News
As part of an update to the existing website of Attachmetric, BridgingUnit went through a process of producing a series of variant designs which were run through a split test to determine which were most effective. The final result has contributed directly to an increase in sales. The visual design for this was handled by the experts Bluish.
Working with Bluish, BridgingUnit launched a refreshed site for Destination Film, a company providing video production for the websites of the travel and hospitality industry.
Work for non-profits and charities is always rewarding as you are helping people that are trying to make a difference. The Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust is the largest brain tumour charity in the UK and ploughs money into research and provides support directly to patients and their families and carers alike. They needed a website that appealed more directly to their audiences and which was more attractive and easier to use. It needed to be warm and sensitive, simple and clear. Longstanding associates, Dharmafly, Brighton’s multi-award-winning social media experts, called BridgingUnit in to provide the visual design and so, in collaboration with Ellen de Vries (guest star on project management, copy and IA), we together worked things through to arrive at what we think is a very successful design, and provided the templates to handover to the developers to produce the finished article. And we hope you’ll be able to enjoy the final live result yourselves very soon.
Emmy-nominated documentary cameraman Andrew McClenaghan now also films and produces videos for hotels, resorts and tourist boards that they can then use to promote themselves on their websites. Because of his background he offers a more polished and professional product than most who provide video for the web. He wanted a website so that he could set out his stall and show what he can do. BridgingUnit were happy to work closely with him on the design and provide him with what he needed. Visit Destination Film to see what he can do for you.
Jennie Hart is a superb professional photographer who has worked with people like The National Trust, Mencap and Visit Britain and is linked to various image libraries where you can license her work, but who is also pleased to work one to one with the public doing what she’s best at: capturing moments of their lives. She’s a people person and people are her favourite subject too.
BridgingUnit provided the know-how to update and expand an earlier flash-based photo gallery (originally designed by Luke Woodcock, redesigned by Chris Hart). The gallery is now also linked to a set of Slideshow Pro-powered slideshows that in turn are updated from her desktop by Jennie via a copy of Lightroom. This allows her to organise and share her images with her clients the way she needs.
Go and have a look at Jennie’s pictures now.
JustMeans is a social network for people who want to encourage change - they provide a focus for those who care about making the world a better place and a place where companies already engaged in that can increase their visibility.
BridingUnit was bought on board to help provide design expertise and the key task was redesigning the look and feel for a reinvigorated homepage that appealed to their young and engaged audience of professional people in their twenties and thirties. This new homepage was to foreground the activities occurring within the network and encourage people to participate further. The basic paradigm behind the new interface is similar to that of a lifestream or river of news.
Liaising with various stakeholders within the organisation and led by the twin guiding lights of Madhava Bailey, their Director of online strategy, and Danny Hope of Hobo Internet who bought his interaction design experience to the table, BridgingUnit provided a clean, new design that evolved out of the old one but moved towards something much more organised, consistent and attractively simple. JustMeans has since taken on a new designer to their own staff who has taken the design and made it his own.
Oxford Hub is a charity that has evolved out of Oxford University and links students up with news, events, resources, and opportunities to donate their times and energies to the third sector.
Dharmafly was called in to redesign their Drupal based site and turned to BridgingUnit to provide the new look and code for reintegration with the CMS by Ben Scott. Branding and styleguide had previously been produced by Scamper and Dharmafly had commissioned a usability report reviewing the old site and highlighting the work that needed doing. After assimilating these references and further information from the client a design was produced that went through a round of revisions to produce a reinvigorated look and feel for the site and provide much clearer navigation. The code itself was developed to provide a solid XHTML and CSS foundation from which useful Microformats could be extracted. JQuery was used to provide the gloss and interactive dynamism.
OxfordHub is just the start. BristolHub, CambridgeHub and SouthamptonHub are all due to launch in October following the same pattern.
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.
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.
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.
Relaunch of a redesigned website with bespoke content management system for the Pilgrims’ Association, a national charitable organisation. see the site.
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.