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!

Pretty  incredible stuff using a new technology called Scanimation, take a look at the video to see what is achievable. If you have kids, they will LOVE this book.

 

About the book

There’s never before been a book like Gallop! Employing a patented new technology called Scanimation, each page is a marvel that brings animals, along with one shining star, to life with art that literally moves. It’s impossible not to flip the page, and flip it again, and again, and again.
A first book of motion for kids, it shows a horse in full gallop and a turtle swimming up the page. A dog runs, a cat springs, an eagle soars, and a butterfly flutters. Created by Rufus Butler Seder, an inventor, artist, and filmmaker fascinated by antique optical toys, Scanimation is a state-of-the-art six-phase animation process that combines the "persistence of vision" principle with a striped acetate overlay to give the illusion of movement. It harkens back to the old magical days of the kinetoscope, and the effect is astonishing, like a Muybridge photo series springing into action—or, in terms kids can relate to, like a video without a screen.

To find out a bit more about the book, take a look here.

To celebrate the feast day of our very own St David, we have devised a ‘How Welsh are you?’ interactive quiz for our good friends over at www.wales.com.

Even if you are born and bred in Caerphilly, it may still hold a few surprises for you. You don’t need to be Welsh to have a go and you even get a certificate celebrating your honorary Welshness at the end of it.

We wish you all a wonderful and animated New Year.

Click here to take a look at our eCard.