Jan 3rd, 2013

We always strive to use the latest technologies and techniques in all our work, especially on digital projects. Technology changes and moves so quickly keeping up to date can be difficult, but it’s essential in the web industry, and luckily I love experimenting with new code.

We were ahead of the game with responsive web design and we’re now developing this further with responsive e-commerce solutions. A common issue with responsive web design is serving the correct images to relevant devices. To try and get around this we approach our web builds “mobile first”, so this avoids the issue of loading large core images on smaller devices, but with more and more devices having high dpi screens such as the new Apple MacBook Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S3 we now find ourselves in need of four image types: mobile, mobile retina, desktop and desktop retina.

Up until recently high dpi displays were only a major concern on mobile devices, but Apple’s MBP has now brought it to a desktop device, and it’s only a matter of time before other manufacturers follow. We need to be ready.
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Aug 25th, 2011

There’s no denying that a solid grid system is imperative to the design of any successful website, but there’s not enough variety in what I’m seeing out there. It’s all the same, and it doesn’t all work. I’ve titled this post “Ye Olde 960 Grid System” because I think this grid (whether fixed or responsive) is exactly that. Old.

Mark Boulton has been talking about taking a “content out approach” to web design for a while now and I think moving away from the ‘standard’ grid fits into this approach perfectly. Unfortunately I haven’t attended any of the conferences where he’s been discussing this topic (so, sorry Mark, you may have covered this), but using the 960 grid (or any of the slight variations) as a starting point is too easy. It’s lazy. We should let the content decide the grid, not force it into a tried and tested method that’s supposed to be ‘the best’ way.
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Nov 3rd, 2010

Better late than never, we’ve finally come around to finding time to tell you about our experience at Flash on the Beach 2010, which took place between the 26th and 29th September. Now, we don’t do much Flash here at What!? Creative, but based our experience last year of being completely inspired by a massively diverse range of speakers, we decided to give it another go and make it two years running…

So, without further redo, here’s a round up of all the best bits from FOTB 2010:

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Aug 18th, 2010

HTML5 for Designers

Why buy a book on HTML5 when the web is full of free information? I hear you say… Well, HTML5 for Designers isn’t any old collection of HTML5 pointers! It’s written by Jeremy Keith and the foreword is by Jeffrey Zeldman, who certainly know what they’re talking about. So you can be sure it’s going to be full of interesting, high quality, and clearly explained information. And it doesn’t disappoint.

I actually pre-ordered the book before reading anything about it. Just before it’s release my TweetDeck was overflowing with hype, so I thought why not? And at just $18 it’s a bargain! If you include postage to the UK the total costs is around £18 – That’s £18 very well spent. I’ll be honest though, when it arrived in the post I was a little disappointed with the size of the book. But of course size doesn’t matter! I soon realised that the fact it’s small is actually one of the best bits.
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