time.

To achieve this I designed the blog in Photoshop and then modified the CSS and PHP of a blank Wordpress theme to create a brand new unique theme based on my design.

hell's bent

Hell’s Bent is an alternative gay night in Cardiff. It was set up to counter the mainstream gay scene that didn’t quite satisfy everyone’s musical tastes.

I worked with the promoters to create an edgy brand identity and a website to accompany their Facebook activity.

I designed the site using Photoshop and worked with an illustrator who provided the navigation artwork. The site is hand coded and I also taught the promoters some simple HTML and CSS to allow them to update the site.

visit the site »

top trumps

To accompany the Hell’s Bent website I created a flash game based on the classic card game ‘Top Trumps’.

The Hell’s Bent brand is quite tongue in cheek and we wanted the game to be consistent with the brand voice.

I designed the game and created the supporting graphics but worked with an Illustrator to create the characters. I coded the game in ActionScript.

play the game »

gio on coconut island

Play as everyone’s favourite Welsh/Italian Tenor Gio Compario as he’s cast away on Coconut Island.

I created the game for Gocompare.com to accompany the launch of their second round of Gio Compario adverts in 2010. The game echoes the Robinson Crusoe story from the first advert.

We wanted the game to be a bit of fun and to encourage competition between players for the highest score.

I created the game using Illustrator, Photoshop and Flash.

play the game »

infographic

I created this infographic for the charity Welsh Women’s Aid as part of the Cardiff Design Festival 2011.

It was important, given the nature of the subject to ensure the design was clean, easy to digest but also hard hitting.

The infographic was exhibited at the Sho Gallery in Roath, and later in the Cardiff Story Exhibition in the Hayes.

chip shooter

Whilst working for Sony I created a Flash game to help promote their manufacturing software, TiMMS. The game focuses on placing microchips onto circuit boards in a set time limit.

The design of the game aims to echo the software in a playful way and invite visitors to the site to compete against each other for a high score.

I designed all the elements of the game and wrote the code using ActionScript.

play the game »