News

Just Different‘s first newsletter was a resounding success and a regular mailout now looks set to be a core part of their marketing strategy. Dharmafly commissioned BridgingUnit to follow on from the visual vocabulary developed for the first newsletter and to make it even more appealing to kids. So, working with Ellen Devries who provided copywriting expertise to tweak the raw company provided by the client, we made everything stand out even more so that it was more vibrant and exciting, but without sacrificing the core look and feel which has been evolving for their brand. Post House Printing did the printing and delivered the finished leaflets on time to a very satisfied customer.

Russell Bell, a photographer in Brighton and the south east needed a portfolio to showcase his varied photographic talents. BridgingUnit produced a slick Flash and SWX driven website with lots of elegant transitions to display his photos which are pulled in from Flickr. Russell was also helped out with the social networks MySpace, Facebook so that he could get out there and promote himself.

Destination Film specialises in making attractive promotional videos for websites of clients in the hospitality and tourist business. Bristol-based Andrew McClenaghan has 20 years experience filming for people like the BBC, Sky and National Geographic so all his work is broadcast standard and very professionally finished. Unfortunately things went awry with the company that designed and hosted his website and it vanished from the web. BridgingUnit bought it back to life and is hoping to help in its redesign and expansion later in the year.

Working in collaboration with John Batho of CPi Projects and Tony Brett of True Technical, I am excited to be taking over the front-end maintenance and development of new start-up People Shop from Oliver Bettany of Free Range Web. People Shop is a new venture planning to tap into the extensive resource of people with skills and and spare time. The idea is to hook up people looking to pay for help with people able to provide it. People Shop acts as a broker between the two parties.

Pool House is a beautiful black and white house which provides bed and breakfast near Hereford in the village of Sutton St. Nicholas. It is run by a friendly couple that used to manage a Hotel in the Lake District. The old site needed a fresh lick of paint and a little bit of work to help it more in search engines. Its old domain name did it no favours so a new one much better suited to its niche was procured and the small site was redesigned to be more attractive and to provide increased information and detail. So if you’re visiting and ever need a bed and breakfast in Herefordshire, you’d find it hard to find a more warm and hospitable welcome than that provided by Ian and Annette Mansie at Pool House.

BridgingUnit has been working with communication agency Rawww to help them deliver html email marketing campaigns for a well known online travel brand.

Christopher and Nicola Cox run a set of workshops that gather together a group of skilled craftspeople and provide access to a wide range of facilities and processes for the manufacture (in the old sense - by hand) and restoration of furniture, lighting and artworks. They see themselves as working in the Arts and Crafts tradition of collective applied craftsmanship. They are growing, have recently moved to larger, better equiped premises and want to promote themselves, so BridgingUnit is currently working with them to plan the design of their forthcoming website. In the meantime an informative placeholder has been added to their webspace and we’ve also suggested their new name - Cox Workshops.

JustDifferent wanted to produce a printed newsletter to be sent out to schools highlighting the work that they do promoting understanding about living with disability. They had put together a rough outline of what they wanted, so Dharmafly asked BridgingUnit to take it and bring the design in line with the previously produced brochure and website - aligning it with the evolving brand. So this is what we did. And now there’s a clean, bright, simply organised, and easily understood newsletter shortly to be winging its way to schools around the South East.

Non-centered design needed a bit of Flash customising for a project which required the timing of tasks. We took a digital clock built in Flash and adapted it so that it could be used as a timer, counting down from 20 minutes to zero.

BridgingUnit and all of our partners would like to wish you a very happy christmas. We hope your stockings are filled and that your goose is fat. 2007 has been a very busy year for us here: we’ve learnt lots, there have been many new challenges and exciting projects, and lots of new friendships have been forged. We hope it’s been as good to you. Thank you to all our clients, colleagues and friends past, present and future. We hope that 2008 will find you happy, healthy and prosperous.

The Dispensary required a neat little card - the size of a business card - to be used as a mini-brochure or that could be used blank as a mini-menu for special offers and the like. They provided the prototype, we produced the PDF for the printer, everyone’s happy.

Norwich Cathedral had an online shop built for them over 4 years ago. The golden padlock and the crucial ‘s’ in the ‘https’ are symbols of trust and hallmarks of security for ecommerce. Whenever consumer associations tell you about the signs to look for that the online shop you’re planning to buy from is kosher - these are always the key things you’re told to look for even though the site may actually be secure without them if it has other encryption measures in place. And various studies suggest that without them you stand to lose between 5 and 20% of your sales. Aside from these signs, you can also add a trust mark to your site - these are branded links to the authorities issuing security certificates that establish that they really did issue it to you. And, according to Verisign, adding one of these should reassure the 70-80% of UK online shoppers who either only make purchases from sites displaying them or who would bail out of the purchase process if they didn’t see one. These measures are obviously very important commercially when this year ecommerce in the UK stands to reach £40 billion and the general public is ever more acutely aware of and concerned by credit card fraud and identity theft. With their host Mainline installing the SSL and security certificate and BridgingUnit integrating it all into their shopping cart software, sales at the Cathedral’s shop can now hope to benefit from the sense of safety and security these signals provide.

Kiloheat, a company that specialises in the sale of fans, has been in dire need of a new website for a long time now and at last the time is drawing near. In the meantime the site has at least been brought up to date so their product range is correct and their contact details current. People who are at home in the internet forget that there are many companies out there who are still behind the curve and whose communication, marketing and sales strategies are decades old. As web designers, the benefit of a client like this is that you can be certain that the work you do is going to help and that they will be pleased. The challenge of course is bridging that knowledge gap.

Design of a straightforward website for 38 St Giles, a new bed and breakfast in Norwich that’s neither a hotel nor just a traditional b & b, but something much more special and personal. Run by Jan and William Cheeseman, who also own 2 fine delicatessens in Norwich, the rooms in this beautiful georgian building have been designed with a contemporary and luxurious feel that provide the comfort and style more often found in boutique hotels. The site’s design evolved as an extension to their logo (by ) and the flyer they’d produced for local marketing (by )

Less of a redesign than a realign. In fact, not even that - more of a spring clean and organic expansion. Gemin-i, a UK charity that specialises in web technology that brings people together, needed to bring their site up to date with their changed priorities - highlighting the educational products they’ve built and adjusting their content. For the new pages we needed to add, the design evolved from their current design, using it as a base. Simple, straight forward and done.

A revised brochure was designed for JustDifferent so that they could show teachers how they can help school kids learn about disability. Their new logo and improved copy needed to be included in this 2nd edition, so the design was modified accordingly. Work was produced on behalf of Dharmafly. 

A smaller project this: in association with non-centered design, production of a showreel for Measure so they can interest potential investors and sponsors in what they’re doing. Also a simple slideshow for their home page to give visitors a flavour of what they’re about.

Designed and developed a website on behalf of Weedoo.tv for Maggie Gowan an independent curator and exhibition organiser who specialises in dealing with photography of the natural world. Her latest exhibition: Exposed: Climate Change in Britain’s Backyard, which was produced for the National Trust in association with Magnum Photos, has won a Clarion Award with the IVCA (International Visual Communications Association) for its unique contribution to both business and society, and the new site was launched just in time to make the most of it. You can see more detail of the exhibition here at her site.

weedoo.tv, a motion graphic design company that BridgingUnit has been doing some work for recently is planning a redesign. In the meantime, we’ve put together a simple holding page for them that takes advantage of some of their brilliant past work.

Here before you now, the first tentative steps towards a new website to showcase and promote the services of web designer Aidann Bowley and associates. I couldn’t wait any longer, so here’s a beginning. More is on its way with, hopefully, answers to all your questions and, of course, examples and more detailed information about what’s available....

The Dispensary, a relaxed, smart gastropub with its own restaurant and private dining room, featured in The Independent’s Posh Nosh food guide this month, which it bills as ‘ A Guide to the UK’s Premier Restaurants’. Now chef patron Dave Cambridge and co-owner Annie Smith also have their own website to give people a feel for the place and a peak at sample menus. The design is a simple and elegant affair that evolved from both the aesthetics of the interior design at The Dispensary and also from the work that had already done on their logo and stationary.

Development of a straight forward website outlining the services of Helen Watkins, a child and family psychotherapist based near Chippenham in the south west in Wiltshire. Designed by Chris Hart at Weedoo.tv.

Planning the design of a smart website to profile the work and services of a lady who has a passion for photography and the natural world.

discussions with an international organisation planning a friends and sponsors-type social networking facility

discussions to build an online system for a national organisation to show teachers how to engage in partnerships with schools abroad and get to grips with issues involved

development of sales front-end for a dynamic new film distribution company

discussions with designer over small website for a child and family psychotherapist that works with children in the South West

Visual design for forthcoming website of a computer expert

design of website for a manager of a successful band at work on their 2nd album. On behalf of Dharmafly.

development of private system to centralise and organise information to help plan and run arts exhibitions and events for London organisation Measure.

Working hard on a new expanded business site (this one) that better reflects what services are available and has room for things to be developed further as it’s all run of a slick and easy to use content management system. What you’ll see: more case studies, more information, better and more regular updates about what’s going on… and that’s just for starters.

My first print job complete - a redesigned brochure for the new charity JustDifferent. Produced on behalf of Dharmafly.

ongoing development of a small website for a smart boutique bed and breakfast in Norwich

design and development of a small website for an elegant London pub that does delicious fresh food in a beautiful listed building. Also made a set of Word-friendly templates to make it easy to keep menus up to date.

Design of website and brochure for a young charity that sheds light on living with disability, produced on behalf of Dharmafly. See the fully coded site for JustDifferent here

discussions to design website for an arts organisation’s annual festival

development of online portfolio website for a bristol production company that showcases their tv and video work. Have a look at Inc.. On behalf of Weedoo.tv.

Launch of a website to create discussion in the Labour party about its future direction. Read about the debates.

consultancy for a photographer on how to make the most of social networks to grow his business

plan for brochure website of a London human resources consultant

discussions about website for an organisation providing a lead in education

Early discussions with a carpenter/handyman with regard to providing domain name, hosting, design and development of site with a view to promoting his services particularly in search engines

Relaunch of a redesigned website with bespoke content management system for the Pilgrims’ Association, a national charitable organisation. see the site.

Initial enquiries with a forager that sources natural food from the countryside with a view to marketing his various activities and talents.

Discussions with a photographer specialising in the music business to produce a portfolio to publicise his work

Research and development of proposal for the medical website of a consultant surgeon

Advice to a computer hardware and network specialist on how to design, develop and promote his website.

Norwich Cathedral’s campaign to build a new visitors’ centre can now benefit from fundraisers and from gifts given online. As part of ongoing technical consultancy, a third party online donations facility was sourced and introduced, its design customised to integrate with Norwich’s current and future style.

Negotiations for the update of the website of a retailer selling photographic and retail equipment with a view to better search engine rankings and results.

Early planning for the redesign of a website for a golf club. Helping guide development of the brief and structure of information architecture.

Planning a simple web presence for a company that specialises in the production of historical trails and other educational material

Launch of a dynamically generated and managed glossary for Eastern Cathedrals. try out the glossary.

Launch of a straightforward standards-based website for a group of private consultant radiologists. see the site.

Development of initial visual mockups for the website of a Bristol arts class, and planning of site’s organisation.

Launch of a simple database generated site to showcase my own drawings of portraits and nudes, timed to coincide with an exhibition

Planning integration of credit card payments for the policy of an insurance company

Consultation with a composer on how to sell and promote his music online

Initial discussions with another national charitable organisation to redesign their site, providing advice on information architecture, content and search engine optimisation

A redesigned website for Marc du Ry was built and integrated with a content management system for him to keep things up to date. See the site.

A website for the heritage open days was built to showcase all the events available in Norwich.

Development of proposal for a regional heritage organisation that included writing and editing content, development of logo and colourscheme, and design of visual mockups.

The existing design for the EasternCathedrals group was expanded and brought up to date with accessibility requirements.