Category: News and banter
Good bye Bonzini foos ball
Its a sad day but one of our nearest and dearest companions is moving to a new family. Our loved and cherished Bonzini table football is leaving the office. Its fait is in the hands of an open auction on Ebay. We have had some good times with you little table but its time to fly the nest and spread the love. We only hope you go to a good home and are loved as much as you have been here. We also hope to get at least 500 quid for you which would mean you haven’t cost us a penny. It would make a good replacement for a dog, or child if you like that sort of emotional replacement. It does take up quite a lot of space though and we’ve changed over the years.
I think given the time we’ve had the table it held its value very well and has stayed in great condition which is testament to the quality craftsmanship in these kind of tables. Still, it will be sad when you are hauled out of the office onto the back of some fixed wheeled hipster keeno. They will never know the times we’ve had in between our hard work. Many a score has been settled and tense moments dissolved over a quality doubles match.Lee, it all changed when you buggered off to Mexico. On your head be it!
Adiós amigo!
Cheap websites, or how you could be shooting yourself in the foot
The Internet is packed with hundreds of thousands of cheap website services, most of them come as parts of cheap hosting plans, some are stand alone services. Pretty much anyone can build themselves a simple website.
While the website may perform the basic stuff you want it to, it will not be the best it can be, for many reasons.
Things like SEO optimisation, considerations for the best user experience, call to action button theory and a multitude of other crucial things that web design and development companies (like us) are likely to simply not be there, if you do the website yourself or if you hire a cheap bedroom coder. The things I just mentioned come with years of experience and are absolutely critical to building a successful website.
The cost argument might come up if you are just starting your business and want to reduce your spending, however you have to consider that a website that doesn’t sell you in the right light or makes you look cheap will not help you attract new business and win over clients.
If you don’t have a web presence, you don’t exist. If your web presence is not positive, you will be ignored. Playing a game of roulette is fun in a casino, but doing so with your business may not be the best idea.
I hope this article will nudge you in the right direction. ByTheScruff is only a quick phone call ( 0207 033 4269 ), brief email ( getit@bythescruff.com ) or contact form away.
Chocolate Fudge Crunch Creams rock
When something exceptional happens on the biscuit front we have to mention it. We have had such a situation this week with a new biscuit that has made its way into our office biscuit tin.These were bought into the office by our latest intern Nick Lawrence. He’ll go far!
Chocolate Fudge Crunch Creams have left a lasting impression with the team. When the sun stops shining and the brain struggles to kick in after the weekend there is nothing better than a good biscuit fix. These biscuits are surprising, uplifting, thought provoking and above all, endorphin producing – we believe that a good biscuit could save the world from its troubles. World auesterity measures should include biscuits as part of their startegy.
It has to be said that when we have a good biscuit in the office we are working at our most creative and productive levels. Online marketing strategies, creative email design and beautiful flash banners come naturally as we drift into the calmness and warmth generated by a good biscuit. There is always the risk that you could get a bit carried away with yourself, but thats fine. Just go with it.
We love you Fox’s, we are at one with your Chocolate Fudge Crunch Creams.
Thank you!
Flash vs future technology
In the past you would have been hard pressed to find a flash website or any flash content on the internet, but with huge advances in the platform, thanks to Adobe, Flash is a multimedia platform now widely used throughout the web and advertising industries, and like many pieces of technology it still comes with its own long list of pros and cons. It’s a platform that provides excellent interactivity and animation for digital content, it’s also a well-supported system with 98% of browsers supporting flash content, due to this it’s widely used within games production for the web and for online video, such as within YouTube. File size and bandwidth limitations are areas that always need to be taken into account when working with Flash; with increasingly impatient audiences, making file sizes as small as possible becomes even more important.
The debate of whether to choose a flash based system over HTML (especially now with HTML5) is long running and shows no sign of stopping. Web sites such as Scribd, a site where people can share original writing and documents, are steering away from their past flash development in favour of more recent technology releases, such as HTML5 and CSS3; sure these technologies have their advantages over flash but are not yet supported fully by all browsers and are relatively new, so it will take time to know if they are the future.
On the other hand there are many companies that are hedging their bets on Flash based systems over these new technology releases. Last year YouTube announced that it will continue to favour Flash over new technologies like HTML5 for distributing video. YouTube’s main concern was its lack of a single video format; this is an understandable concern when 24 hours of video are uploaded every minute on a daily basis. What’s interesting is that YouTube is owned by Google, who themselves have already adopted HTML5 on their websites.
This on gong debate has now taken over the tablet and smart phone market. The most publicised being Steve Jobs and Apple’s refusal to integrate Flash browser support within its mobile product range. In 2010 Steve Jobs wrote an article detailing his thoughts on why flash support is not incorporated into apple mobile browsers and to give customers and critics more information into why this is so. http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
As you could imagine this is an area which most competitors, such as Blackberry and Motorola are taking full advantage of. With the use of clever advertising they are aiming their mobile products at consumers that crave more open systems that support all content on the web, customers that want consistency between their mobile and desktop surfing experiences and are not restricted on what content they are able to view.
Competitors promoting flash within their mobile devices (Blackberry Playbook).
Flash within a desktop setting, through creative and dynamic websites and online advertising has a future, but it’s hard to see where flash has an advantage within the mobile market. HTML, CSS and JavaScript, are technologies better suited for the mobile devices, with reduced download times improving battery life and data usage (which is key for mobile devices) and the improved integration of touch screen gestures, which flash poorly supports; these are the technologies that may prove to be the future for mobile browsers.
As we enter an age where there have never been more people online; sharing information, communicating and interacting with all different types of media, the technology used is going to become more and more important. Yes all technologies are improving; companies are coming up with new iterations of their products all the time, always scrambling to gain a tighter hold on the market and as this continues we will be experiencing new content and interacting with it in more creative and dynamic ways.
Here at By The Scruff, we incorporate Flash into our work, whether it is for online banner advertising or full flash based website development, for a recent example visit 30 years of Schuh.
Latest web and online projects
Its a beautiful day today in Shoreditch and maybe the warmest so far this year. I wonder how many other local design agencies are thinking why we don’t work from our laptops on the beach. They are probably already there!
We’re having a busy start to the month with a few large projects hopefully drawing to a conclusion in the next couple of weeks.
One of these projects is a new website for Metrica which is undergoing a complete frontend redesign and restructuring of the backend CMS. We are also working new messaging and supporting marketing properties such as Facebook and Twitter for which we are redesigning skins and layouts.
After our client update last week we had some positive feedback about the Schuh 30 years project and the flash banner CMS. If you would like to be included in the next update then send us your email.
Hello from our newest team member
Hello!
My name is Andy and I am the newest recruit to the By The Scruff team. I have been working for By The Scruff for three months now and despite being the worst player of table football in the studio, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here so far.
A very short bit about me: My background is in graphic and communications design with a special fondness for digital, interactive and web design. My passions apart from design include electronic music, art and good beer. I dislike smelly cheese!
In the time that I have worked for By The Scruff I have been involved in a variety of projects, mainly website design, email design and creating flash banners. In addition to these, I have been part of the creative process in developing ideas and concepts for a number of brands.
One of the most recent projects I worked on was creating a Christmas flash banner campaign for Classic FM Magazine. This consisted of creating a flash banner promoting the magazine’s free CD offer over the Christmas period. It was important to maintain a good quality design with a small file size. See one of the results below.
I have also recently worked on a range of digital promotions / E-marketing and HTML email campaigns. These included another flash banner for SHL promoting their new iPQ career planner iPhone app, a digital invitation (or eInvite) for The WhatCar? Car of the year 2011 Awards, a marketing email for Optimax, and a Christmas eCard for The Wimbledon School of English sent through our email marketing platform (BTS Mail). See below for some examples from these projects.
I look forward to working on future projects with our current and any future clients.
Kind regards,
Andy
Designer and new proud member of By The Scruff
Enter our survey – How is your recession?
Lets see how you are feeling about the recession and how it has impacted your job or business so far. This is just for fun, if there is such a thing given the circumstances.