May, 2009 archive
Client quote of the week
May
30
2009
“As a start up freelancer I know a good website is a requirement these days and I searched via google and scanned various sites and profiles.
What impressed me about Fred Campbell’s Northstar was his own site was stylish, visually appealing, informative withour being too heavy on text and a bit savvy too.
When we spoke on the ‘phone he was not pushy and seemed composed and competent which transpired in his work for me.
Archer and Stone was given added status by his thoughtful design, layout and effective use of graphics.
I wasn’t quick at providing content (busy life) but he was patient and the end result is great. I would recommend Fred at Northstar heartily and expect others to get an equally good service.”
Karl Collingwood-Thirlway, Archer & Stone, Legionella Control Specialists
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Web video production - Video Tours
May
29
2009
Northstar was contracted by Ancar B Technologies to provide video house tours on behalf of their client Barnes Homes.
Two cameramen with broadcast quality equipment were dispatched to six houses in three locations over a couple of days to capture the footage.
Three hours of video was then edited down in 6 Video Tours of under 3 minutes each.
The final edits were provided in DV, FLV and QuickTime formats for their web developers to then embed on the Barnes Homes website.
With the advances in technology reducing the production software and widespread broadband delivery, web video is now a viable and cost effective tool in online marketing.
Read more about Northstar Video Production
Budget web design - Archer & Stone
May
26
2009
Archer & Stone are health and safety consultants based in Leeds, specialising in legionella risk assessment and management. Being a new business start-up a low budget web design was required, initially just to give them a presence on the web.
Times are changing, not long ago having a website was a novelty, today a company without a website looks suspicious - it’s the bare minimum; like having business cards and letterheaded stationery.
As part of our New Business Start-up Package, a logo was designed and provided in all formats for screen and print.
As there was no budget for photography, a strong graphic background was created to lift the site and give impact. Although it was a low budget web design, the site was still built to the highest international standards, Valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS2 markup, and scoring Triple A for web accessibility.
The logo and 11 page site were created in 48 hours over a 2 week period.
Tags: budget web design
Posted in Internet | Comments
Micro-site launched for girl dance group
May
20
2009
UDC Dance Company’s website is over 4 year’s old and required a major re-design to meet their client’s needs.
The site generates dozens of enquiries every week, with potential clients frequently asking more photographs and more information. To reduce admin, each dance theme and dance style will have its own microsite with separate gallery - PDFs will also be available to download.
The website re-design will be completed in instalments over the coming weeks. The first microsite to be uploaded was the Diva dance group, for marketing and club promotions.
Tags: dance group, microsite, website re-design
Posted in Internet | Comments
Why do people Spam?
May
12
2009
These thoughts and figures are an extract from a presentation made by Amit Singhal. If anyone knows how the web works, it’s him - he’s from Google.
His analysis goes like this:
“Users follow the results on Search Engines, money follows the users, and the spammers follow the money.”
What I didn’t realise, is that besides the bogus sales and scams, spammers also get kickbacks from traffic to target sites as well:
“Traffic from Search Engines to Amazon / eBay – A few dollars per click.”
“Traffic from Search Engines to Viagra sellers – $6 per sale.”
“Traffic to porn sites – $20-40 per member.”
How much money can spammers make?
According to Google, there are approximately 500 million searches made everyday through website search engines. This figure is considerably higher if you include vast amount of porn queries.
If you only assume that 5% of these searches are commercially viable, and that they only make the minimum 50 cents per click - the spammers are making $12.5M a day, or about $4.5 Billion per year.
And these figures are conservative, based $0.5c per click, they can make anything up to $40 per click.
These figures are no consolation for the frustration and inconvenience all this spam causes, but at least now you know the reason why.
Logo design - UDC Hen Nights
May
10
2009
UDC dance company, based in Leeds, runs a series of highly popular dance workshops for hen parties - these can cover anything from Dirty Dancing to the Can Can.
A logo was briefed to cover their wide variety of events, be fun, simple, and entertaining.
The idea of a hen silhouetted against the moon was too good an opportunity to miss. In the first scribbles the hen had eyes, outlined wings and legs. Over a few days the drawing was refined and reduced to the absolute minimum.
The hen was hand drawn in Illustrator and Bauhaus 93 was used for the font.
Tags: hen nights, logo design
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