Lance Williams, a 21-year-old IT graduate, started a three-month work placement with us on July 5.
And he’s shone! He’s shown great enthusiasm for learning design tricks with our web developer Matt – using InDesign, Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
We found Lance through through the Shaw Trust – a national charity which helps people find employment.
And now the Shaw Trust team has made us their ‘employer of the month‘ – and are reporting on Lance’s experience in their newsletter!
We’ve had a great experience of using the Trust, and would definitely recommend others try it. It’s hard getting a job straight out of university in the current economic climate – so we were pleased to give someone a chance to get some experience.
In fact, Lance says he’s been so inspired by his time with us, he’s decided to pursue a career in website design!
The F-shape, as measured by headset cameras focused on volunteers' eyes
For years, we’ve been taught that websites should be laid out in an ‘F-shape’ – because ‘heat map’ eye movement studies have shown that’s how people read websites.
The theory goes that people read the first sentence of a webpage, in a horizontal scan.
Then they read a bit of the second sentence.
Then they scan down.
We definitely accept the wisdom that people don’t really read webpages! People rarely scan more than the first two words of a sentence – so online copy has to be simple and informative.
But we’re not convinced that the F-shape is the only way to design a web page. Back when these eye-tracking studies were done, most websites were laid out as a block of text with a big header and a secondary header.
The website visitors are just looking where the designer is leading them.
We think a good designer can draw a reader’s eyes all over the page – into text boxes or down a column.
What do you think?
Mark Edwards' unforgettable business card
Have you ever been to a business event, made lots of new contacts, then got back to the office – and found that you’ve forgotten whose business cards you’ve got?
Well here’s an idea. What if you got your photo printed on your business card?
We’ve taken inspiration from Mark Edwards, the founder of business consultancy GAP. His business cards, with their ‘Nothing is Impossible’ motto, are unforgettable.
We know it’s effective because, Lucy, our copywriter, forgot that she’d talked to Mark at a breakfast event – until she found his business card at the bottom of her bag!
Inside The Public
Yesterday, Emma, our creative director, and our web developers Matt and Lance got an hour-long guided tour of The Public, the West Bromwich arts centre.
And they were stunned.
Although they had seen pictures of The Public, being there was completely different. The building is like nothing else – none of its windows are the same size, and all the inside spaces are lit in lime, fuschia and orange.
The walls are made of planks of wood, chrome and corrugated plastic, and all the walkways are filled with ‘digital art’ – like videos and interactive light displays.
Now we’re feeling really inspired, we’re pitching to design The Public’s new website. Fingers crossed we get it – it would be an amazing chance for us to stretch our creative muscles.
Celebrity strong man Charles Atlas has made millions selling his ‘Dynamic Tension’ muscle building course since 1929.
His famous adverts tell the story a weed who gets sand kicked in his eyes by the local bully, who steals his girlfriend.
The weed wins his girlfriend back by training at home then returning to the beach to give the bully a royal walloping. (They didn’t have feminism back then.)
One of our favourite bloggers has written a post claiming this advert is a work of fine literature – and a prime example of ‘dynamic storytelling’, or selling by engaging the reader with a story.
We agree that it shifted a lot of fitness courses. But is it art?
Cats - now inspiring your website!
What do you imagine life at a creative agency is like?
Do you imagine we all wear Converse All Stars, burn joss sticks and talk about ‘colouring outside the lines’?
Actually, we are a bit like that. And web developer Matt and creative director Emma got even kookier recently – after going on a course called ‘Managing Innovation in the Creative and Digital Sectors’.
They learned the Chinese proverb ‘A man can stand on a mountain top for a thousand years and a duck will not fly into his mouth’. Which is a long way of saying ‘Make an effort’.
They learned the ‘fajita principle’ of business – ie, even in a restaurant, people like to make their own fajitas. Just as people want websites tailored to them.
And they learned the ‘random input’ method of brainstorming. You take a random noun- ‘cat’ – and think about how the noun’s attributes apply to your business project. So a cat has paws – which are gripping – just like we want our product to grip our customers…?
Perfectly sensible? Or is the emperor, in fact, naked? Comments!
The picture which appeared in the Express and Star - Claire is on the left!
Our new PA, Claire Smith, was mortified when she appeared in the Express and Star this week!
Claire was papped at the launch event for a website we built – finditinwolverhampton.co.uk. She was showing local Councillor Wendy Thompson around the site.
We’re so proud of Claire, and thrilled she’s promoting us in the press – already!
The winning students re-ordered the IKEA catalogue by colour, and designed billboards to promote the change
IKEA held a competition for design students, asking them to come up with a campaign promoting their new catalogue.
We were blown away by the winning entry by Kingston University students - http://www.dandad.org/2010/07/behind-the-idea-student-of-the-year/#more-7386 – which reordered the catalogue according to colour, and used billboards to promote the change to people.
We love it. We all have emotional responses to different colours, depending on our moods, and we think it’s a great way to find interior inspiration.
But do you think it would make it harder to find a flat pack table or a toilet seat?
Superpony - complete with hair extensions and real underpants
We told you in a previous post that Ryan, our graphic designer Colette’s 4-year-old-son, entered his class ‘design a pony’ competition.
And we’re pleased to report that his design, ‘Superpony’, won – and Ryan collected a prize in his school assembly!
All the other mums and dads will be furious – now that they know Ryan had help from a professional graphic designer in a school art competition.
Let’s hope they don’t read this blog…!
We’re redesigning the IceBlue website, and what should be a fun job is being overshadowed by a dilemma – over the correct way to spell ‘e-commerce’.
In my opinion, as the copywriter, ‘e-commerce’ looks best. But Google tells us ‘e commerce’ gets more searches!
We have the same problem with ‘optimisation’, as in ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. People search for ‘optimization’ far more. But we’re supposed to avoid American spellings.
Call me unpatriotic, but I like ‘z’ spellings – they’re spelled like they sound. And if Microsoft Word is automatically putting ‘z’s in people’s work, it doesn’t seem very fair for me to cross them out when I’m proofing!
Is anyone who doesn’t work for a design agency even slightly worried about all this? Comments please!
Uncategorized | Lucy | 
August 12, 2010 1:48 pm | 
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