Employing Responsive Website Design
With a change in user behaviour and an increasing range of devices browsing available, websites need to adapt to cater for this.
While some sites offer a standard site and a mobile site, a new approach is emerging, responsive website design. Responsive Website Design is where a website adapts to the resolution of the screen that the user is viewing, not the type of device they have. It means that as mobiles grow and tablets and laptops shrink, the user always have the most optimised online experience.
Have a look at Smashing Magazine's responsive website and try adjusting the width of the browser window. You will see how content changes size and position, how some content is removed at lower sizes and also how the menu changes on mobile to be more user-friendly. This mimics what would happen on smaller devices.
You can see it demonstrated here with a website we designed and built for Brooksby Melton College. Try it out on a desktop and mobile to compare how the screen adapts.
Sites can be designed to change at many different trigger points, and some can be a bit overkill, so a good starting point is to consider: mobile, portrait tablet, standard and wide. Alternatively a fully fluid layout can be employed to optimise the design to any screen.
Get in touch with us if you'd like to know more about new website technologies and responsive website design.
Sharing the Love - Social Marketing Jargon Buster
The concept of sharing is now part of our everyday lives. Facebook, Twitter, G+ and more...
Wouldn't it feel weird if we weren't privy to each and every movement of our friends, family, and not-so-close acquaintances - even the next door neighbours dog! Well, that's what social networking has given us. It's great for keeping in touch and it's great for businesses too.
But how can this love of quick information circulation be effectively translated into a useful marketing tactic to enable your business to grow and flourish.
Have a read of our Social Networking Jargon Busting Tips below to help you make the most of this marketing platform.
Social Sharing
Online social sharing should be actively encouraged on all of your websites as its a great way of spreading information to a large amount of people. Blog or product information pages are perfect for this - anything that someone might be likely to want to share with someone. Sharing of this kind includes Facebook (like), Twitter (share via tweet), Email, and many other options.
Social Marketing
Keeping up regular communications to people who have joined your social network are really important (Twitter, Facebook etc.) This is probably more relevant to the under 50 group, so you might have a dedicated Facebook and Twitter page for your company. It's really important to keep on the ball with this and needs to be actively updated otherwise its can be more detrimental to your brand than not having this element at all. This type of activity could be one of the tasks assigned to a marketing manager or executive. While some companies offer this service, it is very generic, so we'd recommend keeping this in-house, so that comms are in the right tone and have the right messaging.
Social Advertising
This is where you pay for adverts to show on social platforms. For example, you could run an add on Facebook targeted specifically at female, 30-40 year olds in Nottingham. One of the good things about Facebook is it knows a lot of info about it's users and is therefore very targeted. The same goes for LinkedIn. This activity could be part of a specific campaign, like "we celebrate 40 years with 40% off", with simultaneous email / mailer releases, or perhaps you just run a generic ongoing ad for a period of a few months. Again, the management of this (and resulting analytic review) could be done by a marketing or an external company (if specific goals / theme is known in advance). This is more of an advertising issue than social one, much like running an ad in the local press.
To find out more give us a shout and we would be more than happy to share our knowledge.
Notts TV Branding and Video - Competition Judging
Judging for student competition to create a brand and sting for new Notts TV
We were looking through some pics this week and came across this one of a nice group of talented students from NTU.
Having not put this on our design blog at the time (was a busy few weeks back then!), here's what happened.
It was a marketing and promotional exercise to promote the new regional TV channel for Nottingham called Notts TV. Students were asked to come up with a Brand Identity for the TV Channel, a short video sting to promote it, and also a social media marketing campaign to spread the word.
Ian Morris, Managing Director of Threerooms, was proud to have been invited to be one of the judges on the competition.
During the afternoon, having been presented with two excellent executions, a winner was decided between the judging team and prizes given out, one of which was a week's work experience at the amazing Threerooms Design Company in Nottingham (woo hoo!).
Stephen was the lucky winner and we really enjoyed his company for that week. He seemed to be a really talented designer and we wished him all the best for the future.
Hopefully he will be back for a catch-up sometime soon to let us know how he got on.
ITV gets a new look
ITV has launched their biggest rebrand in 12 years and it's already been ridiculed by some!
Comments like 'it looks like a bum' or 'a child practising joined up writing with crayons'. Another comment says it looks like the marketing assistant has been on a half day photoshop course. Personally, I think this is rubbish.
Most of the comments are about the logo as a standalone item but a brand is much more than that. When you look at the brand as a whole it's fresh, welcoming and there are some great touches on the website. If they had gone with something more simple and sharp they would have instantly been accused of copying the BBC.
The new logo and brand, whilst appealing to the broad spectrum of viewers, really does position them differently to the BBC, which is a good thing! After all they do offer a really different selection of programming and have a totally different demographic of viewers.
The logo feels more fun and friendly than the BBC, which, as we know, needs to stand up for a globally established news and information organisation.
Surely, whatever they did they knew it would get some stick, that's just part of the industry. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but we designers have to be tough to criticism :)
The Glass Half Full Approach
Now that the festive period has been and gone (with Santa and mince pies being a long distant memory more's the pity) we've been thinking about the year ahead and after much collective brain power and calendar perusal realised that there are a grand total of 52 Sad Mondays in the year ahead :(
However on the flip side this also means that there are a grand total of…wait for it…256 design days which equates to 52 Happy Fridays :) which puts much more of a positive spin on things.
The mathematicians amongst us view this as an exact balance of sad and happy adding up to 1 year's worth of days in which to shine.
Make this the year that your company's marketing and website shines brighter than your competitors :)
Give us a call to find out how we can help…
Santa's been to Threerooms!
Santa has already paid a visit to Threerooms and left us all great pressies. Some thoughtful ones, some funny ones, some slightly insulting ones, but one thing's for sure he knows us all very well! Take a look at what he got us!
Thanks Santa
Winters warmers a go go
By now our client Christmas gifts should have landed and be the doorsteps of clients as a thank you for their continued business during 2012.
The lovely handmade items comes courtesy of a team of hard working grannies (recruited from our nearest and dearest) who were briefed and tasked with creating a unique gift for us to send out.
Each item is slightly different and reflects the creativity and inspiration of our fab team of helpers
So how did it all work?
Well... once recruited we put together a pattern for our helpers to guide them on their way and then sourced ‘Threerooms’ green wool for them to craft into the finished articles. Regular catch ups meant that we could deal with any queries that arose and could also see how everything was coming along. Once completed much packaging and boxing up took place at this end until everything was ready to go to send out the finished articles. In keeping with the Christmas spirit we also rewarded our glamorous helpers with a little something as a thank you for all their great work.
Happy Christmas
Merry Christmas from all at Threerooms
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support during the past year and wish you a fabulous Christmas and prosperous New Year.
Christmas Closing
We are taking a well earned break over the festive period so will be closing our doors on Friday 21st December but will be back and raring to go on Thursday 3rd January 2013.
Love from the Threerooms team
Our Christmas helpers are revealed
We can now reveal that our team of ‘creative’ Christmas helpers are made up of our nearest and dearest who were only too happy to help us out with the task in hand, they are busy working away right now!
Take a look at these pictures of the chosen ones
In the words of one of our festive accomplices “It’s great fun to have a chance to be so creative and for the greater good too!!’’
That’s all we can disclose for now, keep an eye out for the big reveal as Christmas draws nearer...
New website for The Maze Nottingham
We are pleased to announce that the long anticipated fantastic new website for the Maze, Nottingham’s legendary live music venue has now gone live.
View the website at www.themazerocks.com
If you would like to know more about this or any other web design projects then get in touch.
