Blog - Web design Leeds, Big Red Circle we do web design and web applications

Just a quick update from the previous post about the FOWD conference in London.

Those people over at Carsonified have released all of their speakers talks on mp3 and put their keynotes on slideshare. Isn’t that that nice of them.

If you listen to the mp3 and flick through the slides at the same time. It’s like your own personal ‘FOWD at my desk’ conference.

I highly recommend you stop what you are doing and listen to these now, well if you want to.

Some of the best talks in no particular order

Andy Clarke & Steve Pearce – MP3 Keynote

Jon Hicks – MP3 Keynote

Daniel Burka – MP3 Keynote

Sitting watching The Spy Who Loved Me on a lazy Saturday afternoon gives me time for quiet reflection of my previous week. Why don’t all cars come with submarine mode capabilities? It would make for much more interesting trips to Blackpool. Putting aside my desire for a sub-aquatic Lotus Esprit I though I would share with you the best thing that has happened this week…

BigRedCircle went to the Future of Web Design 08 conference in London!

With all the excitement of visiting an underwater base we stepped into Kensington town hall.

This was, personally my second visit to the hall of web wonderment. So, how did it match up to last year?

FOWD07 – I left feeling inspired and hungry for my next web project. Millions of ideas and possibilities were circling around my head. Some of which made it to the web, others are still waiting to be great. Although I think I missed a trick with my amazing idea of selling fresh bread online. I think 2010 will be the year of bread online. Just you wait!

FOWD08 – To compare the two is a difficult thing to do. Its like comparing jasmine green tea with pineapple and grapefruit green tea. They are very similar in many ways but inherently different.

This year I actually learned a lot. The conference seemed slightly more technical, aimed a little more towards developers as oppose to straight up designers.

This was like cat nip to me.

Hicksdesign gave an innovative talk on his development process from start to finish on a website that I can safely say is best cheese website in the world ever. cheesophile.com

The highlight for me was Andy Clarke and Steve Pearce’s tag team, duel blow, double dragon attack on the “User Experience vs Brand Experience” subject. Simply inspiring and really made me think in new ways when I approach such a subject. Inevitably, the outcome was: The two should not be at opposite sides of the ring in a death match style but more naturally be married together in a harmonious way. Expertly depicted and voiced by these two web guys on top form.

Top of the bill, king of the castle, the headlining act… Daniel Burka gave a good insight into the trials and tribulations of developing a webapp from an in-house capacity. Its one thing to create websites in a creative design agency. Always jumping from site to site, but to keep your focus and reiterate and reiterate over and over, always trying to improve a single webapp that is used my millions. A daunting task. The talk was very impressive, I almost felt like whooping. Being an american I think he would have appreciated a significant whoop during his talk but I resisted and bowed to my better judgement and simply clapped a little harder at the end.

All in all I can’t fault the Carsonified guys for putting on such a top notch, blog worthy event. Thanks, from all at BigRedCircle. The fire in our bellies has been truly stocked, the magic wand of inspiration has been waved over our heads.

To the information super highway!

*breathes in*

It’s now or never… And it’s now!

True, the BigRedCircle website has finally launched.

*breathes out*

It’s been a long time coming so, sorry, but thanks to those who just kept on waiting. It’s well worth it, honest.

After deciding not to be a hula hoop manufacturer, we’ve come to terms with the fact that we are a web design agency. In Leeds.

At BigRedCircle we just love to make nice looking things that go on the internet. So that’s what we do – every day. But nice looking things are nothing if they don’t work very well, not on the internet at least.

That’s why our forte is intuitive usability for the web apps we make. That’s where most of our brain power goes. And that’s why we’re good at it.

Sometimes we sleepwork – but mostly we just work. Often without sleeping.

And like the geeks we are, we do actually love our jobs.

It’s like Confucius said: “Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

So it’s all good.

We don’t have windows in our office so this BigRedCircle blog is us getting some sun in from the internet world and looking out for a few opinions along the way.

It’ll be much for many but mostly it’ll be sizzling hot behind the scenes stuff from right here at BigRedCircle. You know, trade secrets, proving conspiracy theories, scrabble high scores. The norm.

We love to share. Someone once reckoned that sharing is caring. We tried it, it’s true. So expect a lot of caring going on round here.

We’re talking free open source code snippets, php or javascript class here and there. Plus what’s hot, what’s not and just things that generally make us smile.

Right then, we’ve sharpened the HB’s, zipped up the pencil cases and put the lids back on our felt tips. Nothing left to do but some more work.

Enjoy :)

David McGeorge
Director