World Cup Web Design

Posted by Rob on Jul 9, 2010 in Design News | 1 comment

It may or may not have escaped your attention that the World Cup is currently underway down in South Africa.  For those of you that follow football or even just follow the World Cup, there are plenty of websites to keep up with the latest information.

I have three that I regularly look at and all three for different reasons.

Google ditch planned homepage change

Posted by Rob on Jun 11, 2010 in Design News | 1 comment

Google decided not to fully go ahead with the homepage redesign that was planned for the 10^th June.  Instead they pulled out after just hours after implementing the change apparently due to pressure from unhappy users.

Google had planned to add a full page background picture, one that changes daily, to highlight their latest ‘customisable’ options.  This also seemed another step for Google to look even more like Bing.  The Googlers backlash started from minute one with angry Twitter users opposing the change.  Google reacted a few hours later and the familiar plain white homepage was returned.

Marissa Mayer, Google Search Vice President said, “”We had planned to run an explanation of the showcase alongside it, in the form of a link on our home page,” Marissa continued “Due to a bug, the explanatory link did not appear for most users. As a result, many people thought we had permanently changed our home page.”

For those of you, which includes me that actually LIKED the change you don’t need to worry.  Look for the ‘Change background image’ link in the bottom left of the screen.  You will need to be signed in to see this; also, if you’re in iGoogle you will need to revert back to classic view.

There are 4 different options to choose from.

‘From my computer’ is pretty obvious with the ability to upload your own image as long as it is larger than the 800×600 pixel minimum.

‘My Picasa Web photos’ simply allows you to use the images you have uploaded to the Google Web Album, assuming they are big enough to use.

‘Public gallery’ is again fairly straight forward with a range of optimized images from Google.  They range from an Umbrella to your usually cityscape\Forest scenes.  The sort of thing you see on wall art in high street stores.  My favourite is the smiley post-it-note on a plain wall.  It’s fun and unobtrusive and can cheer you up.

The last section ‘editor’s picks’ is not too much different to the previous section but whoever the ‘editor’ is must really love colour.  They are pretty crazy.  There is a lovely rainbow over a forest and also a really quaint looking aerial English Countryside scene.  You can also choose from a few plain colour backgrounds.

Of course, you can always just use the search function until you find one that suits your style.

Google Jazz

Posted by Rob on May 20, 2010 in Design News | 1 comment

Reports were saying that on the 6^th of May Google would roll out a complete redesign of its main pages according to the Internet Search Corporation.

The changes arrived as promised. Dubbed “Google Jazz” by web experts, the new design closely resembles Microsoft’s newly re-branded ‘Bing’ search engine.  Last June Microsoft re-branded the ‘Live Search Service’ to ‘Bing’ and its tag-line ‘decision engine’.  A large advertising campaign has followed.  It contained a left hand nav and a more graphic interface.

This may have been the reason for the redesign from Google that includes everything including the logo.  The logo now features brighter blue, red, and green and is now showing in a standard font without the logo and shadowing.  The left hand side nav has been added that allows for differing search features and filters.  Each individual option then opens for a wider range of settings within.  This is sure to help the reader’s fine tune their searches.

This is now the third time in three years that Google has redesigned and this time it appears to have had the purpose of making the vast set of search filtering tools more available to the everyday googler.

Cat in SEO

Posted by Katie on Mar 22, 2010 in Soula | 36 comments

The newest member to the SEO team, Catherine has picked it up fast providing quality SEO advice to a number of our key clients.

Qualifications: 9 A-Levels in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Music, Law, Criminology, Sociology, Psychology and General Studies

Work experience: An Account Manager for Smart Source UK between 2006 to 2008, Catherine worked on accounts for a number of clients including Rentokil, Pirtek, Terrapin, Chelsea Artisans, South Leicestershire College and Woodteam Ltd

Joined Soula: 2008 as a New Business Assistant, Catherine progressed to the position of SEO Executive towards the end of 2008

Hobbies: A member of the Nottingham Arts Theatre as a rehearsal pianist and Music Director, Catherine loves to scuba dive, read graphic novels and watch Japanese films in her spare time

Catherine’s darkest secret: “Cat hates bunnies after watching Watership Down. In all honesty who wouldn’t after watching all those evil bunnies?”- Katie Clarke, SEO Executive

Interesting fact about Catherine: “She’s hard-core! She did ballet for 12 years, is a grade 8 pianist, appeared on ‘A song for Christmas’ when she was 15 and has got more qualifications than you can shake a stick at!” –Rowena

Will IE9 Win You Away from FireFox or Chrome

Posted by Katie on Mar 17, 2010 in Design & Development | 12 comments

Microsoft were pleased to announce the new features available on their latest release at Mix10 conference yesterday in Las Vegas. IE9 will support HTML5 and more interestingly HTML5 video, for anyone that hasn’t had the chance to fully appreciate all that HTML5 will bring please read the post on HTML5 and SEO – we are really excited.

Row in Copywriting

Posted by Katie on Mar 8, 2010 in Soula | 8 comments

Never far from a chocolate bar or a dictionary, Rowena writes copy for all of Soula’s core internal and external clients, giving her a breadth of knowledge in a variety of different industries and niches.

Qualifications: BA (Hons) English, MA in Creative Writing (both at Nottingham Trent University)
Work Experience: involved in the writing, editing, proofreading and publication of her Universities MA anthology, Rowena has worked in a variety of fields – library assistant and retail – before joining the Soula team

Joined Soula: 2008 as a Copywriter

Hobbies: Keen to publish her MA dissertation as her first novel, Rowena loves spending her free time doing anything creative – painting, writing and organising her wedding.

Rowena’s claim to shame: “I have got devil horns, no joke. After my sister dropped me on a concrete floor – head first – when I was six, my forehead became more angular forming 2 distinct points at the side.”

Katy on Rowena: “Rowena is the number one person to sit next to at a dinner party. Because of her job she knows a bit of something about everything… from property prices in Kent to the latest Celebrity diet – this girl is like a fact machine!”

Anyone for a Picnik

Posted by Katie on Mar 3, 2010 in Design News | 30 comments

Yesterday Google announced that it was inline to buy Picnik, for those of you who don’t know Piknik improves your photos with easy to use editing tools, with the capability to apply and create effects, remove red eye and generally alter your photos to get a great picture. Google already own Picasa so this addition is definitely another interesting addition to their portfolio of recent acquisitions.