S8080 Blog

Striking concept and illo’ for a advert for stretchy plasters.

Via I believe in advertising.

Our good friends, Dezrez, have just launched their brand new site.

And we designed it for them.

Dezrez have THE best software for estate agency sales and letting available. We’ve been working with them as partners for many years, designing and building the websites that house their technology. In fact, we were in University with the founders of Dezrez!

We’ve seen a real shift, estate agents are now embracing Open Source CMS platforms including Drupal, WordPress and Umbraco and well as S8080’s own .NET content management system if they really want to customise things.

We worked very closely with Dezrez, initially on their UX design and wireframes and then onto the creative phase of the project. they made very good use of our in-house illustration team to give the site a personality all of it’s own.

As always, it’s so satisfying for an agency to work with a client who is passionate about the project. Every meeting and session we had left us buzzing with ideas, it’s the very best way to work on a creative project like this. Everyone feels so involved and comfortable tabling their ideas.

The new site is a huge success – and a success they thoroughly deserve.

The last word goes to Wilf…

Wilf Lewis, Dezrez

At last, we’ve put together a brand new WordPress site to show off our illustration work.

Under the brand Redseal, we’ve been doing this stuff for years and have agents in London, US and Australia who get us some amazing work.
Take a look at the new site and some of the new styles our creative team have been experimenting with.

Loving the Glasto’ 11 image!

An inspired Goodyear ad by Leagas Delany, Milan.

From I believe in advertising.

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.

Via noquedanblogs.com

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!

Our creative team have been working on a series of Flash designs that have been commissioned for Adobe’s Acrobat 9 release.

The model in the designs above is our very own eMarketing project manager, Sali. The guys have also just completed a double page spread for Men’s Fitness magazine and just about the whole team appear in it (in various states of undress!) – you’ll have to wait to see that one.

You can take a sneak peek at the Adobe work here.

This weekend we launched Welsh Space Invaders for one of our clients. I won’t tell you who, you’ll have to give it a go to find out – it has a sting in its tail!

Our illustration team worked very closely with our Flash guys to make this classic arcade clone look fantastic. If you are Welsh or love Wales – this will make you grin, I guarantee it.

Dig in behind a pit head, Conwy Castle and the Millennium Centre and let the battle commence.

The best Google header EVER!

I’m a big fan, I grew up with Dr Seuss books and my three sons have a pretty vast collection.

Nothing like filling kids heads with a bit of lunacy during a bedtime story. Makes for interesting dreaming.