The number of the day is two. That’s right on the second day of the month we are celebrating our 2nd anniversary (OK… we’re a day late but we don’t work weekends, let alone a Sunday). And on this day as we celebrate hitting two years in business, amazing clients, the great people we work with and another successful year of growth, the future of FHOKE is looking ever brighter.

FHOKE have already been recognised and awarded with the prestigious South West, Top 10 Creative Companies to Watch, an achievement that we have aimed for since seeing the 2009 awards, and one we are pretty damn pleased about. It’s also opened the doors to new and exciting business from the region and one we hope will continue. Unfortunately we weren’t able to attend the Top 100 Launch Party which we were all equally gutted and ecstatic about, as Brett and his wife Claire gave birth to their first child Amy Rose Robinson who continues to do well and keep Brett ever tired.

A little celebratory present to the founders of the company came in the form of two new shiny iPad’s, branded up of course, with our second anniversary stamps. You can download the wallpaper here.

As we continue to look forward to the next year in business, we will remain focused on putting quality back into web design and development. We’ve always believed strong brands are built from the ground up. Our objective is to understand what our clients want to say and to find the most creative and engaging ways to say it. We’ll always put creativity first but our basic rules will get the results too.

So a big Happy Birthday to us and what better way to see out our first year and say goodbye to the number one with Count Von Count.

So the past few months have been incredibly busy for us here at FHOKE and June hasn’t disappointed yet. Last month we spoke about being recognised and awarded with the South West Top 10 Creative Companies to Watch award which is great for all of us here. After just over a year and a half its great to see we are starting to get recognised within the industry.

We’ve also launched two new sites this month. Both of these clients we have worked with before so its great to see them wanting to work with us again and again and to see them becoming successful enough to start new ventures

BigAudioAds.com

Heard of Spotify? Then check out BigAudioAds.com. It’s a site showcasing a collection of awesome voice artists and ad packages that are the industry’s ultimate audio ad resource.

The brainchild of Kieron Donoghue who runs the hugely successful ShareMyPlaylists.com (the leading site for sharing Spotify playlists), Kieron approached us to create a new brand that worked well online and off across all media. We then designed and built the HTML/CSS and content management system for the new site.

The site also features a client area where users can login and sample their adverts alongside a messaging system to help keep track of conversations between both parties.

Take a look…

Pointbank

Welcome to Pointbank. An integrated system that helps motivate and educate sales forces and provides a dedicated communication channel with staff and partners.

Pointbank’s main role is to help motivate sales forces to perform better by operating high-quality rewards-based online incentive programmes. Working with Ricky Knight of Pickledegg Events we have also helped to design the backend system that the sales and management teams use day-to-day.

Ricky approached us to create an iconic brand that stood out from the competition. We then designed the interface of this brochure site and worked closely with Dropp (also awarded with the South West Top 10 Creative Companies to Watch award) to get the site pixel perfect.

Take a look…

Recently I’ve been ramping up my activity on LinkedIn - I’ve used it for a long time now but never really embraced it like I had Twitter and Facebook.

During a recent meeting about a new website project I was recommended to join the Hampshire Business Network on LinkedIn as it had proved to be of value to the customer - so I did.

Once signed up to the group you are encouraged to write a short description about your company to inform other members about what it is you do, so I wrote a short post about FHOKE and the services we offer as a web design and build agency.

Shortly after I posted my comment I received this message from a group member:

“OK Brett but why should I choose you instead of other companies doing the same as this?”

Michael Birchmore - Director at United Kingdom Association for Humanistic Psychology Practitioners

This is a brilliant question - it stopped me for a split-second and made me really think about why people choose to use us over other agencies. It didn’t take me long before I had compiled a list of items that make FHOKE stand out from the crowd.

I replied to Michael’s question for which he thanked me. However, I did write my response in a bit of a hurry as we had to get off to a meeting. When we got back I was somewhat surprised to have received the following comment referring to what I had written:

“Is your proofreader on holiday?”

Andy Neil - Owner, Andronics Ltd. and Embedded Systems Consultant

Nice!

I’ll have to admit, at first I was a tad embarrassed, and then it got me thinking back to a great video posted by Paul Boag of Headscape entitled ‘Why People Think I Should Stop Blogging’. After looking back at this I posted a reply back to Andy and pointed him in the direction of this video.

Andy was very quick to mock what I had said, seemingly to make me look bad in front of the group. What he actually did is highlighted just how narrow minded people can be.

Paul, like myself is not the best at spelling - does this mean that we’re not good at what we do? No - of course not. Here at FHOKE we have a growing portfolio of clients that continue to work with us because we tick all the boxes - we deliver time and time again in a friendly and professional manor, the results speak for themselves.

My faith in people was restored the very next day when we received a call from a local business that had seen the recent LinkedIn activity. They shared my views on Andy’s comment and are looking to work with us on their re-brand in the coming weeks.

So, How Important Is Spelling?

Everyone will have a different view on this, some will find the smallest typo or error irritating - me? I’m much more relaxed.

In printed items such as brochures, stationery, leaflets, posters etc. it’s very important - it does look unprofessional and is not something I condone. These must always be proof read again and again by several people to make sure those errors don’t get through the net. However on personal blogs, social networks and websites however, it can be viewed slightly differently.

Personal Blogs and Social Networks are places where people share thoughts, views or information. Posts and comments are often written quickly about something that the author is passionate about, so the odd typo is bound to crop up even after it’s been checked - should these mistakes be amended? Who cares - the information being conveyed is what’s important (right?).

Corporate brochure websites and blogs are different again, they tell the world about your company on a professional level and they need to appear that way. But, from time to time mistakes in spelling and grammar do occur. These can be amended very quickly and at no cost or inconvenience, so it’s really no big deal.

One Final Note

I’d just like to add though that Andy Neil’s own personal blog has a few typos… not that I’m bitter about it though ;-).

This time last week we got a fantastic email from Jane Sabherwal at Bristol Media informing us that FHOKE had been identified as a creative company to watch during 2010/11. As you can imagine we are all pretty stoked here to hear the news and can’t wait to see our name in print and up on the impending site.

So What Does This Mean?

Well to start with Bristol Media are one of the biggest creative networks in the UK. They are an industry led organisation, whose primary role is to deliver projects, events and opportunities.

Bristol Media also produce the Top 100 South West Creative Companies directory and with nearly 400 individual companies completing the survey last year this years guide is going to be even more hotly contested, making it the region’s definitive creative company guide.

Bristol Media distributed over 5,000 copies of the magazine to businesses across the region last year (closing on 9,000 this year). It went to the top brand and marketing directors throughout the UK and Bristol Media’s partners went armed with copies to conferences all over the world. So as you can imagine this is going to be great exposure for us and all the team.

When, Where, How

The full Top 100 will be published both online and in magazine format at the end of May 2010 and we can’t wait to see the results. We’ll no doubt be shouting about it once it’s up. You can also see last year’s results here.

All to often we hear clients talking about their brand but referring to their logo, we then proceed to tell them that their brand is so much more. Of course their logo is a big part of their brand but that’s not where it ends.

While shopping over the weekend I found a great example of what I’m talking about. Hollister is not a shop that I’ve ever been in, I’ve seen it online and on the high street but I’d never really paid any attention to it or been inside.

My wife convinced me that I needed some new clobber as I looked like a tramp (her words, not mine!) and pointed me in the direction of Hollister. Like I said, I didn’t really know much about it so thought I’d give it a go. Now there’s nothing on the outside of the shop that shouts at you, it’s very understated, dark, moody and has a feeling of something special. You go through the doors and are greeted by a very good looking gentleman who is dressed in a way which is trendy but understated. You walk past a huge chandelier, comfy seating and are presented with a dark room packed full of great clothes. All of the displays are beautifully lit in a way that I’ve not experienced in other shops it’s so dark that it takes your eyes a while to adjust, the clothing lit from above in a way that makes you want to take a closer look as at first it’s kind of hard to see, a bit like an open treasure chest in a dark cave - you can see it sparkle but are unaware of what lies inside.

The store is decked out beautifully with a consistent theme running throughout, the fixtures and fitting look and feel expensive which adds to the exclusive feeling you get when you make your way around. Once you’ve grabbed the items you want, tried them on and decided that you’re just going to buy ALL of them (couldn’t help myself) you make your way over to the counter.

At the counter you’re greeted with a smile by yet more good looking people - all the men are tall, dark and handsome and all the women are blond, tanned and very pretty. They ring your items through the till, fold and bag them up and present you with the receipt. Usually this is a painful time as you’ve spent way more than intended but not at Hollister. This receipt was gold! A receipt printed on gold paper leaves a lasting impression which shouts quality and makes you feel like you’ve just done something special.

You see, a brand is about way more than a logo - sure, Hollister have a nice logo but that’s not all. Its about fixtures, fittings, people, personality, the look, gold receipts and more. It’s about consistency across the brand - it’s a way of life that others buy in to (or not). After all if Halle Berry can pull it off why can’t I?

Here at FHOKE, if we work on a branding and website design project for a new company we don’t just present them with a logo from which the rest of the brand is determined. We build the brand through designing the website - we work on tag lines, colours, language, fonts, imagery, icons and the logo. And what you end up with is the bigger picture, you get to see every element of the brand working together in harmony.

Working this way helps our clients to see from the off where we are going and what we’re trying to achieve. When you present a range of logo ideas to a client (as good as they may be) it can be hard at times for them to see where you’re going, after all clients are not designers.

So to sum this up - your brand is about many things but mainly it’s about you and your personality. Your logo, website, stationery and documentation as great as it may be are there to back this up not do the whole job for you.

Remember consistency is king, if you believe in your brand, live by it and stay true to it you’re bound to attract a following as does Hollister (I’m hooked!).

It’s becoming a bit of a fashion trend at the moment to drop or phase out support for Internet Explorer 6. All the big boys are such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, not to mention the 1000’s of other sites already taking this stance, it looks likes IE6 days are numbered (check out the Internet Explorer Voodoo Doll).

We’ve already Tweeted how we’ve dropped support on various sites recently, to much support and praise from others in the industry, but this is it, from May 1st we will be dropping it from every site we produce*. Much rejoice can be heard from the developers corner of the office.

Tweets of Support

@strawberrysoup we offer depreciated support for IE6 to our clients, so all the new stuff is supported on newer browsers….

@pixelfishltd quite simply yes!

@clarebeckingham - good decision IMO. You could always offer ie6 support as a chargeable extra.. If it’s specifically requested.

@oliverbudworth We did that too. Got some interesting stats on usage I can ping your way if you’re interested?

@robindthomas good work!

Although we are dropping support that’s not to say our sites still won’t work in IE6, they just won’t look, shall we say, as pretty in them. PNGs won’t render transparently, shadowing won’t always look great and animated carousels and the like might end up jerky and things might not be as pixel perfect as we like. But overall everything will still display and work. We just wont be de-bugging or testing in this browser.

IE6 is a complete nightmare to support and the amount of time and effort put in by our developers to get things working in IE6 is proving costly not to mention demoralising. Remember IE6 is an outdated browser that has huge security flaws, a poor rendering engine and gradually dwindling numbers of users out there. Even Mailchimp doesn’t support IE6 and nearly all our customers use this tool at some time or another.

*There’s Always a But Though

So yes we are dropping support for IE6, yes this has been written into our contract terms and yes we have a great argument for all our customers, but we also work with the likes of the NHS and other public sectors. We are a business and we won’t loose a client and a project if the customer has real reason to continue support. The Hampshire NHS offices for example all run Windows XP with IE6. A complete mare but to upgrade a whole office site takes time and money so of course we will work with the client and work to the best solution.

Is There Another Way?

Of course. We can also follow the example of websites such as Twitter and YouTube and add visible but not dead-end warnings to upgrade.

We must as professionals and experts in our industry start to educate those who are not familiar with these issues and explain how it all works without being patronising. It’s not their job to know this after all, it’s ours.

We’d love to hear your comments on this so let us know!

We’ve really written this blog post for all our existing, new and potential clients but hopefully everyone who reads this can take a little something from it.

If you’ve met us you’ll know that if it’s right for your business then we’ll shout about the benefits all the social networking tools can have for your site and products. But we’ll also stress the importance of blogging, it’s a great way to get an insight to the business and to keep your site regularly updated. It’s tough to keep up to date with this and we are as guilty as anyone when times get busy, but we at least try to post at least once a month, ideally we’d love to go back to those days of once a week and we really must. But here’s a gentle reminder to everyone else to make it a priority, it really does only take an hour in your week to write a worthwhile post. Allocate time in your schedule and distribute the task through the team.

Updating your site regularly gets you noticed, your competitors and clients may be watching, and when you update something it might get their attention and they’ll come look. Not to mention the search engines will notice, as well. Add to the mix all the social networking tools to share your posts such as Twitter, Facebook, and Digg to name a few and your audience suddenly increases very quickly. Just one post might be enough to get someone’s attention and come knocking for your services.

However don’t rely on just these tips, Denise Wakeman, Online Marketing Advisor and Founder of The Blog Squad, has created a list of tips to generate leads into your blog. For more details, check out her article “19 Tips for Driving Traffic to Your Blog”

Here are her 19 tips:

1. Publish as frequently as possible
2. Pay attention to the headlines (blog post titles)
3. Send an email broadcast
4. Add a link in your email signature
5. Include multiple subscription options on your blog
6. Try article marketing
7. Comment on blogs in your industry
8. Do some guest posting
9. Conduct surveys and polls
10. Submit your blog to directories
11. Make a Google profile
12. Syndicate to Twitter
13. Syndicate Facebook
14. Syndicate to LinkedIn
15. Use Hootsuite
16. Distribute your video
17. Add the retweet button to your posts
18. Consider share buttons
19. Use social bookmarking

We’d also add to these:

1. Identify your audience. If you don’t find out who they are they won’t continue to visit your posts.
2. Get a few keywords in there that your audience are likely to use. Use them through titles and the copy.
3. Don’t be afraid to re-share older blog posts through all the social networking channels. Blog posts that have been written in the past are still relevant to people and will continue to drive traffic.

So remember peeps keep blogging but make sure you keep it relevant.

We’ve recently been looking to bring someone in-house to strengthen our extended family of developers. After some healthy business growth and some very positive projections for the next year we were looking for smart creative people to fit in with the team. With that said, we’d like to say a big welcome to our new developer Liam Chapman – the newest member of the family.

Liam joins us from a sound background of front and back-end development with skills in design and Flash development. Previous clients include working with Sunseeker, Proton, Royalton and RNLI. With outstanding achievements during education too Liam is by far the youngest member of the team outshining the older members in health and looks no doubt.

The best part of this recruitment drive was the power of Twitter. We’ve met some fantastic people on here and generated a healthy amount of business too, but it’s really shown it’s worth again in us being able to find Liam not to mention many of the other candidates who applied. So a big thanks to everyone else who showed an interest, we’ll keep in touch as many of your skills will no doubt be of help one day in the future.

Welcome Liam, and look forward to your start.

Learning to say no at the right time can save you and your company time, effort and and a lot of pain. Said at the wrong time and it’ll bring you all of those and more.

We were recently offered a project to work on solely as designers to another agencies project. We’ve worked with these guys before and love working with them and still do. The budget was great and with the business booked out for a whole week it seemed to make great business sense to take it on. We’d already figured that this project alone could easily be used to re-invest in a new mac and all the software plus more for a new employee so there was a great reason to take the project on. But things don’t always run smoothly and in hindsight we should have refused the project from our original gut feeling.

The original brief for the project came in, very much driven by the agencies customer and certainly very challenging for even the best in the industry. It went against all the general rules of design and build practices and we instantly knew this was a project that was impossible to start let alone deliver what they were after. We went with our gut feeling and advised the agency that this was a project that we didn’t fully believe in and that without 100% belief in a project we couldn’t take it on and that maybe they shouldn’t either. They totally agreed with us and went away to the customer for talks and that was the last we heard of it.

Several weeks later we were back around the table talking with the agency and how they had now encouraged the customer to reign in their control on the project and take on board all the advice that had been given (well almost everything). We were still a little concerned simply because of the client and the original brief, but the new approach seemed promising, made sense and we love a challenge. The brief was very open and we knew the style and approach we were going to take, it all seemed to be running smoothly.

We normally offer up one conceptual design, it’s a rule we like to stick too. We feel that you need to be confident in what you are selling and splitting the time into creating two or maybe three can show a lack of this. That one concept has been brainstormed, sketched and well planned and shows a concise thought process. OK sometimes it might not be right first time, colours or graphical elements might need changing or re-positioning but the general layout, copy etc. is 99% of the time bang on, first time. In this instance the original design needed a second approach with the colour scheme and graphical elements. The layout we stuck with, it was strong and communicated the site clearly, but also stuck to the original brief of being modern, funky, cool, clean and cutting edge.

The designs finally went off to the agency and onto the client. Having thought we’d fulfilled the brief the client came back and commented that the designs were not what they had expected. In their eyes funky and modern meant large background photography and early noughties corporate. They had also started reigning in full control of the project again, changing the brief and the direction setting up image light boxes with terribly cliche imagery and very cold copy. We were back to where we had started again when our initial gut instinct told us to steer clear of this project.

Over a few days of discussion we had to make the hard decision to cut ties with the project, it was the only way both us and the agency could move forward. Too much time was going to be needed to get this new brief and direction deciphered and we felt that our time was better spent investing our skills into new more fruitful projects and existing clients. Our heart wasn’t in the project any more and what the client was asking didn’t seem commercially correct.

It’s been a tough decision to make but the company has already made back the lost billings and will continue to grow having learn’t some valuable lessons from this project.

So what advice can anyone take from this? The most important lesson is to know when to say no. The money might be great, the use of that money might be incredibly useful, but you need to trust your gut instinct. Fortunately the experience within the company allows us to recognise this type of client, this time we went against that first instinct and we paid for that mistake. If your heart isn’t in it and you can’t believe in the project 100% know when to walk away. Even if you loose the contract and money, put that energy into finding one that you can believe in.

As a company we have worked with and continue to work with several agencies including this one, but from now on we’ll make sure certain guidelines are set out from the start. We’ll certainly mention that if our design style doesn’t meet the clients then it might not be the best project for us to be involved with. We like to think we are versatile in our approach but sometimes loosing heart in a project is damaging to your reputation and anyone that you are representing.

Last month we announced that we were moving into new offices. A few peeps have asked to see some pics of the work so far… so check them out here. We’ve only managed a lick of paint, signage and desk space but being manically busy this year and having the holiday period recently we aim to push the rest of the office outfit through next month. We’ll keep you updated as the new features are added.

Remember we are on the look out for new HTML/PHP Developers too. If your interested or know of anyone that might be up for a new challenge check the blog post out too. We’ll even give you the choice of a brand spanking new iMac 27inch or the fastest PC of your choice. Happy days!