Design love
So Pinterest seems to be the latest social craze that’s sweeping the nation, and indeed the globe. You’d be forgiven for thinking that there wasn’t any space in the marketplace for another social network, but it seems there is and this already popular app is taking more and more of a slice by the day.
Pinterest stats
According to TechCrunch Pinterest has over 10.4 million users already. 9m of these people are logging in monthly, and 2m login daily so naturally it’s creating quite a buzz within the industry and rightly so. If the stats are to be believed some 97% are women which makes a refreshing change. For once the usual ‘early adopter’ crowd have taken to the wings and it’s the ladies who have the upper hand on this one.
The introduction of HTML5 and CSS3 means less design restrictions, more interaction and a better user experience . The bridge between design and development is diminishing and this can only be a good thing for the web design community.
But, let’s not get carried away just yet. We’re still very much aware of the existence of prehistoric browsers such as IE6. Unfortunately, we can’t ignore them just yet but thankfully there are tools out there that will make these browsers play nicely.
With a tear in our eye the new Hutchhouse site replaced the well loved ‘Giraffes’ which have really established us amongst the css blogging community. Ok… maybe there weren’t that many tears, we love the new site!
The Giraffes concept was a step in the evolution of our brand and has done us proud over the past two years – however it’s time for a change, or rather it’s time to grow up a little.
We’d like to say a very big thank you to all of the websites that listed us in their design galleries over the time that the Giraffes were around. If you’ve been sent to this site from one of these galleries then I hope you like the new site just as much.
Hutchhouse help launch a new charity website which facilitates good practice within fertility. The website also provides a mass of info on the processes and pitfalls.
Founded by Camille Strachan, To Hatch provides support to it’s members via a website (designed and developed here at Hutchhouse). Membership is free and users get access to an online community of advice and resources, including a full database of fertility clinics which can be compared with their local counterparts as well as being rated by members.
There are a few extra special benefits of becoming a To Hatch member – not only the great advice and information on offer, but also access to the To Hatch debate. On becoming a member, you get access to the TH_Community Twitter account which (combined with the live To hatch Twitter feed right on the To Hatch site) provides the ability to chat and debate about the current issues and provide support for other members.
A unique area of the site will also offer a lottery to its members with fantastic prizes that will have everybody excited and taking part.
The charity provides a fantastic service and we hope will be a huge help to everyone out there that needs support and advice on fertility treatments.
Our hats off to Camille on her dedication to the project and overwhelming positivity in the face of sleepless nights whilst pulling all the various parts of the charity together.
Visit the website: to-hatch.co.uk
Laying out and building forms can be a tiresome task. However the kind folk over at Wufoo have made a load of templated forms for download. Simply select the form that suits, edit it, style it, save it and use it!
Every designer should have a basic understanding of the Divine Proportion. If not, pack up and go home. Now, I don’t use this religiously in any sense of the word, but I do let it’s basic principles glide over most of the work I do. It’s particularly relevant when dividing up Web2.0 layouts as the proportions are well suited to the ‘big and the bold’.
Thanks to smashingmagazine.com for sourcing this article.
Possibly the most inspiring report ever made. A simple and effective concept with engaging typography to boot. Nicholas Felton, the talent behind this work, is based in New York. Commercial work can be found at Megaphone and personal stuff at Feltron.com
This morning we were incredibly flattered to learn we’d been mentioned in an article over at designinformer. Jad Limcaco wrote the piece entitled The “Wow” Factor in Web Design in which he highlights some unique design details on a handful of websites.
But the story gets better. By 11am we had an enquiry from a restaurant in Shoreditch, London, who we are due to meet on Monday. They mentioned that they’d seen us in this article and it had persuaded them to get in touch. Looking at the email enquiry it’s clear to see how this customer found us. Midway through the email is written:
“…and I would like to redesign our website and branding to have a ‘wow’ factor”…
I’d hazard a guess that this sentence contains the choice keywords that might be responsible for leading the customer to us. Maybe I’ll ask on Monday.
Still, we look forward to the meeting and we give a big thank you to Jad for the lead!
Merry Christmas!
