Hands and the objects we hold can be incredibly revealing and open to interpretation.

On Tuesday,  a very talented friend of ours, Rob Lycett visited our studio at regaled us with tales of academia and his recent photography work. We took part in his hands project where he takes pictures of peoples hands, and he kindly sent them to us that evening.

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Website redesign services

A rough guide to our iPhone services

Why we love startups

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Why Redesign Your Website?

We have a problem!

Your website is often more important than your physical presence. These days its one of the first points of interaction potential clients and customers have with you before they make a decision whether to contact you or not.  Are you giving them the right impression and information? Good Design helps you, bad design hinders you and your clients. Maybe its time to consider your site and get it redesigned.

We sometimes look at websites, gasp and think to ourselves, these guys really need help! Their reputation or physical presence looks quite respectable and established yet their online presence is flaky, old fashioned and poorly conceived. The user experience is poor. It doesn’t even begin to communicate properly, let alone sell a product a story or an idea.

Usually the problem isn’t isolated to one or two areas of design either.  Its a combination of things which collectively lead to a poor user experience. I think you’ll agree when we say, poor writing, bad colour choices and layout,  unrefined imagery, a lack of usability, attention to detail and knowing what your visitors need aren’t in anyone’s interest. Here are a list of other issues we often see.

• Dead links
• Confusing Navigation
• Conflicting information
• Lots of text, lack of breaks and punctuation
• Poor typography choices.
• badly scaled images
• Buried content

It’s safe to assume most people are put off by poor design choices. Sometimes the relevant information is so hard to find or the information is so visibly out of date that its embarrassing.

As your business grows, you might be considering it’s time for your brand and your website to have a bit of a refresh. You’re right, a good presence on the web, like a good identity needs to be alive, and aligned with your business direction and strategies. It needs to be carefully considered and nurtured.

Good Design makes people interested in what you do, it makes them trust you and give you their full attention. It meets your objectives and theirs!

Excellent Design is not just about the pretty, its about how people find you, how people interact with you, and what they do after they’ve had some form of interaction. Do they then become your cheerleaders?

Bad design looks unprofessional, it turns potential customers away, it makes them think you are out of touch, and gives them a definite reason to move on.

Really bad design actually gives people a reason to dislike you or worse, tell others how rubbish your site is.

Other Reasons & Benefits for a redesign

If you already have a great looking site,  superb, you might want to do one of the following:

• You might want to launch a new product and want to highlight it alongside your old offering.
• You want a way to update the site yourself, with new services, products and success stories.
• You might want to make your site more accessible and comply with accessibility laws.
• You might want to add interactive services, mailing lists, discussion forums,  perhaps you want to sell things online.
• You want to attract and engage visitors and offer them new ways to contact you using social tools such as twitter and facebook. You want to converse with customers and allow them to become your fans and ambassadors.
• You want a redesign to optimise how an online or offline advertising campaign will be best used to your advantage.
• You want to appear more established, you want to align your brand with new opportunities.
• You want to make the most of a recent change in the way you work by explaining it to people using animation or video.

We can help.

The web is always evolving with new trends and technologies emerging to simplify or extend how people consume information and have interactions with each other. We are aware of these tools and techniques, and whats more, many of them are very simple and cost effective.  We dont just offer a redesign service which is about making things prettier and fixing the most obvious issues – we believe customer experience is part of your brand.  We try and get to the underlying reasons why you need a site in the first place and consider who your audience or potential audience is, and what they want from you. We give you a careful consultation and diagnostic first, then come up with a plan of action. We then implement this plan cost effectively in a very defined span of time.

The average web user is quite savvy and interacts with several brands online which are well designed and therefore used and trusted. In our consultation phase, we really want to get to know your business by talking to you and your employees, we also want to find out about your past customers and future ones. We do research on what your competitors are doing, in doing so we help you realise your objectives step by step, and in a very concerted fashion.

We advise you on what we think works and what doesn’t before we do it and we help you measure the success of what we’ve done so we can share in the story of your success.

We guarantee you that

• People expect a web experience to be well designed these days.
• They have little tolerance for bad interaction, poor branding or clutter.
• We will manage the process of a redesign, to avoid disruption,  so that you are up and running and can tell everyone you’ve redesigned. If necessary we will phase a redesign, much like how larger brands do it.
• Most businesses are cutting costs these days, so a ‘redesign’,  which is a very effective marketing tool is not on their list of priorities. By refreshing your design, and addressing some of the issues we’ve highlighted, you’re sending out a positive message that your business is attuned to your customers needs and is doing well.

How can our redesign help you.

1. All our pages are hand coded and crafted to be findable and accessible. Search engines pick them up organically without any need for special tricks.
2. We are excited about measuring the impact a redesign has had. We give you the tools to monitor this, and accommodate to revisit design decisions if necessary.
3. Our branding and design expertise and our information management will assist in achieving the right balance and tone for your online communications and great customer experience.

How much does our redesign service cost?

We work out our redesign prices based on per day charges for various parts of the redesign process,  each compenent is worked at with a different rate.  On average a redesign which involves a total redesign effort on a 10 – 15 page website can be somewhere in the region of £3000 – £3500 pounds. Please contact us to see what we can do for you so we give you an accurate estimate, bearing in minds things that matter the most to your project and will bring a sizeable return on investment.

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We love the iPhone! We have one of our own games on the app store and one in development as we speak. We have 3 straightforward packages to offer you when it comes to iPhone development! If you’re not sure which package is most relevant to you give us a call and we can sort you out.

1. Clever Trevor - £3500, 2-3 weeks
Do you know exactly what you want? Do you have the artwork already? Do you have a detailed plan of your app? If yes is the answer to these questions then Clever Trevor is the plan for you!
We will follow your plans to the letter, modify your artwork for use on the iPhone and program the whole application for you.
Dependent on the complexity of the app we estimate it will take around 3 weeks to code and test before submitting the application to apple.

2. Even Stephen – £6,500, 3-4 weeks
Do you know what you want? Do you have some visual concepts? Do you have a rough plan of what your app is going to do? If yes is the answer to these questions then Even Stephen is the plan for you!
We will create a detailed plan of what you application will do from one screen to another, create quality usable artwork for the app and program the whole thing for you.
Dependent on the complexity of the app and the detailed nature and quantity of the artwork we estimate it will take around 4 weeks before submitting your application to apple.

3. Helpful Henry – £10,500, 4 -6 weeks
Do you sort of know what you want but don’t know where to begin? Do you need guidance with what works and doesn’t work on a small screen? Do you need us to help you plan your application and suggest awesome things that are possible on the iPhone? If yes is the answer to these questions then Helpful Henry is the plan for you!
We will help you with your ideas, generate concepts, discuss ways forward, create the plan, produce the artwork and program your application. We will do all the hard work at every step leaving you free from worry so you can concentrate on the fun stuff.
Due to the discussion and development time on this package its hard to put a time-scale on it, but we estimate it will be 6 weeks before submitting your application to apple.

Do none of these packages describe where you’re at? Do you want something more specific? Give us a call, and we can quote you something more tailored to your needs. 01484 768 299

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Our Experiences

_____________

1. We’ve grown up with the Internet but we also appreciate what it was like before the internet. Iman was playing with modems when he was 12 in Iran and ran his own BBS off his parents phone line! Alison has been programming on Atari’s. Sam first computer was a BBC!  Even Alex our communication director played with the Logo programming language! We are the computer generation, who have grown up communicating using digital tools.
2. We use the internet probably more than we watch TV. We pay careful attention to advertising messages, and like deconstructing large campaigns and the various tools they use.
3. We have industry experience but also feel like we are learning new things every day, it keeps our minds ticking and our attitude in check.
4. We do a very broad range of specialist things. From 3D visualisation to interactive iPhone development.

How we work

___________

1. We really care about our clients and what they do. We will try to talk you out of what we think isnt going to give you a result.
2. If you’re unsure of anything we take the steps to explain it to you using your language. We dont bamboozle you with jargon, we’ve seen it done before and dont like people who do.
3. We have an extensive network of freelancers who are our friends, who complement our specialisms if your project needs something doing that we dont offer, we manage this so your job gets done on time and at a very reasonable cost.
4. We communicate with you every step of the way. We are committed to being very upfront, frank and clear about what we do, how long it will take and what we need from you to get our work done promptly.
5. We spend some of our time working on personal research and development projects, we think these project enrich the creative spread of idea generation for your projects.

Things to bear in mind

_________________

1. We’re young and fresh and working with us will mean that your project will inherit the spirit and excitement of our new venture.
2. We’re nice people, we’re friendly and we dont go to networking events to sell things, we like finding out about people and what they do so we can learn from them and work with them.
3. Two of our team (Alison and Iman) taught some of the finest talent in Yorkshire for over 4 years at the University of Huddersfield. Sam and Alex ran Archa.co.uk and specialised in accessible websites with a focus on usability.
4. Although we love digital we feel inspired by the world around us and nice tactile analogue things.
5. You will get first class support on your projects.

Three things we’ve done recently

_________________________

1. We’ve been in the local newspaper and national radio, for the success of Alex’s Strictly come dancing blog. The PR company in charge of the BBC’s strictly campaign, are in regular contact with Alex and provide treats and exclusives for the blog.
2. Iman’s Glitch book was featured on Gizmodo’s international network of websites, the Daily Telegraph website and local newspapers.
3. ‘Alps’ launched their software application in the height of the A Level results seasons. ‘Alps Reports’ which we developed as an online application, it gives hundreds of local authorities the ability to download their school reports as well as a raft of other reporting options.

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Really Simple Professional Websites and Email from £250!

Why we love Start-ups

We’ve just started up a new business and we know how you feel! Excited…but very aware that you have to keep your start-up costs low. There are a lot of initial costs such as getting phone lines, internet, utilities and rent, not to mention all the intricacies of tax! It’s enough to give you a headache. We think it’s a given for new businesses starting up to get the message out there that they exist, appear professional and that they generate a buzz around them.

So if your business has only just started up (you’re in your first year) get in touch with us and we will design you a simple website and set up your email address for just £250. Most start-ups  don’t need anything too complicated; a domain,  email addresses and a simple website. We can help you do this for £250.

We want to help you, be up and running online without spending a fortune.

Why are we doing this?

We’ve just gone through the process of starting up and know how hard and costly it is.

Starting up is slow but it’s full of excitement so we’re doing something we normally wouldn’t do.

This is an opportunity for us to do business with people who will like us enough to repeat business and refer us on to their customers. We will give your site the attention and care we would give larger and more established clients. We will advise you of what to do and what not to do in a friendly and professional manner.

Why us?

The website we are offering you is simple in form but creative in design. It won’t be a template design; it will be uniquely designed around your business.

We’re offering free web hosting and email addresses for the first year, there are no catches after that it will be £50 pounds for each subsequent year to renew your domain, and give you hosting and email.

Call Alex on 01484 768 299 or if you prefer email her at alex@rith.co.uk and mention the startup offer.

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Brian is continuing as planned. A few new errors here and there but they have been fixed as soon as found and everything gets a bit closer to completion.

A few suggestions for features for Brian -

1. A waiting time for Brian so that there is say a 5 second count down before he is released from the door and into the level.
2. The ability to return to the main menu from the in game pause. Perhaps this would also save the game at that point?
3. A better exit door animation, the closing of the door… a separate congratulations screen that waits to be clicked before progressing to the next level.

Whats next? -

1. Multi line reading and writing of the levels text file, atm we can only load and play/edit one level.
2. Ability to write the current levels state to a text file, so that when the game is relaunched it can ask if you want to continue your old game.
3. Editor link from main page should be able to access any of Brians levels and ‘play’ them.
4. Lives amount for Brian. 5 for each level? Game over link to main menu. (Option to being again from last level?)

Bugs -
Rith explosion jerky.
Place a speed bottom right and it crashes the game.

Brian Walkthrough from Running in the Halls on Vimeo.

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My blogging fame is increasing at an alarming rate with another article in the Huddersfield Examiner about Strictlycomedancing.tv with a mention for Running in the Halls.

Lucky for me that Running in the Halls Development Director Sam Croft designed a nifty Wordpress theme especially for the site, optimised it for search engines and ensured that it didn’t use too much bandwidth!

Strictlycomedancing.tv got over 12,000 hits over the weekend and made some great money with Google Adsense.

Check out the article here http://tinyurl.com/ly4osh.

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We want to give you an idea of how we work so that you know exactly what happens after “first contact”.

From the moment you contact us by phone or email, the cogs will be whirring in our heads and we will be thinking of everything we can to ensure the success of your project.

Each project has different requirements but this is what usually happens.

Initial Stage

1. We set up a face to face meeting with you so we can find out more about you and your exact requirements. In this meeting we will establish the following:
   • Your target audience
   • What you want to achieve
   • Timescale
   • Budget
2. We then send you a proposal with a basic concept, our cost and also our contract for developing the work.
3. Once you are happy with our proposal and cost; we will begin the work! We ask to be paid a portion of the total cost before we start the project.

Development Stage

1. We begin developing an extended concept and we will show this to you for your approval.
2. Now for the nitty gritty – the designing, programming and developing.
3. We will update you throughout the project on our progress to check you are happy with our creative direction and see if you want any extras.
4. The project is finished and we will present it to you!
5. You pay us our the remainder of the cost.
6. The project goes live.

Aftercare

1. We can put an aftercare contract in place so that for the first month your project is live we are at your beck and call.
2. We will prioritise you for this month so that if you decide you want any extra sections or services we will put you to the front of the queue.
3. After the first month you can decide whether you want to keep paying us for aftercare – you’re under no obligation so if you feel you can go it alone that’s no problem.

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Brian continues to take little robot steps towards completion. Been working on the menu system today, I initially thought it would be difficult to include animation of any sort into the menu screens, but it hasn’t been a big deal… just another counter variable for the poor processor to cope with!

Another day another bug… at the moment the bugs are quite minimal as we’re testing it during every stage of development, but just when you think everything is fine something unusual will turn up. At the moment the first time Brian dies he’s not exploding correctly – probably has something to do with the splash screen. Also there is a strange speed up Brian bug where if you place the speed in the bottom right corner Brian will hit the wall and cause the game to crash… but only if its Brians first time hitting the wall on the right. Odd but I’m sure fixable!

Heres 2 screen shots of the game taken from the simulator. Im currently working on the main menu… Important stuff first – if you click Brian he will have a few word of wisdom to impart.

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