Below we’ve simply showcased some website designs that we like for one reason or another! We hope we enjoy the read and we’ll soon be getting started on a similar post on inspiration for mobile website design and App design so watch this space!

Harvey Nichols

We love new Harvey Nichols website which was launched last year. Beautiful home page and a really well designed shopping area however they have recently changed the home page design to a more conventional design which is a shame.

www.harveynichols.com/

Raf Simons

We’ve followed the Raf Simons brand for a while now and we love their latest website with the background backdrop a series of rotating videos. Would be nice to turn the annoying music off though – bet they have a higher bounce rate because of that!

http://www.rafsimons.com/

Salvatore Ferragamo

While this site has a stunning design, the beauty is in the outfit builder from pod1 which works like a treat! Take it for a spin…

http://trunkshow.ferragamo.com/

The Famous 4th Street Cookie:

This really is a tasty design and makes you hungry just looking at it! We love this design because of its typography and the visual element to it really help to sell the brand and the products they’re selling! We’ve got to put an order in for the office – delivery to the UK might be fairly pricey!

www.famouscookies.com

Carls Restaurant:

The visual impact of this site just sells the place. After looking at the site, it just makes you want to go and sample the food and cocktails which just look out of this world.

The site oozes personality and it’s the visual element that gives aids this. Apart from the obvious visual impact, the site’s simple and has a lovely 3D effect nav bar. Going to have to check out how much flights are to Oslo to see this place!

www.carls.no

Billabong:

We love the Australian version of the Billabong website and again mainly down to the visual impact and we like the “Life’s better in board shorts” campaign and how the interacted that with Billabong customers and fans.

http://www.billabong.com.au/

Immersive Garden:

We’ve followed the website of Immersive Gardens for a while now and we love the the interactivity of the site and its stunning flash element… words aren’t enough, check it out for yourself and enjoy!

http://www.immersive-garden.com/

Trinity One:

Being a company proud of its Yorkshire routes and with a major development in Leeds City Centre taking place; we wanted to give this site a mention. We’ve seen better but it’s got a nice visual home page and we like the brand.

www.trinityleeds.com/

Vector Photography:

We first came across Vector Photography just through the industry that we’re in and we’ve since become good friends with the company. In many projects that require photography we often work in partnership with Vector as their work is pure class. However, this blog post is not about mentioning friends – their site has and should have a huge visual impact being in the photography industry. Check it out…

www.vector-photography.com/

Your Marquee:

The Marquee industry is not exactly know as being the forefront of digital marketing to say the least but Your Marquee have certainly embraced the digital age.

Stunning website design… again a Yorkshire company!

www.your-marquee.co.uk/

Your Marquee v2:

Sophie Likes:

This site oozes character and we love how the navigation design is influenced by the image on the about us page. Yorkshire company again!

www.sophielikes.com/

EBFT Photography:

A website that is dedicated to the work and travels of a passionate photographer egged on by friends to start selling it online. We love it when a website is ‘all about the work’ as long as the word it top notch – why should the site be anything else. A north west photographer.

URL to follow:

Baytree Pub & Restaurant:

A beautiful website. Obviously it’s site with background imagery scaling to the full size of the browser but we love the little touches of this site such as the ‘menu chalk boards’ that are promoted on the home page – character. Again… a Yorkshire company!

www.baytreestillington.com/

Byron Restaurant:

We we’ve left the north and now giving the south some exposure! Byron Hamburgers are located across our Capital and we love their site’s design – bet their burgers are pretty good too!

www.byronhamburgers.com/

The Little Cake Parlour:

We love the brand of this site and it works well throughout the site. Every week there seems to be a new cup cake company launching such is the crazy so standing out from the competition is key – we think this site could be improved upon certainly but we do like the brand. Would you agree?

www.thelittlecakeparlour.co.uk/

Desina:

Nice to see a site that it’s not geared up to the super size skinny woman as in reality that’s not a true reflection on our society’s average woman. So we like the products of Desina and what they stand for in their company message. The site has a good design, clean, easy to use and good use of call to actions.

www.desina.co.uk/

37 East:

A company offering tailor made safari trips to Africa and they use some stunning photography. We love how they made good use of the image scaling the full width of the browser and it looks great in all the main browser sizes.

www.37east.co.uk/

Easy Bistro:

We’d like to finish on a band and we love this brand and how it flows through the site and in particular it’s navigation. Very simple site but it’s refreshing!

www.easybistro.com/

As always we’d welcome your comments on our posts or feel free to share this post on your social media platforms…

We’ve now been working with the Sheffield Law Society for spot on a year now and we’re pleased to announce the issue 7 (the first of 2012).

At the beginning of last year the Sheffield Law Society asked Impression DP to give the magazine a full re-design. We started with the name which we changes from the Bulletin to The Legal and at the same time giving it a fresh new design that’s gone down a storm amongst the legal community.

Click here to have a look at the latest issue! Comments welcome.

Charlie founded the company in April 2009, at the start of the current economic gloom and at the age of 24. His energy and passion in striving for superior standards of creative flair, good design and giving clients top level customer service he’s helped the company grow in gaining an excellent client base both locally and nationally and plans to open an office in London in the near future.

See the current issue of the Yorkshire Insider to read the full feature on Charlie.

Design and Specify (D&S) has completed work for Dooson Power Systems on a 5,000 square foot office at their Abbey Court premises on the town’s Business Park.

And Dooson has been so pleased with the end rsults that the Leeds based design company has subsequently been appointed to fully refurbish the 6,700 square foot Central UK head office for the prestigious global firm – also at Selby Business Park.

A highly competitive tender process saw Design and Specify (D&S) win the initial brief. Duncan Horner, company director commented: “As designers we thought through the space and the materials available and came up with a workable response to the brief. We were just trying to provide Doosan with the most practical solution and that won us the business.”

Design and Specify were asked to combine two units at the Abbey Court development to make larger office space for Doosan. The two properties now have enhanced communication via a fibre optic link.

Steve Worrell – Central Branch Manager from Doosan commented, “We have already begun working with D&S on our plans for a full refurbishment of our Central UK head office and I’m confident this will rival if not exceed our expectations of the new build premises we were originally planning to undertake.’’

Click here to have a read on Charlie’s views on the Harrogate social scene and local economy amongst other things and let us know your what you think!

When the supermarket chain bought Kiddicare last year for a reported £70 million it was stated (or assumed) that the acquisition represented Morrison’s first step into major online retailing. The recent announcement that the supermarket giant plans to bring its Kiddicare brand out of cyber space and make it into a chain of real, proper shops (over and above its existing site at Peterborough),  is rather refreshing.

Ecommerce has become the mainstay for many companies around the world. With global economic gloom it has become the ‘no brainer’ for many – with minimal overheads and the ability to compete on price more effectively than high street retailers, there has been a collective dash for the apparent safe haven of ecommerce.

Ecommerce is indeed a brilliant, convenient and often cheaper option than high street shopping, but do companies always get it right?

In our business we build and design ecommerce sites regularly. When properly managed these well designed, optimised platforms with a full online marketing strategy in place, can work very well, generating sales and custom. However what doesn’t work is when a company simply decides to bolt on an ecommerce section or cut corners.

A bit of an afterthought for many or maybe it’s just following the clan, a band aid ecommerce solution isn’t going to do you or your business any favours.

We’ve all had virtual trolleys and baskets thrown in our faces; badly designed sites with unprofessional layouts that are annoying, tedious to navigate and poor checkout systems… do you want us to pay you!

This does nothing to warm you to a company let alone encourage you to part with your money; businesses would do well to remember competitors are only a click away.

Worse than the lack of sales is the potentially damaging effect poorly managed sites can have on reputation, something which can’t be so readily restored via clever SEO techniques or web content.

With this in mind its important companies think carefully before jumping into the arms of ecommerce. It’s also important that they work with an experienced ecommerce design agency who can transfer the objectives into a well-designed, functioning website. Back that up with a structured online marketing campaign and you’ll produce the right online traffic and sales.

If you’ve currently got an ecommerce website that’s not producing the results you expect then ask yourself some of the below questions:

• Is your website really well designed or could it be better? Be critical. A lot of clients love their own websites like they love their own kids but could it be better? It’s important to keep improving your online offering.
• Is traffic well directed and can visitors find what they need quickly?
• Is the information accurate and up to date? There’s nothing worse than a stagnant website with no fresh content.
• If you’re selling something don’t plaster AdSense adverts all over the website!
• Finally and of crucial importance is that the website is built by a good quality developer and not someone fresh out of college. Make sure the code of the site is up to date and secure otherwise you run the risk of being hacked and having future issues with the website.

These are just a few simple questions you can ask yourself if you’ve currently got an ecommerce site to make sure it’s working for you and adding to your long term business growth.

With grade a space in the prime area continuing to be at low levels, and supply at an all-time low, the future of office space in Leeds is currently unclear. Owing to the continued strain on finance; building and development remains subdued and occupiers are restricted in their choices.

Within the industry there is a continued emphasis on the forthcoming major lease events that are due to take place in 2013 and 2017. These will provide something of a shake up for the office sector, and Leeds’ largest occupiers will have to make the choice between staying put or moving to a fringe location. The predicament that these companies are likely to find themselves in with such limited choices serves to highlight how office development in the city will have to change moving forward, in order that it can continue.

Slowly we are starting to see that developers are approaching office building differently, and with the traditional pre lets of over 50% almost non-existent it’s not difficult to see why. Developers finally, after the heady days of the early noughties are having to approach building in a much more responsible and realistic way, sourcing income through mixed let schemes and the such.

Whilst for some occupiers the prospect of sharing your office building with retail or leisure facilities is horrifying, looking forward it seems that mixed use buildings will have to be the norm if building in the city is to progress. Schemes such as The Whitehall Plaza project located in front of No 1 Whitehall Riverside is planned to include a 130-bed Premier Inn and 50,000 sq. ft. of Grade A office space. Such schemes provide far greater financial certainty for investors and building is set to begin in x.

Indigo Blu is another example of a mixed use – building. Most notable for being one of the few buildings to actually be finalised in the city this year the project combines circa 10,173 sq. ft. of office accommodation with 46 residential apartments. Whilst this is a less compatible coupling owing to conflicting tenures, this is an example of how developers are striving to maintain a level of building in the face of one of the toughest economies in recent times.

Ultimately following this model office building will become smaller and developers would be wise to keep  to 70-100,000 sq. ft.  where a good ratio of pre let is not unrealistic. Indeed this is not an entirely new phenomenon and if one looks at Leeds there are examples of mixed use commercial building which have been in existence for decades. The Merrion Centre is one example of this, mixing leisure, retail and office facilities the development has stood its ground through some of the toughest times including the situation we now face.

- ends -

Beth Coombes

Impression PR- PR Director

0333 5775 300