Indigo-2

It with much pleasure - and also a sigh of relief - that we unveil the new site for Decho Creative Services.The site has proven to be our most technical yet, as it is the first time we had to internationalise a site, which is not as easy as it looks on paper. Thankfully the just released version 1.2 of CakePHP with its new i18n and locale functionality saved the day. Though it must be said it was a steep learning curve because the documentation on this feature is still forthcoming.

The new version’s caching engine also came in very handy, reducing the load on the server when fetching all the page translations, and speeding up page load times which is good news for everyone.

Aviatours - Fear Of Flying, who we posted about back in May 2007, have entered 2008 with a new and fresh design. Redone in XHTML and layed out purely in CSS, it makes for a much leaner site, which is good practice for both SEO, usability, and minimising bandwidth usage.

It’s more than just a reskin, we’ve also added an RSS feed for subscribing to news updates, an iCal calendar of all the course dates (thanks to the Bennu PHP iCal Library), and marked up all the contact and event data using microformats - which as you may have gathered we are big fan of.

Here at Indigo-2 we aren’t shy of experimenting with new technologies and techniques, the web is a fast changing landscape and keeping abreast of the latest developments is a must.

Our latest experiment is with microformats, which are all about standards for representing things like people, events, tags, etc in HTML. This means it is easier to share that data with others.

Right now there isn’t a lot being done with microformats but they are getting momentum and some interesting applications are appearing. One such application is Technorati’s tool to add microformat contacts to your address book. Another is the Operator toolbar for Firefox that lets you interact with microformats.

When you combine this with Google’s announcement that Google Maps will use microformats you have some very efficient tools for searching for people and businesses and importing them into your address book.

We’ve already started using microformats on our parent site, Indigo Clothing (see image above), and one of our client’s sites, Stems Florist (see below). To try out before examples, the aforementioned Operator toolbar needs to be installed.

Microformats are a simple but powerful way of representing data on the web and and we look forward to maximising their potential in future projects.

Today we unveiled the new website for our good friends and former neighbours Allison Mitchell Limited. The site was purpose built so the client could add, change and rearrange its content with ease.

Behind the scenes, the site is using the CakePHP framework to accelerate development, and JQuery to achieve animate the menu and image gallery.

Indigo-2 has done some clever stuff with Code Igniter (an open source PHP framework) for Loans Checker. We designed and built this clean looking loans checking form for one of our clients who is involved in the affiliate marketing world. Under the surface, mulitple variables determine what fields are displayed to the user based on the data they enter.

We like flying. Some people don’t. We added a PHP driven booking form to aviatours.co.uk allowing customers to book fear of flying courses online. The booking form then takes the user to the payment processor (Google Checkout).

Indigo-2 have just completed the redesign of Stems Florist. Indigo-2 also shot all the flower photos. More on their blog.

Indigo-2 will be carrying out a photo shoot on a client’s premises the week after next. All the ‘kit and caboodle’ is being supplied by us. Alex likes Nikon’s so that is what the camera will be. A proper write up will follow…

If you want to go elsewhere go to Indigo Clothing. I crafted this gem.

Sorry for the complete lack of activity here but everyone is so focused on other projects right now that building this site is at the low end of the priority queue. With so much work on, a line from the recent Michael Mann, Miami Vice film, seems apt:

TUBBS: “And we didn’t come down here to audition. Business auditions for us…,”

And that is the way it is at the moment. A website geared up to attract work (which is what this was meant to be) is not very necessary at the moment.

I will promise to improve this site soon though. The Photoshop visuals have been done so just need time to code them up.