Today we’ve launched our new website.
The old design was just a stop gap so that we had a presence on the web, but wasn’t anything to write home about. So it’s quite an exciting thing for us to have our new one up.
I decided not to use flash, as I really want this website to look the best it can to all our visitors, so I’ve tried to create something really quite original within the
boundaries of CSS.
I’ve got a lot of my inspiration for the new site from a collection of ribbons I’ve been gathering over the past few months, all different shades of pink and red and different opacities, so they layer wonderfully. Also I’ve been thinking a lot lately about neon lighting tubes and the way they seem to give everything around them a coloured glow, they can be such a portent of excitement.
I’ve used some effects on our logo so that it really stands out and seems to glow, hopefully I’ve managed to convey some of the neon excitement with this.
The other main challenge, apart from design, was Information architecture; making sure the content got our message across without being endless. I’ve stripped all unnecessary words away and left bite-sized information chunks, it makes it easy for the reader to select what they want to read.
I’m sure they’ll be lots of little tweaks in the weeks to come, a pixel here or there can make a lot of difference, you know!
We are excited to share with everyone the great news that the new orkney.com website is now live and ready for all to view at www.orkney.com
The whole project team has worked hard to create an outstanding website that will be a great resource for anyone interested in Orkney, we have also focused on making this website appealing and easy to use for as a wide user base as possible.
The other exciting news is that the orkney.com email addresses are going to be available again and this time for free! Get your address on May 26th at noon by signing up at orkney.com
For a seriously well designed web experience take a look at this site benthebodyguard.com.
Apart from the well crafted graphics, which keep you interested for a good few visits, the website is put together superbly.
The design tells a story without typical navigation structures. It uses prompts to make you scroll and the character talks to you as you see various animations with different characters as you scroll down the page.
The whole experience is really well considered, from the look and feel to the tone of the character, guiding you to the end goal of registering your email address with the website.
And it was all done without using flash.
Exciting news! If you are a developer and you want to change the colours used on a google map, you can now do it! You may be already know that google announced this back in May, but that was only for the v3 javascript api, you can now do it in flash! That opens up a whole new avenue of adventure.
For more information about styling maps in javascript take a look at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/overlays.html#StyledMaps
Google maps api for flash can be found at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/flash/
There is a nice tool that builds out the configuration in a graphical way, saving a lot of time http://gmaps-samples-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/styledmaps/wizard/index.html
We are pleased to have now completed our work to relaunch the kingcnut on line store. KingCnut produce an exciting range of clothing on the King Cnut theme, this includes T-Shrits, baseball caps and other casual clothing.
When we became involved with the website there was already an online store in place and a bespoke cms system. The site had grown organically over several years and had become difficult to maintain. We implemented a new site based on open cart – an open source shopping cart solution. This has given far superior functionality to the site administrators as well as enabling customers to have a better shopping experience.
Previously the only way you could make a purchase from King Cnut was to use paypal or mail in a cheque. We have now implemented secure shopping via credit card, having organised a new merchant account for the website.
We replaced the legacy CMS system with a simple to use and maintain set of pages with the open cart system, thus massively simplifying the management of the site.
If you would like a nice new t-shirt, why not check out KingCnut.com
We are delighted to have been chosen to design and develop the new Orkney.com website.
Work has already started on the website and we have a holding site up already to give people a preview of what will be available on the site in time. The wonderful photos you see on the holding site were provided by a local photographer on Rousay.
The working environment is great; the whole project team is passionate about Orkney and promoting what’s available locally to locals and those further afield.
Why not take a look yourself at Orkney.com we’d love to know what you think.
We have just completed a lovely new website and rebrand for a [housing development in St Mary's, Holm|http://www.smhousing.com/].
The houses are in a lovely spot, above the village of St Mary’s, with great expansive views out over Scapa Flow. We really liked working on the project, the company has a nice ethos and the houses are built with real care and attention to detail.
We were very pleased with the logo we produced for them, we took inspiration from the flow of landscape around the development and the client’s pre-existing flag motif.
We wanted the website to function as a gallery of pictures as well as giving written information throughout. We’ve chosen great pictures that really give as sense of how it is to live in one of these lovely houses in this most special of places, Orkney. The technology we’ve used ensures that all special effects will be seen by every user, regardless of whether they’re using a traditional PC or a mobile device.
We’re very pleased with how the website looks, why not take a look at SM Housing for yourself?
We’ve just launched a new website, Island Houses Orkney
The design follows the theme of the Island House Lewis website, a clean, modern, minimalist design which is strong technically. This website looks great on mobile devices such as the iPad.
The website advertises 2 high quality and newly renovated holiday cottages, both in stunning rural locations in Orkney.
Broland is on the Island of Rousay.
Windywalls is on mainland Orkney.
I just found this great website www.wordle.net which lets you create fantastic tag clouds in various colour themes, with really interesting results.
They have a great editor, you can chose any colours, maximum number of words, interesting fonts, etc. All in all its a very nice way to while away half an hour.
You can take a look at the one I created from our blog here
We have just launched our latest website Island House Lewis. The website is for a great holiday cottage on the isle of Lewis. It’s an old family home, renovated this year to top modern standards, to provide comfortable holiday accommodation for 6 – 8. The location can’t be beaten with views from the house over islands and hills.
The client wanted a design that’s fresh, modern, informal and not too text heavy. We needed to create a website that would work well for all audience groups and have a little bit of sparkle about the technology.
The website is a fresh modern design, and really reflects the feel of the house. The sliding bar effect is very unusual and will work on all browsers: the website looks ace on the new iPad.
We sourced some striking photos of the local area from talented amateur photographer Judy Fischer and have used these to great effect. They really capture the magic of the Isle of Lewis, and promote it to holiday makers who may not have previously considered the Hebrides.