Web Projects
This is a selection of our latest projects. They have been chosen to illustrate the broad range of clients and the bespoke nature of each site.
Whilst viewing our projects, you may want to know what the following terms mean: XHTML, CSS, standards compliant, content management system.
Darwin & Evolution
Christ's College in Cambridge, as part of their ongoing Darwin project, have launched a new website to co-incide with the 200th Darwin Anniversary. This site is a well-presented and thorough archive of articles relating to Darwin's life, his work and how Darwinian science is being used today.
Ingredients: new visual identity, site design and build, content management system used by multiple site editors that allows, among other things, dynamic editing of site's navigation.
Romanian Challenge
Romanian Challenge is the home of the O Noua Viata charity, which works with the government and child protection agencies in Romania to improve the lives of young people who were once institutionalised in orphanages and similar.
Ingredients: new visual identity, site design and build, including user-friendly content management system for non-computer-literate site owners.
Emmaus
Emmaus is a leading homeless charity operating throughout the UK on a unique 'franchise' basis. Emmaus communities need an initial cash injection to start up, but once they're running, they are self-sufficient, providing homes and jobs for homeless people, with the added benefit that they recycle donated furniture etc. We've been visiting and supporting the Cambridge Emmaus for years, so we are very proud to have been recruited for this large redesign project.
Ingredients: site redesign and build, including the inclusion of unlimited community minisites; advanced content management system with multi-tier editorial access and privileges; content-sharing between minisites and the UK site; content email alerts and more.
Quidster.com
We designed and built the original Quidster website a few years ago and it was a first among the 'limited entry compeition' websites. Now under new management, it's been enlarged and improved with a new suite of games, making the actual taking part both addictive and fun. New games include Card Matching, Sudoku, Slide Puzzles, Jigsaws and a Word Jumble.
Ingredients: New flash application for handling game loading and results processing; 6 new games; site design and usability improvements.
People Dynamic
Digital Spoke designed the original 'Cambridge People' website. They've undergone a shift of focus and a name change and we were very happy when People Dynamic approached us to carry out the necessary work on their website to reflect these changes.
Ingredients: Mostly back-end - we gave People Dynamic a completely new admin system, giving them 100% control of not just the content, but search engine elements, graphical elements and even the navigational structure. Improved loading time and strucutre of the front end pages too.
Read the (old) Cambridgepeople.com testimonial.
Department of Urology
We received quite a complex brief to redesign the self-contained website of the Department of Urology at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. Previously they had an outdated design, no admin system and had to rely on one person who knew how to edit the website's contents. We took all this information and re-organised it to meet the brief of producing a site that was as informative and helpful to GPs as it was to prospective patients. Also useful as a teaching aid - check out the quizzes!
Ingredients: site redesign; logo and 'brand' development; fully standards-compliant code; ultra usable and accessible; comprehensive, fool-proof admin system.
Chequers Furniture
This new furniture company in the North of England wanted a website to 'test the water'. Working on a tight budget, we produced a small, simple but functional website to showcase primarily their leather sofas. Since the launch of their website, orders have tripled and they are now looking to grow their range.
Ingredients: site design; logo and 'brand' work; fully standards-compliant code; straight-forward and simple interface and design, fully usable and accessible; basic but fool-proof admin system to cover updates to all website content.
Cambridge Buddhist Centre
Digital Spoke designed the original website for the Cambridge Buddhist Centre almost three years ago. Time to give the site a visual lift, bring the code up-to-date and enhance the event system.
Ingredients: site redesign; fully standards-compliant code; accessibility and usability improvements; improvements to event search.
Colne Valley Museum
The Colne Valley Museum, whilst well established in West Yorkshire, never had a web presence and found attracting visitors from outside of the county both difficult and expensive. Now they've got an easy-to-use, easy-to-manage website to showcase their unique collection.
Ingredients: logo and brand update; site design; strict standards-compliant code; full content management system.
SOS Children's Villages
SOS Children's Villages is the UK arm of SOS Kinderdorf, the world's largest child sponsorship and orphanage charity. Digital Spoke was approached to help redesign the site and implement a content management system so that anyone with basic skills could update the content (the previous website had to be edited by hand). Lives depended on the website working well and we're glad to hear that SOS Children's Villages are happy with the redesign and child sponsorship is up!
Ingredients: site redesign; strict standards-compliant code; full multi-level content management system which produces a static web pages so access speeds are kept at the highest possible levels.
Michael Collins, Clarinetist
Michael Collins is an internationally acclaimed clarinetist. He is known particularly for his performances of contemporary composers, such as John Adams and Erkki-Sven Tüür. When he approached us for a new website, we took the opportunity to break the 'sombre, austere' mould of other professional classical musician sites. We think we did quite well.
Ingredients: logo and brand update; site design; strict standards-compliant code; full content management system and Amazon integration.
herga.com
A nice, clean commercial site with a difference. The main design constraint was the huge size of the product pictures - 650 pixels wide - which made placing the navigation very tricky. However this 'handicap' developed into something which now gives the site a unique style.
Ingredients: total redesign and a bit of a brand 'tweak' - we were very pleased when herga went for the most adventurous of our design suggestions and took a brave step forward in how they portray themselves. Fully standards compliant, XHTML and CSS design; simple but comprehensive admin system, allowing the update of all content on the site; search engine and multi-lingual pages.
John Harris the Storyteller
John Harris is one of only a handful of professional, full-time storytellers in this country. He came to us wanting a redesign of his old site. Although broadly happy with his old site, he wasn't able to update the content himself and he hardly appeared on Google. With a new book coming out, this was a major problem. We brightened things up with some help from Tom Morgan-Jones's illustrations and now he's no.1 in Google for "professional storyteller". Nice.
Ingredients: logo and brand update; site design; full re-build using strict standards-compliant code; content management system.
EmmausNet
Digital Spoke developed a new Extranet for Emmaus UK, EmmausNet. The Extranet allows Emmaus members and communities to communicate, share resources and for the UK office to alert members to new information.
Ingredients: Brand design; extranet design; content management system, bulletin boards; mutli-tier login system; migration of legacy data.
Read the Emmaus testimonial.
VisitCambridge.org
This is the first stage of development for the all new Cambridge tourism office website for the Cambridge City Council.
Ingredients: design developed in conjunction with another design company; mutli-tier content management systems; standards compliant; accessible XHTML and CSS design; event streams; accommodation guide; tour booking system, and all the good stuff...
Read the case study for VisitCambridge.org.
Inkymess.com
Recently re-designed to bring the site up to standards-compliant code. Dynamic portfolio site for a published Illustrator and cartoonist.
Ingredients: design (logo, images and guidelines supplied by illustrator); simple, yet effective content management system; standards compliant; accessible XHTML and CSS; built around a flexible system, so that we can offer similar websites to artists & designers at a low cost.
Read the Inkymess.com testimonial.
Casatuscany.com
A dynamic website for a relatively new but very successful company selling and renting properties in Tuscany.
Ingredients: design; brand and logo work; dynamic property listings; content management system; property management system; currency conversion; currently getting an overhaul to bring it inline with standard compliant code.
Read the Casatuscany.com testimonial.
Older Projects
Previous projects may have been created before we started taking web standards seriously. However, we are still proud of our work, so here's a page of our older projects.
