Hello, it’s been a while!
Firstly we would like to apologise for the lack of activity over the last year, either via social media or our own news. There are two main reasons, firstly as a business there has been internal changes and secondly we have been super busy ‘designing’ for our clients.
It has been a whirlwind couple of years and we are back, we have a new company name ‘Forge Agency’, complete with a fantastic new brand and website.
So why the change
Behind the scenes there were senior personnel changes, which left design understood at a crossroads, we asked ourselves do we continue as we are or do we regroup and refocus our goals, we decided on the latter.
We wanted to focus the business, create a clearer direction. After internal discussion we settled on our main aim, ‘branding for business’, to include both print and digital mediums.
It was touch and go whether the ‘design understood’ name was going to change, but we wanted something shorter and easier to remember, with a little nod towards the types of clients we work with.
As mentioned, we have been supremely busy working for our new and old clients, we would like to welcome on board our new clients Bluegrape Software, Profinish and Rebound who we have been busily creating fantastic new designs for their businesses.
What will this mean for existing clients
On the face of it nothing has changed, we will still provide fantastic creative work as we always have. However with our new directive and new personnel we believe we will provide a better and more focused service, which will benefit you and your business going forward.
What’s next
This is only the beginning, we have a series of major updates planned going forward. The new ‘Forge’ website is in a transitional phase and itself will receive several updates over the next couple of years. We love print and are of course planning various branding exercises including a new company portfolio brochure.
We are also looking to increase our local business interaction, we are a proud Yorkshire company and believe in helping and supporting local companies.
That’s it for now and we hope you like our new look and direction.
Creative Director
Frank
In this 21st century mega trend of social media and hand held devices, where mobile devices are set to outsell desktop PC’s with an estimated 200 million tablets sold in 2013. This can mean only one thing; consumers are increasingly searching, socialising and purchasing via a mobile device every day, the first thing they do in a morning and the last thing they do at night.
At least 50% of consumers will use a mobile device in their purchase process both online and offline… How common is it to be looking around a high street store, see a bit of kit you like then reach for your mobile to check on prices and reviews online? It’s natural! Websites NEED to be mobile friendly. Want to no more about responsive design, please get in contact…
I’ve heard of Mobile Websites but what is ‘Responsive’?
Responsive website design is a term that has been banded around the web design industry for some time. So it is understandable if anyone outside this world does not know what this jargon is all about.
Responsive website design explained (in brief): Websites are required to work on desktops, laptosp, smartphones, iPhones, iPads, tablets and their respective variety of screen sizes & resolutions. The rapidly emerging solution is termed as ‘responsive design’, where the website responds to the resolution and size of the device it is being served on.
The original solution was to build a separate mobile website but this can be costly in terms of initial development, the time implications of maintaining both desktop and mobile versions and a key problem that a mobile site may not necessarily be tailored to suit tablet devices.
Google loves responsive websites with great user experiences and the current Google algorithms are prioritising responsive sites in their search results. Google also frowns upon duplicate content and by having a mobile site there could be an overlapping issue here. The benefit of responsive websites is they have content from one source.
However, there is still reason for a mobile version of a website, it is not obsolete (yet). For a more detailed explanation see our responsive article: 2013 The Year Of Responsive Website Design.
In a nutshell it all just fits – the user experience your visitors need
There is no annoying scrolling around, zooming in and out, trying to pick out tiny text links. It looks good, it is accessible and it works. Give your website visitors the user experience they expect, the experience they need.
People use mobile devices to enhance their lives. Staying connected, browsing websites, using Apps and social media networks to improve knowledge, have fun, be informed and purchase. 90% of mobile searches lead to action, 50% lead to purchase, with this trend forever on the up, the time to respond to responsive is now!
design understood website will be going responsive very soon!
We are so busy building responsive websites for our clients, our own site hasn’t had the love it deserved and got bumped down the list. It is in the pipeline and we aim to be up and running in the next few months.
In the meantime keep an eye out for the brand spanking new udrive responsive website coming very soon, we are particularity happy with this one.
So if you want to ensure our site is always being bumped down the list, if you need a new website with responsive design, or want your existing website converting to a responsive build, contact us about responsive website design today…
With sales of smartphones forever on the up and tablet sales expected to exceed 100 million this year, the amount of device screen sizes available for users to browse the internet is growing exponentially.
In the not so distant past, the majority of web browsing was done on a desktop or laptop computer and a minority on mobile phone. The solution was to detect the mobile device and redirect the user to a mobile website. These were styled and structured to suit the relatively limited screen sizes available and low in filesize / loading to accommodate the processor and data transfer speeds of the time.
Then comes the smartphone and the user embracing the use of Apps, everything is about Apps for fun, games, news, information, entertainment, the list is endless. But for some website owners the development and support implications to cover every OS platform is too much, you can’t build for everything? Where there are millions of good reasons to build an App, there is an equal amount of websites where their very nature does not lend itself to multiple App development.
So the challenge now facing website designers is to design websites required to work on desktop, laptop, smartphones, iphones, ipads, tablets and all of their respective variety of screen sizes & resolutions. The rapidly emerging solution is ‘responsive design’, where the website responds to the resolution and size of the device it is being served on.
Flexible images, text and fluid grids then size correctly to fit the screen. In support of this is ‘adaptive design’ which detects the type of device being used and in which case can activate/deactivate elements or functionality as required.
The benefits are you build a website that works seamlessly across thousands of different screens. This does not mean mobile websites are unnecessary, the purpose of the website will dictate the feasibility of setting up a mobile site to suit its needs and there are still many reasons to do this. However, if you wish to build a site that is accessible to the expanding device universe, responsive is the way forward.
Behind the scenes at design understood we are working away at responsive design, testing out methods, learning and honing our skills in the department of responsive website design. Over coming weeks and months you may notice changes to the design understood website but in saying that, when responsive design works well, you don’t notice it, it is seamless and just works! With projects on the horizon, we aim to be showcasing responsive website design along with our bespoke content management systems for our clients in the very near future.
If you would like to talk to us about responsive design for your website please contact us.
Further Reading:
A good example of Responsive Design is the Google Science Fair Website: https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/2013/competition
If you view this on a desktop computer and resize your browser you will see how the site changes to fit the content to the new size. Also try opening this on a smart phone and/or tablet and you can see how the altered content suits the device.
A Kelsey
Design Understood tonight attended a launch event for the new Renault Clio for 2013, at Jersey’s premier Renault dealership and trusted client, Bagot Road Garage.
The unveiling of the new Clio is timed nicely with the very recent completion of a major refurbishment of Bagot’s showroom and that in turn followed a new logo and brand for the garage.
In 2012 design understood undertook a full on branding project for the Falle’s Motor Group in Jersey and along with this came a brand concept for Bagot Road including logo, printed marketing and a dynamic content managed website www.bagot.je.
So with everything in place it was great to see the new showroom, new Clio, and new brand all working together. At design understood we are very excited to be working closely with Bagot Road and Falles Motor Group in 2013, promoting their quality of products and services with rolling out their branding with ongoing graphic design, and website support and development.
For more information on the Falles Motor Group project, click this…
Windows Live Messenger is to be closed down on the 15th March 2013 in favour of Microsoft’s Skype platform, which it acquired in 2011.
Messenger has been around for 13 years and serves hundreds of millions of users World Wide. Only the service in China will remain after the March cut off date.
Unfortunately not all of the Live Messenger IM features we have become accustomed to will be present in Skype, such as the sending of images and video links (YouTube) conveniently shown with preview pane. Skype still has the clunky save file > go to file on PC > click to open procedure. Skype is just not streamlined for IM the way Live Messenger is, which raises the point of variety of alternative instant messenger services such as Facebook Messenger, Google Chat, iMessage, BBM, or Twitter. Will the old faithful remain faithful to Skype? This remains to be seen.
In the interim the move to Skype is happening, so in order to keep in touch with your contacts a merge is required and fortunately there is a built in feature to help you do this…
Merging Skype and Live Messenger Accounts
If you do not have a Skype account, install Skype and select to login with your Microsoft Live Messenger account, click you’re ‘new to Skype’ and away you go.
If you already have a Skype account follow these instructions:
- Logout of Skype if you are already logged in.
- On the sign in screen select to login with Microsoft Live Messenger and enter your Live Messenger login when prompted.
- On the next screen select ‘I have a Skype Account’
- Enter your Skype login when prompted.
- Click continue, now all your contacts should be in Skype.
For reference and support please visit the Skype community: http://community.skype.com/t5/Live-Messenger/Talk-to-Your-Messenger-Contacts-on-Skype/td-p/1183378
For some reason merged contacts appear in your contacts list twice, presumably this is something which will iron out in due course.
Sorry, Something went wrong. Login Error.
Some users have encountered problems with logging into Skype with their Windows login. A support thread for this is here: http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows/Sorry-Something-Went-Wrong-PLEASE-HELP/td-p/1232754/page/3
Ultimately the preferred fix is to delete the shared.xml file. If you can not find it using the directory shown in the link above, for Win7 users try C:USERS, [your main username], AppDATA, ROAMING, SKYPE
This guide explains how the WordPress plugins ‘Add Link To Facebook’ and ‘WP To Twitter’ are used and how they appear on the social media sites once published.
Custom Facebook Posts and Default Twitter Publishing
On the image below, the numbers on the WordPress post editor relate to the numbers on the Tweet and Facebook post. Further explanation of the numbered points are below the image.
Default Twitter
- The default format of the tweet is shown where indicated (1a).
It has ‘New Post:’ The Post Title (1) and the article URL.
Custom Facebook Posts
- The Post Title is used for the link title shown on the FB post.
- Custom Excerpt is the description text used to precede the link area within the FB post.
- Custom Text is the text description show within the link area in the FB post.
- A featured image can be used with the Facebook post. In this example an image has been added to the main text area. A guide on how to set the featured image is below. First of all click the ‘Set Featured Image’ link in the right column, (4).
4. Set Featured Image (below)
- In this example an image has been added to the post. Once you click ‘Set Featured Image’ on point (4) above you are presented with this WordPress dialogue box. Select the Gallery tab.
- At the bottom click ‘Use as featured image’. The featured image will now be set.
- Close the dialogue box.
Custom Tweets and Default Facebook Posts
On the image below, the numbers on the WordPress post editor relate to the numbers on the Tweet and Facebook post. Further explanation of the numbered points are below the image.
Custom Twitter Posts
- (1a) You can enter customised tweet text in here. Take note of the use of hash tags here: #url# adds the URL to the post. The other tags available are shown under the text box.
Default Facebook
- The Post Title is used for the link title shown on the FB post.
- The Excerpt is the description text used to precede the link area within the FB post.
- The main text area is used for the description text within the link area in the FB post.
- No featured image in this example, therefore the image will be the default Link picture (4). This is set in the WordPress Settings.
Summary
The Twitter post is relatively straight forward, as a rule of thumb for the Facebook post remember the ‘Excerpts’ will be the preceding text before the link area. The rest is within the link area.
Happy posting!
AK