We recently helped Tom Mursell launch version two of his website Not Going To Uni, a blog and community aimed at providing information to those not sure about futher or higher education. Now Tom is the subject of YearDot, a website and future Channel 4 documentary following 15 young people as they go through a ‘life changing year’.

The site is a collection of video diaries, profiles and case studies, following Tom and 14 other young people. This is a massive promotion opportunity of Tom and we wish him the best of luck with the site.

Check out Tom’s profile video and video diaries from the other 14 young people at www.yeardot.com.

The first is another project for The Nerve TV and Tribe Wanted creator Mark Bowness. Earlier this year we worked with Mark on the relaunch of his personal blog, People Passion Planet, to coinside with the launch of his crowd sourcing TV production company Have You Got The Nerve. His newest project, ‘After Something More’ , sees Mark searching for a civil partner before his 30th birthday on the 25th June 2009.

With previous sites we worked extremely closely with Mark to ensure that the asthetics and backend development were perfect for the project,  and also like our previous websites for Mark, After Something More is built on the Wordpress blog system. You can check out the site at www.aftersomethingmore.com.

And if thats not enough this week we also completed and launched the new online store of Bath based art publisher Fine Grime. Described as “Contemporary art with a cool urban swagger” Fine Grime produce fine art prints from up and coming urban and fine artists including Russ Mills and Lizz Lopez.

Fine Grime were looking for a powerfull ecommerce store that could cope with future expansion and a large volumn of products, for this project we used the shopping cart system CubeCart. For more information or to check out the site go to www.finegrime.co.uk.

Keep your eyes peeled for more new projects over the coming weeks.

Looking for a photographer? Why not check out MoveMountain. They’re pretty dam good! Here’s some recent shots they did for the Goodlife Store over on Glasgow’s Nile Street.

For more information check out www.movemountain.co.uk

Aimed at those who aren’t sure of their options after School, the site’s new blog format provides information, articles and hints on the best way to forge a career in wide range of industries without the need for secondary or higher education.

Check it out at www.notgoingtouni.co.uk.

A must buy! Get one from www.pukme.com.

Check out the full collection at ww.louiemantia.com/desktops. Enjoy!

And if thats not enough theres a 1001 really good articles out there with hints and tips on how to stetch your marketing budget to get the most out of it.

Good Luck!

Thats why we’ve put together this collection of sites and resources to get you inspired and help you make decisions about your website.

Design Galleries

Design galleries are an excellent resource of whats hot and whats not in current design trends. These sites will help you get a grip on what other companies are doing to promote their business, product and brand on the Internet.

www.cssremix.com - Certainly one of the best out there. Simple to use and easy to get to the good stuff.

www.csstux.com - Again a really good site for keeping up to date with new sites, this one is categorised by month.

www.cssflash.com - We recently featured here with our work for All Words.

www.csselite.com - Another really good resources with the websites split it to category so that you can view those relative to you.

www.screenalicious.com - Screenalicious has a a nice big archive of about 9800 different sites for you to browse.

www.webcreme.com - The best of the best and where most of the above tend to concentrate on CSS based sites Webcreme brings you the works including Flash based sites.

Design Blogs

Another great resource is design blogs. Although these tend to be aimed at the designers rather than the clients (and if your not technically minded it might seem like a lot of nonsense) they can give you a really good visual insight into design trends of the moment.

www.smashmagazine.com - One of our favourite blogs covering everything from design trends to hints and tips.

www.designmeltdown.com - Again one of our daily reads Design Meltdown concentrates on information about the latest design trends in both graphic and website design.

Other Resources

Magazines can also be an really good resource for inspiration but if you’re not a graphic or website designer then you’ll not be aware of which ones are the best, so we tend to recommend picking up a copy of .Net, Computer Arts or Web Designer. Don’t subscribe or feel that you need to buy out the shelf and don’t worry if you don’t understand the technical jargon, just 1 or 2 will help you get a better idea of whats hot and whats not in the world of website design and give you a better understanding of what your website can aspire to be through case studies

Remember, whether your looking to re-design your website or establish a web presence for the first time then please give us a call, we have packages to suit businesses of all sizes and we’re always happy to help!

Check it out at www.cssflash.com and take a look at the All Words site at www.allwords.co.uk.

But what a lot of people may not realise is that Innocent’s graphic brand is 100% homegrown and established completely in house by their creative team.

Like most businesses, in the early days Innocent did not have the thousands needed to employ a design or marketing agency to establish the graphic side of their brand and so instead hired friend Dan Germain as the company’s Head of Creative, and with his talent used their other friends to user test and improve the designs they developed for their packaging and logo.

Over time Dan’s skills were paramount in the development of what Innocent has become, working on everything from the apple and halo logo to the packaging, posters, ads and flyers used to promote the companies product. All done in house, without the need to employ an agency and or tie up financial resources.

They had no plan in place just the idea that they “…wanted to like the way it looked and tasted and for it to stand out on café shelves”, not a 200 page marketing outline, but a effective idea and one that has served them well. The company have won a barrage of awards including Marketing Strategy of the Year Award, Business XL’s ‘Brand Campaign of the Year’ and countless prizes for their branding and simple grass roots marketing strategies.

The point? Simple. Spending thousands on hiring a design agency to develop a companies branding isn’t always necessary. Innocent have shown that a well made product, strong brand values, good solid down-to-earth communication and lots of careful thought are enough to establish one of the best brands on the planet, something that could very well work for your company.

We love Innocent and bloody wished we worked there!

The Design Council’s Case Study on Innocent is a must read for anyone thinking about branding for the first time or even if you’re looking to re-invent your companies identity. For more information check out Innocent’s superfine website at www.innocentdrinks.co.uk and their blog at http://innocentdrinks.typepad.com.