This bun’s been in Made Media’s oven for a while now but, as they say, slow bakin’ makes good eatin’. As well as showcasing The REP’s fantastic programme with visual impact this website features the full compliment of Web 2.0 must-haves:
- RSS feeds: Check!
- iCal Subscriptions: Check!
- Tags: Check!
- Flash Video: Check!
- Light-box Image Galleries: Check!
- Microformats: Check!
- Commenting: Check!
- Those little social-networking bookmark widgets: Check!
Huge thanks go to the wonderful marketing team at The Rep for having the right kind of vision, and for giving us enough time and support to deliver a website we’re really proud of.
And as if that’s not enough a meticulously re-designed ticket system is on its way shortly, courtesy of the technical geniuses at KB Group.
The New Generation Arts (NGA) Festival, organised by Birmingham City University, is a 16 day programme of innovative regional art shows to be held on the 5th-20th June in Birmingham. Go and check out the website we built for it.
New Year, New Projects, New Deadlines.
We’re pre-empting a crunch by soliciting CVs from freelancers with the following skills:
Graphic/Web Designers
With a particular focus on designing website house-styles in Photoshop or Fireworks and Flash movie layouts. HTML skills not a must, but experience of doing lots of professional web layouts at a relatively high level is.
HTML/CSS Developers
People who can take a photoshop visual and turn it into valid HTML and CSS. You must understand accessibility, Flash Replacement, SiFR and Common JavaScript libraries, even if you’re not necessarily a programming whiz. Attention to detail is crucial, as is an ability to pull off layouts that don’t necessarily make sense.
.Net Specialists
We have lots of experience delivering stunning web applications within the LAMP environment, but we’re increasingly asked to work our magic on .Net projects. We’re looking for solid .Net programmers with staying power, who can work from our specifications and UI designs.
All freelance opportunities have the potential to turn into long-term relationships or careers if you are that way inclined.
email CVs with links to: jobs@mademedia.co.uk
But first, please remember the following golden rules:
- We want to hear from genuine freelancers only. You must know your daily rate. You must know when you are available. You must demonstrate a portfolio of high-level work (for the HTML/CSS position we’ll consider hobbyist stuff as long as you have the chops).
- Thou must not be a recruitment consultant.
- Please, please, please read what we’re looking for, and only respond if that honestly sounds like you.
We’ll try to reply to everyone properly, but we are very busy (that’s why we need freelance help). Have no fear, if your CV makes it into our inbox, it will be read and you will be considered. If you don’t hear back for a while it might mean we just ran out of time, or you might just have sent us a load of nonsense. You’ll know which one in your heart.
If you can be of any help to us we will most definitely be in touch.
We look forward to hearing from you!
We’ve just given Maverick TV an online facelift. Maverick are the hugely successful TV production company behind 10 Years Younger, How to Look Good Naked, and Embarassing Illnesses.
The new site features much more video, and all the info on Maverick’s burgeoning Digital Media department.
They’re using our CMS Backstage to take care of all the enhanced and improved content.
Doing our bit for chariddee, we're delighted to be involved once again with this years Art Auction for Cure Leukaemia.
All proceeds from which will go towards the new world class Leukemia centre at the University Hospital Birmingham.
Made designed the branding for the event, which this year features the beautifull art work of Cattrell.
The event is taking place on 17th April at St Pauls Gallery so book a place now, remortgage your house and go pick up a few future priceless heirlooms.
UPDATE: For those of you arriving here via searches, the new NAB07 website has now launched. More here.
We are delighted to be involved once again with the regions premier contemporary art sale.
We designed and produced the branding, site, press campaign and print materials for the event back in 2005. Expect a to see a whole new site early in the new year but you should go there right now to register for info or sign yourself up to be an exhibitor.
If you were unfortunate enough to miss last years show you can find out about the whole thing here.
After a while that cobbler’s boots analogy starts to wear thin. As we often intimate, we’re an extremely busy web studio, and the first thing to suffer amongst all the work is our own website. (Actually I had a dentist once with the most shocking teeth, but I digress).
Our advice to clients when designing new websites is to avoid creating self-imposed ‘barriers to publishing’. Often, a rigid information architecture that seems perfectly reasonable during the project planning stage can prevent people from adding fresh information six months down the line. In the case of our last website we never let anyone know about our latest work, because that required a 500 word case study that no-one really wanted to read, much less write.
Blogging has redefined the way people publish on the Internet, and in my view it’s not just because of the simple Content Management Systems that power them. Ultimately it’s because the structure of blog-based websites removes all barriers to publishing. People who dismiss blogs as ‘online diaries’ miss the point. They’re really a ‘publishing channel’.
We’ve toyed with the idea of just running our company website as a blog since our very first site-launch four years ago. But we were never quite ready to let go. We were worried that our clients wouldn’t get it, that the vast corporate entities we were trying to entice would be put off by posts about my cat.
Once we looked at it seriously, we realised that embracing the blog medium whole-heartedly would actually result in a more honest, more conversational, more successful company website. Shrugging off that corporate camouflage and talking like real people is the first step in acting on our belief that markets are conversations. (Even vast corporate entities are staffed by real human beings apparently).
And for once, we’re all happy with our website, because it feels like the real us.
We've spent a busy week flaunting our wares at Plus+ 'an international design expo presenting pioneering work by Birmingham’s leading graphic designers through a five day showcase in the heart of the city.'
Made have been involved with the event for some months now, being one of four agencies to head up the events steering committee. So it was a great relief to see our efforts come to fruition for the launch party on Saturday.
Amongst the highlights was an informal talk by the design legend Peter Saville. After proving his rock star credentials by appearing an hour and a half late, he gave a charismatic potted biog and some interesting perspectives on city branding (birmingham take note).
The expo was also a nice opportunity to hook up with other Birmingham design based contemporaries, some old friends, some new acquaintences.
We've now got some slick wall panels to adorne our office space and finally had an excuse to buy a red leather sofa to compliment the made interior.
The show's now over but shall be returning next year, bigger and bolder so hope to see you all there. In the meantime, more pics from the event here.
This looks good…
More info here
