New website for Coastal Mountain Excavations (CME), a Whistler based heavy construction company is live. The inspiration for the design was drawn from the companies awesome location and with some funky Google Maps integration we delivered a website that showcases their projects and expertise quite effectively, even if we do say so ourselves.
Four websites gone live is quick succession and more to come soon. It appears that things are picking up; we’re getting busier by the day!
It has to be said the companies and people in general are still cautious, waiting to see how 2010 pans out but if recent activity is anything to go by we believe business is on the up. It appears that clients are finally beginning to understand the full potential of the internet and how much harder their marketing dollar can work for them in this digital domain over traditional marketing. The concept has been very slow on the take here in the Middle East but that seems to be changing.
The three new sites are:
- www.thediamonddubai.com - Luxury furnished apartments in Dubai Sport City
- www.dohamums.com - Community site for mums and their toddles in Doha - Qatar
- www.contrastpros.com - Community of photographers
- www.filini.com - Web shop of funky design and cool gifts
We’ve been asked to be part of the panel of judges over at CSS Awards for 2010. It’s a real honour to be a part of an awesome panel of judges and great opportunity to keep up to date with what’s hot on the web and we are thrilled to be a part of it.
The Css Awards was born out of the idea to give artists and designers a way to showcase their work, be evaluated by top specialists and have the possibility to win some cool awards. It’s basically a gallery of the most prestigious websites in the world created using CSS. The panel of judges literally span the entire globe, have a look here for 2010 jury list.
Websites are selected for the Site of the Day and Site of the Month using a strict valuation system. Winners of the awards receive cash prizes, hardware, and most importantly, high-level exposure of their work through a vast network of blogs, collaborators, directories and international forums related to web design and creativity.
So go on, what are you waiting for? If your think your site rocks, submit it for evaluation!
We've just launched the new website for Roya International. Just as their slogan "Total Hospitality Solutions" says, it's a leading specialist hospitality consultancy firm offering expertise to the hospitality, leisure, tourism and real estate industries.
While Lighthouse developed their brand and printed collateral we had free rein on the website with an arsenal of great images to work with. We’re particularly happy with the end result as its very much in line with the less is more style we enjoy exploring.
Check it out: www.royainternational.com
Woopie-do, another website by Blue Beetle has just gone live. It’s for a company called PeopleFirst, a human recourses company based in Dubai.
PeopleFirst is an HR Consulting practice which works in partnership with clients to help unlock value and realise strategic goals through effective people policies and processes.
They’ve got an impressive client list all singing their praises (see the testimonials on the website) so PeopleFirst obviously know what they are doing. Check them out...
We've just launched another website that we are very proud of. Yes it's another real estate website but not just any real estate website. LIH Group needed a website that would complement their internal set up and asked us to develop a full website and listing content management system (CMS). As a result we build a real estate module into the BB CMS from the ground up.
The website has some very cool features like Google Maps integration and other property related functionality not yet implemented. This is version 1.0, watch this space for more to come!
Not that we're big on bigging ourselves up but getting a mention on Smashing Magazine is pretty cool, so we're gonna give it a mention. They posted a blog last Thursday with the title of "69 Sexy Portfolio Designs To Inspire You" and our site is amongst the list. As a result we got over 2000 hits on our site directly from this article!
Besides the fact that we got a mention (did I mention that already?) the blog is a great inspiration showcasing some very cool websites. I have not gone through the whole list yet but I think we’re the only web design company from Dubai mentioned.
Anyway, a big kiss and thank you to Smashing Magazine for the nod :-)
Update: Here's another couple collections we're been listed in.
spyrestudios.com/awesome-submissions-css-awards/
www.instantshift.com/70-creative-and-inspirational-website-designs/
We’ve just launched a temporary website for a new web shop that will be launching in the not too distant future. The site will allow you to customize and order classic and contemporary Arabic sandals and have them delivered right to your door. This temporary website is pretty funky though, it’s our first attempt at integrating Facebook.
Basically if you register your interest you get a 10% discount and once you’ve done that you’re enticed to share the website link on your Facebook account for an additional 10% discount. Simply by clicking on the Facebook link you’re presented with a call to action which when sent will appear on your Facebook wall.
We've just launched the new website for BackLite, the best outdoor media company for strategic advertising in Dubai.
The website has been coded in XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS2 and is fully manageable by the BB Content Management System (CMS). It also makes use of our funky Dubai interactive map which is used to illustrate the location of the BackLite’s various signs located around Dubai to great effect.
BackLite have been pioneers in the business of outdoor advertising for over ten years and have the reputation for having the most impressive and elegantly designed signs in the best locations available. Check it out.
Finally our new website is live! Due to client commitments it’s taken a little longer than anticipated to complete but we’re very happy with the result. We’re particularly happy with the way we have been able to fuse XHTML /CSS and Flash. The site is 100% web standards complaint (XHTML 1.0 Strict - CSS 2.0) and via the integration of Flash in the background we've created a platform whereby we can really let our creative juices flow without compromising on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), web standards compliancy, easy of maintenance and loading speed. The beauty of it is that as time goes on we can refresh the backgrounds and thereby refresh the look and feel of the website without having to re-design or re-code the templates.
To celebrate we've crafted a motion graphics piece illustrating the Blue Beetle's journey.
Our good friend Douglas Lapsley produces a pretty unique podcast which we liked so much that we asked if we could use one of his videos on our website seeing as it fits our theme so nicely. You can see it on the contact page.
If you like it, you can subscribe to his podcast for free from iTunes. It’s called “Peaceful Landscapes in HD” and can be found in the Places & Travel category. In Doug’s own words he describes the podcast as:
“Moments of peace from beautiful locations around the world. Just take a moment to relax. You deserve to. Each podcast is 1.5 minutes of HD. No music or voiceover, just natural surroundings. Designed to give you a few moments of peace in your day. Travel with us and be free”.
Doug is pretty much “living the dream” in our opinion. He and his family live, work and travel the world in their campervan, resting in some of the most beautiful spots imaginable. With a satellite dish on the roof he can pretty much go anywhere he wants while staying connected to the world. How cool is that?!
Deciding on the new logo for Blue Beetle was no quick and simple matter. We went through several (40 odd I think) logos and months of deliberation before narrowing it down to two possible directions which were very different from each other. Internally we referred to them and the “Grass” version and the “Ted Burton” version.
I personally liked the Ted Burton version as did Mladjan (our lead designer) but it appeared that we were the only ones. So for a bit of fun we decided to put it to the vote and create a poll on our temporary holding site. To be honest we knew what the result of the poll would be but what I didn’t know was that it would be such a landslide. Actually landslide is a bit of an understatement. It was more like a tornado on speed.
The grass version won by an overwhelming 87% of the vote. It seemed that not only did the majority prefer the Grass version but most actually had negative comments about the Ted Burton version which in hind sight was valuable feedback actually. Therefore we chose to go the Grass route and developed the logo further until we were happy, which we are :)
