Ikea can't spell

Whilst perusing the affordable Scandinavian wares of Ikea, I happened upon a particular sequence of wall graphics that told the story of how Ikea’s savings are passed on to the customer. Strangely, only five of the seven ‘Ikea concept’ panels used correct spelling with the remaining ones neglecting to use apostrophes (the above example also has a rogue space before the question mark). I’m now well versed in Ikea’s efficient production and distribution methods but surely they could have spent a few extra euros on spell checking. We’ve all made mistakes, but three in twenty nine words at 124pt nationwide is quite special. At first I thought ‘trust me to notice that’, so my biggest smile came from the huge ‘Thats why!’ that came after the equals sign, where a staff member had pasted a cut-out apostrophe on the wall!

This is the Ikea concept as it should have looked!

(Opinion: Jon Price – Designer)

web design and useability - the page fold

There are many ‘Web Design Myths’, usability and design constraints that clients request having once heard that this is best practice. Most of these have come from the good old days of web design or even from constraints imposed on printed media. It is very often the job of a web designer to gently dispel these myths and dissuade clients from forcing them upon their site designs.

One such myth is the myth of the page fold, the point at which a user needs to scroll down to access content on your site. It was said that users would not scroll the page down meaning all content on your homepage should sit above this virtual line. The term originates from newspapers where the attention grabbing headlines would appear ‘above the fold’ so as to be seen on the newsstands. Continue reading

Bit of Friday fun.
It’s Jim’s birthday tomorrow, so here’s a little ‘pre-construction’ of what we think he’ll be up to… (sorry Katie, but we couldn’t see him dance alone!)…

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

LOL-pos1

Hi all, if you’re into comedy and you’re in the South West of England (or love to travel), check out the Exeter Comedy Festival. Sounds great. Have a look at their website to see who’s on. The site’s not bad either (and no we didn’t do it – it’s the work of some cowboy outift
called 2020) ;-)

[Jim Green - MD]

Exeter_Phoenix_Brochure_ReD

Between the 5th December (my Mum’s birthday) and the 10th Jan, the new format Exeter Phoenix brochure was download 7,500 times! It’s the first time the brochure has been made available as a download but we think it’s a pretty impressive figure (clearly mostly down to the quality of the design). For the new brochure we’ve refreshed the best aspects of the previous format with a more lively, magazine style – our aim being to keep Exeter Phoenix one step ahead of other, similar organisations around the UK. Click here if you want to take a look or download it yourself.

Since we did the work on segmenting the Exeter Phoenix sub-brands and redesigning the quarterly brochure, the in-house team has overhauled the website and is now preparing to launch its new online ticketing system, which will be live from Thursday 14 Jan. Watch this space!

[Opinion: Jim Green - MD]