Mobile WordPress website for award winning salon, The Wonderlab.A new hair and beauty salon called The Wonderlab, based in Chorley Wood, opened its doors in 2013 and has launched a new responsive website. Designed by ROAR Creativity and developed by By The Scruff, the website uses the ever popular WordPress system with a bespoke design.
The responsive website allows customers to see whats happening in this beautiful award winning salon with up-to-date news, images, services and online booking system.
Katie May, co-owner, says “We have a specific target market where the visual impact of the salon speaks volumes about our work, it was imperative that the look and feel of the website translated our high end concept through to our guests when finding us, especially if this is their first impression of the salon.
Many of our guests lead busy, modern lifestyles and the ability to access our information, service guides and booking whilst on the go will increase our reach and ensure they can find what they are looking for 24 hours a day. It was also very important that we were able to have a site that could be easily updated so that we can keep the content fresh and interesting for guests.”
Go to the website for more information thewonderlab.co.uk
Mobile email campaignsThe use of smartphones to access emails is souring. According to a recent survey carried out by Return Path between 2010 and 2012 the use of mobiles to access emails has increased by 300%, and now nearly half of all emails received are read on mobile devices. According to Google 62% of smartphone users that use the internet on their phone use it to access their email; this accounts for more than those that use their mobiles for social networking or search engines (source: Google: Our Mobile Planet).
With these sorts of statistics you can see why optimising emails for mobile devices is crucial for email marketing. In this article I will take you through some of the aspects we consider when we produce email campaigns for both desktop and mobile; we call this responsive email design.
Email for mobile and desktop
When putting together an email you have to consider how it is going to appear on both the desktop and the mobile, how it is going to render across different email clients, and which elements and call-to-actions you wish to capture the audience. If an email does not display correctly 69.7% will delete it immediately. (Source: BlueHornet ‘Consumer Views of Email Marketing’ (2012))
Below is an example of one of our responsive emails for the London Review of Books. It shows how the email appears on the desktop in comparison to the iPhone. When designing for the smaller screen it is best practice to eliminate horizontal scrolling. We develop the email to rearrange different elements into an easy to scroll format, in addition we are able to change the text size and spacing so that it is easier to read on smaller screens.

There are also other things we need to take into consideration, such as the size of the call-to-action buttons and linked text. It is very difficult to select small buttons and links with your fingers accurately when compared to using a cursor, therefore we ensure the spacing and positioning of elements are ideal for both desktop and mobile.
Hiding Items / Navigation

We are also able to remove elements from the mobile version that may make it too cluttered and/or force the user to scroll unnecessarily and consequently distracting your audience from the main call to action. In the example above we remove the ribbon pattern in the mobile version to keep the size and quality of the logo. In the example below we remove the navigation and change the layout of the headline to remove any need to scroll horizontally.

Retina Devices
Another new development in technology is retina display. If your email is not designed with retina display in mind, your customers with the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and any future Apple devices will see your images displayed at a low resolution. We take this in mind and code in higher resolution images that appear crystal clear on your retina device.
When compared to other forms of digital marketing email is more lucrative. Email outperforms social-media advertising three to one, according to the Direct Marketing Association (source: Business Week Article), and with mobile use growing at its current rate marketers should not ignore the potential for responsive email campaigns.
New mobile responsive email campaignsIn recent months we have been busy developing mobile responsive email templates for our clients. Below are 4 examples of the latest emails. With an ever increasing proportion of emails being viewed on mobile devices it is important for businesses to recognise that email marketing must cater for this trend to ensure that messages are being delivered in the best possible way. We have been experimenting with these templates for some time now and have successfully created templates for customers such as Bauer, Gorkana and Haymarket.
If you are interested in talking to us about how we can create effective mobile email camapigns for your business then contact Stuart on 0207 033 4269.




The success of Brit Movie Tours has driven the recent changes to the site. Its not just the design thats been updated but the way in which users can search for tours has been massivley improved. Customers can now search and find relevant tours in the location they want using a much better search tool that is clearly placed throughout the site.
The navigation has been made much clearer to drive bookings and make it quicker for customers to find what they want.
Lewis Swan, Managing Director says
“Given my previous experience of how the guys at By the Scruff work and how they always seem to deliver exactly what I wanted (plus more) it was a no brainer for them to redesign our company website. The results have been outstanding and the functionality we now have on the site means people can find tours even easier and get all the information they need within 1 or 2 clicks at most. People say to us they love the simplicity of the site and that its very easy to find things. That has been a big contributing factor to the success of our business since we launched 2 years ago.”
Visit the Britmovietours website britmovietours.com for some great film and location tours in the OK.
A new version of the Barking Riverside website is launched this week. The site now features more up-to-date information on the development and the introduction of a community blog area. It is intended to allow local groups and initiatives in the area to publicise their work through the website and help new and existing residents to use the site to find out whats going.
The new website benefits from a completyely new design and is developed on the WordPress system.

The London Wildlife Trust is using the blog to promote their work in the area and to encourage people to take a more active role in local conservation and to appreciate the diverse wildlife. They have many different activities planned that will be promoted on the Barking Riverside website through this year and 2012.
Users can find new image galleries with pictures of the new building taking place including the recently completed Rivergate Centre. The website will be updated more regularly as new property is built and becomes available for sale.

Developed under the management of the Homes & Communities Agency this new site has been in the making since 2007 when we were first commissioned to design and build the website. Its been a long time coming and many changes have happened in that period. We hope the site can see the development through this next phase of building.
For further information go to barkingriverside.co.uk