20122011
October 6th: JBA New Retail SiteAugust 4th: Horses for coursesMay 24th: Vintage Massey FergusonMay 19th: Corner House HotelMarch 18th: Gretna Green WeddingsFebruary 27th: .windows {opacity: 0%;}February 22nd: Damhead KennelsJanuary 17th: Eastlands Stud2010
December 18th: KirkwoodNovember 18th: Putting your hart into itOctober 26th: Sunnyside FarmSeptember 17th: Freelance film workAugust 11th: Designing for iPadAugust 11th: More insulation servicesJuly 14th: Inspire 2010June 25th: Jamieson Brothers WholesaleMay 14th: Thermal surveys, interior designMarch 26th: After Effects video productionMarch 19th: Conference video servicesFebruary 18th: ecoInsulateFebruary 4th: Busy, busy, busy2009
December 21st: JBA Seed PotatoesDecember 4th: client databasesOctober 26th: deliberationOctober 21st: helping the helpersSeptember 25th: high techSeptember 7th: cyclic career pathsAugust 19th: packaging designAugust 7th: anyone for a lock-in?July 2nd: swimming with sharksJune 25th: handle with careJune 25th: peter delves associatesJune 15th: welcome to the new siteMay 21st: switching on the lightApril 30th: hanging aroundApril 10th: morgan imagesMarch 24th: time machineMarch 13th: vma awards 2009February 2nd: reach for the starsJanuary 27th: eskdale solutionsJanuary 1st: happy hogmany2008
November 10th: eskdale roofingNovember 6th: getting iloadedNovember 2nd: stuart sprayOctober 31st: wee print jobsSeptember 22nd: callistiSeptember 4th: solwaybankJuly 24th: what's kit doing?June 30th: central hotelJune 1st: Welcome to the site
October 6th: JBA New Retail SiteAugust 4th: Horses for coursesMay 24th: Vintage Massey FergusonMay 19th: Corner House HotelMarch 18th: Gretna Green WeddingsFebruary 27th: .windows {opacity: 0%;}February 22nd: Damhead KennelsJanuary 17th: Eastlands Stud2010
December 18th: KirkwoodNovember 18th: Putting your hart into itOctober 26th: Sunnyside FarmSeptember 17th: Freelance film workAugust 11th: Designing for iPadAugust 11th: More insulation servicesJuly 14th: Inspire 2010June 25th: Jamieson Brothers WholesaleMay 14th: Thermal surveys, interior designMarch 26th: After Effects video productionMarch 19th: Conference video servicesFebruary 18th: ecoInsulateFebruary 4th: Busy, busy, busy2009
December 21st: JBA Seed PotatoesDecember 4th: client databasesOctober 26th: deliberationOctober 21st: helping the helpersSeptember 25th: high techSeptember 7th: cyclic career pathsAugust 19th: packaging designAugust 7th: anyone for a lock-in?July 2nd: swimming with sharksJune 25th: handle with careJune 25th: peter delves associatesJune 15th: welcome to the new siteMay 21st: switching on the lightApril 30th: hanging aroundApril 10th: morgan imagesMarch 24th: time machineMarch 13th: vma awards 2009February 2nd: reach for the starsJanuary 27th: eskdale solutionsJanuary 1st: happy hogmany2008
November 10th: eskdale roofingNovember 6th: getting iloadedNovember 2nd: stuart sprayOctober 31st: wee print jobsSeptember 22nd: callistiSeptember 4th: solwaybankJuly 24th: what's kit doing?June 30th: central hotelJune 1st: Welcome to the site
October 6th 2011: JBA New Retail Site
After a development cycle lasting over a year, we're stoked to finally release the new version of the JBA Seed Potatoes retail store.
The new site is a complete teardown and rebuild of the old site, which was built on a system dating back to 2007 and was the very model of feature creep. We wrote an entirely new back-end system from the ground up, which controls content to this site and JBA's wholesale sister site.
We've focused strongly on ease of use on the new site: there's a lot of new functionality to make the buying process as simple as possible, but two of my favourites have to be the instant product filters (with permalinks) and the 'Notify me when this product is in stock' function.
This project was marred by the unexpected passing of our programmer, Yabba, which I've blogged about elsewhere. A tragic loss, and much missed.
No comments.
August 4th 2011: Horses for courses
Lead Rope is an equine assisted training company based in Southern Scotland: we launched their new site this month. Working to a very specific brief, we went for a clean, modern feel to promote their corporate and executive training, building a custom theme for Wordpress based on their logo colour scheme.
No comments.
May 24th 2011: Vintage Massey Ferguson
A mix of business and pleasure here, putting together a site to catalogue a private collection of vintage tractors. We used a combination of vintage photos, scanned pictures from the last two decades, and a quick on-site shoot to put together an eye-catching design which reflected the heritage of the collection.
For those of you keeping your browsers up-to-date, there's some nice CSS3 effects here, including box shadow/bevel effects and item transformation. It's lovely doing this in CSS rather than pre-production in Photoshop: not only can you make multiple changes through the stylesheet, you also get graceful degradation for restricted users.
24 comments.
May 19th 2011: Corner House Hotel
A nice new brand and website for this local hotel. We carried out a couple of photoshoots earlier in the year and added some custom content in a custom-developed Wordpress theme, with a little custom-built Javascript work to add the final touches.
7 comments.
March 18th 2011: Gretna Green Weddings
What started as a simple Wordpress upgrade turned into something a bit more involved - the Gretna Green Weddings website launched this month, with a whole bunch of goodies attached.
We remapped the site content into a hierarchical system to make navigation easier, and integrated inline enquiry form systems - which submit without reloading the page - into key points of the site, before laying out data in an easy-to-read grid format. This was all underpinned by the booking calculator: a single-page, three-step process to allow clients to place booking enquiries quickly and easily.
19 comments.
February 27th 2011: .windows {opacity: 0%;}
Catherinefield Windows came to us at the end of last year with a request to update their website to bring in more traffic and showcase their product range. We worked on a new design and information layout which focused on directing traffic towards requesting a quote for their product range, which launched this month.
The new site is built around Wordpress, with a whole lot of template tweaking to let the client display products in a catalogue layout - surprisingly simple, thanks to the WP-native page ancestor variables - and worked with an SEO expert to put together content.
We integrated a bit of jQuery functionality into the site too, to allow us us to validate and invisibly submit forms for each product and display key content on the front page, which has had good feedback so far.
Technologies: WordPress, php, css, jQuery
No comments.
February 22nd 2011: Damhead Kennels
A quick wordpressification and lick of paint for this rural kennels and cattery. We took an existing site and updated the design and content a bit to produce something which should work well with search engines, as well as showcasing the spectacular location too. It's also got a rather neat jQuery'd form system which invisibly submits via an Ajax call - and a lot of very nice photos provided by the client.
11 comments.
January 17th 2011: Eastlands Stud
I've been helping Eastlands update and maintain their website for the last year or so, and we've just set their new design live. A straight back-to-basics job here, with the emphasis on content and a clean, simple design.
We'll be moving the site across to a new server soon, and replacing page IDs with search engine friendly URLs for a bit of extra search engine efficiency; this coupled with clean code and regular content updates should maintain the sites ratings.
20 comments.
December 18th 2010: Kirkwood
I've been working with Kirkwood Real Farm Holidays lately to update their branding, logos and website design. The results are now online: a custom Wordpress site with multiple templates, full-screen fixed backgrounds, and the usual jQuery loveliness to round it off. The site also connects to an online booking system provided by our friends at SuperControl.
Technologies: xhtml, css, WordPress, SuperControl
2 comments.
November 18th 2010: Putting your hart into it
The White Hart in Dumfries is a bit of a local institution: it's been running for 170 years and has survived all that the town can throw at it (including an impressive amount of flooding last year): so, it was nice to get the chance to update its rather dated website.
Following a photography session earlier in the year, we used Wordpress and a light smattering of jQuery scripting to reorganise the content into five colour-coded sections, and built a brand new design which focused on the Hart's lively atmosphere and live events rather than the generic hotel template which had previously been followed.
Technologies: Wordpress, jQuery, xhtml/css, htaccess page rewrites.
No comments.
October 26th 2010: Sunnyside Farm
For the past couple of months, I've been working with Sunnyside Farm to develop their new website and online shop. Sunnyside produce a range of rare-breed meats on a small scale, putting welfare and quality of life above bottom line profits - they're a company after my own heart, and it's been a joy working with them.
The website is a custom-themed WordPress install, with WP eCommerce and Google Checkout handling online shopping and payment processing respectively. As usual, there's a few tricks with jQuery and custom php scripting to enhance the UX and search engine visibility, and a bit of CSS tinkering to make full-screen backgrounds work on mobile browsers.
Technologies: Wordpress, WP eCommerce, jQuery, xhtml, css
1 comment.
September 17th 2010: Freelance film work
I've been working as a cameraman with the crew at Sharkbait Productions this month to help in the production of a documentary on raptor conservation, which has taken us around the country. This week, we had the fascinating job of interviewing MSPs in the Scottish Parliament building; in the next couple of weeks we'll be tramping around various country estates collecting opinions from some of the folk on the other side of the fence. It's definitely nice to get out of the office for a bit.
And talking of getting out of the office, it doesn't look like I'll be moving from my desk for the next few months. Currently working on eight different design jobs, an ongoing CRM development project, and fielding more enquiries than are altogether healthy. The diary is almost full for the rest of 2010; book now for 2011!
21 comments.
August 11th 2010: Designing for iPad
So we've recently got our hands on our very own iPad, adding to the ridiculous pile of Apple hardware in our home/business (two MacBooks, two iPods, an iPhone (two if you include the one lost in a field somewhere) a Mac Mini, an ancient eMac and a filing cabinet full of peripherals).
It's a gorgeous bit of kit - as Mr Jobs says, it's totally lovely to browse the web on, and Google Earth is just a joy to play with - and throws up a few interesting design and code issues too:
Another new resolution to design for. In fact, there's two, thanks to the iPad's magical rotating feature. Screen resolutions have been gaining width steadily for a while, and the prevailing habit has been to think of the 'fold' as a point at which to bury less important content; in Portrait mode, this is no more.
No more Flash navigation. Whatever your thoughts on the iOS Flash debate, it's good to see something finally kicking this horrid habit out. If it isn't coded, it isn't there. No support for Flash video, either, of course: I'll be following the lead of YouTube and using .h264 from here on.
Some interesting CSS issues. For instance, Mobile Safari doesn't do fixed positioning: it shows you the proportion of the website which fits on screen and treats what you can see as a 'viewpoint'. So if you've got something strapped to the bottom of your web page, it's going to stay at the bottom of the page. When you scroll, you ain't going to see it no more.
It's pleasing to see, though, that every site I've worked on over the past few years works OK on iPad. That's what standards-compliance is for...
No comments.
August 11th 2010: More insulation services
Solway Insulation is a new launch this month - a fairly simple but attractive site for a company which is fast-expanding in the region. The man in charge of this particular company was one of my first clients, from way back in 2002: doesn't time fly.
This is a first outing for Unify, which is a fairly nifty bit of database-free content editing software which lets the client edit the site in a wysiwyg format, without altering the overall structure of the site. We're still working out how to make this run with include files and friendly URL strucures, but it looks like a potentially useful bit of software for the future.
Technologies: CSS, xHTML, PHP, Unify.
No comments.
July 14th 2010: Inspire 2010
I managed to finish my first two terms as a lecturer without losing any more of my hair - although switching to lecturing one day a week probably helped.
At the end of last term the Creative Industries department hosted an exhibition to showcase students work: our web development work was a part of this. We built a showcase website to host student sites on which was displayed in one of our development labs: the site is now viewable online too.
I hope my students learned something over the last few months; I certainly learned a lot...
No comments.
June 25th 2010: Jamieson Brothers Wholesale
I've been working with JBA Seed Potatoes a lot this month, building new systems and functionality into their front-end website and stock control systems. This is one of the sites we've recently launched: Seed Potato Merchants, a new channel to market for the company.
We had to do some tricky Javascript and jQuery work to make the user interface a bit more friendly - there's a lot of data being pushed at the user here - and quite a lot of preparation to make the existing (ASP) back end systems work with the new (PHP) front end.
We're now going to work on taking all the new features we've built - including customer accounts and order tracking - and work this back into some more projects for the company, which should continue to keep us busy...
1 comment.
May 14th 2010: Thermal surveys, interior design
It's been a bit quiet round here of late, the reason being that I've just been far too busy to update. Which isn't best practice, I know, but it's been a bit crazy of late.
I've just launched a couple of new sites in the last couple of weeks:
Thermal Image Surveys is a new offshoot from the ecoInsulate family, offering - as the name would suggest - thermal imaging surveys for domestic and commercial users. We built a heavily customised Wordpress system, shunning the standard template system to craft a new front end which supports multiple columns, friendly URL structures, and client-editable meta data: a totally custom front end with the stability of a Wordpress backend system. I'll be interested to see how it performs in SEO terms.
We've also just set up a nice simple site for Joy Jack Interior Design. Joy has been working in the region for almost 30 years, and wanted a simple, minimal design to show off her interior design work, which we launched earlier this month.
There's a whole host of other work on the books at the moment, including some serious new developments for JBA, a fun creative video project, and a couple of other websites which I can't talk about until they launch!
I'm now booked up with freelance work until July, so unfortunately I can't take on any other design contracts until this time, although I'm happy to advise as a consultant, and provide hosting/email services. As always, the best thing is to get in touch.
1 comment.
March 26th 2010: After Effects video production
Just finished some video work for JBA, a long-term client who are keeping me very busy this year. This 10-minute video was shot on location in a local garden centre; the ident at the start and end were created using Photoshop and After Effects, and the titles put together using Final Cut Pro. A fun little project which came out looking pretty good!
Readers with children might pick up on the influence for the ident - thank you CBeebies. You can view the video on JBA's website or their YouTube channel.
1 comment.
March 19th 2010: Conference video services
I've been hired by the Crichton Development Company this month to provide video services for the Ladyfield Charette - a series of public meetings which took place to allow residents and developers to work together to come up with a sustainable development plan for the local area.
The process was carried out with the incredibly talented team at DPZ Consulting, and consisted of five days of development, with three presentations held in different locations on the Crichton estate. We worked with both companies to provide full video coverage of the presentations, even producing an 80 minute DVD of the final presentation within a 12-hour turnaround for the following day's events.
1 comment.
February 18th 2010: ecoInsulate
Launched this month is the new site for ecoInsulate Ltd, an environmentally friendly insulation company. The company has a pretty cool insulation system which is water-based and chemical-free: apparently one of the most efficient insulation systems on the market today.
We wanted to develop something that stood out a bit, so built a visual around the 'Morning, Noon and Night' slogan: some PHP/Javascript wizardry built a system which changes the look of the site depending on the time a user visits (you can bypass this by clicking on the little icons at the top of the page).
A nice little project, and one which we're hoping should bring in lots of new business for this up-and-coming company.
1 comment.
February 4th 2010: Busy, busy, busy
It's been quite quiet in the blogosphere for the last few weeks. In my defense, the day after my last post, my third daughter Emily was born, and we've been coping without very much sleep for the last six weeks.
Workwise, I'm pretty booked up for the next couple of months. I'm accepting freelance work from mid-March onwards, but realistically I won't be taking on any more contracts until April. I've got two database/tracking systems in development, three ongoing website development contracts, a video project and a couple of ongoing support contracts to take care of.
There should be a couple of new sites appearing in the portfolio over the next few weeks, so check back soon - if you're looking for a freelance web or media designer, book now before the rest of my spring schedule gets booked up...
2 comments.
December 21st 2009: JBA Seed Potatoes
After a long development cycle, we finally launched JBA Seed Potatoes today. I've been working with JBA for a good three years now, building the original website and doing loads of design work for them over the years.
The new site matches the branding we worked on back in August and is complimented with a new Guide which I worked on with Hoggett Creative over the autumn. We kept a few styling tweaks from the original JBA website but built a whole new organisational system in the back end to make updates easier, and streamlined the ordering process using a new user flow and liberal use of Javascript for client interaction.
We'll be working together in the new year to roll out updates as an ongoing project, so keep an eye out for more exciting developments in the tuber world...
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my clients, past and present!
1 comment.
December 4th 2009: client databases
I've been working on a client database for a long-term customer for the past few weeks. I can't give out too many details on the project for data sensitivity issues, but the database is built to let the company access client data fast and securely online.
It's been built on a MySQL database with two layers of password protection for security, and uses jQuery effects to speed up user interaction time. An interesting project, all in.
4 comments.
October 26th 2009: deliberation
we recently launched the new site for deliberate, a london-based pr company with an impressive client list. we took the original flash design and translated it into standards-compliant xhtml/css, before polishing it up with a few wee jquery effects. a fun little job: looking forward to working with benjamin and co again soon.
No comments.
October 21st 2009: helping the helpers
the carers' centre website launched this month - a joint collaboration with the princess trust for carers and abbey group. it's a uk-wide resource for unpaid carers, to let them know more about available benefits, and allowing them to network with other professionals in the industry. traffic is looking fairly amazing already.
1 comment.
September 25th 2009: high tech
a new addition to the portfolio is hytek cars in dumfries. we carried out a facelift and some usability upgrades on the site, using its existing backend system but cleaning up frontend content: you can see a comparison between old and new here.
hytek's site is built using drupal: a bit of a baptism of fire was had to get it all up and running, but it's quite a nice system once you're used to it. some heavy reading was involved in the run-up to launch!
this is the first site to run on our brand new spangly ubuntu linux server, which is running in parallel to our existing windows box. a bit of adjustment required to get used to using a command-line interface only: /etc/apache ls and all that...
1 comment.
September 7th 2009: cyclic career paths
from tomorrow, i'll be spending a couple of days a week at the beautiful crichton campus in dumfries, in my new position as (and i'm breaking into capitals here) Lecturer in Creative and Applied Multimedia (there, won't do it again). a nice symmetry there, as this is where i started my degree in 1997.
i'll be lecturing in flash, actionscript, and sound/video editing - there'll be less emphasis on web delivery than i'm used to, but it should still be a lot of fun.
No comments.
August 19th 2009: packaging design
new to the portfolio is this printing work for jba seed potatoes. the new packaging will be rolled out across the whole of jba's extensive and ever-growing (no pun intended) product range and is on the shelves now.
the new packaging is designed to compliment the companies brand and stand out over the competition - look out in your local garden centre for the new packs.
here's an embiggified version of the photo above, and here's the original designs.
1 comment.
August 7th 2009: anyone for a lock-in?
a quick logo composition for the vaults, a local cafe/bar, which will be finding its way onto print, signage and t-shirts shortly. here's some that didn't make the cut: #3 is my favourite, but i suspect it might have been a bit too smartarse for it's own good...
No comments.
July 2nd 2009: swimming with sharks
shark bait productions is a film production company specialising in wildlife documentary production. i put together this site for them this week which will showcase some of their work in the future - at the moment it's just a brochure site with a blog for the company to publish updates to clients.
the site has its foundations in wordpress , built in php as usual. using wordpress to power something like this does feel rather akin to using a chinook to deliver a letter, but there you go - it does the job very nicely anyway.
2 comments.
June 25th 2009: handle with care
the carers centre is a new initiative which will provide a support and networking resource for workers in the care industry around the uk. it's a fairly major development, with backing from the princess royal trust and abbey group, which is going to be quite a long-term project.
i'm going to be working hard on building the back end to power the system and designing and building a w3c compliant user focused front end. more as it develops.
No comments.
June 25th 2009: peter delves associates
i've been working with the lovely people at clearview lately. we've just completed a branding overhaul and new site for peter delves associates, personal consultants and trainers based in warwickshire.
the site allows the company to accept bookings online with support for group bookings, discounts and multiple locations, as well as user-tailored content and user tracking functionality.
No comments.
June 15th 2009: welcome to the new site
it's been far too long in the making, and i'm not sure it'll ever be fully complete, but this is officially v7 of Kit Allen Dot Com. explore, enjoy, and feel free to leave comments if you like.
this version of the site runs off wordpress, fast-becoming my cms of choice. the 'world' was built in flash, with everything else coded in jquery on standards-compliant xhtml and css.
oh, and check out my custom networking links at the bottom of the page...
2 comments.
May 21st 2009: switching on the light
i've been working with my good friends at callisti recently to lend my design and user interface skills to their team: i think we're all quite proud of the latest release, eprojectorlamps.
analysing data from the sites previous incarnation, we concluded that users were visiting with prior knowledge of the product they wanted to buy, so we focused on making it as easy as possible for them to get to their required product. the three-stage process on the front page uses jquery and a live feed to get the product into the basket and ready for checkout without leaving the front page.
this is a good example of evolving user interface design, and a lesson in how it pays to know your user...
1 comment.
April 30th 2009: hanging around
handmade hammocks came to us at the start of the year to ask if we could do anything with their actinic site. an effective selling tool was looking a bit drab after several years service and was in need of an upgrade.
i produced a visual walkthrough for the client which took their existing content and gave it a fresh new look, using jquery effects and a simplified user interface to make their products shine. i quote our client:
'i was a bit nervous of opening the file you had sent - what if it was absolutely nothing like i'd hoped for? the fact is, it is far, far better than anything I had imagined and I am absolutely delighted with what you have done.'
which is always nice to hear. since then, we've been learning actinic the hard way - fortunately, we've made some great progress and we're hoping to launch v3 of the site in may.
No comments.
April 10th 2009: morgan images
i've been working with morgan images this month to develop a file upload and digital online shopping system.
the structure we developed uses ftp to batch upload photos, resizing them on-the-fly using .net, and allows clients to purchase prints of their images using a nifty shopping system, storing data as client-side session variables for extra-fast performance.
the system is another outing for my jquery-based developments - using integrated window systems allows for an intuative and user-friendly interface.
the system is sadly client-only, so you'll have to commission glenn if you want to see the results...
No comments.
March 24th 2009: time machine
on sunday afternoon i opened my trusty macbook to find that the hard drive had failed in a terminal manner. worst case scenario for many people, and it would have been a disaster but for apple's fantastic time machine.
time machine, for the non-mac fraternity, is an integral part of os x which archives any change you make to your system and lets you return to it to retrieve an old version. the idea is that you point it at an external drive and let it backup automatically in the background.
it's total system failure where it really comes into its own, though. the same day, i was able to locate a new hard drive; i had it picked up the next morning, and after a ten-minute install job was able to run time machine to restore my system - a process which took just over two hours for 140gb of files. perfect.
No comments.
March 13th 2009: vma awards 2009
spent a day this week in london, covering photography at the annual veterinary marketing awards. involved some snapping in tricky low-light conditions, but was a fun challenge nonetheless.
No comments.
February 2nd 2009: reach for the stars
working on some concept work for white star as they broaden their remit into audio-visual. click here for a preview of a logo design. their website is due to launch later this month.
No comments.
January 27th 2009: eskdale solutions
eskdale solutions recently unveiled their new promo video, which we collaborated on over the back end of last year. eskdale contacted me for my production skills and we ended up doing a lot of after effects work too, producing motion graphics and visuals. i'm looking forward to working with them in the future.
you can view the promo on eskdales website.
1 comment.
January 1st 2009: happy hogmany
hope the year is good for y'all. i'll be working with the number one ladies' detective agency in london during 2009. established by the late anthony minghella, the film company currently produces the series of the same name for the bbc.
the upshot of this is that i'll be zipping up and down the country between scotland and london approximately every two weeks, so will be available down south a bit more often this year.
No comments.
November 10th 2008: eskdale roofing
i'm quite pleased with the new eskdale roofing website, which we launched late last week. it replaced the previous site which had been on the go for several years and, while looking dated, had an excellent search engine placement which the client didn't want to lose.
the new design keeps it simple in terms of navigation and site structure; the code is lightweight, valid xhtml with a lot of the meta data transferred from the old site to keep appearing high in the listings. we installed analytics to allow us to monitor performance; and i'm particularly chuffed with the ajax portfolio section, which leans quite heavily on the jquery work i've been doing of late.
No comments.
November 6th 2008: getting iloaded
what's the best way of massively increasing traffic to your site, pushing sales through the roof, and getting yourself noticed? in the case of long-term clients iloaded the answer is this: a fairly staggering promotion which should send some shockwaves through the industry.
essentially, it's a short-term promotion which offers customers blockbuster films such as iron man, arctic tale, no country for old men and hundreds of others for under two pounds; plus a huge range of music videos for one pound a piece. the catch? amazingly, there isn't one.
i've been working hard for the last week preparing graphics and advertising for the site to push the new promotion, although frankly i'm not sure it'll need much pushing. get them while you can.
No comments.
November 2nd 2008: stuart spray
stuart and i have been working together since may this year to put together the new stuart spray wildlife consultancy website.
the site is a fairly massive resource for conservation legislation and gives stuart's clients an insight into the measures required to conform with uk legislation. it's content managed, so stuart can post his adventures to the site, and a mix of xhtml, css, flash and ajax with a whole lot of content and some magic birds to boot (hover over them to see).
in other news: happy 1st birthday hannah, and i for one welcome our new liberal overlords.
No comments.
October 31st 2008: wee print jobs
a couple of bits of press advertising carried out in the rare time this month i haven't been busy working on fun stuff for iloaded and a couple of others (coming to this space soon).
the central hotel asked me to design them a flyer to be distributed with football programmes; stuart spray wildlife consultancy commissioned the press ad above to accompany an article in a nationwide construction magazine.
1 comment.
September 22nd 2008: callisti
this month, i've been working on a couple of interesting projects for callisti ltd, an edinburgh-based seo and website management company.
i worked with callisti to develop the branding shown above and have been providing design and development for them as an ongoing service - i'm hoping to continue doing a lot of work with them in the future.
callisti do a lot of the hardcore seo work that makes the difference when launching your site, and offer website management services for larger web based projects.
No comments.
September 4th 2008: solwaybank
i was called on monday by a client wanting a site in a hurry. four days later, the result is solwaybank suffolks - a one-page brochure for one of the countries finest flocks of pedigree sheep.
i've been cutting my teeth on jquery - a lightweight javascript effects library - so check out the zoom effects on the images, accordian functionality on text areas, and the validate-as-you-go form submission. it's been a lot of fun to play with.
No comments.
July 24th 2008: what's kit doing?
design and dev for iloaded
new website design for stuart spray wildlife
funky promo video with eskdale solutions
some groundwork for shark bait productions
and listening to kazoo funk orchestra
No comments.
June 30th 2008: central hotel
fresh off the press: the central hotel website. this small hotel in annan provides wedding accommodation and live music as well as their own taxi service.
i did a photography session prior to the design, before coding custom flash and ajax elements which allowed us to display multiple images and a slider element to switch between bookings and events.
No comments.
June 1st 2008: Welcome to the site
i hope you like it. figured it was time to go back to basics - so here is the stripped-down, pared back version. it's valid xhtml and css and pretty much sums up what I do: web design and multimedia for companies around the uk.
i'm cutting a showreel of video work at the moment, fitting it in whenever paid work doesn't get in the way (which isn't a bad situation to be in, really). it will showcase my multimedia work with public and private sector clients over the last eight years.
until i have time to do this, i'll be posting work updates here, so you can get an idea of the work i do.
