This is the celebrated journal of Mr. Simon Collison A.K.A Colly

Tracking another client on the icy wastes

17th November 2008

Here at Erskine, we’re lucky enough to be working with two incredible polar exploration teams this year. Back in the Summer, our man Ben Saunders hit the Arctic once more, and as I write, the Shackleton Centenary team are in the early stages of their Antarctic expedition, retracing the final stages of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s epic Nimrod journey.

I’ve posted about the Shackleton Centenary redesign before, but I just wanted to mention the new expedition tracking stuff we launched with them last week. Its a bit of a homepage take-over, with interactive maps and widgety things linking to journal entries and audio/video sent directly from the ice. A nice touch is that each day, the corresponding extract from Shackleton’s own diary is also available, giving a stark comparison to the two expeditions parted as they are by 100 years of advancements in knowledge and technology.

Big-ups to our Glen and Phil for the insane JavaScript and database dark arts, not least because they manage to get it all working with the Shackleton teams’ Movable Type set-up (a battle we have already faced and kind of won with the initial redesign).

If exploration interests you, then be sure to take a look at the Shackleton Centenary site now that our intrepid friends are on the ice and enjoy the daily updates and media files. Not least for us in our freezing Nottingham office, its a reminder that once can always find somewhere a little colder. Humbling stuff.

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