Create an Accessible Image Based Navigation

Since the launch of Hull Digital Live ‘09 back in August 2009 I have been flooded with requests on how I created the graphical navigation on the web site. The answer is simple, a sprite and a dash of CSS!

This technique of image replacement can be found on a range of websites including the Apple website and Web Designer Wall, and it has a range of benefits, mainly loading time and reduction of file size.

Using the image replacement technique is very handy when each link is unique. If you notice on the Hull Digital website, each link on the navigation has its own unique background on rollover. It can be used if each link has the same interactive states but I would advice using CSS more in this case.

HD Live ‘09 Technology Conference a Total Success!

So, October 14th ‘09 saw the region of Hull get its first Digital Technology Conference. I was asked to speak at the conference a while back from its founder Jon Moss, to which I agreed without question. I was also commissioned with the task of designing the website for HD Live which was featured on my portfolio a couple of months back. Well, what an experience! The conference was incredible, I met some fantastic people, learned a load about what was going on with all things digital, and received a very warm welcome from a fantastic audience when I finally stepped up to the podium.

Speed Up Your Design Processes While Reducing Errors

A developer friend of mine once taunted me with the fact that all I do is ‘make things look pretty‘. Well as a web designer you strive to make every design you create as unique and special as possible. You cant simply dive straight into a design, there is a lot of ground work to cover off before even laying down your Pen to Tablet. In an attempt to avoid churning out generic looking websites I follow a very structured design process. Every stage in this process must be unique and covered off correctly.

IE6 – Oh IE6… Why Must We Live With You?

Well we all know IE6 is poo, that’s just a given. So we wont get into any sort of rants about ‘don’t we have enough browsers to test on?‘, ‘it’s not even supported anymore‘ or discuss such things as phasing out, browsers comparisons, percentages etc etc. It has been done to death… Although saying that, for those of you viewing this site in IE6, Cough… Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera or, to be fair even this would probably work better.

I have no doubt in my mind that what the digital revolution is doing for television, one day common sense will do for internet browsing and we will be rid of it forever, but until that day comes, we must live with IE6. So with that painful recognition, I thought I would put together and share a few common IE6 bugs, along with some helpful hints and tips to combat this crummy browser!

The end of an era…Lets have a re-Branded!

So, Branded07 has been around since 2007, boy has it only been 2 years?! Since its launch I have experienced an incredible uptake of interest in my site and work (Mainly about the Puffins!). I have really enjoyed reading people’s posted comments about my work, good and bad. It has been an honour being published alongside some fantastic artists in so many design galleries, such as Best Web Gallery, CSS Remix and CSS Beauty to name but a couple. It has been a brilliant experience developing and running this site, and I seem to have gathered some awesome followers along the way!

But all good things must come to an end…

So,  in light of the recent times and economic downturn I have decided to say…Sod all that! Lets make things better!