online chatYou can now chat to me directly on this website. This is just the latest step in Ed Townend Does Design!’s ongoing commitment to provide the best and most personal customer service in the entire graphic design sector.

Don’t forget this is just one of the ways you can contact me – there’s also email, phone, Facebook, Twitter, and vuvuzela.

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Hello!

I'm Edward Townend. I'm Graphic and Web Designer, Photographer and (improving) Web Developer based in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK. I run the design agency Townend Creative LimitedThis is my blog, and I'll be keeping it updated with articles of interest to the graphic design and photography community, as well as any updates that happen in my World.

I’m Listening To:

It is with great pleasure that Ed Townend Does Design can announce his partnership with Kiriix Limited. This alliance means that Kiriix benefits from the design expertise of Ed Townend Does Design! in its eCommerce ventures, from graphical elements to colour schemes to CSS.

Kiriix is a UK web host based in Thurnscoe, Rotherham, whose selling point is highly personable and knowledgeable support. Kiriix also has several endeavours in eCommerce, including Lightfoot Wines and Subcool Gadgets (currently under development). Ed Townend Does Design! is proud to be associated with such a strong brand.

This is a work in progress so you won’t see any results quite yet, but keep an eye on those eCommerce projects!

Don’t think this means Ed Townend Does Design! is too busy to work on your project though. Please contact me to discuss your requirements for graphic or web design.

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Selling my faulty Macbook Pro now I’ve replaced it with a Sony VAIO Z. Here’s the lowdown in case you fancy getting it repaired for yourself:

At the time of writing the laptop will not boot, but instead the fans spin with no display output. I understand the issue to be the solder on the graphics processor that has failed, a company named Retronix in Scotland offered to repair it for around £80, but I don’t have time to wait for it, I need a laptop for work! The RAM has been upgraded from the standard 2GB to 4GB of 800MHZ Kingston memory.

Good points:
- Casing is in excellent condition for the two years of use, no dints, other than some very minor scuffs it’s perfect!
- Upgraded to 4GB RAM, it flies at Photoshop or pretty much anything!
- Battery was replaced just under 9 months ago, still offers the expected 5 hours of battery life
- This was the multi-touch model of the MacBook Pro, the last one made before the switch to the new unibody style
- I chose the LED backlit matte screen option, so it’s perfect for photo editing
- Just the one owner, me, who’s been very careful with the laptop, and it’s very rarely left the (non-smoking) house
- Comes in original box with power supply, install CDs and the original DVI-VGA adapter in unused condition

Known problems:
- You need to have a folded post-it note just under the battery, otherwise the keyboard can stop working occasionally. It’s not a big problem, just something to remember to replace should you remove the battery (this is a very common issue)
- There’s a tiny slightly lighter spot in the bottom corner of the screen, not really noticeable, but worth pointing out
- For a while now the fans have seemed to run a little faster than usual, this is probably because of the dodgy GPU solder
- Of course, the fact that it doesn’t always turn on! Though of course Retronix are offering to fix this, I can put the winning bidder in touch with them.

Please see here for the list of specs:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/stats/macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2.4-15-early-2008-penryn-specs.html

UPDATE: The MacBook has sold for £410.

Also selling a Sigma 18 – 200 mm lens, Canon fit:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260600018137

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Just a note to say that I’ve just registered http://www.teamtownend.co.uk so you can now access this site at either the .com or .co.uk. Email also reaches me at either suffix now.

Repeatedly setting DNS servers is boring.

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I thought I might as well at the very least reserve my name on Twitter, so today I went ahead and signed up. You can find me at www.twitter.com/edwardtownend. I think we’ll have a weekly digest of tweets on here to summarise what’s been going on (if I actually remember to tweet.)

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Edward Townend's Portfolio

Couldn’t help thinking my portfolio is a bit hard to find on this new blog, so I decided I needed a post to highlight it. You can see a selection work I did in my Graphic Design course at College and in my Freelance career so far at www.teamtownend.com/portfolio

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image

Note the file number!

So it’s the 10,000th photo taken with my Canon 400D, I thought it deserved some sort of commemoration. I know that’s not such a crazy huge number considering I’ve had the camera three years, but hey I was half expecting something really exciting to happen since 9,999 is all the counter goes up to, but all it did was create a new folder and prefix (101) and start again from zero.

The photo? Taken in Sainsbury’s car park, Chester. The automatic white balance doesn’t work with streetlamps it seems from the histogram. I liked how the trolleys started off in regimented rowns then gave way to disruption. I’ll upload it or one of the others soon if they’re any good.

Incidentally this is the first post written, photo added and published using the WordPress Android app on my T-Mobile G1. It seems okay, bit of a clunky interface and not sure if it’ll scale the image but usable none the less.

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