You may have seen a few references to broadkast peppered around the site since it’s conception, and even grabbed a sneak peak at the design over in the work section. Well, the teasing is over and we’re excited to announce the launch of broadkast - e-marketing made easy.
“Broadkast is so much cheaper than all the other ‘traditional’ types of marketing we employ - Plus by only paying for what we send I always know what it’s going to cost. Basically I love it!”
Richard Caldwell | MD | Train1on1
If you’re not not sure what it is exactly, then we’d recommend just clicking on this text and heading to the site - it’s got all the information you need. For those who are in a rush, then we guess we’d sum it up as
‘A simple, intuitive online tool designed to completely manage your e-marketing needs from start to finish’
We’re pretty excited about being invited to get involved in the Northern Design Awards this year - held by Leeds Metropolitan University. This will be the third year of this visionary competition designed to recognise and reward the creative talent that is blossoming in our centres of education.
Chaired by Wayne Hemingway and culminating in a prestigious finale in June 2008 - they’re sure to attact some great talent. I’ll be getting my hands dirty judging the Digital category and can’t wait to see the calibre of the entries.
There are still 7 days to get your entries in (probably less now you’re reading this) so if you fancy a cheeky £1,000 (plus even an additional £2000 if you’re voted the competitions overall winner from the 8 different categories) then break out those crayons and start scribbling.
Napa Bar & Kitchen is the latest bar in the Arc Inspirations ever expanding empire of award winning bars and restaurants in the North. Aptly named after the Napa Valley in North California - an area renowned for producing wines of cult status and arguably one of the best places to eat, drink and party in the world, the new bar has already become one of the areas new hotspots.
Trying to bring a feeling of the Napa Valley to Leeds was always going to be a bit of a challenge but we’re really happy with the result. The site itself, although visually strong is also full content managed and accessible, so it can be enjoyed by all.
So, if you’re ever in the area we recommend popping your head in and treating yourself to a couple of drinks - we usually do.
Back in December 2007 we started work on the re-development of Sky’s ‘At The Races’ website which as the name suggests is for people who like to spend time, well, at the races …
The previous site had been there for a few years, which in internet years makes it about 80, so unsurprisingly it was a little out of fashion and struggling to go to the toilet on it’s own. Our task was to give it a new lease of life, completely refreshing the look and bringing it in line with the Channel’s new branding. As well as being able to accommodate an awful lot of content, the design also had numerous commercial requirements with the inclusion of high visibility banner ads and MPU’s - all of which made the planning and approach quite unique.
“We chose to work with Engage as their experience with sports and blue-chip sites speaks for itself. We’re delighted with how the relationship has developed; their ability to understand our requirements has been key to meeting some incredibly tight deadlines and the proactive approach Dave and Alex take has helped us exceed our initial ambitions.”
Matthew Taylor | Head of Online
The project itself was a combination of 3 parties, us - obviously, the guys at At The Races and then the development team at Sky who would have the (unenviable) task of plugging in all the functionality once we’d completed the build. With so many people on a single project it was essential to keep track of all communications, make sure everyone was aware of current progress at any time in the project and also create milestones (over 100 as it turned out) to make sure we were going to hit the March 1st deadline. To achieve this, we managed the whole project via our web-based project management software - which proved painless and effective.
Designing and building a site of this size in what was an extremely tight 3 month timeframe was always going to be a challenge but we’re extremely happy (and also quite proud) that we managed it pretty much unscathed, and even found time to squeeze in a couple of other launches in the process.
Read any well respected design book and I can assure you that staring at a slightly off white wall all day won’t be listed as one of the best ways to get the creative juices flowing.
Worried we’d starting churning out websites like these guys we were spurred into action! So, we put the client work on the shelf for a morning and had a bit of ‘us’ time. When we’d finished we had a lovely wall covered in bees, chickens and weird child like creatures with over-sized heads…what a result!
Watch this space for some fantastic new design work soon, and why not check out our video below!
The clue’s in the title really, but for those who don’t like to read titles we’re both excited and proud to unveil a brand new website and identity for Engage Interactive to mark the beginning of what’s sure to be an exciting future for the North’s newest digital agency.
Not another web agency we hear you mutter? Well, yes, but we like to think that we’re a bit more than ‘just another’ agency. We know what we’re doing, we love what we do and we have a great track record of getting it done!
To give you a bit of background info a very short history lesson would probably be useful. Engage was born back in early 2007 by Dave Wrightson. Dave has spent the last 10 years or so very much at the forefront of web development - serving an apprenticeship in the large corporate world of Sky, before running another Harrogate agency and finally setting up Engage. I (Alex) came on board late 2007 after surprisingly little persuasion to take over the role of Creative director and brought with me a whole load of experience gained from designing and building sites such as M&C Saatchi, Wagamama and Twinings to name a but a few - along with my cherished Whitney Houston Greatest Hits album (that’s not even a joke…)
So, what next? Well, it’s been non-stop since we started out and we’ve already got some great projects out of the door including the new website for Propaganda, Arc Inspirations and Sky’s ‘At The Races’ which is due to launch at the beginning of March. We’re very proud of all these especially as they fit our ethos of providing great design, clean & accessible build and great client service - something which we’ll be engraving on a plaque above our doorway (it may need rewording a bit first though…)
We’ll be keeping this blog up to date with all our latest work, news and developments so why not subscribe to our RSS over there on the right and we can all hold hands on our journey.
So, off you go and explore the new site and we hope you like the new design and slidey bits. Feel free to leave feedback below.
