We are big followers of the CSS Awards so we are absolutely delighted to be honoured by them.

The Ready Made Designs website was a real labour of love and a huge thank you has to go out to its designer Jacob Lee. The design went through a considerable number of iterations and Jake put a huge effort into the very special illustrations. Big thanks Jake.

A special mention also to Tom Warner for bolting the whole thing together. The project was a great team effort by Oval Cube and is testament to everyone who worked on it. Thanks for all of your efforts gentlemen. Steve.

Tags: Award, Brand, CSS, Usability, Website Design

So what’s it all about I hear you ask? Well, after working for some of the worlds largest companies on lots of bespoke websites and apps, we fancied diluting our expertise into an exciting service that small businesses and start ups could afford.

We fancied diluting our expertise into an exciting service that small businesses and start ups could afford!

We had a good look around the Interweb to understand all the options available to those setting up their first website and came up with a product that is a little bit different.

Each of our designs is entirely bespoke to its client and created by one of our in house designers (not outsourced to halfway across the globe). In addition, each website is crafted from a base design which we have honed and researched over the past 6 months so that everything works across all the main browser variations (IE6 and above, FireFox, Chrome, Opera and Safari) and is compliant with W3C regulations.

On top of this we also provide a highly functional Content Management System, a fully hosted service, website analytics and a really flexible payment plan enabling our clients to keep on top of their cash flow and focus on their businesses.

So all in, we think we’ve come up with a great little package for the small website owner. We hope you like our product. We are pretty excited about it and we’d love to hear your feedback.

Tags: Brand, Design, Value, Web, Website Design

Even fighters require well designed and functional Content Management Systems.

Dark moods, sinister graphics and a dab or two of fake blood all pulled together to create the required, foreboding effect for this new and ambitious fight league. Needless to say even fighters require well designed and functional Content Management Systems and Oval Cube’s team of developers worked the small night hours away to provide just that in record time!

Take a look at www.fatlippromotions.com and look out for the first big event this October.

Tags: Brand, CMS, Design, Web, Website Design

Artist brands and logos are such a personal thing.

Lots of activity this week in the studio. Isn’t August meant to be a quiet month with everyone on holiday?

As a creative agency, working for a creative client is always a pleasure and when we got the call from 281 Entertainment to brand both their business and several of their up and coming music artists, we got as excited as a TMS commentator with Freddy bowling in!

Artist brands and logos are such a personal thing so lots of head scratching and discussions across the studio were apparent, but it was all good fun and we hope you like the results.

Now for the FaceSpaceBook designs. Anyone remember Top of the Pops? We’ll keep you posted.

Tags: Brand, Design, Logo

Apps require a different methodology and application in their development.

Here at Oval Cube we have been busy developing a number of Web Apps for various clients over the summer so no sunbathing here. Actually, where is the sun?

Apps require a different methodology and application in their development and over the past couple of years the growth in the number of resources and availability of guidance to ensure that you design the perfect app has been prolific.

Usability, scalability and pricing plans. App development casts a whole new angle on all of these areas and one which we have found really refreshing.

Over the next few weeks we will post a few more in depth insights into our experiences over the past few months but in the meantime, here is a list of resources and “fountains” of knowledge that we have found really helpful. A few are well known (to some), others are a little more left field or hidden but still really helpful. Please feel free to suggest others …

Think Vitamin – Great all round resource covering all aspects of App design and marketing.

Tags: App, Usability, Web, Website Design

As ever, we have tried to sum ourselves up as a company.

Ok, it took a little longer than we first anticipated and as ever, client work thankfully got in the way  (which is always nice in a recession),  but finally, our new website is live and we really hope you like it.

As ever, we have tried to sum ourselves up as a company and get as much of our personality across as possible without scaring the living daylights out of potential clients. I think this is always a difficult balance to achieve as creative agencies are always, by their nature, more inclined to push the artistic boundaries a little more than their clients. So, if you are a potential corporate client, hello! We aren’t too mad, are terribly nice and can do corporate. Come in and have a cup of tea.

From a development side, we have tried a few new angles and tested out a couple of new systems in putting this site together. The CMS for the bulk of the site is run from a great little system called Perch. It has proved very simple and effective so gets our thumbs up! The Blog is a customised WordPress instance which is probably more familiar but still, as ever, a fantastic open source resource. We would love to hear from other users’ experiences with either of these systems.

So, let us know your feedback, good or bad. It’s always nice to hear other opinions. For us, it’s back to the client work!

Tags: Brand, CMS, Perch, Recession, Web Design, Website Design, WordPress