Project Overview

With more than 20 years experience in the display business Retrospective Displays cater for commercial, municipal, charity and an ever growing band of discerning individual customers.

Their line up has a distinctly retrospective feel with reproduction British heritage icons, interpretative and commemorative plaques and panels and a strong promotional range including exhibition kits and leaflet dispensers.

Retrospective Displays is built using WordPress and makes use of the WP-ecommerce and Contact Form 7 plugins.

Check out Retrospective Displays Facebook page here.

There are many to choose from but here are a few of my client from hell favourites:

Me: “I don’t think I’ll be able to work on the site today; my dog just died.”

Client: “What’s that?”

Me: “My dog?”

Client: “You can just use my computer, if you’d like.”

Me: “What? No, I need to go run an errand at the vet. My dog died.”

Client: “Oh! Hahahaha.”

Me: “…”

Client: “Sorry, I though DOG was just one of those techie acronyms you guys like to throw around. See you tomorrow.”

Client: “The ‘V’ is too pointy. Can we get a ‘V’ that isn’t pointy?”

Me: “An un-pointy ‘V’ may start to look like a ‘U’…”

Client: “We don’t want a ‘U’. We want a ‘V’ that doesn’t have a point.”

“It looks like over time the submit button has begun to fade out a bit. Is it possible to upload a fresh button? I want all the buttons on my site to look new all the time.”

“What did you call it? Lorem Ipsum? You keep it in for a while. I want to get my money’s worth. Plus, it’ll get people talking.”

“I don’t know quite what we’ll be selling yet. Maybe niches. I’ve heard the niche market is doing really well.”

“The only problem we have with the website is, when my friend loads it on his iPhone, it’s not as big as the computer.”

Client: “I need you all to quit watching me through my modem!”

Me: “What?”

Client: “Don’t think I don’t see that little light on the modem every time it’s turned on. It looks JUST like the light at the top of my video camera.”

Me: “I’m still not quite understanding this. What are you implying exactly?”

Client: “Be honest. Are you recording what I’m doing? I want you to turn it off.”

Me: “Does the light say ‘POWER’?”

Client: “Yes.”

Me: “That’s the power light for your modem.”

Client: “oh.”

“Whoa, whoa. Why are you building the site on a Mac? I told you, everyone here in the office is on a Dell. They’re going to want to see the site too.”

“If for some reason you do not receive this email, please let me know.”

The guys over at Lateral – Design & Technology with Passion have gone above and beyond with their about us page. It just goes to show an about us page doesn’t have to be a boring page nobody one reads, this one is a lot of fun and a real cool feature of the site.

Project Overview

The Army Cadet Force (ACF) is one of the UK’s most popular and successful youth organisations. Started in 1860, the ACF now has over 1,700 detachments, 7,000 adult volunteers and over 45,000 Cadets. The D Company Devon ACF has detachments in Ashburton, Bovey Tracey, Brixham, Newton Abbot, Paignton, Teignmouth, Torquay and Totnes.

The new D Company Devon ACF web site is built using WordPress and makes use of the Contact Form 7, NextGen Gallery and Event Calendar plugins. The site has been optimised for mobile web so any iPhone, Blackberry or Android device will get the best user experience possible.

I set up my own web site, Retro Edge Web Design in the later part of 2007, prior to that I spent a good couple of years learning the trade and finding out how best to go about setting up a small web design business in my local area. After researching other web design businesses I quickly realised the similarities between cowboy builders and cowboy web designers in that as anyone can pick up a paint brush and call themselves a painter and decorator so can anyone pick up Adobe Dreamweaver and call themselves a web designer.

Having always taken great pride in my work I wanted my portfolio and Retro Edge Web Design to reflect a high standard of work. The better the quality of work, the more business I would get… or so I hoped. Over the last few years I have dealt with various businesses that took the cheap option when it came to their web site. Perhaps it’s because their friends, uncles, mate down the pub can design sites and has promised to do it for a hundred quid or perhaps they fancy having a go at it themselves, after all “Dreamweaver isn’t too hard to use is it?” More often than not it unsurprisingly comes down to cost and the cheapest quote wins the gig. I always find this frustrating, as companies are prepared to spend £100′s if not £1000′s on poster and flyer advertising but when it comes to their web site they are prepared to leave it in the hands of a novice. I’m talking from personal experience of course, as this is not always the case but my own experiences have led me to take on more web sites that needed fixing than new projects, and it normally takes twice as long and costs twice as much to sort out.

I guess the problem is that on the surface web design appears very easy but there is a whole lot more to web design than simply adding text and images to a html page. What are the chances of these web site cowboys offering any sort of SEO, there isn’t much point in having a web site if nobody can find it and it certainly isn’t worth having a web site if it is coded incorrectly, in fact it could do more harm than good.

My advice is simple, if you need a web site, seek advice from a professional…if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly!

Original article from Business Week (Monday, 23 June, 2008)

The Internet is constantly changing. BusinessWeek.com spoke to a bevy of experts and distilled the must-follow rules top online designers live by in 2008

Since the Internet emerged as a major force, altering everything from the way people work to the way they date, it has been a roller-coaster ride that made the world giddy. Microsoft, Netscape, et al. fought the browser wars, Web standards were championed, and the Web became community-minded and social, ushering in the reign of Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. From boom to bust and back again, with staggering amounts of money changing hands at every point, the online industry rides on with no end in sight.

The Net has also attracted prophets, gurus, theorists, and evangelists of every stripe. Many of their promised game-changing technologies—Jini, DHTML, and countless others—never panned out, while seemingly simple innovations—metadata, XML, and CSS—have led to major breakthroughs. Meanwhile, Web design vogues from the effervescent jumble of HotWired to the stark utility of Google have continued to evolve and become more contradictory—and entrenched.

To try and make sense of it all, BusinessWeek.com canvassed a broad range of Internet luminaries to discover the design rules they live by right now. Contributors ranged from the guru of Web usability, Don Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, to the design director of NYTimes.com, Khoi Vinh, and John Maeda, president-elect of the Rhode Island School of Design. These 10 commandments of Web design for 2008 are the combined results of our survey. For the full list of contributors, see the end of the story.

1. Thou shalt not abuse Flash.

Adobe’s popular Web animation technology powers everything from the much-vaunted Nike Plus Web site for running diehards to many humdrum banner advertisements. But the technology can easily be abused—excessive, extemporaneous animations confuse usability and bog down users’ Web browsers.

2. Thou shalt not hide content.

Advertisements may be necessary for a site’s continued existence, but usability researchers say pop-ups and full-page ads that obscure content hurt functionality—and test a reader’s willingness to revisit. Elective banners—that expand or play audio when a user clicks on them—are much less intrusive.

3. Thou shalt not clutter.

The Web may be the greatest archive of all time, but sites that lack a coherent structure make it impossible to wade through information. Amazon.com and others put their sites’ information hierarchy at the top of their list of design priorities.

4. Thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections.

Apple often sets the standard for slick and cool—in all forms of design. But some experts say the company’s habit of creating glassy reflections under photos of its products has been far too commonly copied, turning the style element into a cliché.

5. Thou shalt not name your Web 2.0 company with an unnecessary surplus or dearth of vowels.

The Web has brought with it a strange nomenclature that’s only got weirder over time. Hip, smart Web sites have been named either with a superfluous number of vowels or strategically deleted ones. Cases in point: Flickr, Smibs, and Meebo. These names are memorable but destined to sound dated.

6. Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography.

Designers say that despite the increase in broadband penetration, plain text has gotten a second wind in cutting-edge Web design. Mainstream sites such as Craigslist have led the way, while designer-oriented sites such as Coudal Partners and John Gruber’s popular Daring Fireball blog represent the cutting edge.

7. Thou shalt create immersive experiences.

Merely looking good doesn’t cut it anymore. Sites like Facebook and YouTube draw in users with compelling content and functionality. Creating Web sites that can capture and hold users’ attention is what matters most.

8. Thou shalt be social.

Web 2.0 is everywhere. MySpace and similar sites only launched the trend of having users communicate and interact—sometimes obsessively—on browser-based sites. Designers are now filtering those same elements into diverse sites, from smart advertising to online office productivity.

9. Thou shalt embrace proven technologies.

Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, and their cohorts have become a part of daily life. Sites that can incorporate these elements into their design will connect with users in a meaningful way by providing functionality and an interface with which they’re already familiar.

10. Thou shalt make content king.

Though the slogan is old, it still stands. Aesthetic design can only go so far in making a site successful. Beautiful can’t make up for empty.

by Matt Vella