This amazing project was a development we worked on to create Sheffield’s newest super-club complex. We were asked to create an environment that would house a high cuisine restaurant on the ground floor with an uber-luxe club above. The design merges the original fabric of this 70′s build with contemporary opulent fixtures.

See the Livelli Bar & Restaurant Overview for more information.

As seasoned designers for Planet X’s frames & jerseys 93ft were the natural choice to create the new Planet X showroom. The brief was to design a space that would echo the new era of Planet X & On One. We were able to create a stunning visual by suspending the frames & bikes in various ways throughout the showroom which clearly displays to customers the wide array of bikes available.

See the Planet X Project Overview for more information.

The new LaRock website was built to be fast, modular and easy to update. Each page on the LaRock website can be constructed using a series of common components to ease the creation of new pages – with advanced features such as slideshows, clickable image blocks and bold statements. The system behind the website intelligently displays each of the components so that, for example, search engine friendly HTML text can be placed on top of each image within a slideshow.

Many optimisations were made to improve page load performance. Web graphics are kept to a minimum where design can be represented by code (e.g. borders, background colours, horizontal rules) or by the now recognised standard @font-face CSS3 declaration that allows use of custom fonts on the web. This reduces both page load and maintenance time as there are less HTTP requests and less graphical work required for content changes. Where web graphics are needed, their load priority is controlled so that the most important images above first and above all others at the top of the page and that low-priority images are treated as backgrounds and loaded last. This enables users on a slow connection to instantly be able to read all text content on any page of the site, followed by the load of the most important images first. Advanced features (custom fonts, slideshows) are executed once the entire page is loaded to improve the user’s experience.

The LaRock website was also developed with graceful degradation and progressive enhancement in mind. This means that if you’re using a modern web browser (such as Firefox, Google Chrome or Opera) you will experience the full range of features that were built into the website (CSS, JavaScript/jQuery, custom fonts). However if you’re using a less capable web browser, such as on a mobile device or games console, you will still be able to view all the content on the website – even though some of the advanced features may not be available to you. Not only does this allow for a wider range of devices to access the website, it all improves Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as robots are able to fully index all text content (which would not be possible if text were to be embedded into images).

Our tests show that the entire homepage, with all advanced features enabled, can be loaded in around 1.5 seconds for a new visitor, with subsequent visits resulting in page loads of just 0.4 seconds.

See the live site: www.larock.co.uk

See the LaRock project overview for more information.

CHEF: FIELD The Forty-Eight Hour Festival for Food Lovers.  Showcasing the finest food brands from around the UK. Our 2 tone festival explores the relationship between what comes out of the field and what happens after the harvest.

We invite you to leap through the FIELD festival experiencing exquisite tastes, flavours and textures celebrating food in its purest form fresh from the earth.

Then we ask you to succumb to the delights of CHEF as the ingredients straight from our land and sea are introduced to cooking styles, method and innovation to create an inspirational and educational festival for food lovers everywhere.

The Marque: 93ft have created an ambigram for the festival.  Once rotated Field becomes Chef and Chef, Field. This reflects the symbiotic relationship between the two as the transformation of field produce into chef delights is celebrated.

Location: CHEF: FIELD is a merging of the two experiences which also spells (in your mouth) the location of our first event. Exact location will be released soon.

When: 18^th & 19^th September 2010

Who you can see: Some of the most exciting and forward thinking food brands in the UK. Please contact info@thechimneyhouse.com for more details.

Can you take part?: To find out please contact info@thechimneyhouse.com

See Chef : Field project overview for more information.

The brand and logo have been developed in house at The Chimney House by 93ft.  We’ve started it with an open mind as to where it could go.  The aim is to let other people who perhaps feel on the fringes of cycling, who are in some way interested, to those who are regularly riding but would like to be part of a cycling lifestyle option.  The marque has been illustrated and developed by the fabulous hand of Tom Newell, master of the illustration featured on the 93ft Chimney in The Chimney House.  For more information about joining La Squadra visit the website.

See the La Squadra project overview for more information.

Meet the new Planet X Nanolight 920G Carbon Road Frame, featuring graphics and colours selected by 93ft.  This work stemmed from a visit to Europe’s largest all Cycling Expo ‘Eurobike’, where we met one of the world’s leading carbon frame manufacturers who are currently in production with Planet X.  As part of the whole strategy for their new professional road range we’ve also developed wheel graphics for their carbon wheel rims.  Although the total bike build pictured here does not include all of our designs we thought we’d share this one with you now, just because everyone is talking about it!  Yours available to buy here.

93ft are fresh from 20:20 Mobile where we had a bit of an exclusive preview of Apple’s new iPad – due out in the UK in May.

The verdict.  Wow, what an awesome product, it’s definitely another design icon from Apple and yes we’ll all be buying one!  So many uses from picture frame, web browser, album, Skype and instant messaging to Facebook and that’s just scratching the surface!  Oh and before you ask, yes all 93ft websites are compatible with the iPad (and the iPhone) so you can keep yourself updated and continue to view all our work in glorious rich colour!

Click here to view our website portfolio.

Brands aren’t just about logos, and some even say that logos are on their way out!  That aside, 93ft are true believers that good brands should have plenty of powerful and dynamic content to their name.  This library of brand elements help to break the monotony of the corporate world that so many brands find themselves in and consequently need reinventing out of.  Illustrations bring the soul back into brands and these of the Jones and Co. team do just that – super personal, bold and bright, and capture a true spirit of the people in the picture.

93ft collaborated with top London illustrator and artist Mitchy Bwoy (currently enjoying a retrospective at the Sauce Gallery, Birmingham).  Mitch’s work has become synonymous with new music and club culture, working alongside the most prominent musicians of the last decade, including Chase & Status, Amp Fiddler, Bugz in the Attic, Nitin Sawhney, Ziggy Marley, Howie B as well has having worked on many special projects, live paints and collaborations with other artists and designers.

These new master pieces will now be incorporated into the Jones and Co. branding, including personal business cards, an in store hall of fame and in online media.

Huge thanks again to Mitch!

See Jones and Co. project overview for more information.

How do you show to your clients that you really care about quality, presentation and about the environment, while at the same time giving them something personal and useful?  What a list of criteria!

We set about specifying some high end notebooks using nothing other than locally made GF Smith papers and cards.  The inside pages all on recycled paper.  The elastic used is made locally in Nottingham to reduce transport carbon footprint.  All waste paper from production is reused or recycled.  The metal foiling blocks used to foil the outer covers are sent back to block maker for recycling if not to be used again.  And finally this notebook is fully recyclable when finished with.  That should make for some happy note making.

Oh and in terms of who successful this direct marketing campaign was, LaRock attracted the attention of numerous prospective clients – so all in all, everyone’s a winner!

See LaRock project overview for more information.

We were approached by the event organisers [for the first of what we hope will be many entertaining and insightful nights in Sheffield] to design and develop an e-shot to mail out across the City raising both the awareness in the media and generating attendees and audience for the night.  Needless to say it worked a treat and the event has been oversubscribed!  So a big thanks to everyone involved helping to make this work at The Chimney House.

Pecha Kucha, meaning ‘chit chat’ in Japanese is an event phenomenon bringing creative worlds and talents together. Currently running in over 300 countries worldwide, the event was first started in Japan 2003 by the architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham.  Recognising that given the opportunity to present, most architects, designers and creative types cannot stick to a prescribed time, they developed their 20×20 format. Each presenter is given 20 seconds per slide and just 20 slides to present or showcase their work. They are not in control of their presentation so cannot go back and forth!  This makes for a unique, dynamic presentation, guaranteeing entertainment and a less formal atmosphere.

See the Pecha Kucha project overview for more information.

The Chimney House website, designed and developed by 93ft, acquired a new blog add-on last week. As the website had already been built upon the WordPress platform, adding a blog to the existing system did not require any major re-factoring of the code. CSS styles were plugged in to the main stylesheet to allow for a slightly different look and feel to the main site. Blogs, by nature, require a much longer page and additional navigation. These elements, along with the existing web design, were taken into consideration during the construction of the new blog templates.

Launched alongside the blog is the new header banner which now appears site-wide. The header section has been streamlined and narrowed to bring the content further up the screen. This is to the benefit of users with lower screen resolutions as more of the content on the page is immediately visible. The logo has also been made larger and placed onto a contrasting background in order that it may be more apparent.

Visit The Chimney House blog website:
http://www.thechimneyhouse.com/tried-and-tested/

See The Chimney House project overview for more information.

The Bike Science blog website is built upon the popular open-source blogging platform WordPress. 93ft developed a branded custom WordPress theme designed to fit in with the style an layout of the accompanying e-commerce website. Special features include the use of two widget-ready sidebars: one in the right column and one in the footer. This allows the client to customise the blog navigation elements as well as to provide external links to products on the e-commerce website.

Visit the Bike Science blog website:
http://blog.bike-science.com/

See the Bike Science project overview for more information.

The Bike Science e-commerce website is built upon the Pearl Online Accounting and CRM system; this allows the client to manage products, invoicing, contacts, accounts and reporting from a single system. 93ft developed a branded Pearl custom template for the e-commerce front-end. Special features of the template include: Promotional banner slideshow (jQuery), tabbed product viewing area (custom JavaScript) and the most recent blog posts are displayed using the Google AJAX API to access the RSS feed on the Bike Science blog. All of the special features were programmed using valid and semantic HTML and CSS alongside unobtrusive JavaScript to allow for maximum accessibility and compatibility.

Visit the Bike Science e-commerce website:
http://www.bike-science.com/

See the Bike Science project overview for more information.

As the world’s media up’s it’s game on delivering the heroic and epic achievements of the world’s finest super athletes, German Ironman Thomas Hellriegel approached 93ft to develop for him his own unique marque.

See the Thomas Hellriegel project overview for more information.

Here’s a fresh photo of The Circle, a client that grabbed at the chance use design to add value and creativity to their existing offering in Sheffield.  Here is a great close up of the main glass partition in reception, which was one of the major interior elements we specified and project managed during installation.  The vinyl can be easily replaced at any time with even bolder and braver marketing campaigns, urban art or simple yet meaningful messages to reinforce a brand ethos.  Our favourite feature aside from the bold colours is the giant cut out, a perfect balance between functionality, aesthetics and brand implementation.

Photography courtesy of Jim Ellam

See The Circle project overview for more information.

http://www.arundeljoinery.co.uk

See the Arundel Joinery project overview for more information.

Out on a Sunday stroll with a camera around Sheffield in late February.  There’s still a fascinating number of factories still within a short walking distance of the main retail centre of Sheffield City Centre.  Forgotten works with rusting signs we’re our main focus this time around, as we tried to capture the last of a declining industry before the developers move in for good.  These rich and early pioneering environments are perfectly matched with The Chimney House branding, capturing a future sense of times past.  We’ll keep adding to this photo collection, in the mean time more are available to view now at www.flickr.com/photos/thechimneyhouse, and on The Chimney House project overview.

Photography courtesy of Zack Wragg

See The Chimney House project overview for more information.

To cement our place in Sheffield’s ex industrial/new creative era we’ve a landmark building to show you.  We’ve been working on this project for over 12 months, and it’s been quite a journey.  Why have we done it?  To provide a base for our design office, and to create a space for people with creative ideas or discussion to use as a place of inspiration.  We’ve already held a number of business design meetings and we’ve many more booked in the calendar. As part of our design service we offer clients a free injection of creative thinking to any meeting you want to hold in The Chimney House.  Oh, and yes the chimney is 93ft high – does it make sense now?

Photography courtesy of Jim Ellam

See The Chimney House overview for more information.

Recognising Nonnas as a premier independent brand, we approached Nonnas about delivering their own products in their existing Cucina’s and delicatessens.  The brief, to create vibrant, authentic and Italian inspired artwork for a range of fine Italian food products ranging from biscuits, pastas, sauces, pan forte, olive oils and rice.  In addition to creating all the artwork, 93ft handled some of the production with the help of luxury bespoke paper merchants GF Smith.  The result a highly popular and regarded range of foods that enable Nonnas to access new markets, attract more customers and diversify their offering on-line and in store.

Photography courtesy of James Brown

See Nonnas project overview for more information.

Photography courtesy of James Brown, Interior Photography courtesy of Jim Ellam

See The Circle project overview for more information.