Latest news, web design articles, website design tips & tricks

Over the last few months, kc web design Kent have been working hard with Fujitsu UK and Progress SEO to completely rebuild and redesign the Fujitsu UK blog website. Working with Progress SEO, kc web design Kent rebuilt the Fujitsu UK blog from the ground up. We setup a brand new server that was security audited by Fujitsu and installed Wordpress on the dedicated system. Wordpress was secured, tuned and audited again by Fujitsu to make sure the whole system was secure. Once kc web design Kent had built the...

I love how the internet works some days. After spending most of Friday researching HTML5 local storage and how it might work with a new web app we're creating I came in this morning to find a nice link in an article in my RSS reader mentioning this... Imagine you're filling a complex form on site, or typing effervescent and extensive comment. And when you're almost done with that browser is crashed, or you closed tab mistakenly, or electricity is turned off, or something else break your efforts. Disgusting, huh? With Sisyphus on...

Pull down for navigation is a great way to display your website navigation on responsive web designs. On smaller devices such as the iPhone the pull down for navigation system allows you to create a bar at the top of the screen that you pull down to reveal the navigation boxes. It works really well and we've been using it on the kc web design kent responsive web design ever since we built it. Unfortunately, ever since iOS6 was released something in the update to Safari on iOS6 broke the pull...

At kc web design Kent we build a lot of Wordpress websites. Recently we've been doing a lot of Wordpress website design and a lot of UI/UX design but haven't done an Expression Engine websites design in a while. In my previous post I spoke about the fantastic Updater plugin for adding automated updates to Expression Engine. In this post I'm going to talk about the plugins and modules we use at kc web design kent when we build an Expression Engine web design project. So, here's the basic list then a...

At kc web design Kent we use Wordpress and Expression Engine to build most of our websites. They're both fantastic content management systems but very different. After doing a lot of Wordpress website design recently it's been nice to get back into Expression Engine. One of the things that Wordpress does extremely well is updating. Whether it's a plugin or the core itself, updating is fully automated and can be done with the click of a button in most cases. Unfortunately this is where Expression Engine is lacking some what....

For any web design professional that uses Photoshop CS6 every day while designing websites. A great resource for fine tuning Photoshop CS6 for peak performance. http://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2012/10/how-to-tune-photoshop-cs6-for-peak-performance.html An invaluable resource for all web designers. We tried some of these tweaks at kc web design Kent and it did make a difference so well worth a look.

As the way we design websites at kc web design kent changes and responsive design becomes the normal way to build websites then so do the tools and processes we use. On a recent responsive web design project we decided to work in a different way and leave design until last. The process we used was client and business goal exploration, wire framing, prototyping responsive layouts in the browser using Zurb Foundation and then applying the design elements. The beauty of working this way is that all the goals, call-to-action...

As we get ready for the launch of KC Themes at kc web design kent I thought it might be the right time to talk about why we've created KC Themes - Wordpress themes for web designers. At kc web design kent we create a lot of Wordpress sites for many, many different types of businesses and even personal sites. We've created blogs for Fujitsu, e-commerce websites, large corporate sites and more and they all have one thing in common - We have to create unique themes and they're mostly responsive these...

Many moons ago at kc web design kent we used to create large, bespoke e-commerce systems. kc web design kent created bespoke e-commerce systems like this because there weren't that many good off-the-shelf e-commerce systems out there that could do the job. 10 years later and there are lots of great e-commerce systems such as Lemonstand, Magento and the subscription based services such as Shopify and Big Commerce. Although these systems are fantastic and each have their own pros and cons, today I'm going to concentrate on Wordpress ecommerce plugins....

At kc web design Kent we use website design frameworks and bootstraps a lot. Web design frameworks are a great way to prototype in the browser very quickly and build interactive wireframes that look great and work well in the browser. Most web design frameworks are now responsive which can help take the pain out of building responsive website design from scratch. Lots of website design frameworks and bootstraps have appeared over the last few years but the main two are Zurb's Foundation and Twitters Bootstrap. Both of these web...

kc web design Kent have been established in Canterbury for over 4 years now and we continue to serve companies in Canterbury, Thanet, Ashford, Maidstone, Ramsgate, Dover and all of the South East and London. kc web design Kent work with companies all over Kent and especially for website design in Ashford and the rest of the UK as well as some global companies such as Fujitsu and The Toll Group. As the web design industry continues to grow and physical boundaries become less important we're finding that more and more work...

At kc web design Kent we use Wordpress a lot. We use Wordpress for simple web design projects, e-commerce web design projects and even large business website design projects. It's flexible, easy to theme and great to work with the guts of it and the admin interface is easy to customise and for our clients to learn. This is why 20% of the internets' websites are now powered by Wordpress - that's millions of website designs all using the same system! As web designers at kc web design Kent we...

It seems like every few weeks now our Google search rankings for kc web design Kent take quite a large dip. Another Google algorithm update or just bad SEO? I'm beginning to think its the former. We don't really change our SEO model that much, we try to write good content, don't try and get bad back links or any other back-handed methods and we make sure we stick to all the guidelines. But when Google make a major change to the searches we do seem to dip quite a...

Many hours have been spent today at kc web design Kent pulling hair and banging heads over a very frustrating Wordpress problem. $_get requests to retrieve simple query string variables from a Wordpress URL just wouldn't work. We tried everything and spent hours trying to add functions to deal with custom variables, check PHP configs and test theme templates all with no luck. Whatever we tried just did not work. So, for everyone out there having the same issues (and we saw a lot of you!) here is the stupidly...

Responsive web design seems to be the holy grail of the web design industry and the moment but it's not all plain sailing. Responsive web design can present a whole new array of issues and problems for the novice (and advanced!) web designer and isn't necessarily the easy way to device independent web design nirvana. What is responsive web design? Responsive web design (RWD) is when we build a website for our clients that will be viewable on all devices from mobile to desktop without having to provide a separate...

When we build websites at kc web design Kent we always have to test in all browsers. The main progressive browsers are normally the easiest but testing in multiple versions of IE can be tricky. We've previously used all sorts of different methods from the paid browser testing online services to stand-alone IE instances and virtual machines. Virtual machines are always the better option as you can continually refresh the browser while you're working on your web design but they can be very difficult to setup. kc web design Kent...

Adobe has announced a new set of tools for website designers and developers called Adobe Edge. We use Adobe Creative Cloud here at kc web design Kent so it's always nice to get hold of some new website design apps. The new suite of web design and development apps is aimed purely at web designers and focus on specific web design tasks such as coding, creating CSS3 animations, serving web fonts and responsive web design. The full suite of apps in the new Adobe Edge range of tools for web...

kc web design ltd have been a website design company in Kent for just over 4 years now. Our web design studio is based near Canterbury in Kent and we work in a lovely, tranquil part of the country side perfect for website design in Thanet that aides our creativity and generates a fantastic working environment. We feel very lucky to be working in this part of the country and being able to do website design in Thanet and the North Kent coast. Anyone outside of Kent might not have heard of...

I might start doing more product and software reviews. There's a lot of good stuff out there for OSX and at kc web design Kent we're always looking out for new apps to make our web design life easier. The latest gem to get installed on the Macs here at kc web design Kent is Pixa - An image library manager. We've used Littlesnapper a lot in the past which does a great job or organising images that you add to Littlesnapper. We tend to use it more for surfing inspiration...

In the last part of this series - kc web design Kent tools for web design – mobile testing - we talked about mobile testing and responsive web design tools. In this article I'm going to talk about one iPad app..App Cooker. App Cooker is an iPad app fir designing and wire-framing your iOS app. Sketching out a web design or iPhone app design on paper is always a good place to start but soon you'll need to start really planning and working on the UI of your web design project...

And so we have a brand new Apple iPhone 5. As usual it looks great, has a bigger 4" screen (height, not width), a new camera that takes panoramic photos, is twice as fast as the 4s, lighter and thinner. No new feature that makes everyone go wow! but a good, solid upgrade of everything that makes the iPhone great. There is one thing though that will have an impact on web design or UI designers creating apps for iOS as we do here at kc web design Kent. That...

It's that time of the year again when Apple roll out another version of some hot new hardware and software. They seem to come round quick, these September releases, and the internet has been full of rumours of the iPhone 5 coming on 12th September. But what will the iPhone 5 be like? The 4s wasn't much of a change physically from what came before but there were a lot of additions on the OS side. So, maybe now, a year later, it is time to see a brand new...

According to the BBC, Sweden tops the new Tim Berners-Lee Web Index with the UK coming 3rd in the table. The Web Index, as stated on their website is "...a unique annual ranking of countries on the progress and social utility of the Web. Combining over 80 indicators to evaluate access, affordability, institutional and policy environment and social and economic utility, it will provide an evidence-based tool for national and regional advocacy, intervention, and strategy to strengthen the Web. The 2012 Web Index was published on September 5, 2012.". The new Web Index shows...

kc web design Kent - 'Design is a job' review Design is a job by Mike Monteiro is a must read for all web designers that have their own businesses or do a lot of freelance work. In fact, any one who does web design and deals with clients should read this book. It's a small, perfectly written in a light hearted easy to read manner and packed with so many useful tips that you'll wonder how you managed before. At kc web design Kent we've spent years refining our processes...

So, Apple won. Samsung now have to pay $1bn (£664m) in damages for patent infringements. But why all the fuss? Well, it's about design. Not really web design, more user interface design (which we do a lot of at kc web design Kent) and the way the whole iOS UI/UX works. When you (and it's what we do here at kc web design Kent) start a design process, whether it's a website design project, a user interface design project or an iPhone UI design, you always start at the beginning by...

I normally wait before download the new OS from Apple, just to make sure there are no issues or problems with software that I use. Mountain Lion got the better of me early, not because it was a radical change or anything new and really exciting had been added, but because it was supposed to be quicker and smoother and integrated some iOS features that I use on the iPhone and iPad. When using a Mac every day for web design projects at kc web design Kent it can be...

Accessibility has been a big buzz word in web design over the past few years and has become a really important part of all web design projects. Making your website accessible to users with disabilities should be part of every web design build but there is another type of accessibility that often gets forgotten about - client accessibility. When a web design project is finished and we hand over the website to the client, is it accessible? Does the client have access to everything they need to manage their own...

In the last part of this series - kc web design Kent tools for web design – part 6 - we talked about local dev tools. In this article we'll be looking at mobile testing tools for use with responsive web design builds and testing. Responsive web design has rocketed to the forefront of the web design industry in the last 12 months and it's a very important direction for web design to take. The market share of mobiles and tablets is now very large with some sites seeing nearly 50% of...

At kc web design Kent we build most of our websites on content management systems. It's a great way to use existing technology to enhance a website design and build project and speeds up the build process. CMS's enable complex websites to be built with ease and empower the client by giving them full control over their own websites to update and add new content. We've worked with a few CMS's over the years at kc web design Kent such as Typo3 - confusing and convoluted, Drupal - powerful with...

I don't normally write about products on the kc web design Kent website but I recently bought the TwelveSouth BookBook iPhone case and just had to do a little review. Being a web designer at kc web design Kent I use my iPhone a lot, it's with me every minute of every day so a good case is essential. As a web designer I'm always making notes and reminders, adding to-dos and contacts and taking photos. The BookBook case looked perfect and it doubles as a wallet, something that I...