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Concept: Randles Website 2012
The current Randles website is due an overhaul.
The brief is create a new website for the Randles Motor Group to accommodate the new franchises while giving us the opportunity to introduce new technologies and take advantage of modern concepts.
Here’s a sneak peak at the initial concept…
This new concept design takes Randles in a completely new direction.
Features
- Blocks: Similar to the upcoming Windows 8 interactive tiles, this creates an intuitive website navigation with the most popular options displayed first.
- Logo: It’s human nature to look for a face, so the new logo sports a little smile. Combined with a bright red square in the background and a white typeface the Randles logo is now unmistakeable.
- Search: From a user experience perspective, this makes it very easy to get help and find content on the website that may not be obvious from the navigation. From a management point of view it means the content can be tailored to the search queries.
- Live updates: To keep the website fresh, a social network feed will sit just above the footer, allowing the website to act as a social media hub.
- Join the newsletter: The newsletter is a great way to keep customers informed about Randles, so giving new customers the opportunity to join is important.
- Social links: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, RSS (Blog): Randles is on them all, and now you know.
- Background: Subtle, but exciting. The idea is to periodically introduce new backgrounds to suit the section of the site, a new car or a current promotion.
- Mobile first: The new design will utilise new technologies and concepts to create a responsive design that will not only look great on a mobile phone, but on tablets, desktops and even large TVs!
So what do you think? Your feedback is welcome.Footnote: Thanks to mediaqueri.es and @scottohara for inspiration. -
Announcement
As of April 2012, I have agreed to enter into full time employment, initially for 12 months with a company very close to my heart that has been demanding my expertise more and more:
Randles
The Randles Motor Group is a fast expanding, family business that already has Peugeot and Suzuki dealerships in Stoke and Stafford, with more to follow.
I’ll be joining my mum & dad, my sister & brother-in-law in the company to support the demands of further growth as the group IT manager.
Not only will I be expanding the existing IT infrastructure, but will be putting much needed IT network administration in place and leading the development of a new group website.
What this means for:
DevotedIT
Unfortunately some opportunities to expand the business did not come to light and I have made a decision to begin winding down the business.
I will honour any existing support agreements as best as I can until their natural end. Any ongoing services such as broadband or hosting will be transferred to another supplier.
For now, I will also continue to take bookings for small jobs on an “as and when” basis, to be carried out on evenings or at weekends. Special arrangements can be made for “urgent” issues.
Phurix
I will still remain involved in the business as a partner but all day to day operations have been transferred to my business partner, James Henry.
James Henry has agreed to continue to drive the business forward and supports the decision I have made.
Phurix customers should continue to use the regular communication methods. Should you contact me directly about Phurix, please appreciate that I may not be able to get back to you as quickly as you’d hope.
Other projects
Most other projects (code, forums, blogs, single purpose websites, etc) should continue to run as normal without much interaction from me. However, please appreciate that I may have less time to contribute to them.
I have considered reducing the amount of intellectual property I own and online real estate I manage, but no changes are planned at the moment. Announcements will be made if any changes are planned.
Me
The reason I have decided to do this is because it’s the right time. As Randles grows, I want to be more involved to ensure that they are making the most of their IT.
My goal as Randles Motor Group IT manager will be to increase sales by developing a new website and increase productivity by improving the IT infrastructure.
Taking this job has in no way been an easy choice, but it will give me the opportunity to really apply myself and allow me time to step back from everything else while I plan my next move.
You
Hopefully you will continue to support me and can understand why I have made this decision.
If you have any questions or feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
- James Wade -
Makeover: Suzuki4u logo and forum
I’ve been running the Suzuki4u website since 2004. It’s now the biggest UK Suzuki forum.
However, because it was running outdated forum software it was getting over run by spam bots.
I reacted and updated the software to the latest version.
I also went ahead and updated the logo, but before I show you the new logo, let’s take a quick look at the logos over the years…
Suzuki4u 2004-2007 Logo
Suzuki4u 2007-2011 Logo
Suzuki4u 2011 Logo, ready for 2012 and beyond!
Anyway, checkout the updated Suzuki4u website and forum:
I’ll be introducing a new website in 2012, so watch this space!
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Makeover: The IT Exchange Ltd.
- wade.be gives The IT Exchange Ltd. website a facelift!
When I first met Simon from The IT Exchange Ltd (ITE), he explained to me how his website was outdated and wondered if I could do him a new one.
ITE are printer specialists and really wanted to stress how they recycle IT and that no printers go to waste.
Tired: Their original website
Fresh: Introducing the new website…
- The header shows a re-rendered version of the original ITE logo to retain consistency with their stationery. The contact telephone number is clearly displayed on the right along with the email address to make it easy for visitors to get in touch.
- The banner really had to show what ITE is all about: printers and recycling. Being green is important to businesses and they wanted to show that they understand that.
- Smooth corners were a bit of a pain to implement on every browser, but worth it for that soft look and feel making it easy on the eyes.
- Call to action was added in the form of a large button so users can easily “get in touch”. A neat trick with this button is it’s also offers live help via Google Talk when Simon is logged in. When he’s not, you’ll be taken to a contact form.
- The footer has room for their address, contact details and company details. I felt this was quite important to re-enforce the integrity of their business.
The site is officially launched!
Good luck to Simon, all he has to do now is edit the content and let people know!
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Enhanced: Randles Website Layout
A couple of days ago we launched the new look Randles website. To the untrained eye the site may not look that different. The main purpose for introducing changes gradually is to avoid alienating regular visitors.
Here’s what we did:
- Change “Use Stock List” to “Used Vehicles”
- Box in the “Used Search Form” on the “used” page
- Insert the “User Search Form” onto the home page under the banner
- Update the “parts-and-accessories” page to include randles-stafford and randles-stoke (Peugeot) links
- Fix the overlay links (changed to iframes)
- Accommodate larger banners (920px*270px)
- Add a 190px*190px badge to the top of the sidebar, above the dealer finder, which says “Click here for ‘hot deals’”, similar style (in red).
- A new (larger) footer. The footer will be split into 3 sections: Quick links, About and Copyright/legal. The “Quick links” will come from the existing links. The “About” will be taken from the bottom of the homepage. The copyright/legal will stay the same/be made clearer.
Here’s what that looks like:
Admittedly there’s still some tweaks to do, but it’s work in progress and always moving forward…
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Makeover: G. S. Unwin Bodycentre Ltd.
- wade.be gives the G. S. Unwin Bodycentre Ltd. website a facelift.
Glen Unwin got in touch with me to discuss a revamp of their website that was first put together back in 2005. This modern era has shown that websites are more than just information about your business they are a marketing tool and should be used that way.
- The header really needed to stand out. I stuck with the original colour scheme to create a banner. The kitemark is really important to Glen and needed to be prominent on the site so this was the perfect place.
- The images in the header are crucial to show the size of the operation, giving visitors a more informed idea of the business they are dealing with.
- The pitch ”more than just car repair” makes it easy for visitors to quickly understand what the business is about, making it obvious that not only is the business about car repairs, but other services are on offer too. This is how it was briefed to me by Glen and as such I included his name below the statement to add authenticity.
- Call to action, as part of the “About us” in the sidebar, visitors are encouraged to get in touch if they want to know more.
- The footer was the perfect place to put all the contact and copyright information, as well as a little map linked to Google Maps to get directions.
I’m sure you’ll agree that the new site is a tremendous improvement on the original (be it only a simple place holder).
You can visit the new G. S. Unwin Bodycentre Ltd. website at: www.gsunwin.co.uk.
Enjoy!
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Launch: New DevotedIT website
I’ve quietly been working on devotedit.com in the background and now it’s ready!
The new website is powered by Wordpress and the theme is a custom built theme based on the original design.
The benefit of the new website is that it combines the DevotedIT blog and information about the business into one, easy to navigate website.
This replaces the old site which was a single page, single purpose site which served it’s purpose, but was not able to scale with the expansion of the business.
The new pages and the blog are designed to give confidence to new clients finding out about the business for the first time.
What do you think?
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Process: Creating a business logo
I enjoy branding, especially designing logos. It’s a process that requires various skills and some creativity.
I first started to document this process back in 2008 when I created a logo for Devoted Media, but never got around to publishing it.
I wanted to come up with a logo that was an instantly recognisable shape, but was unique enough to not be confused with anything else.
Of course the logo didn’t always look like this, it started with a pad and a pencil…
You can see the start of the logo I ended up with, with a few hearts in there which was meant to represent “devoted”.
More hearts, more curves…
Hearts and arrows, banners and scrolls… Here’s a reject I attempted:
Back to the drawing board…
You can start to see elements like the two pronged “d” of the final logo taking shape.
Here was the first attempt:
It was too 80s, too square, bring on the curves!
Nice and curvy, but perhaps a little on the big side, let’s shrink that down a bit…
Perfect, big, bold, curvy and modern. Love it!
Here you can see the logo in it’s simplest form to show that it can be used in any form of media.
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Enhanced: Randles Navigation
After discussing website improvements with the Randles Motor Group marketing manager we decided that the website needed a new navigation menu with simple requirements:
- Accommodate additional pages
- Improve search engine visibility
- Improve user experience
- Less white-space
Originally the navigation was a flat horizontal menu at the very top of the page, which had a “hint” saying “Browse our website” with an arrow to make it obvious to novice users that this is how you navigate the website.
To tackle the criteria I did the following:
- Adding sub-menus to accommodate the new pages and improve visibility.
- A menu bar was created across the width of the page which separates the header from the footer filling any undesirable white-space.
- The more familiar look and feel of the menu bar with the drop down menus gives the end user a better experience as it is more familiar to them.
I’m sure you’ll agree that the new menu is an improvement on the old, and if not, let me know!
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The logo for wade.be is here!
The criteria for the logo was to be instantly recognisable, easily adaptable and subtlety intriguing.
I’ve become increasingly fond of the “Journal” typeface so I’ve decided to use it in the design.
I added the asterisks to draw the viewer to it in the same way as you would take note of a footnote at the bottom of an article.
The logo will generally appear white in colour on a dark grey background, but equally can appear grey on a white background.
