Insights & Ideas

A Refreshing Take On Logos From A 5 Year Old

A great video doing the rounds today from Cincinnati, Ohio based designer Adam Ladd. What started out as a fun Sunday project with his daughter on brand logos has turned into a YouTube hit with almost 500,000 views (as of 01/02/2012 12:30GMT). What's so great is the simple take on these logos and its clear some brands have been more successful than others in appealing or exposing themselves to such a young audience. Scary or not? Feedback with some comments...

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Oh Yeah. We Did That.

Back in November we found out that one of our sites ‘Fashion Photography Exposed’ won an Awwward, which was awesome news and a great honor. This month see’s the release of their book ‘The Best 365 Websites Around The World’ in which our site appears on page 168.

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Logo Design & How We Do It

At FHOKE we have a couple of logo design projects on the go at any one time, each and every one of them is different in their own way and how they should be approached. Some can be fairly simple and others a little more tricky. We thought we’d share this one with you as the process used helped get the project done in record time with outstanding results.

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Free Social Sign In Buttons And Icons

We love website design. We spend hours of our time designing, styling and re-working everyday buttons and icons to add sparkle and polish to our work. Recently we created a few Social Sign In Buttons and Icons that we thought you might like, each one has been lovingly created in Photoshop for you to use in your own designs.

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Creative Living Blog hellobrit.com Launched

Today, well rather yesterday, saw the launch of a new lifestyle brand, Brit. The brand behind the website hellobrit.com which was designed, built and launched by our team seeks to provide busy, but inspired people with innovative ways to live more simply, beautifully and creatively in and around the home.

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Fashion Photography Exposed of New York Launches

Melissa Rodwell is a Los Angeles fashion photographer with over 21 years experience in the industry. World renowned for her work on campaigns for Virgin, Playboy and Ralph Lauren Melissa now lives her life in New York. In 2008 she set up the Fashion Photography Blog for amateur, student and professional photographers, gossip mongers, groupies, fashionista’s and just simply fans of her work. 

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Pennant Joinery of Andover

Pennant Joinery of Andover is a new business born with over 30 years of genuine hands on experience. Their traditional wood working methods are enhanced by modern machinery and an up to date knowledge that has trained a number of successful apprentices.

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The New Cake Sweet Cake of Oxford Launches

Cake Sweet Cake is a small bakery kitchen in Kidlington, Oxfordshire. Having had an existing site that just wasn't working for their needs Cake Sweet Cake approached us to re-design and re-vamp there existing site and brand with a full content management system sat behind it.

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.Net Magazine Feature. Stylish and Detailed Web Buttons

In the steps below, we’re going to walk you through the basics of creating a stylish and detailed web button for your site. What we want to create is a button with the attention to detail that some websites or designers miss. It’s these little touches that will finish the overall look of any site if done right.

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OZ for iPad Now Available on iTunes

Today we announce the launch of our first collaborative interactive book, OZ. Available now exclusively for the iPad, OZ is a remarkable re-working of the original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, telling the story in a way never experienced before.

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New Website for Hampshire Garage JB Motors

It seems Andover based businesses are starting to realise the value of having an online presence and are really starting to ramp up their online activity. Over the last few months we've launched a number of great eCommerce and Content Managed websites for local businesses and JB Motors of Andover is no exception.

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Andover & Hampshire Personal Trainer Andy Hillier

We’ve just launched a fantastic website for Andover based personal trainer Andy Hillier. Based in the unique Infin8pulse Personal Training Studios, Andy Hillier has successfully built a reputation for one to one personal training, golf fitness and ante and post natal fitness within an excellent training environment. The unique design emphasises Andy's vibrant style to training with a mixture of photography and illustrations to bring Andy's services to life.

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1140 Fluid CSS Grid System

A couple months back we offered up a FREE PSD download of the newer 978 Grid System that was orginally talked about in depth from @NickLa of Web Designer Wall fame. But just a few weeks later we became very aware that maybe there was a better alternative. Welcome to the world of the 1140px Grid System.

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Salisbury Based Alabare Include Launch New Site

We've launched several local sites for Hampshire and Wiltshire businesses recently and in the past week we've seen the launch of Alabaré Include. Based in Salisbury and Devizes, Alabaré Include are the mental health day service for the people of Wiltshire. It is funded by Wiltshire Council and Wiltshire Primary Care Trust and provide adults with functional Mental Health Issues with a number of services to help increase their independence and reduce the need for more intensive care. 

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Send Your Customers a Christmas Greeting

In the past you've no doubt been caught on the back-foot by Christmas, don’t fear – this year we'll keep you one step ahead so you can share the season with your clients and subscribers.

We've created 3 fantastic email greeting card designs for you to choose from (click the images for a larger version). All we need from you is your chosen design a list of up-to 100 email addresses, a send date and we'll do the rest. It's really that simple PLUS you'll be helping the environment, no paper waste and no carbon emissions from the postman. We'll also show you your stats at the end of the campaign so you can monitor how successful it was.

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Andover Based Desina Launch Online Store

Online shops are booming in Hampshire of late. With the launch of Boob Baby in the past few weeks it's now the turn of Desina. Locally based in Andover, Desina makes shopping for bras fun and easy. It's all about the girl that loves her curves. They offer a wide variety of brands, sizes and accessories (including swimwear) to cater for the bustier woman and at the same time make it easy to find your true bra size.

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Versapak. Another Successful Online Shop Launch

It's been a busy time for our latest eCommerce solution just a few weeks ago we launched Boob Baby and then last week saw the launch of Versapak (International).

Versapak were established in 1973 so we knew from the off we were working with a heritage brand that was well know and loved within their industry but a company that wanted to push forward in 2010 and onwards.

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New eCommerce Site Boob Baby

Last week saw the launch of one of our latest eCommerce sites, Boob Baby. Boob Baby is a website supplying breastfeeding equipment and accessories. The website also includes a resource centre, which aims to provide information and advice to mothers who are breastfeeding and also to pregnant ladies who are hoping to breastfeed. Boob Baby is a small, family business run by a husband and wife duo. They pride themselves in not only providing quality products (that include well known brands such as Medela and Phillips) at competitive prices, but also offering outstanding customer service.

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New 978 Grid System

We've watched with interest over the past couple of years the effect that ever increasing screens and resolutions have had on sites and web designers alike. For several years now we have been conforming to what web designers call the 960 Grid System (gs). And what a great system it is too. The 960 gs gives us designers flexibility and helps to quickly prototype the layout in any number of columns: 9/3, 3/3/3, 4/4/4/4, 10/2 col and so on. It is no doubt the most popular recent grid system and is used on many sites and design templates.

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Your Brand Is Way More Than A Logo

All to often we hear clients talking about their brand but referring to their logo, we then proceed to tell them that their brand is so much more. Of course their logo is a big part of their brand but that's not where it ends.

While shopping over the weekend I found a great example of what I'm talking about. Hollister is not a shop that I've ever been in, I've seen it online and on the high street but I'd never really paid any attention to it or been inside.

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Coming Up

So apart from the heavy snow and slight disruption to the first week back at the office we're pumped and ready to go for a great 2010. Now settled into our new surroundings (although a country location hasn't seemed too wise the past few days) what else have we got lined up in the coming months and year?

To start with let's give everyone a run down of a few sites that have gone live over the Christmas period and some exciting projects to come in the next few months.

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Free Set of Grungy Social Media Icons

After a few requests to see more we've added another 7 New and Modern Icons to the previous set. The result is a set of 28 that include normal icons such as Digg, Stumble and Reddit but now include DesignBump, DesignMoo, and Skype as well! All the icons are Illustrator vector files for you to play with and use.

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15 More Inspirational Sites

Continuing the look for inspirational website design we stumbled on a few more gems that we thought was only right to share with everyone.

Once again we've put together a list of 15 websites that inspire, some you may have seen some that might be new to you and as always if you have any inspirational sites that you’d like to share please post a comment and start a discussion.

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The Half Blood Prince

With the recent release of the latest installment in the Harry Potter films Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince we watched in amazement at just how detailed the sets are in a recent ITV behind the scenes special, aired just a couple of weeks ago. Then out of pure coincidence we found a recent blog post showcasing probably the most amazing and detailed part of the behind the scenes special for the Weasley brother's magic shop.

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15 Inspirational Websites

We spend a lot of time researching the web, trying to find websites that inspire - not only by the way they look but in the way they work and what they say.

There are many things that make up a great website; design, content, branding, layout, wording, clarity and many other things besides. We have put together a list of 15 websites that inspire, some new and some slightly older favorites.

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Beautiful Code

Bar codes. We see them in our every day life from your morning milk to the swipe card for your evening gym membership. But who's actually given them a second thought? As designers we come to accept that space needs to be made for these black lines and every time think just how boring these are.

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Asus New Eee Keyboard PC

At FHOKE we appreciate all mediums of design and have decided to start blogging about inspirational product design. The first of these blogs covers the new Asus Eee Keyboard PC. The new keyboard from Asus is a PC accessory with a difference. Strangely named ‘Eee Keyboard PC,’ the innovative concept by Asus is not just a PC accessory, but a fully functional PC incorporated into a keyboard.

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Promotional Sites

Promotional sites spread the word about a product or service. Some are short lived microsites that run for the duration of a campaign or a seasonal promotion. Others are larger sites that evolve over the course of time, with fresh content updated on a regular basis.

The web can be a cost effective alternative to traditional promotional mediums such as TV, print and outdoor advertising. Promotional websites are growing more popular as marketers seek less expensive ways to reach larger audiences.

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Information Heavy Sites A Blessing & A Curse

Creating a site that delivers a large amount of content is both a blessing and a curse. As an interface designer you must be careful not to overwhelm the layout and keep a clear path to help steer users to the information they are most interested in. Having a lot of content can be a good thing though. It gives you assets to keep the site interesting and creates that stickiness so people will repeat visit.

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Interaction Online

The interactive quality of the web is one of the main features that sets it apart from other mediums. Interaction means allowing the users to actively engage with the world you have created on your site, with text, images, sounds and animations. It can be everything from simple feedback when they move their mouse over a link, to a complex interactive story.

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Communicating With Colour

Colour is a form of communication. If you use it with care and love, colour can be one of your strongest assets of communication. Colour can provoke all manner of emotion. It can make people happy, sad or even enrage! It's a matter of precision. Think of colour as a form of music... some songs are sad, some hard to describe and some can move mountains. Colour for websites is what music is to films.

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Creative Blocks

Mental blocks. We all get them sometimes. Whether you’re trying to figure out where you put the keys last night after a night out on the beers or whether you are trying to write a pitch for new business. In the creative team we get them occasionally... trying to be creative 24/7 hurts the brain sometimes! So we like to call these creative blocks.

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