Full service digital strategy planning and implementation.
We've been very quiet on our blog this year, because we've had a very busy year. We've had the opportunity to work on some great sites, and we've got a couple of very exciting projects in the pipeline that we'll be sharing with you later in the year....
When the World Wide Web first appeared, adding content to your site was a blissfully uncomplicated matter. You added a page, and wrote your bit. Done. Ah, the innocent simplicity of it all. But those days are past now. Today, we have content, news, blogs...
Adding an article to your site will provide your visitors with useful information, but to provide the most value for your page, it is often helpful to provide supporting information to an article. We always provide a page layout template that includes...
Image or photo galleries are extremely useful in many situations, and essential for some websites (photographers’ websites, for example). They come in many shapes and forms, each according to the purpose of the gallery, and how it is to interact with...
Black Square has a great relationship with the Durban branch of Vega. We visit a couple of times each year with the multimedia students to see what they have planned and give feedback. Those sessions are always hugely interesting - the students have great...
Our standard Content module allows a website administrator to manage the content of the site, but how does it do this? Well, basically, the module takes all the content of the site and conceptually breaks it down into smaller and smaller parts, until...
This post is about whether or not you should worry that your site works on iPhone and iPad, especially if the market for your site is mostly South African. Every now and then, we get a request that a website should work on iPhone as well as on desktop...
Some time ago, we developed the SABC Truth Commission Special Report website on behalf of the South African History Archive. Recently, the site went live. While there are other websites that contain the transcripts and/or Final Report documents in various...
I have recently had reason to skin a Wordpress blog for a client. Rather than simply modify one of our previously created themes, I decided to download and work from a blank template by Wordpress themselves. All Wordpress’ templates are currently HTML5...
When we build an online shop we are trying to offer an experience as close as possible to a real-world shopping experience. One area of particular difficulty is in giving a clear idea of the real size of a product. Size Let’s say you’re shopping for a...
Flash is great – it provides animation, and it allows users to interact with your information visually. This means that, for example, if you are presenting your company history in a timeline, your user can click on dates, scroll the timeline, see neatly...
In a previous post on email marketing I covered the basics of how it works. To sum up - in order to manage email marketing campaigns successfully you need 3 tools: Mailing List management An editor that lets you create branded HTML emails Reports on how...
The Web 2.0 buzz has been around for quite a while now, but I thought I’d make an attempt to explain just what it is and, more importantly, describe how you can use it practically to fulfil the goals of your website. As with many buzzwords, the meaning...
The new website of fine artist Bronwen Vaughan-Evans was launched recently. Black Square did a complete overhaul of her previous design, and created a new CMS that gives her far greater control over her image galleries. This was Bronwen's response: "I...
This is an age-old problem. Very basically, your web-browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc...) uses the fonts that you have on your computer to render text on a website. So if the text is set in Arial, your browser uses your version of Arial to show...
When you’re planning your website, pretty much the most important thing is to write down what the purpose of the website will be. The purpose of a website is what you expect it to achieve for your business or product. Ultimately you’ll refine the purpose...
[caption id="attachment_578" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Email invitation for an exhibition opening at the KZNSA Gallery"] [/caption] This is an introduction to email marketing and what your options are, for marketers & business owners – earlier...
Today I thought we’d discuss some of the content blocks we have available for our Standard Content module. Specifically, today we’ll discuss feature blocks. These are blocks of content specifically designed to focus attention on a special offer or featured...
We’ve recently done 3 websites that use a white background, and no bounding areas for the content. The results are quite varied: One is bold and hard-edged; one is ordered, like a document; one is clean and slick. No borders There are many variations...
Here’s a simple and effective method of getting an idea of what your website should look like, and giving your website designer some direction. It’s called aspirational inspiration. Very basically: you look at brands that your target market aspires to,...
We’ve just completed a new site for the KZNSA Gallery here in Durban. The design of the site is large, open and bold, just like the space itself. The management of the site is quite extensive and includes News, Events, an Artists manager, and a full Exhibition...
We've just completed a new site for The Library, a collaborative of product and design specialists, based in Johannesburg. They produce public sculpture, design books and exhbitions. The site itself is really simple and clean - the design idea behind...
This is a post for designers – it’s a primer on what you need to know when you start designing an email invitation or newsletter. Print vs Email: Very simply, you can’t approach an email design job in the same way that you approach a print design job....
Our current CMS includes a link selector widget which allows the user to select a page or document to which to link. The selector comes in two flavours – one for use from within the TinyMCE editor, and the other for everywhere else. The selector is one...
You see it all over: A really neat virtual book or magazine where you can simply click & drag to page through. It’s one of the best pieces of interaction on the web, mainly because it effectively re-creates a real-world experience – no plugins or experience...
