It’s taken a little while, but I’ve just finished giving a little facelift to the Angelfield website. Last night I did a quick Wordpress install, customised to serve as a simple comments page in case any visitors wanted to leave a message.

I’d already changed the look of the main site, making it more of a tribute to Brian, who died tragically last September. He was the singer in the band, a fine musician and lyricist, and my best friend.

We formed Angelfield some time in the late eighties, although we’d been playing music together for many years before that.

As well as music, anyone that knew Brian would know also of his love of horses and racing. With that in mind, his family and friends have sponsored a race in his memory.

The Brian Spencer Memorial Chase is taking place at Plumpton on the 9th of May as part of Family Raceday 2010.

According to the Plumpton Racecourse site the Family Raceday is “an action packed programme of family entertainments … with Free Entry for children under 16″.

So if you’d like to have a child-friendly fun day out, remembering Brian and the good times, in the company of old friends (and horses), then get down to Plumpton on the 9th May. I think there are coaches being organised too, I’ll update this post when I find out more about that.

Election Graphics, Virtual Reality and Swingometers

So, they’re off! The 2010 Election Campaign starts now, and while most people will be wondering who’ll be in No.10 next month, I’m wondering who’ll come out on top in the Election Graphics stakes.

The last BBC Election programme I worked on was back in 2006, and there’s a part of me that misses the excitement of a live election broadcast. Often weeks, months (sometimes years) of work all come together for one almighty extravaganza. A nail-biting marathon of TV graphics where the entire programme is only a power-cut away from disaster.

I notice the BBC has launched its Election 2010 website – and among other things they already have a nice interactive swingometer here with a neat explanation from Jeremy Vine for the uninitiated.

There’s a possible hint of the Election night graphics by way of a branded banner at the top of all of the Election 2010 web pages : party-coloured discs or buttons radiating from a central point.

It’s hard to say whether this is ‘Campaign’ branding, or ‘Election’ branding – I would guess by now that the various departments are all working to the same design guidelines by now.

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