Our new site is now under construction. Really!
After numerous redesigns (we're currently on moogaloo09_design_7.0.psd!) we're finally on to a winner.
We've gone back again for a complete rethink of our own Moogaloo site. We're sticking with our branding which we still love, but have got an illustrator on board to build on that and expand the magical world that is Moogaloo. The first glimpses of this can be seen in a few business cards we have printed up for the interim, which should give a sneak preview of the feel of the new site.
We also have a jquery ninja on board to fully realise the sparkling experience Moogaloo sites convey on our own little fairytale of a website.
For now just have a little look at these business cards, join our facebook page, follow our blog and keep your eyes peeled for the new site which should be live within a month from now.
Monday 2nd February 2010
Wireless Bollinger has been nursed back to health and released into the wild again.
Wireless Bollinger has been a long and challenging but also very enjoyable project for us to work on.
Based in Melbourne, Australia, they got in touch with us after seeing one of our early websites and were planning on getting their old site overhauled. Not long after that, their old Joomla site got hacked to shreds so the need for a new site became all the more pressing.
A project of this size meant we could really push the boat out and spend extra time getting things right. We got a Dynamic
Holding Page up as soon as possible so Wireless Bollinger could start engaging with their readers in the absence of a full site. We carried out User Experience (UX) testing to make sure the flow around the site worked and made sense to the target audience. Finally, we opened the site privately for a short Beta stage to get more "real life" testing out there. Along with the UX testing, this stage highlighted some interesting and unexpected results that allowed us to make the site even better, more usable and profitable than we expected, and as such will become regular stages in all future sites we work on. With all the various parts of the site, the sections, links, as well as all the backend functionality, it's also pushed us further technically than ever before, with me delving into SQL queries, PHP, ad servers and a fair bit of jQuery too.
The Wireless Bollinger team have been amazing to work with - despite being based on the other side of the world, it's been great getting to know them across the wonders of Skype. On top of that, it's also given me a new avenue of musical discovery, so alongside the wonderful Spotify, I've discovered new artists such as Midlake, J. Tillman and Andrew Bird and am happily signed up to their RSS feed and Twitter.
Go take a look now!
Wednesday 9th December 2009
Wireless Bollinger is being nursed back to full health
Part one of Wireless Bollingers new site has gone live today. A few months ago, their old site got crippled by a virus attack and been displaying nasty messages to anyone trying to visit. Something had to be done. Enter Moogaloo.
Being a big site with a lot of technical elements, we're taking a longer view of this site's devlopment. First stage is to get a holding page back up that the WB team can start using and interacting with folks. Next up we'll be working on the full site, launching a private beta sometime early in the new year. After we've had a chance to iron out those technical and usability issues, the site will go live to the whole world.
It's a very exciting step for us to be working on this kind of project. Not only does it give us the chance to work with some awesome clients on the other side of the world (WB are based in Melbourne, Australia), but also to be doing a project with such an extensive scope to really stretch ourselves and the Expression Engine CMS.
Friday 6th November 2009
Hansley Beard inspires again!
I wanted to tell you about some neat information that Jennie Beard, from Hansley Beard, has shared on her Vintage Blog. Hansley Beard work with you to plan, design and style your event with incredible attention to detail.
Jennie shows you how a service from the V&A can help you fine-tune your dreams of a vintage wedding, as well as giving you the information you need if you want to do some research into weddings from your family's past.
We definitely recommend both blogs on Hansley Beard's website - they are full of gorgeous pictures and inspirational information.
Monday 26th October 2009
Fix Facebook
It would appear a fair few people are a bit upset about yet another one of Facebooks UI "tweaks".
One of these "improvements" is the introduction of the "Live News Feed".
What the hell is the Live News Feed? What was it before it was "live"? I don't get it.
In the words of Bea: "live feed is everything as it happens. news feed is what fb thinks you want to know. mostly it serves to piss off the user every time they log on", but not content to leave people floundering in the ocean of Social Networking, Bea also has found the solution to this one, so in the interest of education, here's how to "fix" Facebook's recent attempt to stay fresh.
- Go to the top left menu (HOME)
- Click on MORE (in blue).
- Drag STATUS UPDATES to the top.
- After dragging it to the top, click on it. That becomes your default and Facebook will become like before.
Our new site, still being under construction and live Soon™, options to share this little tip are limited, on the new site it might be tagged with the word Tips, and have "Tweet This" and Post to Facebook links, but until then, just pass it on however's easiest.
Guess who's got an invite to the Expression Engine 2.0 Beta?
Yep - it's me!
Yesterday I got the email to say I've been accepted into the very private and equally exclusive testing group for Expression Engine 2.0 Beta. It does also mean I've signed an NDA so there's not a great deal more I can say about it for now!
It is however a good excuse tho to put up a little news story saying why Expression Engine is so awesome. I could go into a whole bunch of reasons why it's so much better than other CMSs, such as it requires no knowledge of PHP (unlike Drupal) nor does it does require me to hack it to pieces to do anything more than a simple blog (eg Wordpress)...
Instead I'll just say that its got an incredibly flexible set of modules and extensions that allows a developer to do pretty much anything they could want with it. Theres no restriction on how your templates work. It integrates with jQuery, Flash and PHP. It can be as flexible and powerful as you need it to be.
There's an amazing community of people out there using Expression Engine, and developing new extensions and modules for it all the time, there's a thriving bunch of people talking on Twitter about #ExpressionEngine (or #EE, but not to be confused with EastEnders!), new podcasts popping up, and of course a massive overhaul of the core system and its backend due to release in the very near future.
All our CMS sites use Expression Engine, and as a small example of other sites that use it, check out First & 20, Campaign Monitor and Nike Skateboarding.
This post does also make a good place to apologise for not having our new site up yet! A webdesigners site is often far too easily overlooked, but we promise it is moving and will be out before too long, and will make use of plenty of the Expression Engine goodness that is on offer!
Wednesday 30th September 2009Lysan is now well and truely live and kicking!
It's been a bit longer than I had planned since our last post - the End of the Road Festival was truely awesome - too many good bands to list, but special mentions have go to The Fleet Foxes, The Low Anthem and Vetiver as highlights of the weekend.
Anyway... Lysan - it's actually been live for a few weeks now. Being more community based we wanted to give them a bit more time to get things up and running and people using the various parts of the site before we start telling everyone else about it, so here you go - www.lysan.org
Lysan are a "Christian community that loves Camden, its markets, and its people". They've been involved in a lot of various arts, social justice and spiritual projects for a little while now and wanted some way to start getting the various people more aware of what Lysan are up to at large. To help these various subcommunities start inter-relating we gave each a page of their own, a wall, news feeds, blogs and links to other social media.
Keeping the content to a small area, and the visual design in keeping with the vibrant setting of Camden was not an easy task, but with a nod to Banksy, some olde english lettering and some fiddly HTML, we're pretty pleased with the results!
Thursday 10th September 2009Moogaloo's taking a short break to get back to it's roots & listen to some fine music.
Its been a pretty manic couple of weeks here, with not only Hansley Beard's website going live and the launch party last night, but also a church community site gone live today too (more news on that one next week).
Taking advantages of some of the flexability that freelance / self employement offers, I'm off to Dorset for the End of the Road Fesitval this weekend to take a break. Top of the list for me is defintitely gonna be Alela Diane (now there's a website I would love to do!)(on spotify), someone I've been listening to ever since the Pirates Gospel came out. Will also be aiming to catch Explosions in the sky, Neko Case, Vetiver and The Low Anthem... that and a few trips to the Somerset Cider Bus!! :*)
For those of you stuck at home, you'll just have to make do with this.
And next week it's back to the busy busy world of web design... we've got an upcycling social entrprise site to finish off, Beanies new site to get started on, an online music magazine and of course our own website (and another little project of our own we have in the early stages).
Exciting times!
Sunday 6th September 2009Hansley Beard site goes live!
This weekend has been an exciting weekend for Hansley Beard (Event Planning and Design). Not only have they worked hard at the Ultimate Brides Wedding Exhibition but they also had their new website go live! Jennie Beard, of Hansley Beard, approached us after a serendipitous visit to The Little Flower Shop where she met Anna Potter. Anna was our first client and has sung our praises ever since we designed her site www.swallowsanddamsons.com.
For us the site has been a wonderful opportunity to work with many different creative resources – fabric, photos, feathers, postcards and jewellery to name a few. We have so enjoyed working with Jennie on her vintage-inspired website and joining her on her journey of setting up her new business. It feels like a great time to be setting up businesses in Sheffield – there is so much creativity around and a vibrancy which is so encouraging to those of us in the first year of start-up.
Hansley Beard plans and designs beautifully themed events, often with a vintage theme. Jennie has a wonderful eye for detail which is evident in the pictures of events she has worked on – you can see her work on the website. She also has a strong community ethic in the way she works so you can trust her to choose the best sources for your needs and these are often relationships that she has developed and maintained over time.
This is what Jennie has said about working with us:
“Working with Moogaloo has been a refreshingly creative process. Having worked with other professional creative businesses before, I have found Moogaloo to be more open to what I, as the creative client, want and visualise rather than impose their own opinion. They have always liaised with me thoroughly and patiently allowed me to remain part of the process until, between us, the desired website is created. In fact I would say that my website is actually better than I imagined it which only goes to show that Moogaloo offer the creative as well as the technical edge compared to other website companies.”
We hope you enjoy the website. Do let us know if there are things you particularly love about it, but also if there is anything that niggles or doesn't work properly. We'd much rather know and be able to make it better.
Monday 20th August 2009We're doing Beanies Wholefoods new site!
Publically talking about future / brand new clients' projects isn't something we would normally do, but since Chris who works at Beanies outed us on our Facebook page (please feel free to join it!), they obviously don't mind.
Its not every day you get to work with one of the most iconic companies of Sheffield - We're very excited about this one!
Friday 7th August 2009Our new website, and other places to go in the mean time.
We're coming up to our first birthday. So much has happened in the past 10 months or so. We've worked with some amazing clients from as far afield as Australia and Austin, Texas. We've got to grips with implementing Content Management Systems. We've started learning the likes of APIs, jQuery and XML (something for the geeks out there). We're still growing with some amazing sites about to go live and more exciting projects on the horizon. And all that right in the middle of a recession!
So the new site is kind of a birthday present to ourselves, something we're gonna have to squeeze into our already very busy schedule. In the mean time, there are places you can go to keep up to date with what we're up to. We have a page on the ubiquitous Facebook, a portfolio on the new and upcoming social networking site Virb, and of course we (well, Andy at least) have joined the Twittering class
Tuesday 7th July 2009.net magazine letter of the month?!
Bit of an odd one really. I've been reading .net magazine for some time now - it's invariably full of useful and interesting articles about where the web's going, new technologies, design trends, interviews, tutorials etc... so I wrote in asking for an article on getting started with APIs, and the letter got printed as Letter of the Month!
Except they editted out the bit about an article on APIs and just left in the gushing praise for the magazine!
Oh well. 3 Months free hosting is still 3 months free hosting!
Wednesday 17th June 2009Labuat
Sadly, not a site we have done, more of a special mention to another's. Its a rare occasion I find a flash based website that really blows me away, but this is ne of those moments. Have a go at the site yourself - its completely interactive and truely beautiful - soytuaire.labuat.com/.
Bea's been to some interesting events in the last 24 hours - worth writing home about!
The Entrepreneur Exchange is a growing network of 150 entrepreneurs; its raison d'etre is to create a movement of like-minded individuals who are commited to a culture of entrepreneurship. They meet once a month, each time in a different venue. This evening was in a retsaurant in Sheffield called Platillos - really friendly bar staff. The theme of the evening was "Under 30, over achieving". How fantastic to see bright young things doing brilliant business. I made some great new connections with Sheffield entrepreneurs and was encouraged and inspired by what is happenening in the world of business in Sheffield.
The second event was the launch party for Performance Artist Sophie Mei at The Showroom. It was a night of Egyptian Elegance with the venue decorated by Hansley Beard and it was great fun - some live belly dancing, live street dancing and free food! Sophie Mei came into the spotlight due to her success on Britain's Got Talent and is now carving out her own path as an Actress, Business Woman and Belly Dancer."
I have been thinking about the 'News' section on our website.
When I work with a client to help them choose the best functions for their site I always tell them that there is no point in having a blog or news section unless you update it regularly. What do I do? Rarely update our 'News' section!!
So I have a few ideas up my sleeve which I hope will keep you informed about what we're up to, who we're working with and what it means to be A Web Design Family.
I want to introduce you to some friends of mine - people who stand out for one reason or another. Most of them are people I have at least met. But just to add a flash of my personality, I'm starting with someone I haven't yet met (at least not at the time of writing!).
Allow me to introduce... Lydia Lapinski: art director, designer, illustrator & plush toy maker.
I know of Lydia through Andy - they met at a workshop in Sheffield. Since then I have tried to introduce Lydia to people I meet through networking but it seems they almost always know of her already!
Lydia always has wonderful facebook profile pictures - her world is inspiring and she has some great friends around the place. Both Lydia and I love craft which is how we connected on a personal level and despite not-quite-meeting through business I suspect we'll get to know each other through the personal world of craft.
I love Lydia's design work and illustration. It is funky, colourful, vibrant, eclectic, kitsch and full of joy. I would recommend Lydia to anyone needing her services and really hope we get to work together in the future. Til then we'll just make craft together - me knit she sew!
Now for Lydia to introduce herself!
Hi, my name is Lydia (aka Kipi Ka Popo). I set up my design, illustration & plush toy making studio in my attic in October 2008, after six years working for various design agencies in Nottingham and Sheffield. Like Bea I love crafts and knitting. I also love doodling, beards, folk music, cup cakes, bunnies, gardening and listening to film soundtracks.
I met Andy from Moogaloo at a business workshop. He looked like a creative chap and as soon as i spotted his amazing knitted skull jumper (knitted by the lovely super talented Bea) it confirmed to me that we must have loads in common. A strange coincidence is that the name 'Kipi Ka Popo' is something I made up based on the words spoken by a cute character called a 'Moogle', from Japanese computer game 'Final Fantasy'.
I really like Moogaloo's work - their websites are creative, cool and eclectic - they have a warm friendly feel. You can tell that a lot of love and craft goes into what they do - I really hope to collaborate with them in the future and I look forward to seeing there business grow.
Tuesday 24th March 2009Today we launch a fab site for Shannon Hopkins. We've had such fun developing the branding and the design for this site.
We've known Shannon for 7 years - we met in a Giant Peach house in Prague. We are so pleased to show you the site we have created with Shannon - our brief was to use a website to explain the complex nature of Shannon's work in a simple, fun way which was engaging and easy to navigate.
Much of Shannon's work is like a chapter in a big story, constantly unfolding so we used the idea of Storyboards to show simply and clearly what she does. She is a person of places and people and out of these come her projects so it made sense to build this into the branding and also the navigation.
Here's what Shannon had to say about her finished product:
"Working with Moogaloo has been amazing - they worked so hard for me and with me. I have to admit that I have been grinning all day as I get ready to send out the announcement that the site is going live! I am so proud of what Andy and Bea have accomplished, and what they have created. I cannot imagine anyone else being able to create a site that captured my heart, as well as my vision and work in a way that people are able to connect with."
Have a look round here
Monday 15th December 2008Recent launch of a beautiful site for Swallows and Damsons, a floristry company doing gorgeous vintage and classic flower design.
One of our favourite projects to date has been for a talented florist called Anna Potter who owns Swallows and Damsons. As a florist Anna designs vintage floral and classic charm in her work. Swallows and Damsons is a Sheffield company and it has been a pleasure to work with Anna and design this site for her.
Today we are live and kicking as a web design company.
This has been a really exciting journey for us so far and we can't wait to see what the future holds. We're already working on some fab sites which we'll add to our portfolio as soon as they are ready to go.
So far we've had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful people along the way and we'll be using our news section to introduce them and tell you more. We also hope that you'll get to know more about us through our news as we talk about what is making us tick or is ticking us off!
We'd love to hear from you about what you want to be reading on this news page. Get in touch and talk to us.