New website! v2.3
Old/New website!! ok, so it look pretty much exactly the same or very close to the untrained eye, but we really like the current design and well if it ain't broke don't fix it right.
Despite appearances the site has had a complete over hall and under the surface a lot has changed here are just a few.
- New Layouts - we've added some new layout designs and tweaked others.
- Bootstrap based theme.
- Ditched - Highslide in favour of Fancybox for lightbox galleries.
- HTML5 & CSS3 - A lot of original site design was powered by image backgrounds and css sliding doors, we've replaces ones that gave us curved corners, drop shadows and gradients with CSS3.
- IE6 - we used to make a vague attempt to make it look
goodok, now we don't. - Retina graphics - we've created new retina graphics, especially where they contain text,
- Custom Content Types & Taxonomies for WordPress - we've used them for ages on our clients sites, but this one was originally build before they existed so we created a load and migrated over the old content as best as possible.
- Icon Font - several icons throughout the site have been replaced with a font.
- Sprites - small background images have been combined into sprites.
- Finally we've put some effort into optimisation, we already served some of the graphical assets from a CDN, thats now most.. and were also taking or JS and CSS optimisation and cacheing further in a effort to really minimise load times.
The result hopefully a faster, easier to user site !!
Hidden family treasures at WNAG - Launch
The Garman Ryan Esptein Collection is a beautiful and varied collection and is well worth a visit at any time. But by digging deeper into the lives and times of Jacob Epstein and his extended family back in the 1920s through to the 50s, reveals wonderful details of the social constraints of the times, as well as something of the character of Epstein himself in defying the conventions of that time.
Jo Digger, Head of Collections at Walsall New 
Art Gallery has asked Two Thirds Design once again to work with her on a series of interactives/resources which gives the user the role of detective as they explore through the letters, photographs and diaries the lives of the family members.
This project is being rolled-out over the summer.
For more information visit:
www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk
It’s about time…
It’s a case of busman’s holiday really. Carly got married last summer, (a big congratulations to the now Mrs Mills!) and because of this name change, we decided it was high time we re-designed our new business cards. But it’s taken us a whole nine months to get around to re-designing them, what with one thing or another, but at last, here they are in all their finished glory. It’s involved a lot of looking at pantone swatches, sifting through lovely GF Smith paper samples, and discussing print processes such as de-bossing and foil-blocking with Team Impression, who were very helpful and patient as ever.
And we’re very happy with the results!
How Wild is Your Life?
Good question. It’s what Julia Morris and her team from the Black Country Living Landscape will be asking members of the public over the coming summer months. So if you spy some strange looking wildlife at these venues, we’re sure you’ll be intrigued enough to find out more…
Sunday 7th August - Northycote Farm, Wolverhampton
Wednesday 10th August - Moorcroft Wood LNR, Walsall
Sunday 14th August - Sandwell Park Farm, Sandwell
Tuesday 16th August - Bumble Hole LNR, Dudley
So at Two Thirds we’ve been helping them put together an intriguing campaign of postcards, magnets, posters and imagery - you’ll be amazed what wildness you’ll find out there!
Raising the Barr
The restoration of Barr Beacon’s historic features and community pride.
We’ve been a bit quiet on our blog posts of late, the main reason being that at the Two Thirds office we’ve been heads down helping out Jeff McBride, Countryside Project Development Officer from Walsall Council with an exciting new Heritage Lottery Funding application. This could mean exciting changes to Barr Beacon over the coming couple of years, involving the public with all sorts of exciting events using new technologies. We’ve provided Jeff with research into development of multi-platform educational resources, public consultation and information gathering solutions along with a white paper on the suitability a mobile interactive application.
So watch this space for progress updates…
The Feast - new web site launched!
We’ve been working recently with Tim Fawssett, Project Manager from The Feast and we’re happy to announce their brand new fully customised WordPress site.
The Feast is a Christian charity based in Birmingham in the UK, working to promote Community Cohesion between Christian and Muslim young people.We’ve worked with The Feast on a few projects to date, and it’s been a good collaborative and creative process establishing a new, strong, brand for them. We have worked closely with Tim to completely re-brand and re-structure their site andTim has thrown himself into fully using and understanding the WordPress technology. It’s been a pleasure to work with The Feast and we are happy that they are getting great feedback on their new site.
Please take a look, sign up to their newsletter or consider doing some volunteering!
Merry Xmas 09
Once again, this year we have donated money to the Help the Aged Charity instead of producing and sending Christmas cards to our clients. Our contribution has been made to the ‘1 is a lonely number’ campaign providing a Christmas dinner for elderly people who live alone.
We are therefore delivering our seasonal message in an email with special thanks for your support, creative ideas and exciting projects that you have sent our way during 2009.
In addition to wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year we have added another little special extra something to the email. Click the link to find out just how clever we can be. Hope it makes you smile!
http://www.twothirdsdesign.co.uk/xmas.html
Our very best wishes from the
Two Thirds Design Team
Goodbye Halloween
It's time for us to take our Halloween theme down, if you missed it there is a photo after the break. We also have some more seasonal themes all ready to go throughout the coming year, so come back soon to see what's new!
neat CSS trick-of-the-eye
Click on the link below and then slowly scroll down the page - watch the background-repeat image. This is more effective on wide screen monitors.
www.thinkgeek.com
Hot Rod Pinstriping
If fast cars and fast paintbrushes are your thing, check out:
There's some great examples of pin striping onthis site. Crazy, all done free-hand, straight onto the body of the car etc... not for the fainthearted.
Humanthesizer
A human midi system, all you need is some electrodes, some conductive body paint and a load of bikini clad dancers. Seriously cool, useless but very cool..
Helpfull hints and print techniques
Involving your printer from the start of a design job is vital part of the design for print process. A good printer has lots of knowledge and an extensive and strange vocabulary, and is always willing to help you out with some creative solutions.
But check out this site:
It has everything you ever wanted to know about printing but was always afraid to ask! Well, almost... There's a comprehensive glossary, examples of folding and binding styles, papers sizes and formats. It never replaces talking to a good printer, but it certainly allows you to brush up on some arcane references, so you can at least kid your printer into thinking you know what you are talking about!