Valentine’s Offer

Quick note for those looking for Valentine’s inspiration, our lovely client Lily Lolo are offering 10% off for today only. Click here to see our HTML mailer with details of the offer.

We Like: Great Online Stores

With the annual Christmas rush over and December retail figures okay but far from great, it seems likely the news will again be back to declining high street sales and increased concern over lack of spending confidence. Whilst the decline in the high street is a real concern and Mary Portas’ recent recommendations do make for an interesting read (full review here), I have to say I didn’t do the usual high street shop during the festive period.

Town centres at Christmas are something I dread and having managed to do 95% of my shopping online this year was a big relief. However this decision wasn’t mainly down to avoiding the crowds but more to do with the lack of interesting gift stocks on the shelves of most retailers.

Some great online stores have been gaining popularity over the last couple of years especially those specialising in products not readily available on the high street and made by independent artists and craft makers. Whilst I have neither the time or inclination to go all Kirsty Allsop and crochet soft furnishings, some great hand made crafts can be bought online and for a lot less than some of the bland high street options.

While independent stores continue to get pushed out of the high street unable to compete, and the UK’s town centres continue to be homogenised, I for one won’t be rushing back. The spirit of independence does live on however online, below are a few links to my favourite stores that offer something different.

Folksy has 1000s of UK sellers offering unique clothing, home wares, arts and crafts

Not On The High street, is prob the largest and most well known online store for independent sellers

Red Bubble specialises in great art, design and photography posters & prints at an affordable price (there really is no excuse for buying wall art from Ikea).

Made is fantastic for modern ‘designer’ furniture with lower prices having cut out the middle men

Threadless is still hard to beat for unique t-shirt designs, though the US importing has been known to cause problems with extra duties to be paid

Parkinson Gill Branding

In late December Into The White completed the new branding and website launch for theatrical costumiers Parkinson Gill. The site aims to provide a simple to navigate, highly visual showcase of the company’s varied client work, for a specific audience of industry decision makers across the globe. The clean, minimalist design gives little distraction from the costume photography, while the large image slides can be easily added to over time. We also set up an integrated WordPress blog and provided training for the company directors so they can easily upload news on the move, via the Android WordPress App.

The the new branding design and colour palette has also been implemented across the company’s core business stationery and documentation templates. Feedback from the site has been very positive and has already help secure new US contracts for the company.

Clients comments:

‘Into The White provided the whole package. They took time to understand the nature of our business and designed a stunning website and branding for us. We have already recommended them to others and we will definitely be back for future projects.’ Jane Gill, Company Director 

Lily Lolo Website Refresh

Into the White has been working for some time on the revamp for longstanding client Lily Lolo’s website and it’s finally gone live this week. It’s one of the most expansive sites we’ve worked on but are really pleased with the results.

Following on from our recent brand analysis work, and production of refined brand and photography guides, the website has been given a complete visual overhaul. The build  for the site was provided by Sanderson who have also incorporated a brand new e-commerce and stock management system.

The new site features a much cleaner and intuitive layout throughout. Drawing focus on the products and making shade choice easier and colour representation more accurate.

The main product pages utilize large clean photography and tabbed information boxes above the fold to keep all core information easily accessible. This is then followed by YouTube video tutorials of how to apply the product and user reviews.

Inkling

Interesting new product from Wacom, Inkling looks great for illustrators, especially the one touch add layers function. How well it handles converting to vectors will be the real test as to whether it takes off. Scanning illustrations and using Live Trace in Illustrator never really works as well as you’d hope so would be interesting to see if this little device handles it better.

Even if it doesn’t looks a great way to digitise and catalogue your doodles, sketches, logo development work etc, one for the office wish list I think.

Lip Gloss Launch

This month also has seen the launch of a brand new selection of gorgeous looking lip glosses from long standing client Lily Lolo. Into the White created a new HTML newsletter to publicise the launch, as well as handling the post production on the new photography. Judging by the feedback on Lily Lolo’s ever popular facebook page, they are going down a treat.

We Like: Bjork Biophilia

Many a music artist has dabbled with the increasing potential of multimedia and the power of the visual to enhance their sound, but the ever pioneering Bjork looks set to take it to a new level. Her latest project Biophilia, is being touted as a full on multimedia event Art Directed by long standing collaborators M/M Paris.

The as well as the standard album release Biophilia will be released as an ‘app album’ with each of the 10 songs having it’s own mini application. Detailed features of these apps at current are quite sketchy but judging by the fact it’s being developed by interactive artist Scott Snibbe it looks set to include interactive games and remix capabilities.

The first tease comes from the newly launched Bjork.com website, built in HTML5, users can use gestures on an iPad (or arrow keys on your keyboard), to float around the website’s galaxy. It has to be said currently you can’t do a lot else, but once the content from the new new project gradually gets released, new constellations will appear leading you to the various online content. Whilst the navigation is a bit clunky with a mouse and keyboard it’s cleared designed for touch screen navigation, and offers an interesting glimpse at the immersive possibilities of HTML 5 and tablets.

Hopefully with prominent forward thinking artists such as Bjork and Arcade Fire (look at The Wilderness Downtown if you haven’t seen it already) we can get over the be-moaning of digital music being the death of album art begin to see the possibilities ahead.

Psychoville Online Content

Whilst Psychoville may be an acquired taste, being very much on the dark side of humour, you’ve got to love the dedication to the series via the masses of online content. Each major character has their own independent websites/ blogs where they indulge in their obsessions, whether it be David’s ‘Best Murders’ or Joy’s disturbing ‘Advice to Young Mums’. The attention to detail is fantastic, with Mr Jelly’s website for example the low fi graphics, repeat pattern backdrops, deliberate missing link images etc, all give the authentic sense of a poorly put together DIY website. However each site does contain some nifty back end work and includes a few surprises.

What you’d think if you stumbled across them without prior knowledge of the show I don’t know, but there are currently 13 (and growing) very funny websites including videos, forums and online games to explore. If you’ve got a few hours spare go and get lost in Psychoville…