We’re an award winning digital agency, formed in July 2008 and based in Manchester. We work with companies and organisations who need a little help in communicating better with their audience online. We do this by using the latest techniques and innovations to build websites that are functional, usable, and really nice to look at. This means that our clients are able to work more closely with their customers, which not only helps to build a better dialogue, but also stimulate engagement and ultimately, sales.
To help deliver our vision, we work across four areas: Design, Development, Marketing and Social.
This means that we deliver our work with an in-house team, who can not only can make the web look like a nicer place to be, but can also build the infrastructure ork better. With a background in the wider online marketing services, we can also help research and promote your online products to position them better in the online marketplace.
Our skills in all things social on the web also help us form community based projects, whether that be a blog, or an idea-sourcing platform to generate new innovations. This all means that we understand the web, and how to use it to help you communicate better.
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England and Lancashire fast bowler James Anderson is celebrating 10 outstanding years in cricket. To mark this momentous occasion, the James Anderson Benefit Committee asked us to create 'James Anderson 613,' a stunning new website that allows cricket fans to follow Jimmy’s distinguished career through a series of real time infographics. Utilising a number of bleeding edge techniques and live Opta Sports data the James Anderson website was built using Raphael; a JavaScript library that allowed us to create beautifully rendered vectors that per us to create beautifully rendered vectors that perform across all major platforms.
Grimshaw Architects wanted their new website to be a real step forward, displaying their work in the best possible way no matter what device it is being viewed on. We utilised the most cutting-edge responsive techniques to bring out the best user experience available across a number of platforms (whether that is on the desktop, tablet or mobile). The site is rich with images, some 600 across the 80 featured projects and every area of the site has been optimised to ensure it works across all different devices without losing resolution.
Forming the online hub of Visit Manchester’s seasonal campaign, we were asked to create a website which would highlight the best visitor attractions around Manchester. Having built the summer campaign website we extended and refreshed the design for Christmas. A new customised admin section was built to allow the easy creation of content which would drop into fluid, easy to navigate sections. Each item has its own ‘profile’ page with further information and links to partner websites, with the ability to feature items and give more prominence where needed alongside enhanced analytics use to capture user journey.
FRUKT are a communications agency based in London. Having undergone an extensive rebranding in 2010, they required a new website to fully convey their new offering. We designed the website with a magazine in mind, allowing the elements to breath in a way that wouldn't normally be seen on a website. Using Wordpress, the site is fully editable within selected regions, allowing the agency to easily update content without affecting the look of the page. It's also got the world's coolest contact page, which not only uses a modern browser's geolocative API's to determine where in the world you are, but to also estimate how far away you are from their head offices. It also shows their staff twitter feeds, where they've been on Foursquare, and what they're listening to on Last.fm.
In The City is a long standing music conference and festival occurring every year in Manchester. In a bid to rejuvenate their brand, In The City approached us to produce their new digital presence. Aside from promoting the daytime content, where senior members of the music and record industries discuss order of business, the website has to communicate a bustling evening programme featuring the latest bands and hottest unsigned talent to a desired target audience. Through the website, visitors are able to register for the conference through our own, custom shopping cart integrating WorldPay, while gig goers are able to view lineups and purchase festival wristbands. The website is constantly evolving in the run up to the conference, and will soon feature extensive social objects and mobile applications to further engage with the target audience.
Since being purchased by Nike in 2007 for £285m, the Cheadle based sports manufacturer have seeked to reconnect with Manchester to help both re-position the brand and engage with their desired market segments. As part of this strategy, Umbro are reaching out to Manchester’s creative community with a new project called Umbro Industries. We were tasked by them to produce a website which allows Manchester residents to upload an application for a bursary to get their project off the ground, with a panel of judges meeting once a quarter to decide who gets the cash. This required us to develop a robust bursary application system, which allows users to provide supporting media (such as audio, video and images) to help them win the prize. In Autumn 2010, we were asked to give the design a refreshed look and feel, along with additional functionality based on their new offline branding. We delivered.
Ear to the Ground are a live communications and events agency based in Manchester and London, and as part of a brand “neutralisation” exercise, required a new site to be put in place pending a full redevelopment in 2010. The company have a vast library of images from past events which are of excellent quality, so our approach was to use these a full browser image, allowing the visitor to experience a full resolution photograph of an event in action. This website uses the latest javascript programming technology which not only gives the visitor an immersive experience like Flash might offer, while also ensuring the website is fully indexible by all the major search engines.
We have a long running relationship with the Manchester Food and Drink Festival, which this year saw us completely redevlop their website following 2009's successful campaign. With branding produced by leading agency Creative Lynx, our brief was to reinterpret the creative into a fresh surrounding. Using our own custom Django CMS designed for urban festivals and events, we created a site which not only displayed the core aims and objections of the festival, but successfully informed the user about why they should attend. The website also allowed users to enter their vote for the Food and Drink Awards and find events and offers. The website itself uses jQuery and AJAX to bring it all to life, while to CMS keeps all the content in check.
Manchester International Festival returns for the third time in 2011, bring the world's arts and cultural eye towards the city, with it's debut of a number of original works. With Marina Abramovic, Willem Defoe, Victoria Wood and Antony Hegarty already announced, the festival is working towards making 2011 it's most successful year yet. We were asked to build a site based on a Stiff Rowlands design, built on top of a Django backend. Using HTML5 and CSS3 techniques in the front end, the site is the most technologically advanced it has ever been, while degrading in a nice way for users of older browsers. The site is expected to continually develop in the run up to the festival launching in June 2011.
We love designing websites. But design doesn't just mean making a website look pretty, there's actually several steps to take before your final design is complete. Requirements analysis, positional and usability design (wireframing), and functionality styling all form the beginning parts of the process, closely followed by the final designs. With a clear sign off at each point, our clients are completely in control at all stages of the process. Or put more simply, you don't end up with a website you can't stand the sight of. That wouldn't be cool.
There's two sides to the development we do: "Front" and "Back" end. While we usually take on projects involving both, we're just as happy doing one or the other. All of our front ends are done in perfectly compliant and attractive CSS and XHTML, with the interactive elements brought to life with JQuery and Flash, and when programming websites, we use languages such as PHP, Ruby on Rails and MySQL. The websites are then hosted on our own servers at Manchester Science Park hard-wired into the very backbone of the internet itself, meaning they rarely (if ever) go down.
In today's day and age, there's no excuse for any agency to supply you a "flat" website you're unable to update. This leads to potentially costly and time consuming updates, which neither we as an agency or you as a client want to engage with. So, we make it easy. All of websites come with a Content Management System, which could be either something easy like our own, something familiar like WordPress, or something more complex like Expression Engine. We're not scared of others though, so if you have a specific requirement, let us know.
Websites should look as good on a smartphone as they do on a computer. If not, the website is less effective, impacting on a potentially massive user base and overall sales (one of our clients receive 10% of their sales through their website accessed on an iPhone). Thankfully, we're really good at making websites perform well on them. We've also a massive amount of experience building native iPhone applications, so if your brand needs to be in the palm of someones hand, we can help.
For many, the internet is all about bringing home the Benjamins (or in other terms, making loads of cash). However, entering the world e-commerce can be a somewhat scary prospect. We make it easy. By bringing together old-school merchandising techniques with web sensibilities, we've been able to help monetise many of our clients websites. Whether it be to sell more CDs, or one-click purchasing, or advertising sales, we've used the best analytics tools to help understand how your clients can spend more with you. And you know what, it's not as difficult as it looks.
We've built a number of tools which allow users to collaborate online. Whether it's to organise a flashmob, apply for a bursary, or work out what the best single of the noughties has been, we have idea-sourcing tools which can help better manage the creativity of your customers or employees. And from another perspective, we're totally fine with collaborating with other agencies or people within your business. In fact, we really like working with other creative and technical sorts, so don't be afraid to ask.
Getting your message into the inboxes of past and potential customers is still one of the most potent ways of communicating online. By utilising the best in email marketing solutions, we're able to help you better send, segment, and monitor what your receivership think of your content. We're also able to make sure that emails actually get delivered, something that can't always be guaranteed in todays spam free world.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is the top of most Marketing Managers list. Without a high search ranking, many feel that the web is a waste of time. While this is partially true, there's also no hard and fast rule to better placing. To help you from the word go, all of our websites come with intelligent features to make them more visible on popular search engines. While we can't guarantee you the much favoured top placing, we'll do everything we can to push you up there. We can also help you plan your PPC campaigns too. And to monitor this all, of our websites come with Google Analytics as standard. It's just not cricket to do anything else.
We love designing websites. But design doesn't just mean making a website look pretty, there's actually several steps to take before your final design is complete. Requirements analysis, positional and usability design (wireframing), and functionality styling all form the beginning parts of the process, closely followed by the final designs. With a clear sign off at each point, our clients are completely in control at all stages of the process. Or put more simply, you don't end up with a website you can't stand the sight of. That wouldn't be cool.
We love designing websites. But design doesn't just mean making a website look pretty, there's actually several steps to take before your final design is complete. Requirements analysis, positional and usability design (wireframing), and functionality styling all form the beginning parts of the process, closely followed by the final designs. With a clear sign off at each point, our clients are completely in control at all stages of the process. Or put more simply, you don't end up with a website you can't stand the sight of. That wouldn't be cool.
Social Media
The web today is a more social place to be. If it's through established social networks like Twitter or Facebook, collaborative tools like Basecamp, or bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon or Delicious, brands are becoming more interested in what their customers think of them and how better to communicate. That's where we step in. With a strong track record in custom community building and social media planning, we can help you interact with your customers better online. Remember though, it's about talking and insight, not selling and marketing.