Google is the undesputed king of the hill in terms of search engines and the BBC have just published data from August showing the gulf that divides them from the rest:
A useful little application for the “tidy” among us is Dock Dividers a set of apps for Mac OS X that inserts place dividers between groups of applications in your dock.Its not going to change the world, but every little helps.
Image and link courtesy of Bittbox
As a design agency, we often take a chance and do a free pitch for a new client. Of course, we don’t win them all, for one reason or another, and our concepts are then consigned to a dusty DVD archive, probably never to be seen again.
So, we thought we may start giving them away.
So here is the first of [hopefully] not many - we do intend to win most we go for after all. There is a PDF attached which will need the relevant fonts to edit although you may wish to dissect the elements.
It’s worth mentioning that if you do want to use it, bear in mind you may not be the only one. I have outlined the concept below so you get a flavour of where it came from and see where it fits with your ideas - you might just like the way it looks.
By the way, we didn’t get this one because the company decided to stick with their existing agency. The names and identity on the artwork have been changed, to protect the innocent…
Very briefly, the concept behind this pitch relates to the software industry, in particular process management - think managing Six Sigma. We developed two ideas around this:
Ideas flow, processes flow and by changing one part of the flow, you can dramatically alter the path of the flow - think Butterfly Effect. So, by implementing a small change in a process, and developing the different parts, the whole can improve… hence the smooth flowing lines depicted in the ‘flowing’ ribbon.
download PDF (1.8MB)
In the same vain as above, small steps can be taken to improve a process and small steps lead upwards.
download PDF (415k)
Fonts for both are Lubalin Graph and Din.
Have fun and why not email us anything you end up with - we’d be interested to see how our little babies ended up.
We always spout about the common sense reasons for web accessibility and some interesting test cases have come to light in the past year or so of website owners being sued because their websites are not accessibility to people with disabilities - yes - wowsers and gulp!
An interesting precedent seems to be taking place in California following the case with a company called Target last year as reported on Outlaw:
California law may require websites to be accessible to disabled internet users, according to a ruling in a case against retail giant Target. Despite recent improvements to the accessibility of Target.com, the case has now been certified as a class action.
Now, I could get [rightfully] sanctimonious about the whole thing but I won’t. Instead I will appeal to your commercial side with two succinct points of reference:
So, split your content from your style and make it make sense. Start by reading our beginners guide to website accessibility.
I found this wonderful local business that has a great selection of jewellery, handbags and some fun and unusual gift ideas at really affordable prices.
So as the season of goodwill, spending and giving is almost upon us, I thought why not invite them in and share it all with you.
I’d love it if you could attend so put November 2nd in your diary from 12.00 Noon till 3pm in Unit C here at The Escape.
Let me know if you can make it.
All the girls here at The Escape are going to be there and are looking forward to seeing you all.
Remember…November 2nd from Noon - 3pm.
DMOZ was, and arguably still is, one of the directories it’s worth getting in. It feeds a lot of other directories, including Google and so has the power to create a lot of links for your website. (read more about DMOZ here).
Because it is a human edited directory, you’d think it would be better, but of course, that also brings it’s own problems. ie. It’s very slow and hard to get into - even if you have a very relevant website.
But, maybe following the massive problems they had late last year, they seem to be on the charm offensive with a new DMOZ Blog. Could it be too little too late though?
Marketing and branding is becoming more demanding. Once upon time, selling burgers was easy. Stack ‘em up, serve ‘em quickly and cheaply and your customers will come. Throw in some ad campaigns and bang - you have a global burger chain.
I still remember when McDonalds first came to Basingstoke, it was a big event - it was new and exciting.
Now there are three; along with a Burger King, a KFC and plenty of other fast food chains. They aren’t scarce anymore, I can have one anytime so obviously, I am less interested.
Offering people what they want and limiting the supply creates demand, but by flooding the market place, the demand falls. So, it’s interesting that McDonalds is looking to install free Wi-Fi in it’s restaurants in the UK to try to differentiate itself, as reported this weekend (source - NMA).
Will wi-fi sell more burgers? I am skeptical. But, the tie in of what companies offer as ‘add ons’ seems to be becoming more and more diverse. When it comes to retail and the high street, the large companies are looking to increase their differentiation by focusing on these added headline grabbing gimmicks, choosing to ignore one area that matters most in my book - customer service.
A nice sunny afternoon to report back what’s gwan’on at The Escape.
A gentle stroll of a week by all accounts with a great pitch to MPI for the Corredere website - being built as we speak. This follows the immense success of the Marine Diplomas feeder site.
We also started on the BT Headsets website. Due at the end of November this is a content-managed website with E-Commerce built in based on our Boomerang Solution. The web guys have been busy pretty much all year developing this system, which will be the basis for all of our content-managed websites moving forward.
It is VERY COOL and very effective and we can’t wait for clients to start using it and for us to develop it more.
Meanwhile we have been developing our knowledge of all things web and have revisited Google Analytics - Wow! Talk about quality measurement, it’s really come on. We are planning some seminars based around Analytics and Adwords early next year so watch out for those.
New recruit Alex is putting us all to shame - The Jersey Challenge last weekend, a 5km running event this weekend… I feel faint thinking about it, pass me the bourbons..
Have a good weekend - a few of us are off to Brackenwood to see the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car… hi chitty low chitty everywhere we go chitty….. … … …
Found this link to dennisplucinik.com via one of our favourite design sites bittbox. It contains 60 advanced photoshop tutorials, some of which are very useful and insightful.
Worth a read for anyone looking to develop their skills in image creation and manipulation.
