What is Earth Day 2020?

An Earth Day Like No Other

Based on 3SL logo and Photo by ATC Comm Photo from PexelsIt’s 50 years since the launch of Earth Day, and now nearly 200 countries coordinate a celebration of our fabulous home, with an important message that we need to look after it.

We may be the current custodians of this planet, but we share it with many. To them and ourselves, we have a duty of care. This year more than ever has demonstrated our own fragility. It’s demonstrated how we’re maybe not as invincible as we like to believe. Nature can be a strange beast. Whilst we may not be able to control nature, we can do our bit to care for what we have and ensure we don’t damage it.

As designers,  manufacturers and producers we need to consider how and whether what we engineer is beneficial and as non damaging to the environment as possible.

Whether you decide to; pick up that bit of litter on your exercise walk; choose a lower carbon or no meat meal; print double sided paper; leave the light off and the curtains open longer we can all make a difference. If the project you are working on uses resources, make sure you build environment requirements into your design. Make sure they assess and where possible lower the impact of the solution you choose.

 

Tutor Font – Lip-Flaoor

A Tutor’s New Best Friend

Lip-Flaoor keyboard font
Tutor using Lip-Flaoor on Keyboard

Whilst during lock-down,  it is not the most opportune time to be thinking about face to face training, we were interested to spot this little training aid. It should make classrooms and training seminars a lot easier for the tutor and teacher.

About-Face

Cradle on a computer based on unsplash.com image
Computer

When a teacher or tutor approaches a student, they are often faced with their keyboard and screen upside down. This makes it very difficult to type and aid the student. However, with the release of the new open-source font Lip-Flaoor, the tutor is  able to use the keyboard as if it is the right way round and the right characters will appear to the student. It is available from most good font factories.

Review

  • ✅The font face looks very like Arial on the screen, so if perfectly readable.
  • ✅The student does not have to type any differently as they do not hold the <ctrl> key, so their experience is no different.
  • ✅If the tutor can type well, the dual mapping works wonderfully, they say it is like using any standard QWERY layout the right way up.
  • ❌The tutor, if not a competent typist may struggle as their fingers may not hit the “right” keys
  • ❌The need to hold the <ctrl> key while typing to enable the switch can be a bit awkward.