Rouge Media

Every now and then we get the time to create one of the countless silly ideas that get banded around the studio. This time our creation was born out of necessity. As the team has got bigger so have the inevitable arguments about who’s turn it is to make the drinks. Tea Decider is a simple but infallible tool that decides for us. Actually it hasn’t stopped any arguments but it does make it easier for everyone else to gang up on the unlucky loser!

Creative web design and robust web development is at the core of everything we do. Tea Decider is another example of the accessible web design and development standards and principles that we use to create effective business tools like sales presentations, eCommerce websites, content management systems, Flash animations, Flash Games, E mailers and many more.

Got any silly web ideas? Send them though and we’ll add them to the list (And of course give you a credit if we make them!).

Gforce Software are world leaders in the development of vintage synthesizer modelling. They lovingly create virtual instruments that are individually engineered, giving each its own unique characteristic and sound. Their instruments take the spirit and sound of their hardware counterpart and add features to the original specification enhancing the user experience. Their impressive client list includes artists and producers from all over the music landscape.

The brief was simple: create a website that brought all the disparate legacy systems together to create a fresh site that was simple to use and easy to manage. The process started with a branding exercise, creating a new visual language that was carried through the web designs, marketing materials and products. After an initial product specification process Drupal was chosen as the site content management and ecommerce platform. This gave us a stable base on which to build a complex but robust digital file management system that allows users to buy and archive downloadable and shippable products, register, upgrade, add patches, transfer licences and learn though online video tutorials. Using JQuery to replace Flash animations the site is completely compatible with smartphone and tablet computers.

As a full service design agency Rouge employed the following skills to complete the Gforce ecommerce website: ecommerce web design and ecommerce web development, branding and logo design.

As a web design agency we have to test everything we do on as many different platforms as possible. Often web users are using old or obscure versions of web browsers or operating systems. The list of new and old browsers and operating systems is growing all the time and we just can’t keep up with everything. That’s where you come in. You become our testers. If you spot anything odd we’re keen to hear about it; the end user benefits and it helps us create higher quality, accessible websites. (we’re quite nerdy really and we find it interesting too!)

If you do spot strange in something we’ve created use this handy tool to give us details about your system (its not personal, don’t worry!) http://www.supportdetails.com/

This is a simple one. If you’re getting no leads from your website, there may not be enough incentive for people to contact you. Information supply is okay, but people need compelling reasons to get in touch. Make sure you keep reminding them, on every page, of why they should be talking to you. Rouge Media is a web design agency that specialises in getting your messages across.

A company website is essentially the hub around which all other marketing materials orbit. As such it is important to check that it is aligned with your offline activity and your brand values. Is your website reflecting your current marketing push? Are your online products up-to-date. Is your service offering the same? Are people landing on the right page, when prompted to your website from a marketing piece? And, once there, is your content targeted to convert them into loyal customers? Is your design agency helping with this consistency checking?

It can get confusing for businesses trying to stand out from the crowd. With Google’s ever-changing SEO rules, many companies believe that ‘more is more’. However, the ever elusive Google ranking system seems to favour unique and current content, rather than pages of endless and repetitive words.

Good advice for getting your message across is, ‘less is most definitely more’. This crucially comes first from your own understanding of your services and products, and then being able to communicate their benefits clearly and concisely to the rest of the world. Obvious you might say, but you’d be surprised how many companies struggle to coherently explain their own inner workings.

At Rouge we regularly get involved in new business ideas, both for ourselves and for clients. One of the biggest issues is naming, and it’s getting tougher. All the simple domain names are all taken or parked, the same is now happening with social network names. Kicking off a new business today can be greatly helped by being socially visible. It may not be the cornerstone to every business, but you could be missing a trick without it. There’s nothing more annoying than coming up with the perfect new word for your business name to find that someone has beaten you to it with a Facebook account. We have recently discovered this useful little web tool http://www.ud.com/. Stick your potential business name in and it heads off and does the checking leg work for you – global domain names, social network accounts and even trademarks.