Graphic and Web Design in Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/ Your copyright information Thu 4 Mar 2010 09:23 GMT Bookmarklets are small web apps, usually written in Javascript. They can load the applet on top of, or using data from the website you are currently viewing. This makes for good developer bookmarklets that can display and analyse information for a website or page you are currently developing or picking apart. XRAY - This can bring up the box model and information of any element on the page. It shows dimensions, positioning, paddings, margins etc. Very useful for quickly determining the aspects of a page design. View Cookies - Does exactly what it says on the tin, shows any cookies stored by your browser. SpriteMe - Parses your HTML + CSS and suggests a list of images that you should have as sprites. Also able to generate and export a sprite for you. Good for making a website load more efficiently. Firebug Lite - Firebug is an awesome development tool, but only works in Firefox. They have created a lite version now available for any browser with the use of bookmarklets! Color List - Analyses your page and detects all foreground and background colours used. Shows a swatch of colours, RGB and hex values. Design Grid - Pops up a toolbar when you can enable / configure / disable a grid, rules, unit counters, and a crosshair to show your cursors current coordinates (x + y). W3C HTML / W3C CSS - Widely used validation web apps for HTML and CSS code. TinyURL - Creates a minified URL of the page you are currently viewing. Please feel free to add anymore useful bookmarklets to the comments! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/useful-web-developer-bookmarklets.html Tue 16 Feb 2010 14:05 GMT Today our local town, Olney, held the famous Olney Pancake Race which dates back more than five hundred years! Competitors must wear the traditional costume of a housewife, including a skirt, apron and head covering. They must of course carry a frying pan containing a pancake. The winner, on crossing the line, must toss her pancake and she is then greeted by the verger with the traditional kiss of peace. This year Melon worked with the event sponsor Francis Jackson Homes to create the graphics in support of the race, which included t-shirts, posters, adverts and the start and finish sign (of course!) There was added excitement this year as the event was attended by Blue Peter presenter Joel, who tried to take part in the race dressed as a lady! (But he didn't win).   http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/pancake-race.html Tue 19 Jan 2010 09:33 GMT Since the much anticipated rumours surrounding Apple's plans for a major announcement on Wednesday 27th January, that is according to All Things Digital, and with much added speculation on whether Apple will indeed release their own tablet PC as their new product, I have noticed a growing trend in the potential popularity of tablet PCs. In a nutshell a tablet PC refers to a portable slate computer which is equipped with a touchscreen or stylus to operate the machine. Whether or not Apple will introduce a tablet into the market, you may have noticed numerous adverts on television already this month promoting similar products. There are those who have even gone as far to suggest that this concept of an enlarged iPhone could be targeted at netbook users, an example of such a product is Dell's confirmation of its own minature slate PC, which demonstrates the notable trend in movement towards more involved interactivity between user and computer. In many ways this level of interactivity has already started with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii. This type of interaction will also have an impact on the design of websites and operating systems. For the foreseeable future a mouse and keyboard will be a neccessity for our Melon designers and web coders here. However for those users who require more simple interaction and prefer poking at the screen for a more instant response this is exciting news. This kind of product would suit my father perfectly - a once technophobe moving into the highly technological world of today. On a lasting note, I would be interested if Apple does indeed produce a tablet PC to match this growing trend in the market, a pattern which they themselves provided a catalyst for, with the iPhone.   http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/will-2010-be-the-year-of-the-tablet.html Mon 4 Jan 2010 13:42 GMT Melon has been busy working with Intamac Systems to develop a new corporate website. The website is completely updateable using the Engine Content Management System (CMS). The website design project was launched in time for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The site is packed with information, latest news and blogs, media information, support and downloads as well as investor information and much more. To help launch the website, marketing materials including printed literature, premium give aways and a fresh new look has been produced. So far the reaction has been outstanding. We will be adding a complete case study on this project to the portfolio soon. Click here to view the new intamac website - www.intamac.com http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/intamac-systems-website-launched.html Mon 4 Jan 2010 11:48 GMT We have recently been working hard on the new marketing materials for Francis Jackson Homes.Melon was approached to provide brand consultancy and advise on the best course of action. Given the company's history and reputation it was agreed the companies logo would be tweaked slightly to refresh it and brand guidelines would be developed to bring clarity to the direction of the companies marketing materials. With the brand style and new stationary in place, the website was the next item in urgent need of an update. Nick Jackson, the Managing Director commented: "Melon has provided sound advice and an outstanding, effective website. As we continue to develop our brand I have no doubt that Melon will continue to help us move forward." Click here to read more on this projectClick here to view the new Francis Jackson Homes website   http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/francis-jackson-homes-rebrand.html Wed 23 Dec 2009 12:12 GMT A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year from everyone at Melon! After another fantastic year we would like to send out a big thanks to all of our clients, suppliers and friends for their continued support. We hope you like the new Bentley Design sleigh! It certainly looks like it will be easier for santa to visit us all, given the current weather conditions I believe these are planned to be on general release for next year! It's been a busy time over the last couple of months and we will be updating our portfolio with new websites and latest work very soon. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/merry-christmas-and-happy-new-year.html Tue 22 Dec 2009 15:48 GMT When I look back down the career path of web developer I have taken, I wish I could go back in time and tell myself some of the best practises and tips I now use daily. These tips have helped save myself, and Melon a lot of time and effort, but if I had of known these from the start then life would have been a lot easier.   1. Dont Repeat Yourself (DRY) This seems like an obvious thing, but when working on multiple projects, over time you start to see ways you can improve your most used snippets of code. As a PHP developer I frequently use mysql_connect(), but have gotten to the point I dont even think about it as I have it included at the top of all my scripts. I just need to change the constants to define username, password, and database for the various projects I use it on. This can be further improved by adding conditional statements to differentiate between live and developement environments. This is an excellent example of evolving code.   2. SVN (Sub Version) Once upon a time I used to connect to FTP's and make changes directly, or work on a copy locally and then mass upload the files to the live server. This is all well and good, but for working on multiple or very large projects this method quickly gets out of hand. There's the potential to accidentally overwrite more up to date files, forget to upload certain files critical to the website, and end up with whole copies of files and folders you dont really need, but dont want to delete 'just in case'. With SVN, you can just login to SSH and execute the command 'svn up' and this will update your copy of the code to how it stands in the SVN repository. As you commit your work to SVN, it will create version numbers, or revisions, that will allow you to roll back your code to previous versions quickly and easily, and mean its extremely difficult to erase any progress you have made by accident. As well as this, branches and tags enable you to create projects that off shoot the main trunk of development and enable you to manage many projects using your own basic website framework of code. Subversion THE Book   3. Firefox Plugins Firefox is a very pleasant browser to use on a day to day basis, even if you aren't a web developer. But the developer tools and plugins it provides makes it a must in any good web developers toolbox. Firebug, Web Developer Toolbar, and Greasemonkey are all very good for picking apart code and helping to debug when things aren't going as planned. Also you have Adblock and Flashblock which stop pesky ads and big flash panels popping up when you dont want them to. Other good ones to mention are YSlow which analyses your website speed and what is holding it back, and HTML Validator, which shows markup errors and warnings.   4. Use Pretty URL's There are multiple benefits of using mod_rewritten URL's, and the most common people would think of is its SEO value. This is true as it allows extra keywords to be used in the target links to the page. However the main reason I would use pretty URL's is because it looks so much neater to your user, and is more logically layed out and presented. You can create more of a hierarchy and show your webpages in categories your user would expect them to be in, rather than a URL that says index.php?view=somepage&cat=randomcategory&page_id=77354 10+ Mod_Rewrite Rules You Should Know   5. CSS Reset Due to the joys of browsers that ignore web standards *cough* Internet Explorer *cough*, usually when you build a website, come to view it in another browser and it looks nothing like you expected. A good way to remedy this is to run a CSS reset, which resets all the different ways browsers interpret styles, and should then make them all act roughly the same. Other good ways to achieve this is to use a CSS framework such as Blueprint.   6. To use tables, or not use tables In the web development community, the use of tables is highly frowned upon. This is due to the fact that in the early days of the internet and HTML, tables was the easiest way to create a layout and structure for your site. As CSS support has improved and gained functionality there are now much more efficient methods to creating layout using divs and lists. That said though, I have seen people trying to layout tabular data using these methods, and although theres nothing wrong with that, its really over complicating things. Tables are perfectly fine to use, for the reason they were intended.   7. Virtualisation Website testing is easily the least 'fun' part of being a developer, mostly thanks to the previously mentioned lack of standards for certain browsers. Thankfully virtualisation makes things slightly easier, as it allows self contained environments where you can setup an operating system install, within your desktop. This allows you to run various OS's within your main 'host' OS. This way you can test the main versions of all major browsers, in multiple operating systems so you can ensure it looks good for all the most frequently used combinations of OS and browser. There are a few applications that do this, such as VMWare, VirtualPC, and Virtualbox. We find Virtualbox to be the best, as its free, has good community support, and is available for Windows, Linux, and Macs.   8. Templates When building a site just in HTML, you have the same basic elements in all of the .html files. Elements such as the header, main navigation, footer, etc. If you want to add a link to your navigation, this means the painful task of copying and pasting code between all of your pages, not fun! PHP makes life a lot easier by giving us the include() function. This allows you to pull in or 'include' scripts in your code, as if they were typed in there directly. I find the best way to use this for templates is to have your index.php file as your outter template, and to use include and GET variables to populate the main content part of the template. You can make this more advanced by adding a check to ensure the file exists, block out viewing of certain files (such as the index.php itself), and point any non existent links to a custom 404 page.   9. Finding the right IDE (Integrated Development Environment) As a developer your IDE, or coding interface, is a very important tool for productivity and creating clean, error free code. Useful features include sytax highlighting, error notification, code completion, version control, and live ftp editing. Whatever your operating system, be it Windows, Linux, or OS X there are a wide selection to choose from, some tied to one OS, and others multi platform. The Big PHP IDE Test: Why Use One And Which To Choose   10. Wireframes, Sitemaps and proper planning Wireframes are used as a representation of a websites layout and structure in its simplest form, focusing on basic elements, without styling or images. This saves time by ensuring you or your clients dont get caught up in colours, typography, and stock images, which could potentially subtract from an interface design which would otherwise be liked. Also it helps to keep everyone on the same page, and can be used as reference for designers, developers, and clients alike. These are also backed up by sitemaps, which show a users progression through a website, and how you navigate between pages / areas of the site. This can also be represented on interactive wireframes by making links and forms clickable to the appropriate pages. All You Need to Know about Web Design Project Planning and ProcessWhy Your Next Website Should be Designed with WireframesThe Importance Of Wireframes In Web Design And 9 Tools To Create Wireframes   Conclusion This is obviously not a definitive list, so we would be interested to here other developers tips on time saving methods, and things you wished you knew at the start of your career. Comments have temporarily been disabled but please give us a tweet @meloncreative to let us know your thoughts. Also RT this article with the link below!     http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/10-good-practices-for-web-developers.html Mon 7 Dec 2009 16:53 GMT Up until now, Milton Keynes has been living in the dark ages when it comes to broadband. Speeds anywhere close to the ADSL2+ standard of 24Mbps are few and far between, with only the smaller outer exchanges being able to provide anything close to modern day speeds. Most people are still struggling along with 1-4Mbps, which in todays world of streaming video, media rich websites, and online gaming, is way below par. Milton Keynes Broadband History The problem with the existing broadband infrastructure in Milton Keynes is that when the new town was initially planned, the price of copper was too high to lay across the whole town. Instead they opted to go for aluminium, which for phone lines is just as good as copper, though back in the 1970's the internet was barely even heard of, let alone broadband. Because ADSL signal is not carried as well by aluminium, the majority of local broadband users cant get close to the speed they should even when they are not far from the exchange. Also Milton Keynes is home to one of the countries largest telephone exchanges. 'Thats great' I hear you cry? Wrong! The more people on the exchange, the busier and more saturated it becomes. All of central Milton Keynes and surrounding areas run off this exchange (approximately 30,000 premises), which is actually based in Fishermead, not Bradwell Abbey itself. Newport Pagnell, Stony Stratford, and Bletchley all get their own, and are generally not affected by this technological blight of Milton Keynes. High Speed Broadband is the future! Fortunately this makes Milton Keynes the perfect candidate for BT to trial their new Fibre network, hopefully going ahead as of January 2010. Fibre is totally different to the way broadband works when going down a phoneline, it is specifically meant for handling data, in vast quantities. BT will be upgrading the Bradwell Abbey exchange to utilise FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) or FTTH (Fibre To The Home), which should enable speeds of up to 100Mbps, therefore in some cases providing 100 times the connection speed. To give an example, most home local networks (using ethernet cable to connect the PC in your study, to your PC in the living room) run at 100Mbps. This means you will have potentially the same transfer speeds between your computer upstairs, and a server on the other side of the planet! This is huge news for Milton Keynes residents and business owners, which have been plagued by sub standard speeds for too long. This town is already a technological and commercial hub, but can only expect more growth and wealth because of it. How do I get on the trial? Up until now, BT are remaining fairly hush-hush on the subject. Openreach (BT's wholesale offshoot that deals in selling its services to other ISP's such as Sky, Pipex, Be etc) will initially be upgrading the exchange, and then opening up to a range of other hosts to provide this service. This means you should be able to get onto the network without ever actually being a BT customer. Speaking to a BT customer service representative, I was told that when the time comes they will be heavily pushing the service to all areas it will be available in. If anyone can provide anymore information or knowledge on the matter, please make a comment below :) UPDATE: 27/01/2010 The Milton Keynes Broadband Action Group have got a host of new information regarding the trial. You can find this information in full here. To summarise:- Any ISP can partake in the trial- Speeds will be around 100MB down / 15MB up- Proposed start, summer 2010- Costs, unknown and dependant on individual ISP's Looks good, more information will be added as we find it :) Also here is a useful map showing the Bradwell Abbey Exchange coverage. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/milton-keynes-gets-fibre-high-speed-broadband-trial.html Fri 9 Oct 2009 11:05 GMT The British Film Festival in London starts next week on Weds 14th October 2009 untill Thurs 29th October 2009. This year is their 53rd festival showcasing a selection of new and intriguing films from the full spectrum of world cinema. The festival features an extensive schedule of industry and public forums, educational events, lectures and celebrity interviews. If you, like myself take an interest in the film industry, whether its short surrealistic films, to poignant and thought provoking perfomances, the BFI will be sure to bring your attention to take serious notice of new and upcoming directors and film makers. I think us Brit's have a film industry we should be proud of. Although not as glamourous as Hollywood, we have a resource of such talented filmakers who make the utmost effort to ensure that the cinematography conveys more than just a set of images and CGI, but a performace that renders deeper meaning, using artistic and creative ways of conveying those messages. That is why this year, I am looking forward to seeing what this years BFI have in store for us. Click here for more information and book tickets   http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/bfi-53rd-london-film-festival.html Fri 2 Oct 2009 16:45 GMT Here are some handy and yet simple tips to ensure that your website is optimized for speed and performs to its full potential. Although some of the tips below are on the techy side, it is worth knowing how they might influence the way you present your website content. 1) HostingHost your website with a company known for performance. In shared server environments, not dedicated hosting, some web hosts will put up to a thousand sites on just one server. At Melon Creative we provide a hosting service for our clients which is reliable and efficient, that is regularly updated with up-to-date technologies, and will also back up your website multiple times a day! Additional benefits also includes extremely impressive uptimes, and dedicated 24/7 support to ensure any issue are resolved quickly. 2) Image dimensionsReduce your image sizes by reducing its physical dimensions. One method is to crop your images, also known as relevance-enhancing, which can reduce size and help focus the attention of your audience quickly. Our Engine CMS will help you achieve this with it's in-built image editing tools! 3) Number of imagesTry to reduce the total number of images on any one page of your website. Most web browsers download up to 4 images concurrently; however, each connection adds to the overall response/load time. 4) Image compressionSave your photos or images containing many various shapes and colors to a .jpg format for optimum compression. Tools such as Photoshop and GIMP can easily convert and save out images from one format to another and allow you adjust compression levels. You can also reduce the size of your images by reducing the number of colors it contains. Images which contain few colours and simple shapes are best saved in .gif format. You can use Photoshop, ImageReady and GIMP to optimize your images for the web. 5) Image dimension attributesIn your code specifying image WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes will help your browser load faster. 6) ConsolidationConsolidate your CSS and Javascript files. This will reduce the number of requests made to the server, which will in turn reduce the number of connections that need to be initiated by your browser. 7) CachingOne tip which we can all try, is to enforce caching. Web caching is important for three reasons: 1) It reduces user-perceived Web-site delays2) It reduces network bandwidth usage3) It reduces server loads If you examine the preferences of your web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox), you will find settings for your cache, in Internet Explorer this will be known as 'Temporary Internet Files'. This lets you set a section of your computer's hard disk to store copies of web pages, images and media for faster browsing. Caching is especially useful when you hit the back button or click a link to see a page you've just looked at, so that it doesn't have to reload the entire page contents from the server. 8) Database efficiencyUse a SQL Server or another professional level database over Access. At Melon Creative we build our websites to utilise MySQL databases on a Linux server. This ensures that the websites we create will perform at optimum speed when collecting data from the database. 9) Database QueriesThe fewer number of queries your code makes to a database will greatly improve speed. Also it would be better to create fewer larger queries, than having many smaller ones. Join and Union will help with this. 10) PHP Functions and loopsIn any PHP code there are multiple methods of achieving the same result. If you try and keep the number of loops to a minimum, and make sure the functions you are using are current and not depreciated. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/10-top-tips-for-website-performance.html Thu 1 Oct 2009 12:01 GMT Chevolution is a new documentary film which tells the story of one of the most iconic photographs of all time. The image of revolutionary Che Guevara taken by Alberto "Korda" Diaz at a funeral in 1960, has been reproduced many times on a vast range of merchandise, from t-shirts and beer bottles to cigar cases. Many people are drawn to the image, though some don’t know much about the revolutionary and what he represented. The documentary explores how both Che and his most famous portrait have changed in their significance with the passing years, while continuing to exercise a hold over the popular imagination. Chevolution, Dir Trisha Ziff, Luis Lopez, Mexico 2008 (showing at Institute of the Arts until 7th October) http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/chevolution.html Fri 18 Sep 2009 16:29 GMT As part of the London Design Festival, a gigantic chess set installation created by Spanish designer Jaime Hayón will be located in Trafalgar Square. The installation, which will be set between the two fountains in Trafalgar Square, will be in situ from Saturday 19 – Wednesday 23 September. Each of the 32 chess pieces has been handcrafted by Hayón, working with Bosa, the Italian ceramics experts in Veneto, Italy. Many of the chess pieces reference specific iconic buildings in London and their domes, towers and spires. Elements of the city of London and its history are encoded on the pieces using Hayón’s very personal style. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/chess-set-installation-in-trafalgar-square.html Mon 14 Sep 2009 14:11 GMT Google and Hasbro have teamed up to bring one of the world's most popular board game online! The much loved family board game in history, traced as far back as 1935, will be revolutionized to utilize Google Maps, which will allow players the freedom to choose from countless streets around the world to buy. Monopoly City Streets, the online version will bear similairties to the traditional board game, but will have added opportunies to allow players to build football stadiums, windmills, schools and skyscrapers as well as the original houses and hotels. The classic Chance cards will also offer the advantage for players to build prisons, sewage plants and rubbish dumps on their rivals' streets. Players will start the free game with three million Monopoly dollars and can buy Downing Street for $231,000, while Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, where the White House stands, costs $2 million. Now that just makes Mayfair and the likes of Bond Street sound like a bargain! Each day you log in, you would recieve $1 million, in addition to the rent automatically collected from your properties, from $50,000 for a house to $100 million for a skyscraper. So no more keeping quiet when you try to land un-noticed on a fellow player's spot! Monopoly has gone bigger and better, and I simply can't wait to see how far this classic game has evolved into the 21st century. The global multiplayer game will be avaliable online for four months since it's release last week, coinciding with the upcoming release of Hasbro's newest 3-D Monopoly game, Monopoly City, which will be avaliable in stores in the coming months. Hasbro said: "It's a chance to escape the harsh reality of recession and enjoy building up an empire." Click here for more information http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/monopoly-goes-online-with-google-maps.html Thu 10 Sep 2009 16:27 GMT Hooray! Finally London has it’s very own Lomography Gallery Store and it opens today! At the store people will be able to check the full range of Lomography products, it will also be somewhere to take part in one of the many workshops scheduled each month as well as other events. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/lomography-gallery-store-london.html Thu 3 Sep 2009 16:32 GMT The Creators Inn is a great new project offering free short-term accommodation to creative individuals. Guests stay in modern, stylish rooms with wireless internet, towels, bathrobes, slippers and grooming products all free of charge - no hidden costs. Swedish fashion brand Elvine and design agency Next Century Modern joined forces to set up the Creators Inn, which aims to promote the local area and attract travelling creatives whose presence contributes to the cultural life of the city, whether they’re a band, DJ, designer, artist or writer. What a brilliant idea! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/the-creators-inn.html Thu 3 Sep 2009 16:30 GMT It has now been one year since search engine giant Google waded into the browser war, and for good or for bad it seems they are here to stay. Although they are a major player in the web, their browser has only reached a market share of just under 3%. The other major browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox are way out in front, but they have had a significant head start on their campaigns for browser domination. In the Melon office it is rarely used apart from for testing, but that's because we all work on Linux or Mac machines which both have yet to see an official or stable release. That said I use it on my ASUS EEE netbook at home and find it to be a very decent piece of software with the limited resources available. Its most important innovative feature has been the use of the new javascript engine, and its ability to manage each tab as a seperate process. This may sound incredibley geeky and unimportant to some, but think how many times you have had a browser open with 10+ tabs (or 100 in some cases :P), one website makes the browser crash and you lose all of them. Thanks to Google this is a thing of the past, and due to this, a number of the major browsers have taken this idea up in their latest incarnations. In conclusion if you haven't given it a try yet, its definitely worth a look. It definitely leaves Internet Explorer behind in its dust, but when compared to Firefox, Safari, and other standards compliant browsers theres not much that makes it stand out. If you are running Windows, then we highly recommend checking it out. Download Google Chrome here and start enjoying a more stable and secure browsing experience immediately. Also see the Google Chrome comic strip which explains all the benefits and features in a cute cartoon format. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/googles-chrome-browser-turns-1-year-old.html Thu 3 Sep 2009 16:18 GMT As well as sharing a passion for creativity, the Melon team also share a passion for food. So, you could imagine our excitement when we learnt that our local village would be holding a food festival! The picturesque village of Olney will holding the festival on Saturday 19 September. Local chefs will be cooking canapés, paella in giant vessels, delicious BBQ and more including Pancake puddings. Accompanied with some fine wine or beer and live music - we can’t wait! www.visitolney.com/festival http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/olney-food-festival.html Mon 17 Aug 2009 16:27 GMT Melon has recently launched the latest version of our hugely successful and powerful Content Management System - Engine. Ingeniously titled Version 3.0, the updated system includes a whole host of improvements and new features, including: Faster Navigation - now even quicker and easier to update and manage your websiteImproved eshot and CRM system - create and distribute your own HTML emails to any mailing groupPowerful Contacts Organiser - create mailing groups, auto register for updates, search and upload data and much more!Refined image and movie tools - more stable, faster, improved file format supportSearch Engine Optimisation tools - stay in complete control and drive traffic to your website with these easy to use meta toolsSupport Documentation - Free downloads and technical support, just in case you have any questions Plus many more minor improvements, user benefits and useful tools.So, now it's even easier to interact with your website, manage online files, publish and edit content, images, movies and podcasts. As well as drive traffic through HTML eshots, track users, enjoy Analytics and much more besides! We are happy to talk you though the possibilities, whether you're a web novice or experienced online marketeer. To discuss how the Engine Content Management System and website design services from Melon could benefit your organisation Contact Us. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/engine-cms-v30-released.html Tue 9 Jun 2009 22:03 GMT This week saw the launch of the new Royal Ascot Golf Club website. The website has been designed to work hard to attract and retain members, visitors and societies. The beautiful course and modern facilities are perfectly communicated via the clean simple design of the website. Additionally features such as news, an interactive scorecard and comprehensive members section with members profiles, competition information and much more ensure the website feels up to date and acts as a useful resource for the club.The Royal Ascot Golf Club website is built around the new Golf Club Engine system. This powerful Content Management System (CMS) is an adapted version of our successful Engine CMS and has been developed specifically for golf clubs. Look out for more information on the system soon. If you would like further information on the Golf Club Engine system or any of our website services please contact Melon. Click here to visit the new Royal Ascot Golf Club website http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/royal-ascot-gc-website.html Tue 9 Jun 2009 21:06 GMT The Design Council have long been known as an innovative source of vital information for the design industry. The Design Council website is packed with useful information for creative, marketing and busines people. In these times of economic challenges and increased pressure to make your message heard it's a welcome sight to see so much evidence for the important role that creativity has to play.All too often businesses in every sector overlook the impact that a truly effective print campaign, brand exercise or new website can have. When a strong creative solution is combined with sound strategic thinking customers will notice your brand and your confidence levels can be restored. I have heard many experienced business people publicly advise that you shouldn't cut back on marketing during a recession. Whilst I do agree with this statement, I feel it may be a little optimistic to believe that marketing and financial people the world over, are singing from the same hymn sheet.I do however believe that it is vital for companies to keep developing strategies and be prepared for the economic upturn. There are a number of studies being released which suggest we are at the bottom of the current recession and that there is light at the end of the tunnel. To this end, now is the perfect time to create a new website, consider brand direction or even just start the process of your next campaign. This sentiment has been shared by many of Melon's own clients, all of which are confident that when the economic climate improves, they will be perfectly positioned to increases market share and come back bigger and better than ever.I hope you find the latest reports and information from Design Council of interest, if you would like any advice on how you can introduce any of the latest methods, technologies or creative approaches to your business, get in touch with us here at Melon. Click here to download the Briefing Document 'The Impact of Design on Business'.Click here to read the latest white papers from Design Council http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/design-council-briefing.html Sun 17 May 2009 10:45 GMT More and more businesses are turning to email marketing to benefit from lower costs and faster responses in comparison to traditional direct marketing methods. The prospect of achieving higher response rates and reaching more customers in their target demographic sounds very promising. To achieve this, we have listed the top 10 tips to improve your e-marketing campaign using Melon's Eshot manager. 1. Avoid Spam Filters The majority of large Internet service providers now use rigerous spam protection mechanisms to trap unsolicited email before it gets into their customer's inboxes. To make sure your emails don't get flagged as spam - and deleted before they even get to your subscribers - avoid using words such as "Free", "£££", "Save", "Discount", etc., in both the subject line and try not use them more than a few times throughout your copy.   2. Maximise Click-Thru Rates Both web pages and emails can contain a lot of text and graphics, and this sometimes makes it harder to get your subscribers to perform a certain task, such as clicking on a link to see your special offers. The majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link as opposed to a banner or button. So, if you are going to include links in your emails, make sure they are clearly visible, bold, blue and underlined.   3. The Power of Personalisation The power of personalisation can and should be used in your emails. In fact, by simply starting your email with "Hi {FirstName}" instead of the boring "Hi there", you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you have addressed them by their first name.   4. Increased Response on Tuesdays and Wednesdays Research analysis has shown that the best days to perform a mail-out to your list are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication. This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales. On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend. On Thursday and Friday, people are working on projects or tasks that require to be finished by the weekend and are already looking forward to the weekend   5. Repeat Email Communication E-marketing is only effective if it is being followed up shortly after the first e-shot went out. and is a great way to follow up with your subscribers or provide them with more information on your products/services.   6. Keep Consistency If you are sending frequent e-shots, make sure you keep the look and feel consistent from issue to issue. By keeping the look and feel consistent, you help to maintain and strengthen your brand and your image to your subscribers, which again will make it easier to close sales when you need to.   7. On Time, Every Time When sending an email to your subscribers, always make sure that it's sent on the same day of the week in a month. Your subscribers will come to "expect" your email to arrive in their inbox on the same day at the same time every week, meaning that they want to read your content and are generally more receptive to any special offers or promotions you may include.   8. The "Half-a-Second" Rule for Subject Lines When your email arrives in your subscribers inbox, you generally have about half a second to catch their attention with the subject line of your email. After this, they will either delete your email or ignore it. In your subject line, try and specify a benefit that the subscriber can expect by reading your email. For example, instead of using '{company name} Newsletter Issue #1', use ‘{company name} Newsletter: 10 Tips for Financial Freedom'.   9. The Power of "Free" Content If you're looking to grow your subscriber list, why not create or source a product of value to your visitors (such as an eBook or discount coupon) and offer it to them for free when they signup to receive your newsletter? Doing this regularly will drive subscribers repeatedly to your website, providing more and more exposure are your user-base grows. And not only that, your offers may circulate through other channels (forums, messengers, email forwarders).   10. Track everything Open rates, unsubscribes, clickable-links, emails received, telephone and faxes received. Simply tracking the clicks is only half the story. You should monitor what happened when the click-through occurred on the website, as well as your sales call centre, making sure your staff asks any new customer how they heard from you. Tracking that data will enable you to fine-tune your future campaigns and improve the click-through ratings as well as new and repeat business. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/10-tips-for-email-marketing.html Thu 14 May 2009 09:03 GMT Search Engine Optimisation involves making sure all your main content is coming together in the right way to form a strong presence of your website within search engines for your targeted keywords. However, beyond these best practices, there are a number of great ideas and services to help support the SEO process and get your website ranked for your revlevant keywords.   1. Enhance Web Site Usability As Jakob Nielsen puts it, "site design must be aimed with simplicity above all else, with as few distractions as possible and with very clear information architecture and matching navigation tools." In short, if a website is not usable for your visitors / potential customers, then search engines will have a difficult time finding the most relevant content, too. Melon's website audit will help rate the usability and structure of your website to ensure your website is not only usable, but also easily accessible for both users of your target market and search engines, increasing the potential for anchor text-rich internal linking.   2. Work with a Marketing Team About half of all SEO projects fail in delivering because they never worked together with any other channels. If your brand message is not communicated through offline or other online channels (such as PPC, e-marketing, cross-promotions) then it is likely that you and your brand will appear in the search, but the click-through-rate to your site will drop. Combining efforts with a marketing team will give your website a real push towards your goal of attaining brand and search engine visibility.   3. Incorporate Traditional PR Efforts into the SEO Plan Press releases should be optimized to help your Web site perform better within search results. Involving both marketing and SEO to go through content, structuring text links and call to actions will ensure more coverage towards your website and brand, and is a great way to improve your search engine ranks.   4. Monitoring and Making the Most of Communities Every industry has an online community of some size. Some industries -- such as travel or games in particular -- have literally thousands of forums and blogs talking about deals and experiences. Melon's SEO team works close with the marketing team to make use of these areas and help you become an active participant to gain not only attraction to your brand and offerings, but also gain ranks through more inbound links - and all that without spamming websites and appearing invasive. More importantly, there is lots of user-generated content about products and services in these communities, providing both invaluable feedback for refinement of current offerings and services, as well as an excellent base for future online and offline marketing efforts.   5. Keep Content Fresh by Updating it Regularly Sometimes, updating content is on a regular basis can be difficult. For example, a company that sells a certain type of service may have no reason to update its content as the service does not change. However, "stale" content leads to a reduction in return visits to your website - why would a user want to come back to just read the same content month after month whereas your competitors add more information a lot more regularly? Improving and updating your content can help you to gain rankings for terms that will drive traffic, continuously adding new and appealing content to your site will build rankings and help keep them there.   Connecting your online and offline efforts are vital to the success of your website, and running your marketing efforts through many channels will aid in attaining this goal. Speak to us today to discuss how we can make this happen! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/5-nonseo-ways-to-increase-your-search-rankings.html Mon 16 Feb 2009 13:11 GMT Today Melon launched a new website for the UK division of Japanese games publisher - Rising Star Games. The extensive website features a lot of new content, from news, game profiles and blogs, to forums, user profiles, member exclusive content and more. The sushi bar displays up-to-date information from the blog and the news section, and it also shows most popular posts of the forum as well as upcoming releases. Additionally, Rising Star Games has a new themed portal page for Harvest Moon games. RisingStarGames.com was developed on Melon's in-house Content Management System Engine. This enables RSG to manage all content and images as well as communicate with members and add new games and stories. Visit www.risingstargames.com and www.harvest-moon.co.uk http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/rising-star-games.html Fri 13 Feb 2009 16:36 GMT All UK citizens are to have broadband access by 2012. Advertisers claim that the interim Digital Britain report from Lord Carter will be a great opportunity for brands to extend their reach to audiences.The Government backed study suggests replacing BT’s obligation to ensure every home has access to a telephone line with a requirement to provide broadband. This would aim to ensure everyone had quick enough internet access to watch videos online.The 78-page report includes recommendations for: • Broadband access across the UK by 2012• Digital Radio to be mainstream by 2015• TV networks to expand their use of new mediaWith broadband access more wide spread across the UK and faster connection speeds, advertisers and brands will be able to deliver richer more innovative content and campaigns. Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, outlined the recommendations in the report: "The Government has today set out an ambitious vision to make sure Britain reaps the full economic and social benefits of the digital age." See more on the BBC / Telegraph News / Marketing Week http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/britain-going-digital.html Thu 12 Feb 2009 22:14 GMT This week the nation's snowman population increased ten fold! As many of the Melon team were unable to get to the studio, we were obliged to create a few of our own! Fortunately, thanks to modern technology, we were able to work from home and all deadlines were met. Many thanks to all our clients for their understanding during the disruption. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/a-week-of-snow.html Fri 30 Jan 2009 16:56 GMT Getting online using your mobile phone has become massively popular and receiving e-mails or browsing your favourite websites on the move has never been easier. Of course the rise of Apple’s iPhone and its full web browser capabilities has been a huge contributing factor to mobile browsings popularity and with this comes new challenges for web developers. iPhoney is a mac application that lets you view any website as if it were on an iPhone. This allows web developers to make sure their design works just as well within this miniature format as it does on a full size monitor, giving the user the best possible experience when viewing your websites on their iPhone. It’s free to download, and you can check what your website looks like on a iphone now without even having access to an iPhone.      http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/web-development-for-iphone.html Fri 23 Jan 2009 17:02 GMT The launch of the first ever Macintosh computer on 24th January 1984 means that we can celebrate its 25th birthday. This may go widely unnoticed to the general public as the company and co-founder, Steve Jobs, choose not to be nostalgic about the past. However, as creative people and Apple fans we would like to take the opportunity to celebrate all things Mac and reminisce about the birth of this iconic machine.Launched in 1984 with a TV commercial directed by Ridley Scott (see video) the machine was hugely popular and brought the graphical user interface (GUI) concept to the mass market. The revolutionary machine made the computer back in the 80’s a fun and creative space to work and along with its quirky features, built up its own dedicated community fan base, MacHeads.With a 9 inch screen, upright beige case, separate keyboard and the now iconic one-button mouse, it is reported that the initial production run of machines have the signatures of the design team burned in to the inside of the case. “It's amazing the Mac has lasted so long and had such a positive impact on the world” Macintosh designer Andy Hertzfeld. Read more here on the BBC http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/25-years-of-macintosh.html Fri 19 Dec 2008 15:31 GMT We’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at Melon! A big thank you to all of our clients, suppliers and friends for their continued support. Look forward to seeing you in 2009! Here is a rather crazy Christmas light show best viewed with sound... http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/merry-christmas.html Tue 16 Dec 2008 17:06 GMT In light of the recent headlines regarding the security risks of Internet Explorer, users have been warned to use alternative browsers while Microsoft combat the problem currently affecting millions of users. Unfortunately Internet Explorer has long been recognised by experts as a browser prone to malicious content and a direct pipeline for viruses. As of November 2008, the usage stats are as follows: 26.6% IE7, 20% IE6, 3.1% Chrome, 44.2% Firefox, 2.7% Safari, 2.7% other. Firefox is catching up but is always going to be on the back foot as Internet Explorer browsers are pre-installed and used by default on all of Microsoft's operating systems. The most shocking fact of all is that IE 6 is now 7 years old, 1 in 5 people are still using this outdated technology when a fast and free upgrade is literally a few clicks away! As a web developer I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the glorious Firefox browser. Unlike Internet Explorer, the Firefox browser is a far more efficient and secure browser, effectively helping web developers comply with standards of the web world (what little standard that there is!). Firefox offers a more reliable and effective browsing experience and also includes a wide variety of available plugins endorsed by the makers Mozilla, such as 'No-Script' and 'Adblock Plus' for enhanced security. So give it a try and get your own Firefox now! Another honourable mention is the new Chrome browser. It behaves much like Firefox but is built by search engine giants Google, for optimised Javascript usage and safer browsing. They have tried to keep it as streamlined and simple as possible, with speed and responsiveness in mind, and as a result have come back with a very sturdy web browser. So either way, give Internet Explorer the boot, its old and tired and needs to step back to allow for the next generation of web browsers - ones that people choose to use rather than being forced into using what's already on their desktop. Don't delay, download today! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/browser-wars-end-of-internet-explorer.html Tue 2 Dec 2008 17:27 GMT After many late evenings, planning meetings, millions of lines of code and infinite caffeine our website is now live. Hopefully you will agree it looks good and has loads of useful information on how Melon helps it's clients and could help you. I would just like to say a big well done to all those involved, and our clients for their ongoing support. We plan to keep the website updated regularly and will be starting our e-news updates again soon. If you would like to receive updates, please click here to register. News spread quickly among the animal kingdom, as you can see there were smiles all round! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/new-website-launched68.html Fri 17 Oct 2008 13:48 GMT If a client is using static urls or dynamic urls they may be interested in URL rewriting, which, for search engine optimisation purposes is usually beneficial. URL rewriting is a good idea for websites that are fairly new and have not established themselves within natural search results, this is because URL rewriting, although beneficial in the long run, can upset current rankings in the search engines. If a website is performing well in the search engines for various keywords in natural search, then URL rewriting is not advisable as it will disturb the websites rankings in search engines. This is because a well performing website will have been fully evaluated by search engines including the link urls and page addresses; URL rewriting will change all of these meaning that the search engine will have to update its entire index of your site to be aware of the new page locations. Once that happens, your website is very likely to drop in rankings. This is because back-links that point to a URL will no longer be valid as the URL would have changed, therefore the page rank for the website could drop significantly causing even further impact on the websites performance. Some websites can take months to recover often losing more than what they could potentially have gained. It is advisable to consider the implications of URL rewriting as it will have a negative effect for websites already well established in Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search, Altavista, ASK etc. URL re-writing should only be used on new sites, or websites less than a year old that have little or no establishment in the search engines. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch with us today!   http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/url-rewriting-benefits-and-implications.html Thu 16 Oct 2008 12:51 GMT The Melon CMS system, Engine, has been making headlines lately with the most recent article appearing in Octobers issue of Printing World. Their regular feature ‘I swear by' features our Engine CMS system as the specialist web solution of choice of Jack Nathan, Manager at Total Graphics. The easy-to-use interface provides the new in-house marketing department with a wide range of marketing tools such as; e-marketing, creating and sending e-newsletters and monitoring day-to-day performance of the website. As well as making the website more functional and user friendly, Engine has also proved to be a significant cost saver at Total Graphics. Melon are really pleased that Engine has proved to be such a hit at Total Graphics and are already working on ideas and developments for new features in the future! Click here to see the article.   http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/engine-features-in-printing-world.html Thu 16 Oct 2008 12:48 GMT Huntingdon Racecourse was the venue for the 5th Kubota Live! roadshow out of 8 overall taking place during September. The demanding schedule of events across the UK clearly hadn't affected the enthusiasm of the Kubota team of demonstrators and support staff, as they eagerly got us girls to have a go on a variety of machines! This was Melon's second taste of Kubota Live! The Ultimate ‘hands on' roadshow! which is run bi-annually, it really is hands on! The whole range of Kubota machines were on site, complete with keys in the ignition, ready for an eager volunteer to put them through their paces (with some instruction and supervision of course!). We managed to test out most of the machinery throughout the day: construction diggers, the compact STV tractor, the Zero Turn mower, the mighty M128X tractor and a mind-boggling test on a mower with ‘reversed' steering. It was a great day for us to get hands on with the machines we know so well and not forgetting to do some work networking with the sales and support team. The RTV900 course seemed to be the most popular of the day, with a steady stream of dealers, customers and Kubota enthusiasts testing one of the many RTV900s available round the course, and it was definitely our favourite machine!     http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/hands-on-at-kubota-live.html Thu 16 Oct 2008 11:56 GMT Please welcome the newest Melonian, Alex to the team. Alex, who specialises in web service development, will be assisting us with project management, information architecture, usability analysis, and SEO. He graduated in 2005 with a BA (hons) in Graphic Design and received a prize at the D&AD Awards for his work for a fictional viral marketing campaign in the same year. Alex was also a lecturer at the University of Luton (now University of Bedfordshire). Over the last 8 years Alex has been working as a freelancer, print designer, artworker, media consultant, flash developer, web architect as well as head of marketing in a number of industries and sectors, and has built up a number of years of experience in working with and for medium-sized and large businesses.   http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/new-melon-for-team-web.html Fri 1 Aug 2008 09:30 GMT Unfortunately since my last blog I hadn’t had much success in the head or regatta season. Luckily the dry spell has ended and my crew won at the St Neot’s Regatta last Sunday. The heat was against Bedford Star. The start wasn’t great but we had a strong middle and last section of the race. It was extremely close and we won by a second or two. We improved our start for the final against Peterborough which ensured a much more comfortable win, and dare I say it, I enjoyed myself. So now I have another pot, but more importantly I have won a point which means I move up a level – I have lost my novice status and I am now a Senior 4 rower.Charlene http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/another-pot-for-me.html Wed 23 Jul 2008 11:07 GMT A warm welcome to Richard who started with us on Monday.Richard is a talented Graphic Design graduate, with a passion for great ideas and has joined us to help ensure we continue to deliver the level of work our clients have come to expect.As we didn't have a suitable picture I have added a picture of a tapir and a duck discussing a pie - very random! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/new-melon.html Tue 22 Jul 2008 13:53 GMT The new website for Somerset College is now live! After a successful pitch back at the start of the year we have come to the end of a very rewarding and successful project. The new site makes use of our powerful 'Engine' Content Management System (CMS) to allow the college to make regular updates to the site via a news, events and blog section. The CMS also enables staff to update courses, downloads, manage and approve new content, manage enquiries, collate statistics and much more. Of course all this activity means the site will be regularly revisited by over 6,000 Somerset students and the general public alike and will also improve it's SEO potential. There are also more features to come as we continue to work with the marketing team at Somerset to deliver them more powerful e-marketing tools.Take a look at: www.somerset.ac.uk http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/new-somerset-college-website.html Wed 2 Jul 2008 15:15 GMT On Sunday Spain claimed their first major title for 44 years after winning Euro 2008 with a victory over Germany.Liverpool striker, the baby faced Fernando Torres, was Spain's goal hero, striking after 33 minutes when he cleverly lifted Xavi's pass over Germany keeper Jens Lehmann. So, the Euro 2008 Championships has come to an end and so has the Melon sweep stake....as we’re such a generous bunch we decided to have prize money for both first and second place! Congratulations goes to Chris! Well done! And to Jennie coming in second with Germany.When quizzed about what they would spend their winnings on Chris replied, “Chicken Tikka” and Jennie, “more Grapes”. With all the fun of the sweep stake subsiding, the Melon’s are planning their next sporting event to support... anyone for Tennis? http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/the-winner-is.html Tue 17 Jun 2008 09:29 GMT 18 games played, 46 goals so far and 70 yellow cards already. As we move into the quarterfinal stages of Euro 2008, some of the Melon’s have already been left behind in the office sweepstake as their team fails to make it through the group stages.With prize money at stake the competition surrounding the adoptive teams has been fierce and not without controversy. Fueled by guesstimates, Google and gossip our lack of European football knowledge has not dampened our spirit of competition. After all it’s the taking part that counts, isn’t it? Nah, come on Portugal! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/football-mania.html Thu 8 May 2008 22:45 GMT Melon was approached by Edge, an educational foundation and the sponsors of a new school in Milton Keynes - The Milton Keynes Academy. The Academy is a new type of learning facility which is set to offer students the very best facilities and a progressive, practical approach to learning. The Academy is currently being built in Milton Keynes and is due to open in September 2009. We have been busy working with the team at the Academy to produce a bank of images, prospectus, promotional materials and website.The first fruits of our labours have now been launched. The website has been designed to keep students and parents up to date with news, progress updates and artistic impressions of how the building will look.The site also makes use of the Engine content management system to enable quick and easy additions to the news, FAQ and key dates section. Click here to see the new website. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/the-milton-keynes-academy.html Fri 18 Apr 2008 11:05 GMT Search Engine Optimisation is a tricky business. Most non techie people see it shrouded in mystery with Google keeping their cards close to their chest, using their complex search algorithms and ever changing formula to get to that coveted #1 spot.However if you type "SEO" into Google, every man and their dog claims to be an SEO expert, but Chuck, the SEO rapper may just take the prize. The lyrics he speaks about in his series of raps explain about SEO / web design and development with almost comedic accuracy, and his latest offering "Design Coding" is nothing short of brilliant. I don't even like rap music (more into my heavy metal etc), but I still find myself tapping my feet in time with the beat, smiling at him describing my daily cave-eats in such an unusual method. "Please do not use tables, even though they work fine. When they come to indexing they give search engines a hard time." Brilliant! ;) PLEASE watch these on Chucks site below. Click here to check out Chuck's website http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/the-seo-rapper.html Thu 20 Mar 2008 17:49 GMT The Easter bunny's were out in force at Melon HQ this year with an abundance of Easter treats for the hard working Melons! The Eggtastic Easter Egg Hunt saw excitement levels rise to an unprecedented hysteria as the festivities began. Following a slap up lunch, wii games and a few goes each on Guitar Hero, all the Melons were suitably filled with Easter spirit and ready for a chocolate egg filled feast! Happy Easter! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/happy-easter.html Fri 29 Feb 2008 10:21 GMT BBC have overhauled their front page with a really cool new look and a whole host of new features to help make your browsing experience better than ever. The new design has a big impact on first impressions, bringing to life with good use of colour and gradients, what was before a fairly flat design. Then up in the top left you will notice a customisation button. This enables you to change the primary colour of all the info boxes, as well as add and remove specific topics such as news, sport, entertainment etc. Not only can you do all that, but you can drag the boxes around your screen much like you would a window or icon on your desktop. This enables you to adjust your own BBC home page to display only the information you want to see, and in the order you want to see it. Then when you leave the site, come back later and naturally all your settings have been saved ready for further viewing. The BBC website has always been at the top of its class, and it continues to impress web professionals and users alike as the technology of the web is pushed ever forward. Click here to take a look http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/the-new-bbc-portal.html Wed 13 Feb 2008 12:00 GMT The Melon team have been working long and hard over the last few months to produce what we believe is an outstanding body of work, full of inspired designs and unique, limited edition, high quality prints that are going to look great on anyone’s wall. Our team has a wealth of talent that we wanted to showcase and build upon, enabling the creative juices to flow with our own ideas and personal inspired designs. With a broad mix from fantastic graphic design illustrations and photography, to fine art prints and original paintings we’ve got something for all tastes. You can be sure that all the prints are unique and high quality; every product is produced on a limited edition basis on fine quality materials using high quality papers and Giclee printing techniques. So if you’re looking for something exciting and different to fill an empty space, look no further - you’ve found the right place! Go take a look and let us know what you think. We’re very proud of the work we have selected for the Shop, we hope you love it too! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/the-melon-shop-is-open.html Wed 6 Feb 2008 14:54 GMT Seeing as you are reading this you might also have noticed that our website has got a new look! Our talented design team have been working hard to make the world of Melon a bit easier on the eye, as well as improving the navigation around the rest of our wonderful site.Along side this we have also added a comments feature to our blog so you can let us know what you think too, plus we have integrated Digg onto some of our pages so that both Melon lovers and people yet to discover us, can keep track on what we are doing using their favourite community based news site. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/melon-web-site-revamp.html Wed 6 Feb 2008 09:17 GMT Here in our idyllic little corner of Buckinghamshire a 500-year-old tradition, and one of the most famous pancake races in the country, continues to pull in a large and supportive crowd. Following strict rules the women of Olney (you must have lived in the town for a minimum of 3 months) don the traditional costume of a housewife (skirt, apron and head covering) and dash the 415 yards from the Market Place to the Church at 11.55am. With some dark clouds looming it looked as if this years race was going to be a bit of a soggy affair but thankfully the pure blue skies returned as the runners waited patiently at the start line. With the road closed, the police holding back the crowds, and St Johns ambulance standing by, the warning bells rung from the Church and after one toss of their pancakes the runners were off! Upon reaching the church contestants must toss their pancake again, and the winner will receive a kiss of peace from the Vicar. Although its not quite certain how it all started the story goes that a harassed housewife, on hearing the church bells, dashed off complete with a frying pan and pancake in hand in order to make it to church on time. Since 1950 the Olney pancake race has been an international event. The town of Liberal in Kansas, USA, after seeing a press story about the race in Olney started their own identical race and the two towns now compete annually to see which town can produce the fastest competitor! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/pancake-racing.html Tue 5 Feb 2008 15:02 GMT Ever wondered how big the internet actually is? Well if you think of your site as a needle in a proverbial haystack that is the web then you're not far wrong.The Netcraft January survey estimates that last month there were 155,583,825 web site domains in total. That equates to one domain per person if you combine the total populations of the UK and Germany.Two others interesting data points: 1) Growth had slowed from 5.4 million new sites in December to just 354,000 new sites in January2) Apache servers, which had been suffering a long decline have actually had a bit of a surge lately, and all at the expense of Microsoft... Hoorah! :P Click here to read the full story. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/how-big-is-the-web.html Fri 1 Feb 2008 11:57 GMT While browsing this months .net, near the back in their random funny links section I came across a poster / wall chart of many different types of geek. As its the new millenium, and most of the internet seem to be embracing their inner geek, its time to ask the question...Which geek are you?Please check out the link below for the original poster. We have spliced together some of our favourites above! Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/what-type-of-geek-are-you.html Wed 30 Jan 2008 10:59 GMT Welcome back to the Melon Blog and a happy and prosperous new year! Already in 2008 we have been working our socks off on new projects and getting back into the swing of things. Apologies for the lack of blogs, we’ve been busy, busy! January has been an extremely productive time at Melon HQ - we have helped Kubota launch their new machine - the GL40 Series, the web geeks have been working away on new websites and content management systems and a new education prospectus is now finalised and on its way to the printers! On top of all this we have also been putting the final touches together for the long awaited Melon Shop, we’re all really excited about launching this new element of Melon and showing the public our personal creative talents. Be sure to keep an eye out - you’ll soon find an amazing mix of contemporary and unique prints from graphic illustrations, photography and even some original paintings. If you’re already signed up for the e-newsletter you’ll be the first to know all about the Melon Shop! Watch this space!The question is, how on earth would we have got all this done on one of the original Apple Computers? Not quite as slick as the new iphone, itunes etc, but it is where it all started! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/happy-new-year.html Tue 18 Dec 2007 13:56 GMT A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year from everyone at Melon! After a fantastic year we would like to send out a big thanks to all of our clients, suppliers and friends for their continued support.We have selected one of the only suitable pic from our recent Christmas party. Many pics were taken but very few are suitable for the public domain! Enjoy the holidays and we will see you next year. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/happy-christmas.html Thu 22 Nov 2007 14:15 GMT Melon ‘did something different’ this year for Children in Need. For 5 days any form of bad language was fined with a sliding scale of punishment - some words were particularly costly!Whilst the swear box was the clear winner for stumping up cash, not that we’re a foul mouthed lot or anything, ‘wear a silly hat day’ proved extremely popular, good fun and strangely quite liberating for some.Other fundraising activities included the Pudsey scratch-a-square-to-match game and donating extra lunch money in exchange for a fish ‘n’ chips artery busting, carbohydrate fest.We raised a tidy sum for Children in Need and had a laugh in the process! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/children-in-need.html Thu 1 Nov 2007 16:50 GMT The further adventures of Monkey…The night grew dark quickly for Monkey in anticipation of Halloween. Then, suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Rat-a-tat-tat! The first trick or treaters of the night had already arrived, ‘TRICK OR TREAT’ they yelled! Monkey was so excited, he had prepared all afternoon for this spooky moment, he knew it was the night when spirits can make contact with the physical world and when dark magic is at its most potent of all. He was even more cross not to be ready in his outfit to welcome the little group of excited boys and girls out collecting sweets and treats. Never mind though, it turned out the young trick or treaters found his freshly carved pumpkin quite frightening enough and were glad to except a few treats to add to their haul. What a frightfully spooky lot! Whilst the sky grew darker, twinkling with stars, Monkey sat with his pumpkin, a little glow of warmth from its candle easing the cold. Great numbers of ghosts and ghouls and witches and goblins drifted by, each even more spooky than the last. Until, finally, the streets were empty, and the sweets were all gone. Monkeys cheeks ached from munching too many chewy goodies!To be continued… http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/monkeys-halloween-fright.html Fri 19 Oct 2007 09:58 GMT We've recently updated our website with an improved folio section, services page and a new website section.We've also been finalising our powerful new Content Management System - Engine. The system will integrate with any website we build to offer our clients the ability to instantly update their website content, add images, track statistics and much more. Follow the link below to take a look at our new website show case and to find out more about our comprehensive website and digital services. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/new-website-section.html Fri 19 Oct 2007 09:40 GMT Our latest edition of Slices has been finalised and is now available for your perusal and subsequent enjoyment! You can register for Slices and receive a copy direct to your email box every quarter by registering on our contact page. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/autumn-enewsletter.html Fri 5 Oct 2007 16:46 GMT The excitement was apparent today as our new Pantone mugs arrived. Everybody now has their own Pantone referenced mug. Charlie kindly offered to model the design and drinking action of his new ceramic friend (he's got a nice pink one (PMS239)!The only question left to answer was "who's making the tea?". http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/lovely-new-mugs.html Tue 2 Oct 2007 09:31 GMT We wish to welcome our new Melon, Cyn to the team! Cyn will be assisting in the development of our digital media division.As a graduate from Lancaster uni (finishing with a First Class Honours in IT and Media Communications), Cyn has a good knowledge of PHP and HTML, and is keen to learn. She has already got to grips with our Linux (Ubuntu) machines after her first day of work, nice one! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/melon-expanding.html Tue 18 Sep 2007 12:20 GMT It’s been over ten years since I first connected to the Internet; back then the Internet was “dialled up” using squawky modems and free CD’s from magazine covers. For a monthly subscription users were provided with slow, unreliable access to an Internet that didn’t seem to serve any particular purpose. In 1996 music was still purchased on the “high street”, Doctors helped with viruses and if you needed information you looked in a “book”. The Internet was basically a place geeks could discuss Star Trek without being punched in the groin. It was new and people rightfully were wary, it was perceived as a dark and mysterious place where “cookies” could make withdrawals from your bank account and Governments could monitor what you searched “Alta Vista” for. People didn’t understand what it was and were naturally suspicious of its motives. Luckily in 2007, even your Granddad can successfully access flyfishing.com, and although millions of geeks still argue the correct pronunciation of “hello” in Klingon, the Internet has grown and diversified, bringing together not only people but technologies, and that is where the future of the Internet lies. Mobile Phones, Televisions and even kitchen appliances are now gateways to a high-speed global network. It is this coming together of technologies which will finally unlock the true potential of the Internet. It is time for web developers (The Architects of the Internet) to rethink how they perceive and harness the power of the internet, web browsing was only the beginning, e-commerce is now as important to retailers as the "high street" and as technologies improve, diversify and evolve, the divide between online and offline will blur or even disappear, imagine a world in which your new car automatically informs the coffee maker your nearing home and the coffee maker reminds the fridge it needs to order in more milk for tomorrows breakfast… Lets face it the Internet has changed beyond recognition in only ten years, If the web was a human it would still be playing Transformers and drinking fizzy pop - yet its already changed the lives of almost every single person in the world. I couldn’t of dreamt what it would become in such a short space of time, in the future when I have children of my own, I will find myself reminiscing (via email) about the days before the Internet. I will talk about non Internet cafe's and how we used to buy offline. They will probably LOL at me before downloading their sandwiches and logging onto school.com Click here for more http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-internet.html Fri 14 Sep 2007 09:12 GMT Search giant Google is offering a $30m prize pot to private firms that land a robot rover on the Moon.The competition to send a robot craft to the Moon is being run with the X-Prize Foundation.To claim the cash, any craft reaching the lunar surface must perform a series of tasks such as shoot video and roam for specific distances.Firms interested in trying for the prize have until the end of 2012 to mount their Moonshot. Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/google-backs-private-moon-landing.html Mon 10 Sep 2007 12:14 GMT For 15 years there have been thousands of “Made in China” bathtime ducks floating halfway around the world’s oceans. Just recently the armada of yellow rubber friends started to arrive in Clyde, Scotland and are about to begin showing up in the Glasgow river.The mass of yellow ducks, blue turtles, and green frogs broke free from a container in Pacific ocean due to bad weather 15 years ago.The destination was supposed to be Tacoma, Washington but instead, they have traveled over 17,000 miles landing in Hawaii and have even been iced in the Arctic. Now they’re expected to be heading to South-West England.The toys have greatly helped scientists in researching world ocean currents. You can easily recognize the toys with the faded white colors and a “The First Years Inc” stamp, which was who the toys were made for originally.The company was offering £50 reward for each toy found but they are worth nearly £1,000 on the market. Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/well-travelled-rubber-duckies.html Wed 5 Sep 2007 11:57 GMT Please all give our new Melon, Paul a warm welcome! Paul joins the team as our Sales & Accounts Manager and will further strengthen our web design services.With a strong background in web design & technologies, Paul will interpret the techie speak of our developers (1011 1010... :P), and keep things on track! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/a-fresh-new-melon-in-the-team.html Wed 22 Aug 2007 13:51 GMT Thank you to everyone who entered the Melon website launch competition to win a DAB digital radio. We had a fantastic reponse and recently drew the winner.Congratulations to Helen Johnson of OCR who was the first name out of the hat. Our very own Accounts Director Fiona recently presented a delighted Helen with her prize (pictured).Five runners up prizes of £20 John Lewis gift vouchers were also handed out - we hope you spend them wisely! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/competition-winner.html Tue 14 Aug 2007 11:43 GMT If you fancy dressing your PC in something a little more retro try a 'pata pata' style clock or lego builder screensaver! Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/retro-computer-wear.html Fri 27 Jul 2007 10:25 GMT 'Circa 1967: Works from the Arts Council Collection'Milton Keynes Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings and sculptures selected from the Arts Council Collection to mark the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Milton Keynes. Artists include David Hockney, Joe Tilson and Robyn Denny. Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/new-exhibition-at-mk-gallery.html Thu 19 Jul 2007 17:19 GMT I have been a member of the MK rowing club for about a year and a half now, and have competed in various head and regatta races with no success, however Sunday 15th July was different.As part of the women's novice coxed 4s I competed in the Bedford Quarts 600m sprint and won! I almost completed a double and narrowly missed out in the women's senior 2 team.Hopefully this is just the beginning of a successful amateur rowing career!Charlene http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/i-finally-won-a-pot.html Mon 16 Jul 2007 09:07 GMT One of the Melon members, Jennie Krupinski, recently competed in Bracknell in the Adult Open Figure Skating Competition. She was placed 3rd and won a bronze medal.Well done Jennie! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/nice-one.html Wed 6 Jun 2007 17:35 GMT We recently competed in the Matthew Burley Memorial charity golf event held at Pavenham golf club. On a bright sunny afternoon we were the second of fourteen teams to tee off and tackle the course. With no experience of the Texas Scramble format we were venturing into the unknown and struggled over the first few holes with our short game letting us down. We dug deep and played some impressive shots to be only two over after the front nine holes and happy we were playing well as a team. With the competition in full swing we started to produce some great holes on the back nine – Chris Henley narrowly missed out on the longest drive on the ninth & Steve produced a fine effort on the par 3 16th – going very close. But it was definitely a great team performance with Chris Horsnell being named the short game assassin and holing puts where others failed. If only he could use his putter for every shot! After an enjoyable round of wonder shots, missed puts and plenty of laughs we retired to a fund raising dinner having not finished last and helping to raising over £450 for the charity of the Burley’s choice.Charlie (clearly the best golfer!) http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/charity-golf-day-fore.html Fri 25 May 2007 13:15 GMT Sunday morning, bright and early at 7am...sun was shining, birds were singing and I was limbering up for what felt like a marathon!...but was in fact only a 10k fun run for the Marie Curie Cancer Care.I felt totally unprepared in my head for what was about to happen, but from somewhere within as I started to run I felt this overwhelming urge to just keep running, the feeling of running with a crowd of people who all had the same determination...is this what Forrest Gump felt like when he started running?!I kept a steady pace and although I felt like I was being overtaken quite a bit I didn't finish last and later discovered that I was being over taken by the 15 mile runners who seemed to run like a completely different species!I completed the race in 1.12mins, the feeling of the last stretch with my friends cheering me on to the finish line was like no other feeling...My body felt exhausted but felt I had the power sprint to the end, it was just brilliant....the pain was the next day when my limbs had temporally seized up!I have since recovered and cant wait for my next running challenge! Jennie ( by the way im the one in black). Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/10k-not-so-fun-run.html Wed 23 May 2007 14:32 GMT When my identity as the Jaffa Cake thief was finally discovered I took my chances to quietly escape from the office mango tree before inevitable capture. After long days and nights of travel stowed away in Mary’s suitcase (the unsuspecting new member of the melon team) I found myself on a tropical island paradise. My escape was even better than expected; I was in the Dominican Republic! The sea was beautifully clear and warm with all the shades of blue and green a small monkey like myself could imagine. I basked in the heat of the sun until my wool was completely frazzled when I sought shelter under the enormous leaves of the tallest palm trees I’d ever seen. The white sand and gentle water soothed my wool but soon enough thoughts of home returned. No matter how hard I tried the sweet rum and coconut cocktails could not satisfy my need for the Jaffa cakes I longed for. And so, I reluctantly climbed back into the suitcase to return and face the music and munch in secret once again…. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/the-adventures-of-monkey.html Thu 17 May 2007 19:51 GMT Seeing as I coded this blog system I guess its time for me to make a post.. but be warned, this is one for the geeks ;)   Anyways, fed up of Windows XP with its pop-ups, spyware, random problems, and crashes etc I decided it was time to find another solution. I don´t fancy upgrading to Vista, as it´s basically XP with a pretty Mac style interface, a few bells and whistles, and will be shocking until a service pack to fix all the bugs.Speaking of Macs, you can run OS X on PC´s these days. Its a nice enough OS, but would be a nightmare to develop in, and I need 2 mouse buttons! Not to mention I wouldn´t hear the end of it from the rest of team Melon (every single one a Mac user).This brings me to Linux, a free, open source, OS built by a community of people to strengthen functionality, rather than profits. This results in a tidy, efficient, feature packed piece of software.Linux comes in many flavour´s (or distributions), but I am going to go with Ubuntu (which apparently means "Humanity towards others"), due to its stability, and a few nifty features it has.Why am I telling you all this? The image above (Enlarge image) is a screenshot of Ubuntu with Beryl, a desktop manager that enables multiple virtual desktops to be viewed on a cube interface. How cool is that? Your PC screen in a 3D environment!In this instance its more of a hexagonal tube that rotates, but you can add as many ´viewports´ as you like, and with dual screens makes a great way to multi-task.Now I can have my code, the page I am working on, my email, my remote desktop machines, and any other websites or programs running all nicely managed on their own virtual screens, free of clutter. Chris (AKA Techie Chris, or ´the Geek´ :P) Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/melon-web-team-now-powered-by-ubuntu.html Wed 16 May 2007 14:01 GMT 2007 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Helvetica. The typeface, inspired by the 1896 font Akzidenz Grotesk, was designed by Max Miedinger in 1957 in conjunction with Eduard Hoffmann for the Haas Type Foundry, in Muenchenstein, Switzerland.The anniversary is being marked with a documentary film, exhibitions and numerous articles. Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/happy-birthday-helvetica.html Tue 1 May 2007 17:35 GMT The first annual Spring jolly was a great success - the venue 'Alton Towers'. The weather was good, the food was food and we discovered the answers to such questions as 'Where will this excessive queue lead?' and 'Why should I need this insane yellow mac?' Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/alton-towers-ahoy.html Mon 16 Apr 2007 17:34 GMT We have just added another great new service for our clients and suppliers. Our dedicated FTP facility called 'fileswappa' enables us to upload and download large files and transfer information quickly via the internet.The system provides a unique, secure login which enables the recipient to download the files they need with the touch of a button.This helps to ensure we can achieve faster turnaround times and reduces the consumables we use - which in turn compliments our environmentally friendly ethos. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/fileswappa-launched.html Mon 16 Apr 2007 17:14 GMT Another new melon joined the team today. A big welcome to Mary who will be helping to make sure we keep up the great service and get things right for our clients by researching and developing new strategies. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/another-melon.html Fri 30 Mar 2007 16:24 GMT After a week long investigation into the mysterious disappearance of the Melon Jaffa Cake supply we finally uncovered the source of the theft. The knitted primate was caught red handed swinging from the office mango tree by his opposable thumbs. Upon questioning, the 'monkey' had little to say in his defence (we are still unsure whether this was due to the massive Jaffa Cake in his tiny mouth or because he is made primarily of wool).Needless to say the team are all incredibly grateful and Jaffa Cake consumption is now back to normal. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/jaffa-cake-theft-solved.html Fri 30 Mar 2007 16:20 GMT There seems to be a big divide amongst the Melon Heads today.The question on everyones mind is.....Are Brooches cool?We say yes!...Despite the up roar of male Melons.....to be continued! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/brooch-breakout-skewers-melons.html Tue 27 Mar 2007 15:05 GMT We'd like to give a warm welcome to Alix the newest addition to our ever growing team. Alix will be helping Charlie bring in some lovely new clients for us! http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/we-are-growing.html Thu 22 Mar 2007 14:09 GMT The launch of our new website is proving to be a great success. We had hundreds of hits in the first two days after sending out our first enewsletter. Don't forget to enter our competition to win a top of the range DAB digital radio. We will be drawing the winner during the first week of July. Thanks to everyone who have given us their positive feedback so far. If you have any comments on our website please feel free to get in touch. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/website-launch-a-success.html Thu 15 Mar 2007 16:12 GMT Putting for tea made a welcome return this week resulting in our Lead Web Developer Chris losing a hard fought contest. Things were tight early on, all the players looking a little rusty. The standard soon improved with Steve picking up a hole in one. In the end the pressure was too much and Chris folded in the final game and made tea for six. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/putting-for-tea-results.html Wed 14 Mar 2007 13:57 GMT On Sunday I ran in the Milton Keynes half marathon. The sun was shining, though it was fairly windy at times. I was nervous about completing the race as I was recovering from a cold I had that week. The course started and finished at the Open University, and there was a good atmosphere.I ran the first half quite comfortably and it took me an hour. It was at this point that I thought I could run the distance in 2 hours. This was my first half marathon so I didn’t have a time in mind – I just wanted to get through the course without stopping. I found the 9th and 10th mile quite hard and I was so happy to see the 12 mile marker. We were well supported by volunteers and onlookers which kept me going when I wanted to stop. I managed to run the whole course in 2 hours and 2 minutes which I am very proud of, but there is the competitive streak in me and I am already thinking about competing in this distance again – only I want to run it in less than two hours! Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/mk-half-marathon.html Mon 12 Mar 2007 12:28 GMT We like the new BBC Two on-screen identity, which comprises of a series of idents, a new logo and colour palette. The idents see the figure 2 become a window device within which various different scenarios are played out. To view the series of idents visit the url below, you can even have a go at creating your own! Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/bbc-two-launches-a-new-look.html Sun 11 Mar 2007 15:11 GMT Create you own funny ‘presentation’ by downloading footage of Dragon’s Den and combining it with your own video. Whether it’s demonstrating a ludicrous invention or making an astonishingly inappropriate pitch - just as long as it's funny. The creator of the best video will win a trip to the Den! Click here for more. http://www.meloncreative.co.uk/blog/win-a-visit-to-the-dragons-den.html