We have just been sent some photos showing how these little guys have been brought to life…

The Leevs will be used as mascots around the park helping to promote to the children’s website and the interactive fun and games it contains.

My kids love these fellas!

More young people’s sites on the way

We are just about to start work on a very special young people’s website design for a large police force out of the back of a suite of children’s and young people’s websites for South Wales Police. More about both of those projects soon.

If you have a children’s or young person’s website design project you would like to discuss, please get in touch as we have lots of case studies to show you

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!