Cerberus Beach House

Business Website

August 18th, 2010

The Cerberus Beach House website was built for a restaurant and events venue in Melbourne, Australia. It features a three column layered design with elements that differ on each page. The bold headings draw the user to the content and around the page, which is clearly separated by use of natural materials such as torn paper and wood. Other elements of design are freely placed on the pages so that the user can get a better feel for the content, these include a selection of photographs and visual artefacts such as: a rose, a stamp and an old map. The design clearly portrays the ‘on the beach’ feel where objects are often found.

Our usual technical expertise has also come into play with the use of shared assets, content download priority and CSS3 styling. For example, the Cerberus Beach House logo is a separate layer and only needs to be downloaded once – even though a different image is underlaid on each page. The torn paper backgrounds work on a similar premise.

Content download priority means that the most important information is displayed first; this allows for users on slower connections (e.g. a mobile 3G connection) to quickly switch between pages and read the textual content – without having to wait for the ‘heavy’ background images to load in their entirety. Combined page caching, dynamic code minification and optimisation all contribute to a responsive and ubobstrusive experience that’s available cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and cross-browser (Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer etc.).

See the live site: www.cerberusbeachhouse.com.au

See the Cerberus Beach House Project Overview for more information.

The Cerberus Beach House website was built for a restaurant and events venue in Melbourne, Australia. It features a three column layered design with elements that differ on each page. The bold headings draw the user to the content and around the page, which is clearly separated by use of natural materials such as torn [...]

Lark PR

Business Website

August 6th, 2010

The Lark PR website was designed to showcase client work in a way that is easy to view and navigate. The fully standards compliant, semantic and accessible HTML4 and CSS3 code is compatible with all the latest web browsers and internet enabled devices (including mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad).

The home page comprises an overview of all client work with each client ‘block’ containing a large clickable area that clearly highlights on mouse hover. This striking visual interaction encourages the visitor to click through for more information about the variety of services that were provided to that client.

Backend administration is also made extremely easy thanks to an advanced implementation of the open-source WordPress Content Management System (CMS). Lark PR have the ability to easily create new clients on the site, upload any number of pictures and provide a great deal of detail on the work and services that were carried out for the client. Custom background images can also be easily uploaded, such as on the About and Contact pages. The WuFoo Contact Form implementation allows Lark PR to track the number of website enquires on a monthly basis.

See the live site: www.larkpr.com

See the Lark PR Project Overview for more information.

The Lark PR website was designed to showcase client work in a way that is easy to view and navigate. The fully standards compliant, semantic and accessible HTML4 and CSS3 code is compatible with all the latest web browsers and internet enabled devices (including mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad). The home page [...]

Chef : Field

Festival Website

June 16th, 2010

The Chef:Field website was built to be easy to maintain, quick to develop and have the ability to sell tickets online. The site comprises a variety of CMS pages and a blog. In particular the A-Z of Food Brands page allows for a large number of companies and brands to be displayed in alphabetical order, accessible via a dynamic and easy-to-use A-Z jumplist (bespoke implementation). An HTML5 and CSS3 jQuery script was developed to incorporate the Chef:Field ambigram, try hovering over the logo and you’ll see it rotate through 180 degrees.

See the live site: www.cheffieldfestival.com

See the Chef : Field Project Overview for more information.

The Chef:Field website was built to be easy to maintain, quick to develop and have the ability to sell tickets online. The site comprises a variety of CMS pages and a blog. In particular the A-Z of Food Brands page allows for a large number of companies and brands to be displayed in alphabetical order, [...]

LaRock

Business Website

June 8th, 2010

The LaRock Website - Web Design by 93ft in Sheffield

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.

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 [...]

iPad Compatible

iPad Compatibility

April 30th, 2010

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.

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 [...]

The Chimney House

Blog Web Design

March 19th, 2010

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 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 [...]

Bike Science

Blog Web Design

March 19th, 2010

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 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 [...]