At Clear Creative we leave no gaps on our clients websites. Unfortunately, we seem to be getting more calls from disgruntled people (not our clients) saying that part of their website doesn’t work and that they can’t get hold of their web designer – can we help? Of course we can!

This really is a sad state of affairs when a designer goes AWOL and leaves the client stranded. In fact it gives the majority of web designers a bad name. Having a website is critical to the success of any business and at Clear we really understand this and as such – out sheer pride and professionalism will look after our clients site well after the job has been done.

It just seems in this day and age of the internet there is level playing field. The experience of design, service and respect given to customer has gone out the window with a certain breed of designers. It is all too easy to get a Mac from the Apple Store, design a website and boast how big the company is, when in reality it is a fresh faced designer operating out of a back bedroom. Now there is nothing really wrong with that business model until it comes down to service and support.

What happens when your web designer has gone on holiday and your E-commerce site has gone down or won’t take payments?

It is a dilemma most businesses face – The moral here is cut costs at the start and you will pay in the long term.

At Clear Creative we offer a suite of hosting and maintenance packages together with various levels of service level agreements – just call we’ll fill in the gaps!

We recently saw a blog regarding the demise of Internet Explorer 6 – That would be just dandy we thought!

Then we had a reality check… what about all the public sector departments that still use IE6 – unfortunately for us at Clear Creative coding IE6 patches into our web projects won’t stop (just yet). Latest Google stats show that the most popular browser used for surfing the web are in this order:

Gold medal winner is: Firefox
Silver medal winner is: Google Chrome
Bronze goes to: Safari

It goes without saying that the companies behind these three browsers are light years ahead of Microsoft in their understanding of current web technologies, standards and plain simple usability!

“Old habits die hard”
Unfortunately, web browsers are like bank accounts and the consumer (surfer in this case) finds it difficult to change.

Most people who change browsers – can because they are technically aware and are just plain fed up with IE6, 7, 8 etc – it is after all over 10 years old.

We still do IE6 patches for some clients, only because some of their clients still use IE6.

“Only the strong survive”
It won’t be long before people see sense ands ditch this IE6 web browser – maybe it is going to take some brave clients and brave web design agencies to change the pattern for good.

Let us know your thoughts on IE6 – we would love to hear them!

Modern web browsers can now render web fonts so you don’t have to rely on system fonts such as Arial and Verdana. The advantage of this is for your brand building – your web presence can look like it came from the same stable as your printed literature.

There are a number of free fonts out there that are open source and these can be embedded using font technologies such Cufon, however fonts from type foundries such as Monotype, Linotype and Bitstream need separate web font licences purchasing – this can be quite costly, especially when you have already purchased the print font licences.

Tell us what you think of web fonts – we would love your view point!

The key to great SEO is making sure you keep your website updated with fresh news and content.
You can achieve this via a BLOG or on the home page with promotions, tweets and new products. Google will recognize that your site is “alive.” For many businesses, this can be a real challenge.
Something that can be of instant benefit to your website SEO can be a QR Code.

What is a QR Code? we hear you say!

They are similar to a barcode but differ as they are made up from pixels rather than bars (as in a bar code). QR stands for quick response.

QR codes were first developed in Japan. QR codes are now seen in magazine adverts, billboard posters, web pages and even t-shirts. Once it is in your smart phone, it may give you details about that business (allowing users to search for nearby locations), or details about the person wearing the t-shirt, show you a URL which you can click to see a trailer for a movie, or it may give you a coupon which you can use in a local outlet. The beauty lies in the app (application software) you use on your smart phone, tablet etc. You just point and it will scan the QR code and launch details. It basically saves the need to key in characters on a touch screen. We at Clear Creative think that it is an absolute must for our clients to use QR codes where applicable.

If you want QR codes on your literature give us a call or scan the QR code above.

Base 3 systems are a provider of SAS development consultants. Clear Creative were approached to design and develop their site and give it a refreshing look. The imagery we chose reflects the brand Base 3 but also exudes a professional appearance. We worked seamlessly with the client to provide not only a design solution but a hosting one too!

The client said that it was a painless exercise working with Clear Creative – something that gives us great pride.

Clear Creative have recently designed and produced a new website for The Translation People http://www.thetranslationpeople.com – who as their name suggests provide professional translation services to a wide variety of industries and organisations. Clear Creative were commissioned to redesign and build the website using the Joomla framework.

The Joomla framework has numerous advantages, the first being the CMS (content management system) that lies in the backend. The second is that it allows for muliti-lingual plugins so the site can transpose into various language formats based on the the domain or IP address locality.

The whole copy content was rewritten with strategic keywords for search engines and a structured SEO deployment of the ‘H’ tags which allow for search engines to crawl and index the site in a logical fashion.
We wish The Translation People every success with their new site!