The Cosmonauts

A simple wallpaper image with our three window rocket:

Downolad the one that better fits your computer:

· Vostok Wallpaper 1280 x 800 (.png file)

· Vostok Wallpaper 2560 x 1600 (.png file)

We congratulate Mark MacKay for acquiring his first Canadian passport. O Canada, Mark’s home and native land, with glowing hearts he sees thee rise, he stands on guard for thee…

And now DANCE with us!!

You suddenly realize the world is well designed after you have a big plate of Mixiote Chicken (Mixiote Wheat Gluten for María) cooked by our always surprising comrade Mark Mackay.

We are back! July was a tough and intense month. We closed may projects and left nothing (or almost nothing) pending so we could go to Vigo to focus on new stuff and relax a bit. It was more relax than focus but hey… we deserved it. August was complete disconnection from the studio matters and now… Man, we are back. New projects on the horizon, freshness and a huge blackboard…

August is for crafty stuff. Laura and Daniel helped us made a blackboard out of a spare wall in our new office and they documented it in this lovely video:

Yeah, keep being awesome!

(Vía Blogadilla)

We are about to launch something big pretty soon… Green light was received and the countdown will start right now. In the meantime feast your eyes on this amazing collection of pictures of launches:

We’ve been condecorated. After a huge load of work we deserved a reward. You don’t deliver/launch three projects in one month and move to a new office all at the same time.

Four beautiful timepieces (just three on the picture) have arrived at the office, each for one of the cosmonauts. They all are the same: the classic SEIKO 6139-7100 Helmet (a.k.a. Darth Vader) a collectors item (Spanish) and a very reliable wristwatch.

These watches were released to the market around 1972 and after more than thirty years they work just nice. Here is a good picture where you can see its beauty. And errr… yes, they also have the “vostok palette”:

Image courtesy of Jay IntrenUK

Go ahead, ask us for the time!

We just moved to a more convenient office. Our phone number has changed, please write down the new one:

Vostok’s new phone number: +34 91 1823291

Yes, we left the Old Hairdressers’ behind. It’s sad but that’s life.

Un, deux, trois, quatre!

We proudly introduce you thecosmonaut.org and its Spanish counterpart elcosmonauta.es: the website for the movie The Cosmonaut which we mentioned some time ago.

Check it out! It has a cool store where you can buy merchandise and become a producer of the movie. The Cosmonaut is special for several reasons:

• The plot is awesome
• The movie is crowdfunded (anybody can be a producer)
• Everything will be released under Creative Commons license, free of cost
• The list of people who support the idea is amazing (in quantity and quality)

We, Vostok, designed and developed the website (in three weeks!!) falling in love with the project and becoming producers too, so expect a little friendly spam every now and then ;)

Yesterday Cosmonaut Sam Lown walked the talk, showcasing his talent on the unicycle. Sam made it look effortless, but our attempts to ride it were unsuccesful (lets just say “epic fail” was heard more than once).

Sam is not the only computer geek into unicycles: world renowned information theorist Claude Shannon (The guy who puts the S in Shannon & Weaver) was well known for riding his unicycle through the halls of Bell Labs, and was a founding member of the Unicycle Society of America.

Despite wise statistical objections and our tiny sample size (n=2), the vostok team is wishfully betting on a strong link between unicycles and computer science skills.

Tuenti, the leading social network in Spain just semi-released a new version and we, Vostok, collaborated with their design team assessing in usability and interaction design matters. It’s not like we are happy about it, it’s more like we are overflowing with pride.

Tuenti is one of the three most used websites in Spain together with Google and perhaps some online newspaper. Astronomic numbers on usage time, milions of active users and an indecent number of pictures uploaded everyday. It’s the drug our youngsters consume every day in Spain.

The project has not concluded yet and some changes are still to come. Usability testing, user feedback and tons of data help the team make the final adjustments before they release the new version to all users.

The new design includes a few new functionalities, improves legibility and makes easier to do the most common tasks (messaging, uploading pics, creating events…). Most of these changes are hard to see at a glance, they are subtle. They need to be used and *felt*. You know, it’s not just about how it looks but about how it behaves.

Today is April 12th and we celebrate the 58th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space on the Vostok 1 mission. It’s also a great day to make the following announcement:

We, Vostok, will be in charge of designing and producing the internet presence for a movie titled The Cosmonaut. It is special for many reasons, being the topic the most obvious one.Also, the movie will be crowdfunded (everybody will be able to become producer for a small amount of money) and released under Creative Commons license. That itself makes it very unique and special, but that’s not it. It will be filmed in Russian and some of the locations will be there as well. But there is more:

The movie is supported by (among others):

• Roskosmos (the Russian Space Agency)
• Richard Stallman
• Cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Boris Volynov
• the Russian Embassy in Spain
• Aeronautics and Astronautics Spanish Museum
• Luis Ruiz de Gopegui (former Director for NASA programs in Spain)
• etc.

The movie is a project by Riot Cinema, to be directed by Nicolás Alcalá, who runs a blog in Spanish with all the progress they are making.

A great day for announcing our collaboration in such a beautiful project. We are extremely excited about it.

Last friday we delivered 3 (yes, three) different projects and today we sort of finish the design part of another one. This is what it was all about:

• Reviewing and improving the usability of cool software application
• Designing a website for a BIG client which will be seen around the world
• Improving some crucial pages for a real state big player in Spain
• Redesigning a retail store with one of the coolest subscription services around

I am satisfied for the work done but it’s been intense and exhausting. We deserve a few days of rest. Cosmonauts will be released of their duties and will travel around a little bit (Madrid, Coruña, Granada…). I will leave the spaceship and get into one of these pods at hotel Aire de Bárdenas:

Enjoy the holidays!

Over the weekend we released our brand new one-page website at vostok.es.

During the past few months we’ve had the privilege of working with great clients, both start-ups and multi-nationals. It has been a great pleasure collaborating with partners and friends who understand the virtues of honest, simple, and well-thought design. Vostok’s rockets are still going full-thrust, we will keep you updated on recently completed projects.

This blog is also running under the new domain, but thanks to some ancient Apache magic conjuration you won’t even notice. We’re also giving away some limited-edition Planetaki T-Shirts, just pay the shipping and we will send it via a reliable courier. To get yours just visit our new website.

From now all the crew at Vostok will post on this blog. Consequently, we changed its name to “The Cosmonauts”. Expect some interesting stuff from Mark, Sam and María (besides myself).

We had some snow in Madrid and went out to have fun. Here’s Mark, enjoying the situation like a real man: