One of the email invites we designed for the 2010 e-Crime Wales Summit made the Campaign Monitor Gallery today. We developed a series of emails that were broadcast on the run up to the event, held on Thursday in the Celtic Manor Resort – each pushing our front end development team with the demanding build required to show the design at its best in a multitude of email clients.
Davida Fernandez of Campaign Monitor said…
I really like the unusual layout of this email designed by s8080, especially the way the map graphic is burning into the main content and the way the free floating secondary content is flanking the middle column. The three colour bar background is so interesting and provides a foundation for the important links on the left hand side. The nice narrow column always helps with readability, too. Super cool job on this one.
We have specialised in email newsletter and campaign design, production, broadcast, list management and analytics for quite a few years now and have 100’s of successful ‘mails under our belts.
We are currently running a stunning and groundbreaking campaign for Welsh Assembly Government’s IBW and as soon as they have all been delivered, we show them on the blog.
It’s not often an invitation to join Prince Edward for lunch in Buckingham Palace arrives in the post, so when we received ours from the team at the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, we were pretty pleased!
We have been working with DofE for a couple of years now and the lunch was to say ‘thanks’ to their digital suppliers and outline how the organisation will be expanding their digital activities in the future.
So we jumped on the train yesterday morning and arrived at the side entrance of the palace only to be told that we were expected at the main front gate! They were Changing the Guard at the time, so to the sound of a marching band and under the watchful gaze of thousands of tourists, we were ushered into the palace.
We were then escorted to the balcony room (THE balcony – where that very famous Royal wedding kiss took place in 1981).
It was a very intimate affair, only about 20-30 people. Palace staff bought us gin and tonics and we took in the sumptuous surrounding and history that surrounded us. Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex arrived and walked around the room chatting. We discussed the recent YouTube Channel we have created for DofE and he explained what a fight he had getting ‘this place’ onto YouTube! He was a funny, down to earth and charming man.
After lunch (yes, the food was amazing), we all chatted some more, Prince Edward talked about the digital future of DofE and thanked us all for our hard work on their website and the eDofE. We had coffee and he said his goodbyes and left us to enjoy and explore the surroundings, portraits and antiques that line the main corridor .
It was a unique experience, and one that Matt and I will remember for a long time. Huge thanks to the DofE team for inviting us.
We recently launched a funky little microsite for the Lee Valley Park London 2012 Games White Water Canoe Centre.
The venue, due to open to the public in Spring 2011, will host the paddle sports events during the Olympic games. As well as canoeing and kayaking, visitors will be able to experience white water rafting in the steep obstacle filled course.
The microsite sits within Lee Valley Park’s main website, powered by our in-house Content Management System.
We recently launched a large content managed website for TES Aviation Group – a large international, but Wales based aircraft engine management company.
For Matt and myself, it was one of those dream jobs – a fascinating subject, a great group of people and a thoroughly professional and forward looking organisation. One of the highlights of our initial alignment workshops was the tour of their vast facility in Bridgend, south Wales and getting up close to some of the most powerful engines in the world. A schoolboy dream.
We worked through our UX (user experience) processes, spending considerable time talking with the various teams in the organisation, gathering valuable insight into a very complex industry and its own unique set of interactions between client and supplier.
These interviews, combined with alignment sessions with the sales and marketing director and his team, user journey design, process mapping, competitor review and content audit meant we could design the IA (Information Architecture) and wireframe prototype matching the user’s’ needs tightly to TES’s business objectives.
Then our creative and interactive teams were let loose on the look and feel, extending their existing brand into online. The design was then wrapped around our content management system enabling the TES teams to keep their content up to date from anywhere in the world at any time of day or night (these guys travel a lot!).
The site is attracting a lot of industry interest as the analytics are already proving.
We look forward to a long and interesting relationship with TES. It is worth a visit just to see the most amazing (and valuable) coffee table in Wales – made of scrapped titanium aircraft parts.
The brand new GoSafe website for the Wales Road Casualty Partnership launched this week.
The site uses S8080’s bilingual English/Welsh CMS and features an interactive and searchable road safety camera map, lots of help on what to do if you have been caught speeding and advice for driving safely for all types of road users.
GoSafe recently rebranded, so we were able to offer a very cost effective ‘refresh’ of their existing website, rather than a complete new build. Our creative and interactive teams also managed to re-skin the interactive driving game, ‘No Need for Speed’ – originally build by us several years ago.
The camera search application uses Google Maps to quickly show users the location of fixed, mobile and red light safety camera throughout Wales. Each precise location shows a host of data including the speed limit, collision and casualty figures.
The Dispelling the Myths section is a real eye opener – you can find out why cameras are placed at certain locations, and no, it’s not just to catch us out when we least expect it!
St David’s Day has taken over at www.wales.com. Fun, recipes and activities… you can even learn the Welsh national anthem phonetically.
Then test your Welshness with this multilingual interactive quiz.
The Audit Commission’s Oneplace website goes live today.
Oneplace, designed by S8080 for the Audit Commission, lets you compare the quality of life in your area with the rest of the country.
We have two three interesting openings at the moment.
Firstly, we need a project manager to cover maternity leave for 6 months (starting in December). Its a great role for someone who is meticulously organised!
Secondly, we are after a .NET web developer to join our technical team.
Lastly, we have an opening for a Front End Web Developer (XHTM / CSS guru who loves all things web and wants to build wonderful sites for some HUGE clients).
You can find full details on our jobs page. We look forward to hearing from you.
We have been itching to tell you about this, but it’s been under wraps.
The Audit Commission will give delegates at this week’s Local Government Association (LGA) conference their first look at the new ‘oneplace’ website we have been working on. To be launched in December this year, Oneplace replaces the working title of Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), giving independent information on the performance of local public services throughout England.
Visitors to the site will be able to access jargon-free, easy-to-read summaries of how local public services are doing in their area and around the country. There will also be links to detailed information from the independent inspectorates behind CAA – the Audit Commission, Ofsted, Care Quality Commission and Her Majesty’s Inspectorates of Constabulary, Prisons and Probation.
You can read more here and try out the prototype of the site. We’ll be able to show you more once the site is live.
We have just launched a brand new kiddies website for Lee Valley Regional Park – the largest open space within the M25 stretching 26 miles from the East End to Hertfordshire.
The new site features a bunch of little guys called The LeeVs…
LeeVs love nothing better than playing in the wind, chasing each other, racing each other and generally running around having fun together. They enjoy floating down the river, paddling in puddles or cycling around their Regional Park.
The accessible site features extensive use of Flash for interactive games and character animation that really brings the LeeVs to life.
Lucy Hose, the Regional Park’s Marketing Manager, said “The new site has been designed to encourage children to learn through having fun and to find out more about the Regional Park and the environment. We’ll continue to update the pages and youngsters need to keep a look out for competitions which we’ll be running on the pages. My favourite game is Rob the Ranger!”
We pulled out all of the stops to get the site looking fantastic for the youngsters – our illustrators worked
very closely with our Flash team and created a whole virtual word for the LeeVs to inhabit. The site features lots of little surprises that delight youngsters.
For example, you’ll be reading about birthday parties in the park and all of a sudden, a little bright blue bug will wander around the screen, or a LeeV will ride his bike right past you and even pop a wheelie for you.
More kid’s sites in the pipeline
We are just about to launch another two sites for young people, a bit closer to home, but we can’t say too much about that yet.
Matt Howard, our Technical Director and Information Architecture guru said “There are a whole different set of usability rules to apply to sites for younger audiences. We have lots of experience designing for children of all ages for clients like Careers Wales, Welsh Assembly Government, DTI and the Mid and South Wales Safety Camera Partnership, so we have learnt a lot along the way”.
“Our illustration team have even been commissioned to design and produce a whole visual language for youngsters with special educational needs (SEN) and this has been so successful it looks like it will be rolled out across Wales and hopefully nationally”.
From a design perspective, designing for kids is just very good fun. Why just have a ‘help’ link when you can have an animated wriggly worm pointing the way!
