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

Over this last week here at BigRedCircle we have taken a slight step back from our usual web design work and are embarking on a little inter office project. We spend most of our time making websites for clients, which is great but to keep everyone from slipping into the day to day monotony spiral we decided to mix it up and create something for ourselves (and the rest of the internet).

We came up with an idea, lets call it “Project SmallGreenTriangle”. It had to be quick and it had to be useful. We all use twitter, pownce, facebook etc (a little too much somtimes) and without giving too much away we are making something that will help you out with all of your many social networks. It will be a web app and it will be free!

We started on Monday, it was going to be a “Web App in 5 Days!” and the post you are reading now should be a “Hey check out the new BigRedCircle web app” but in fact the sum total of hours spent on “Project SmallGreenTriangle” is a massive 13.5.

Unfortunately more pressing client work has had to take over and slightly stifled the progress of “Project SmallGreenTriangle”, we are still in the felt tipping and Pritt Sticking phase.

Our aim is to get the project up and live for people to see, mess with and test as soon as it is functional. This way we can mould its development and direction to the people who are using it based on comments and suggestions we get. Power to the people.

Keep one eye on the Circle and check back soon.

Finally the new Nouveaux Online website has gone live for everyone on the internet to see. After the usual rigmarole of cross browser testing and getting the right content from the client we have finally launched the (and I quote) ‘Best Conservatory website in Liverpool’.

It has lots of funky new features but our favourite is the new online quote generator. I haven’t seen any other conservatory websites with anything like this on it. So, like captain planet we combined all of our usability powers and gave you the easiest online conservatory quote generator known to man.

Have a look around, even get a quote?

Portfolio – Nouveaux Online

See how fast you can get a quote. Maybe not the best use of the website but from the page loading to seeing a price my best time was 11.2 seconds.

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