Waterside Network Group

Another collaboration with Simon from Ceratopia, this site combines a fun, fresh feel with local professional business and community content. We have included a few subtle animations and effects to liven things up. The dots under the navbar were a bit of a challenge.

We particularly like the Our Members page with Simon’s bee and the animated member tiles. As always all our own code and designed to work in every browser and on mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone.

The top blog posts are highlighted on the home page to add value to visitors and to keep the site dynamic. We have also linked the blog into the Waterside Network Group’s Facebook page. The site has been designed so that Google and other search engines will find it and the blog will enhance search engine performance.

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Chapmans the Building Company

We really enjoyed taking the photos of Dean’s amazing building projects and creating this stylish showcase website. The site design includes subtle animations, a creative gallery of images and a project showcase area. Because we didn’t use Adobe Flash this site works on all browsers and even the iPad and iPhone.

Building on Chapmans original colours we created a new logo and quality feel to better reflect the prestigious nature of Chapman’s work. We love the combination of red with black and white.

We set up a business Facebook page and sorted all the mechanics...email accounts, domain name registration, on page SEO and an easy to use Content Management System.

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Roynon Dance School

The dark background, hot pink, designed logo, graphic elements and selected stock photos combine to create a stylish website. As well as presenting the School’s capabilities, the site has useful information for existing students - timetables, key dates and a blog to help with communications. So a functional site as well as good looking one!

Simon from Ceratopia designed the logo and recommended us - many thanks.

We set up the organisation's Facebook page and Twitter account to help get information out there on news, shows, events....and exams! We also sorted out new email accounts.

The site is Search Engine Optimised and properly structured to help Google find it.

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HiQ Building Services

Jason and Jordan fitted our new en-suite shower and ended up with a new website! This is another lovely looking website designed from scratch - no templates here at Focal Strategy.

HiQ have a great reputation and provide excellent, good humoured service and we wanted their new website to reflect this. The choice of colours (red and pink) was purposeful to make it attractive to our feminine side - usually the decision maker and the shower head telephone is a subtle injection of humour.

Once again we sorted all the mechanics of the website and associated services (domain name selections and redirects, email accounts, Google Places ownership, blog, links into social networks, etc). HiQ have also booked our “blogging service” to help with news posts - they are too busy working on projects!

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A&E Cleaning Solutions

Leigh came to us knowing exactly what his company needed and with established branding (logo by Wayne Burgess). The design was created around the branding, using the strong logo and colours to deliver a clean (obviously) easy to read, informative website. The blog is linked up with A&E’s Facebook page helping Leigh to communicate to a wide range of customers and proactively improving search engine results with dynamic useful content. As with all our new websites, the client has an easy to use Content Management System accessed via a useful admin panel. All our sites also use Google Analytics to monitor traffic levels and a whole lot more.

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IT South

We revamped an existing site giving IT South a new look - describing their growing range of services for both business and household customers. Another strong logo by Simon of Ceratopia helped us determine the design fonts, colour scheme and graphic elements.

This simple site delivers clear, professional messages about the services on offer. Carefully selected images combine with the graphic design to make it pleasant and easy to read and navigate.

All our sites are visually designed using Adobe Fireworks and CS5. All our coding is completed from scratch using text editors.

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Splash Display

Another website overhaul for us, working hand-in-hand with Splash Display. This site has a unique, visually interesting feel with strong use of graphics, animation and images. Stewart from Splash is a designer himself so we worked collaboratively to create this new look.

The website is designed so that it can be expanded and managed effectively. All our websites are driven by a behind the scenes database making it easy to deliver content flexibly. A shop will be added to this website enabling Splash customers to purchase all standard products online. New project examples will also be added as they are completed and we just about to create an area to enable clients to upload artwork - so this site has been designed to be future proof!

Due to the complexity of this site we used wire-framing techniques to discuss structure with the client before getting into the visual design. Once again this site had to work on the iPad so all animations are created without using Adobe Flash.

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Southampton Hackney Association

This website design works so well, mainly down to the excellent photos... all taken by Focal Strategy. We really had fun photographing the taxis in Southampton and the ships from the dockyard. We designed a new cleaner, fresher logo for SHA and they love the end result!

A relatively simple site providing useful information and with some functionality - enquiry forms, downloadable documentation for taxi drivers, a blog and links into Social Networks (Facebook and Twitter).

We really like the Our Partners page with flippable tiles for advertisers - a nice touch.

We also set SHA up with Google Checkout account to enable them to email invoices allowing their clients to pay securely online.

SHA booked our “blogging service” to help get them going with useful posts that help with SEO, add value to their visitors and reflect the nature of the organisation.

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S&A Logistics

With all new customers we take time to help understand (or develop) marketing strategies before launching into the website design. This might include gaining a better understanding of customers and competition and thinking about how a new website will fit within the overall business strategy and publicity campaigns.

We worked from a outline brief with Gary from S&A Logistics, designed his new logo and chose the strong blue/brown colour scheme. This fairly simple site make it easy for visitors to see the range of services offered and we’ve made it more interesting by using subtle animations and by keeping text to a minimum.

The images are a mix of stock photos and those taken by Gary himself. We applied a blue overlay to tie the website design together.

We helped with sorting out new email accounts, domain name registration, ownership of Google Places, applying Google Analytics and setting up Facebook and Twitter.

We even convinced Gary to purchase a new MacBook Air to replace an aging laptop... all part of the service!

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TrueCare New Forest

Replacing a terrible template site and sorting out domain name ownership kicked off our design work with Colette at TrueCare. This clean, fresh site incorporates an existing logo with flowing graphic design and contextual photographs.

The use of “call out” boxes makes it easy for a visitor to quickly pick up the key messages from this very caring organisation. Since launching and by using our Content Management System, TrueCare have enhanced the Testimonials page by dynamically linking with The Disc Directory to deliver customer reviews directly to the website.

We love the forest vector footer and think it appropriately softens the design indicating not only the location of this organisation but also their caring values.

We helped this client with all the services associated with the site including links into Social Networks, multi-user email accounts, Google Places ownership and site analytical data.

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Ceratopia Ltd

Working with Simon Chadwick is always such fun! Between us we have great plans for an amazing new site to show off his skills. We have a preliminary design which looks really exciting with colour, fun, exploration, animations, characters, etc.

In the meantime here is a simple but effective holding site with Simon’s very active blog, mini-gallery and interesting contact me page!

We often get asked to design and put up holding or temporary sites in a hurry, while we design something better - so feel free to contact us for any site (micro or massive).

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Pure Aspiration

We love this one-pager! It just slips and slides up and down...

Viv came to us with the logo and colours already designed into a nice booklet (artwork by Sue at Sharp Design). So we converted those designs into a lovely simple site and sorted out a few other things for her - email account, site analytics, etc.

We have also recently designed a poster which matches the site and have visited Viv’s studio in the New Forest to take professional photographs of her beautiful, rural working environment.

We are now talking about including a blog and I hope we can also get her photos up too.

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TailorMade Gems

TailorMade Gems came to us as a relatively new start-up business who needed to present and sell their handcrafted jewellery range online.

We worked with TailorMade Gems to create a new logo, colour scheme and a clean elegant style. We were also commissioned to professionally photograph each item in our studio on a white background.

We designed and built their secure online shop by setting up a product database. The advantages of doing this include the ability to sort items into collections, gifts, categories and to easily add products or update details such as prices.

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Dartrite

Dartrite were looking for a small website to give prospective clients information about their business, and to convey the modern attitude their company has.

We built a simple site with pictures and videos of their work and a way for people to contact them.

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Wedded Bliss Bridal Studio

Wedded Bliss Bridal Studio wanted a major revamp of their existing website. Their brief to us included a wish to make their site more feminine - hence the colour scheme and embelishments.

They wanted to use a new blog feature to selectively post news and events items to their front page and to automatically add posts to Facebook and Twitter.

We also intoduced the ability to sell a selection of their products and accessories online. This includes a simple user interface which they use to sell designer dresses.

Other useful tools provided included a new web based email account and online calendars, improved contact form, listing on Google Places and location map.

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de Boer & Taylor

de Boer & Taylor Equine Veterinary Surgery needed a website to promote their business and to provide useful equine care articles and advice to their clients.

We were commissioned to visit them working on location at stables to take a range of professional photographs of them in action!

Their distinctive sliding design gives the site a contemporary feel. We also designed and provided a range of matching marketing materials - posters for shop windows, compliments slips, folding leaflets, etc.

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The Final Touch

Based in Lymington (Hampshire, UK) this successful business wanted to completely re-style an existing website. We worked with them to design a contemporary clean design including a new fresh logo.

The site has a number of interesting features including a sortable case studies table, a press/news page which has a user interface allowing The Final Touch to add their own articles, drop down menus which do not use Adobe Flash, and before/after galleries featuring The Final Touch's own photos.

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