Now back to business! You may have seen our blog post around four months ago when we were chosen by iNTERTAIN to build a competition site for highlight comedy’s ‘Big Weekend’? Well, four months on and we’re proud to announce that we’re still working very closely with iNTERTAIN. This time we’ve developed and built two micro-sites for highlight, as part of their Christmas campaign.

If you don’t know who they are by now, highlight are a leading Comedy Club with ten venues across the length and breadth of the UK. Not only do they offer hilarious comedy with the best up and coming stand up acts and budding talent in the comedy scene, but they also offer top food and drink. They even have dance floors and DJ’s, making highlight a very popular party venue!

The brief asked for two interactive, engaging and entertaining sites ready for the busy Christmas period. The solution? We designed and built two micro-sites, complete with comical Christmas themed polls for users to vote on, as well as a caption competition to get comedy lovers well into the Christmas spirit. We also included the Christmas menu and a little info on how to book to boost overall ticket sales.

Working around the brief (but adding a little creative flair of our own!), Zoocha designed the two separate but interlinking micro-sites specifically for B2B and B2C purposes. While one site has been developed for business customers to organise and book their corporate Christmas party, the other is centred around the general consumer, and both sites interlink so all needs can be met at once for optimal convenience.

Zoocha produced the copy, creative design and built the campaign landing pages. Having begun from scratch and worked our way up, we think the finished sites both look great, even if we do say so ourselves! After a lot of hard work and dedication, the sites are now live at highlightchristmasparty.co.uk and highlightchristmas.co.uk.

Sitting in front of a blank Photoshop canvas with the intention of designing a web page from scratch can be a daunting task for anyone and you could feel as though you don’t know where to begin.
I find the best way to start is by researching. Have a look at competitors websites, new design techniques/trends, fonts etc. Whilst browsing you could see something you really like that could become the basis of your design, it could be an element such as a shape or pattern, a concept such as using over-sized text or an illustrated character. Researching helps to broaden your thinking and inspires you take on the job at hand.

Where and how to research and be inspired

Look around you!

The world is full of design inspiration in the form of shapes, colours, signs, architecture, machinery, cars, animals, nature, people etc. Everything around you has the potential to inspire you.

Browse the net!

Look on …
www.smashingmagazine.com
www.speckyboy.com
www.sixrevisions.com
www.thefwa.com
www.bestwebgallery.com
and other such web sites to see the most modern designs. Also font websites such as www.dafont.com and colour palette tools like www.colourlovers.com for help with deciding on what colours to use together.

Read magazines!

All magazines have been designed so they all contain designed elements, shapes, fonts, colours and layout concepts. Also, look in design specific magazines to learn about new trends and techniques and learn from tutorials. They also showcase the latest and greatest in web design for you to learn from. Start collecting leaflets, articles, business cards, anything you like the look of for future inspiration.

Mind map!

Make a note (map) of the ideas you have and design elements, pages etc you have seen and liked during the researching stage.

Things to consider before you start designing

The brief

Make sure you have read the brief thoroughly and have a good understanding of what is needed/expected from the design. It is important to know who the target audience is and to understand the whole purpose of the website.
For example, if the site is an educational gaming site aimed at young children then the design needs to be fun, colourful, use rounded corners and rounded, bold fonts and include big, clear calls to actions. Whereas if it is an information website, it may need to encompass a corporate look and feel, for this you would use a completely different colour pallet, incorporate more white space and the focus would be on information given on the site rather than imagery, games etc.

Branding

Before you start designing anything it is important to find out if you have any constraints in terms of the company branding. Do they have a logo, brand colours, is their brand clean and corporate or a bit wacky and bright. Do they use rounded corners and gradients or do they strictly use squared corners and bold, flat colours etc. Look at any designed materials the company may have already to get a feel of what they like.

Navigation and pagination

Create a flow diagram of the pages that are needed within the website and decided what one’s will link to each other and how.

Example of a flow diagram…

Decide where the navigation bar/menu will sit and how it will act. For example, will it sit on the left of your page, along the top or on the right side. Will you have a secondary navigation bar, if so where will that be positioned? Will your nav contain drop down functionality or a fly out menu etc. As well as a navigation menu will there be other ways to navigate the site, such as arrows, text links etc.

Setting up the page

Create a new document
Open Photoshop
File > New…
If you’re making a standard web page, it should fit in the space of 1024 x 768px.
If you’re creating a web page for a mobile device or specifically for larger or smaller screens then please see the other dimensions with the sizedrop down list (please make sure the Preset drop down list is set to web.

The design of the website pages should fit just inside this space, so I find the document easier to work with if it’s a bit bigger.
Make your canvas bigger using the following instructions…
Double click the background layer in your layers menu
Click on the dialogue box window that pops up.

Now, go to Image > Canvas Size
Change the width to 1200px
Click OK”
You can now add a layer behind the white layer which will be your background layer.

Design tips for beginners

Guidelines

Set up guidelines on your page so you can line your design up.
View > Rulers
Click on the ruler at the top or at the side and drag a guideline onto your page. To change it’s positioning simply click on it and drag. To delete it, click it and drag it off of your canvas.

The margin box

Margins and padding are important in any design.
Try to use the same margin size or set of sizes throughout your design.
You can do this by creating a little box image with the margin dimensions as a guide.

Go for it!

Start creating your masterpiece! Throw ideas at the page and just go for it. A lot of ideas won’t work but you’ll find something that does and you can then start to build on it. Be patient and confident in yourself.

HTML5 - Boxed up and ready to go!

Firstly, lets look at the past to see where we have come from. About 6 years ago Dave and I attended the first ever @media web conference in London. A common question that kept cropping up was “yes we’ve heard about this XHTML and CSS stuff (Web Standards) but why on earth should we use it?” Good question…and it turns out the answer is rather straightforward:
It’s the correct approach to front end web development
Well in the eyes of the developers it was.

For those who don’t get turned on by semantics and all the other nerdy goodness it offers, what are the reasons for moving over to “Web Standards”? Well rather than list the numerous benefits, as this is really about HTML5, take a read of Ryan’s excellent article “Why Use Web Standards”.

So here at Zoocha 6 years later we find ourselves at a bit of a déjà vu moment. Just this time substitute the abbreviation HTML5 in to where “Web Standards” used to live.

So 5 reasons to use HTML5

HTML5 Baby!

So that is why when we create a website, unless directed otherwise, you will get your website built in lovely HTML5 goodness. You may also get a bit of CSS3 thrown in for good measure…but that’s for another time.

Simplicity:

Everything about Drupal is easy, from its modular structure and taxonomy framework, through to its intuitive user interface. Working with Drupal could not be simpler!

Flexibility:

Everything about Drupal is customisable, making it one of the most flexible platforms around. There is also a huge range of modules available to enable community sites and discussion forums, intranet applications, ecommerce, blogs, podcasting, galleries, newsletters and much, much more!

Cost:

As and open source platform, Drupal is FREE, which means your web budget can be spent where you need it – design, content, layout and marketing.

Scalable and Future Proof:

Worked on by a world wide team of technical wizards, Drupal is constantly being reviewed and upgraded. Also, for anyone who has, or is considering using a bespoke CMS provided by their digital agency consider the following: bespoke, in house CMS systems are developed by small teams of techies, who, if they leave the agency, make it very difficult to upgrade or bug fix. If the agency goes bust, so does your CMS system. If you fall out with your agency or want to move your site, you will need to re-platform. Needless to say, with Drupal, you face non of these problems!

Google Loves Drupal:

OK, I haven’t actually asked Google if they love Drupal, so I will qualify this by saying that Drupal comes loaded with SEO tools and judging by how well Drupal sites rank, I think it is a fair assumption!

Stable and Secure:

The chosen platform of Sony Music, IBM, Greenpeace and The White House, Drupal has proved its credentials for security and stability.

It helps us deliver world class websites:

I suppose the main reason we love Drupal is that it helps us make brilliant websites, for ourselves and for our clients.

If you are interested in learning more or would like a quote, please get in touch!

Zoocha is very proud to have been chosen by iNTERTAIN, the company behind the comedy club chain, highlight. With 10 venues up and down the country, highlight have laid on a real comedy feast this bank holiday weekend, with live stand up comedy, great food and drink, followed by a exclusive  aftershow party.

Zoocha designed and built the campaign landing pages, competition entry and email notification system (highlightbigweekend.co.uk) for the campaign.

Official Partner

Having spent many hours evaluating the many ecommerce platforms on behalf of clients, Zoocha has become an official partner of Interspire.

We have chosen them as our recommended ecommerce platform based on a broad set of measure: product quality, functionality, usability, flexibility and price. We believe Interspire offer great value for money and help us to deliver world class ecommerce websites for our clients

About Interspire

Interspire is a privately owned company which develops content management, shopping cart, knowledge management and email marketing software used by more than 40,000 organizations worldwide including fortune 500 companies (Intel, Shell, GE), enterprise organizations (Virgin, Ubisoft, Monster.com) and also thousands of small/medium businesses and digital agencies.

We pride ourselves on our close relationships with our customers, whose direct feedback helps to shape the direction and future releases of our software. We’re all about providing quality software backed by knowledgeable and friendly pre-sales and customer support.

Back when Interspire started, the concept of web-based applications was still new. Today however, they’re everywhere, and thanks to huge leaps in technology over the last few years it’s now quite amazing what you can do with just a web browser and an Internet connection.

Walkabout World Cup 2010 Campaign

It’s official! When it comes to watching the World Cup – Aussie ‘Rules’ Football.

The tension is mounting and anticipation grows. Hearts stop beating in every corner of the country with each picture of Wayne Rooney on crutches, as the nation prepares for this summer’s sporting roller coaster – The 2010 football world cup finals in South Africa!

As the big event edges nearer, attention turns to the age old question… Where will we watch the matches? There is a lot to consider; enough room for all your mates, easy access to plenty of refreshments, half time munchies and of course, un-hampered view of a very BIG screen!

The solution has come from down under! Walkabout Bars, the Aussie themed pub chain, are emulating their home team’s impressive world cup form by offering ‘the next best thing to being there’ in all their bars. Like the ‘socceroos’, who head to South Africa for the world cup finals having topped their group in an unbeaten qualifying run of form, Walkabout are planning to score a winner with punters this summer.

“We have a brilliant line up for the World Cup this summer” says James Mawer, Head of Commercial at iNTERTAIN, the parent company behind the Walkabout brand. “Our bars are the perfect venue to enjoy all the action. Watching the games on our 15 ft high definition screens really is ‘the next best thing to being there’. Combine that with our awesome range of food and drinks as well as great friendly service and we are confident we will be the winning team!”

To help fans guarantee the perfect world cup experience, Walkabout are offering a selection of pre booked packages, from Bronze to Gold as well as a Platinum ‘Season Ticket’. Starting from £5 per person, each package guarantee’s entry to a reserved area with prime view of the massive HD screens. The Gold tickets include dedicated service and your first drink (bottle of Budweiser or pint of Carling) and a burger or hotdog.

Walkabout have even set up a dedicated website, www.walkaboutfootball.com for fans to find their nearest bar and book their seats. “We wanted to make the website reflects the experience of watching the games in our bars” explains Jodi Gothold, Online Marketing Manager. “Fans can visit the site, enter competitions, challenge their mates to soccer trivia games and of course, book their seats to see their home team, whether that be England, Australia or any other team. They will be able to find all the information they need about each fixture, as well as the results throughout the entire tournament!”

So, can Australia really win this year’s World Cup battle? Well, just ask the defending world Champions, Italy. They only progressed to the quarterfinals in 2006 by scoring an injury time penalty against…

…Yes, the Socceroos!

If your content, product or service delivery is infallible, providing exceptional customer experience 100% of the time, the knock on benefit of consumer engagement is invaluable. Trust and loyalty are difficult to build but can be destroyed easily (Toyota?). Whether you are confident in your service, or aspiring to better, it pays to be pro-active about customer experience and consumer engagement.

For an example of a great online shopping experience, John Lewis is one of our favourite. The clean crisp feel, rigorous adherence to brand guidelines and simple, ‘shopper friendly’ navigation make it on of the top online retailers in the UK at the moment.

There is also a real sense that the website has been built around a multichannel proposition. Store finder and even call centre telephone number are clearly displayed at the top of the screen, demonstrating that customer experience is the priority.

Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) is another way of engaging customers and building loyalty. One of our favourite CRM programs is from The Economist magazine. They have found an interesting balance between free and paid online content, where subscribers to the magazine get access to articles and can select topics they would like to hear about via email.

For help developing your online customer experience get in touch with Zoocha!

There is another way! Crazy as it may sound, social networks can be part of an advertisers media mix, and planned in the same context. By focusing on the campaign objectives and targets, navigating through social media strategy becomes much more cohesive:

WHERE?

If you are planning a press campaign, you wouldn’t put an advert for men’s razors in ‘Good Housekeeping’ – Simples. But with social media the boundaries are a little different. Rather than letting media owners take control of you audience targeting, you can do this. Of course, there may be some social networks you are not interested in using, but the likes of Facebook and Twitter are now so mainstream that the issue becomes targeting with networks, rather than between them.

WHAT?

There are really two elements to deciding what your social media campaigns look like. The first is what band profile you want to create. This will become your own media space – much like a web site, it should be viewed as a digital access point to your brand. Unlike a website, it is not “on your own turf”. It is in peoples social space so careful consideration needs to go into planning the tone of voice you want to take. The second part is like conventional campaign planning. Who will you target, what messages are you trying to communicate, what behaviour do you want to drive and what results do you want to see. There are loads of options for this which makes social media such an exciting place to advertise. You can build fans and followers, develop apps, quizzes, poll’s and games. You can have 1-2-1 dialogue or broadcast to your customers. The sky is the limit!

WHY?

Now here is the rub! According to a recent study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), only 22% of brands said that social media forms a major part of their advertising strategy. It seems that much of this is down to confusion about the role social media should play in the marketing mix and confusion about who is responsible for it (IT, PR, Research?). We will come onto the ‘who’ question later and answer the ‘why’ question now…

Reason 1: Volume.

“Mainstream” is a word that does not do justice to the leading social networks. The Economist summed it up beautifully in its excellent report on Social Networking “The globes largest online social network boasts over 350 million users – which, were it a nation, would make Facebook the world third most populous after China and India”.

Reason 2: Engagement.

The volume is impressive, but there are plenty of other media that can be used to reach high volumes of the same audience. That social media is ‘social’ is the key. Watching a TV advert or seeing a DPS in a magazine has impact, but very little engagement and interaction with the audience. Market researcher at Nielsen have reported that since February 2009, people are spending more time on social networks than they are on e-mail. In fact, in Britain, the average number of hours per month spent on social networking websites was over 6 hours per user in October 2009 (taken for The Economist, source: Nielsen). Also, because of the user generated nature of the content and the ease of viral communication, once a brand engages one user, it is easy to encourage that to spread round their friends. By signing up fans, a brand can develop a CRM channel that communicated with its audience in their own space. Genius!

Reason 3: Value.

If this was any other media, you would pay through the nose for this sort of access to such a big, highly engaged and easily segment-able audience. On social networks, it is free. This is not to say however that it costs nothing. A strong, cohesive and successful social media strategy takes time to plan, skill to execute and time and resource to manage. Once you start it, it is a living thing and needs to be looked after!

HOW?

Without a hint of bias (well… maybe a hint), the best way to create a successful social media campaign is to find an expert partner to help plan, build and manage your brand presence and campaigns. Giving the job to someone in marketing who already has a job to do, or someone in customer service will not work. It will not create the brand image or user experience that will set you apart and help build your audience. It needs focus to manage, but also engagement from many stakeholders (like IT, PR, Customer Services) if it is to really work.

So that just leaves the WHO?

Our recommendation: Get all the stakeholders together onto a ‘project team’, assign a project lead (probably in marketing) and appoint a digital agency to manage it.