One of the most important elements of any website is the overall look and feel of typography used throughout the site. Imagine your favourite website with comic sans applied throughout, it wouldn’t be quite the same.

We’ve searched high and low for websites that use typography to really help their site stand out, lets take a look at what we found.

With success in print-based gaming, Response Gaming felt the time was right to expand their services into the online sector. Their first game Golden Number sees the company trying to engage users with a blend of online and offline elements.

Response Gaming needed a system that would allow them to completely manage their Golden Number game online, allowing them to update questions and answers, latest winners, results and also publish blog posts.

We’re already helping Response with their next big idea, so keep an eye out for more news soon.

In the meantime, why not visit the site.

At Union Room, we’re always on the lookout for websites that use colours in interesting and consistent ways. The creative use of colour can take a website from a flat, lifeless set of graphics to an exciting and engaging piece of digital media.

We asked the guys over at brand communications agency Projector, what they thought of the role of colour in design. “Like a logo and font the colours used by a company within their branding form a significant part of any visual identity system. By having a consistent core colour palette it aids recognition and supports the brand values set – in a visual way at least. But, we must remember colours are influenced by fashion and regional perceptions, which is why many brands – certainly many global ones – use a secondary palette too – so by having a set of secondary colours that support the core palette it allows certain tonal tweaks without effecting the brand – this also adds to the core brands longevity, as by using up to the minute colours in a complimentary way it negates the ‘trend’ issue of the here and now for any brand.”

Lets take a look at 10 red (or variations of red) websites we really like the look of…

As well as beginning some great new projects, July has seen us put the finishing touches to some of our best work yet.

Golden Number

We’ve been working on the Golden Number website for a little while now and it’s all ready to go live in early August. The Golden Number website has seen us combine a number of our services with design, development, SMS-integration, flash animation and SEO all involved.

Newcastle Drum

We’ve been working on the Newcastle Drum website since March and 10,000 products later, we’re almost ready to go live.

The Works

We’re also putting the finishing touches to one of our most interesting projects to date. The Works gives artists in the UK and US a unique platform to offer their work for sale. We’ve been receiving some fantastic feedback from creatives here and in the US, so we’re really excited to see it go live.

Prize Lines

Prize Lines is the second website that we’ve worked on with Response Gaming. Although we can’t say too much about the project right now, we’re really looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the next couple of months.

PXA Express

In the last couple of months, we’ve helped PXA Express create a completely new way for customers and couriers to arrange and manage deliveries. We’re constantly helping PXA to evolve and grow the system so keep an eye out for a full case study on the project sometime in the near future.

OpenCRM

OpenCRM is an easy-to-use yet fully featured CRM application. We’re in the planning stages of creating a brand new website for OpenCRM and having seen the branding that Projector have created, we’re excited to start work on the website itself.

Martha’s Bar & The Deck

We’re also in the early stages of work on websites for two of the North Easts most well known night spots, Martha’s Bar in Newcastle and The Deck nightclub in Redcar.

Keep an eye out on our blog for more news on projects going live.

Way back in November 2009, we began chatting about a new Union Room website. As is always the case with internal projects, we were very excited as it allowed us the complete freedom to design and build anything we felt like.

Although our current website was performing well, it was starting to look a little old (after all, we did launch it in mid-2008) and with so many great new tools available, both in design and development, we decided it was time to showcase the great things we’d been doing for our clients, into our own website.

After a few initial meetings with the entire team, we began to settle on what we thought the new site should contain and also what we thought we could improve from the old site. We all agreed that there were some things that the new site definitely needed to do:

1. Showcase our work

We found that although we were helping great companies like Beacon and Parkdean Holidays show off their great work, we weren’t doing the same with our small thumbnail screenshots. We decided that the work we do should be the first thing a user notices when they visit the website.

We decided to really open up the new site and put what we do first and foremost, design and development. We’ve added a large space for a screenshot as well as a little bit of info about each featured project.

2. Promote our blog posts

We put a lot of work into our blog, ensuring that it’s not just filled with information about what we’re up to, but with interesting things like design showcases, free downloads and things we just think look and work great. With that in mind, making people aware of our blog was a top priority.

That’s why we’ve taken away a lot of the content we had on the old homepage (we’ve given important information such as funding and SEO their own pages), and replaced it with the latest posts from our blog. This helps make the articles we write a lot easier to find and should help increase the readership of our blog.

3. Updating easily

We help develop content management solutions for almost every single client we work with, so it made sense that we should have one to. After creating bespoke content management systems for a lot of clients in the last 18 – 24 months (our personal favourites were Response Gaming and Proform Performance, keep an eye out for a bit of a behind-the-scenes blog post on those soon) we decided that the new site should be easy to update and should allow anyone from the Union Room team to jump into the back end and update content.

Sitting behind the website is a full content management system which allows us to update almost any content on the site, this has already saved us a lot of time since we launched the site.

Although there were a few other smaller areas we discussed, these were the main elements we felt we could improve on. Let’s take a look at a couple of main areas of interest from the new design, and also a look at the websites content management system in more detail.

The Homepage

As we’ve already discussed, we wanted the homepage to be a hub of information for the website which showcased our best work and blog posts, briefly explained who we were and give users a quick and easy way to navigate to important pages.

Our Work

The new our work page allows us to highlight a particular project we’re proud of and gives a lot more information about the project than our old design. It also gives the user access to our large archive of work.

Our Work – Read More

A lot of work goes into preparing our websites so we didn’t want to just give users the option of seeing the site in action, we wanted to explain to them how we approached the project and what it’s achieved.

The extended project view gives us a chance to speak a little about the project, show off some more screens and also gives us a place to insert a glowing testimonial.

Blog

As we’ve already spoken about, the blog is an important part of Union Room and we really wanted to emphasis the work we put into it with the design.

We’ve given up a lot of our homepage to the blog and also given the main blog post, and the posts themselves, a major overhaul. We’ve now got larger images and a neater, easy to read style applied to our posts which helps read some of the longer posts we sometimes post.

The admin panel

The admin panel really allows us to manage the content on the work section, meaning we can update pieces of work or insert new projects at anytime, without the need to hassle one of our developers.

The panel allows us to upload images, create themed backgrounds on the fly, update the featured work on the homepage and completely manage the order and priority of work that is shown both on the homepage, and on the our work page.

The Future

Although the website has only been live for under 2 months, we’re already planning our next round of updates and constantly looking for ways that we can improve the site for our users.

Keep an eye out for some updates in the next few weeks, we hope you like the new site.

We were initially approached by Bespoke Radio managing director Jamie Wilkinson towards the beginning of February and since then, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed helping him bring his idea to life.

Jamie has produced and worked on a host of Sony award and Gillard award-winning programmes and radio stations. He’s appeared on BBC Radio 1, Galaxy, Century FM and a host of local BBC radio stations accross the country. Bespoke Radio has also managed to attract some top DJ’s for it’s customers including  Radio 1’s Scott Mills and Smooth Radio’s Mark Goodier.

Bespoke Radio creates unique tailor-made radio shows for every occasion full of your choice of music, memories and even guest appearances by family and friends via your very own on-air voicemails. It’s a fantastic idea and one we’ve thoroughly enjoyed bringing to life over the last several weeks.

Throughout the initial stages of the project, Projector were busy creating an amazing brand for Bespoke which they’ve recently spoken about on their blog. It’s a personal favourite of mine and really helped set the tone and direction of the work we’ve done.

The website contains a customisable back-end which allows users to create their show online and also ask for help from friends and family on things like song choices and anecdotes to use in the show. We’ve created a system which allows Bespoke to completely manage their ordering process quickly, easily and all online.

Head on over to Bespoke Radio and begin creating your very own radio show!

Hot on the heels of our new website launch at the end of May, we’ve been hard at work on a number of projects involving local, national and International businesses.

Newcastle Drum Centre

With an already-established reputation as one of the UK’s leading drum shops, the Newcastle Drum Centre asked us to help them establish a new online presence that could help them compete more effectively online. Having had a poor experience from a previous supplier, Union Room were tasked with picking up the website from a mid-point in the project so it was vital that we hit the ground running.

We’re busy putting the finishing touches onto a website that will contain over 10,000 products and provide customers with an improved method of purchasing the best selection of drums and cymbals in the UK. The website should be going live sometime in mid-July so keep an eye on the blog and our twitter account for more news.

Parkdean Holidays

As usual, we’ve been hard at work providing Parkdean with a range of services including some updates to their sales website as well as producing a range of new promotional banners to promote special offers and discounts.

We’ve also began initial work on the new sales website which will take us into Christmas and New Year. More news about that in the coming months.

Bespoke Radio

We’re very close to launching the new Bespoke Radio website, which we’ve spoken about a little on the blog already. We’ll be publishing a blog post when the site goes live with a lot more information about the work that both ourselves and Projector have done on the project.

The Works

The Works is one of our most exciting projects to date and we’re currently finishing up on the final parts of the design, so we cant show you too much just yet. The Works will help provide artists in New York with a platform to sell their art to the UK and give customers a unique online experience of finding out about, and purchasing art.

We’ll be speaking more about The Works soon.

My Best Insurance Quote

In a competitive market, My Best Insurance Quote were looking for an improved design that reflected their services and also increased performance in search engine rankings. The website was launched in mid-June and has already helped increase visiting statistics. Take a look at the live site.

Sykes Specialist Contracting

Having worked with us in the past, Sykes returned to Union Room needing an updated design and improvement in search engine positioning. We’ve helped provide Sykes with a new design and a way to showcase the great work they do as leading installers of external wall insulations. Take a look at the live site.

Barracks

Incorporating professional, media and entertainment services, Barracks needed a website that detailed their range of services as well as keeping users informed of the latest news and events the company have planned.

We recently attended one of Barracks Entertainments first events, a night with Heavyweight Boxing Champion David Haye. It was a fantastic night of entertainment and we’re already looking forward to seeing what Barracks have in the pipeline for upcoming events.

The website should be going live sometime later this month.

Response Gaming

We’ll be looking at a number of projects for Response over the coming months, the first of which will be the website for their Golden Number mobile phone game which we’ve been working on since the end of May.

Keep an eye out for some of the above going live very soon.

If you’ve picked up a copy of .net magazine this month (the August issue, number 204) you may have noticed that Union Room have been featured in the monthly build-off feature.

We’re obviously delighted to have been given the opportunity by .net and a lot of work went into getting the design ready for inclusion in the magazine. As well as the website itself, we asked sister company Projector to help us create a brand which we could build the website around.

Lets take a look at what was involved in getting our ideas into the magazine:

1. The Opportunity

Like a lot of other design companies, we regularly sing the praises of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter for not just helping to connect with customers, but to help discover new business opportunities. Back in early April we were alerted to a tweet (thanks to @yourprojector and @aidan_connor for the heads up) that .net made, asking for companies that have experience in the betting / gambling industry:

We’ve  provided some great companies (including bet365, WBX, Ladbrokes and 32Red) with design and promotional work so naturally, we felt we were well suited to the task. A couple of tweets /emails later and we’d been given the go ahead from .net associate editor Oliver Lindberg.

This highlights just how valuable Twitter can be and the opportunities that a solid network of people can bring.

2. The Brief

Although there’s a short brief included in the article itself, we thought we’d expand on it a tiny bit just to explain our approach to the project. Although essentially a website for a sports betting website, we were given the option to place emphasis on the then upcoming World Cup. We decided that we didn’t want to theme the whole site around the World Cup (incase this dictated the visuals and content a bit too much) but definitely feature specific markets that would be popular whilst the tournament was taking place such as outright winners and top scorers etc.

The main usability / functionality target we were given was to ‘pull the visitor in, make them want to place a bet and make this process as easy as possible‘. We used this statement to completely influence both the website and branding for the company.

3. The Brand

We’ve worked with Projector on many occasions and it would have been a waste not to get such a talented bunch involved on such an interesting project. Projector didn’t want to just supply us with a logo to work from, they got to work on supplying us with a complete brand specification, detailing a ton of information ranging from company background to suggested tone and mood of communications.

Projector also kept our goals in mind throughout the design process. We needed to adhere to the magazines brief of puling the visitor in, making them want to place a bet and making this process as easy as possible. We wanted the brand to reflect these ideas of open, easy and informed betting.

The specification was very detailed (to see the specification in full, visit the Projector blog) but we’ve picked out a small selection of the specification below:

i. What are we trying to achieve?

To create a new brand that encapsulates the very essence of BetterBet – the most knowledgeable and informed site to place a bet on a global sport.

ii. Who are we talking to?

We’re talking to all sports fans who like to place a bet or play the tables – no matter whether you’re a pro or beginner – everyone can join in. Predominantly male. Interested in global sports.

iii. What tone or mood is required?

Fresh, Modern, capable, reassuring look. In terms of tone it must be Informed, we want to create a place that provides knowledgeable information to help our members bet and to stimulate debate. The overall response should be that someone gets an informed global outlook, from a British company.

With the preparation work completed, Projector began looking at initial design ideas with the aim of presenting us with three or four ‘main’ ideas for the brand.

Although we eventually chose the branding you see above / in the final design, we were delighted with the choice that Projector provided and would have been happy in taking any of them forward. We asked Projector’s Dom Taylor for a few words on the final branding:

“The main focus of the BetterBet brand was to concisely encapsulate it’s position as the most enlightened and knowledgeable betting brand.

We decided to opt for a graphic target to symbolise the fact that BetterBet gets it spot on due it being the most informed of all betting brands. It hunts down the best odds, has most in depth background information, so you know you have the full picture before pledging your money.

In terms of colour, the idea was to keep it fresh and modern giving it a unique colour scheme to separate it from other bookmakers. We were also keeping in mind the “value for money” overall look and feel of the brand.

When choosing logotype we opted for a no-nonsense bold sans-serif approach.  The type Akzidenz Grotesk, being a sans serif will ensure a contemporary feel due to it’s ageless quality.”

To take a look at the rest of Projectors ideas for the BetterBet branding and the processes they used to create them, take a look at their BetterBet case study.

4. The Functionality

Like any project, before we begin thinking about design we’ve got to spend time looking at the projects aims, goals and functionality. In line with the brief from Projector, we wanted to design a betting website that was a) easy to use, b) accessible for both new and experienced gamblers and also c) highlight the emphasis on interactive video.

Although almost all of the betting websites we researched were accessible, we wanted to really help new users see markets that they could be interested in whilst serving experienced users with the usual markers and odds that they’d see on any other sports betting website. We decided to implement featured sections specifically aimed towards users who were perhaps just interested in placing a bet on the World Cup, grabbing users attention instantly.

We also wanted to place a really big emphasis on video for the website. A lot of sports betting websites use flat imagery to promote games / markets and due to their layout, these images are usually quite small and don’t really help sell these featured sections. We wanted to use video to raise awareness of both our live streaming services and also to highlight upcoming matches and featured markets.

Combining these elements for new users with engaging use of video, we were confident BetterBet could stand out in a crowded sector.

5. The Design

The aim of the design was to reflect the brand values suggested by Projector and also give the users of the website an easy to use and interactive experience. We’re really happy with the overall look and feel of the website and although it’s hard to see all of the proposed functionality on a flat graphic, we’re confident that we’ve highlighted the main areas of focus.

We’ve used the top banner to advertise the World Cup. This can be changed depending on the sporting event taking place or could be used as advertising space if we’re between events.

The main section at the top of the website helps advertise featured and upcoming games through the use of video.

We’ve got the usual market sections around the page as well as a dynamic betting slip which can be accessed no matter where you are on the website / page.

The final design was the result of several design meetings and was based off a wire-frame we produced relatively early on in the process. Take a look at the wire-frame by clicking here.

We’ve highlighted 6 main sections of the design in the magazine:

1. Login & Betting Slip

2. Video Promotion

3. Customisable Content

4. Mobile Betting

5. Bet of the Day

6. Live Betting

While we wont go into these points in detail (the article itself has more information on the design), they are our main points of emphasis on and the things that we’ve thought most carefully about for our users. You can find out more information about the design in this month’s .net magazine as well as seeing two other fantastic designs for the build-off.

Thanks for reading and if you haven’t already done so, make sure you pick up the latest .net magazine which is out now.