Website Design Aberystwyth, Wales

Pixelwave Web Design has recently launched a brand new website for the Welsh Association of ME & CFS Support (WAMES).

WAMES Website

The new website is intended as an information point for people looking for information about ME in Wales. It is aimed at adults, children, patients, carers, friends, professionals and the media. Many of the target audience are ME sufferers and have vision and concentration problems so one of the primary concerns of the site was that it had to be easy to read with straight forward navigation and conform to various accessibility guidelines. These principles are always important in any website built by Pixelwave Web Design, but were fundamental to the site on this occasion.

In addition the site is bilingual and built around a Content Management System so that the charity administrators can update it free of charge whenever they wish. Creating an easy to use, bilingual website around a Content Management System did present its difficulties, but the end result was worth it.

The new website was launched earlier this month and has so far gained many positive responses from its users. The administrators have also been getting to grips with the use of the content management system and have been progressing well.

Pixelwave Web Design has just started work on a new website for a long standing client, David Riche. The new website to add to my clients ever growing portfolio is mermaidsworld.com and will consist of a blank Content Management based website allowing David to add his own content.

I already manage and maintain a large number of David’s websites and this one will simply be an expansion of his portfolio of sites – all of which are based around the topic of fantasy, fairies and mythological creatures. He has had the mermaid domain name for a numner of years and with the imminent release of a new ‘mermaid magazine’ thought it was time to develop the domain name and add some content to it. The design is simple making it easy for the users to find their way around, but also offers David the flexibility to add content in a meaningful manner and hopefully (if he has the time) develop a useful, interesting site for his visitors.

I’ve already set up the Content Management System for him and have applied a design to it. Now we just need some content for it before it can go live properly for the world to see.

Mermaids World Website Design

As many of my clients will know, I’ve been working hard in conjunction with one of the hosting companies I use migrating hosting accounts from one server to another. Such hardware upgrades are essential from time to time in order to maintain the smooth running of websites and the new hardware is more powerful, brand new and more able to cope with the demands of a modern website.

The new server has four quad-core processors giving it a total of 16x 2.4Ghz Xeon processors and 12 GB RAM. This is 4 times as many processors as the previous machine. The server is also running the latest and greatest server software. The combination of which should be more than enough to cope with all we can throw at it. I’ve already noticed a difference in the speed of the machines and have been monitoring server loads which have been much lower than on the previous machine.

The migrations did result in a couple of sleepless nights for me and there were a few minor issues that I had to sort out. As usual, my wife was right and I worried and got myself stressed thinking about all of the things that could go wrong before anything had gone wrong. In the end these things never happened and on the whole the whole process was smoother than I had feared.

Thanks for you patience and hopefully these new servers will continue to perform, providing you with a fast, powerful and stable hosting platform into the future.

Kind Regards,

Alan.

The latest Pixelwave Web Design site has just been released.

The brochure style website is for a local self-catering holiday accommodation provider here in Borth, West Wales. Their latest property boast stunning views over Cardigan Bay and accommodation for up to 10 people.

Pixelwave Web Design has worked with these clients before and was therefore given free reign over the design and layout of the website and also provided advise on the information architecture and copy for the site. I also sourced photos for the website and have organised a photo shoot for the interior of the property which will be carried out soon. The new photos will be added to the site as soon as they are ready.

I’m pleased with the final result, as are the clients.

Holiday Accommodation Website Design

It may have taken a while to get this contract and get the go ahead to start work on it, but that makes it all the more satisfying.

Pixelwave Website Design has recently started work on a brand new website for the Borth & Ynyslas Golf Club. I don’t play golf myself (yet!) but our house is pretty much built on the Borth & Ynyslas Golf Course so it is well known to me. Their current website is old and out of date and has been for some time now, so I was pleased when they approached me to discuss building them a new website.

Website Design For Golf Club

Some of the committee members weren’t really sure what they wanted from a website so I’ve been making suggestions and coming up with plenty of ideas for them before getting the project underway. It’s taken a long time and several changes of committee members at the Golf Club to get the project in motion but after much planning and discussion, I’ve now started work on it.

It was decided in the end to keep things fairly simply just so that the project could get off the ground. So, their new website will be based around a Content Management System that will allow staff at the Golf Club to update the website quickly and easily whenever they wish. They won’t need any website design knowledge to do so and won’t need to return to me for updates. This means that not only will their website have a completely new look, but the content of the site should remain up to date and more engaging for its visitors.

The new look will hopefully reflect the long history of the Borth & Ynyslas Golf Club – it is the oldest course in Wales – whilst also bringing it up to date with a more modern feel to reflect it’s current status as a modern championship venue. The site will provide information on the course itself, club membership and the facilities and services available. It will also provide an online booking facility and provide both members and non-members with the latest news, event details and scorecard information.

Pixelwave Website Design is excited to be starting a new project for a client setting up a business renting out Camper Vans here in Wales.

I’ve already worked with this client on several other projects in the past so once again it is great to get repeat business as it not only makes life a little easier, but also gives me another vote of confidence in the work I’ve done for them previously.

To start with the site will be a fairly straight forward brochure style website outlining the services they offer along with detailed descriptions and lots of photos of the campervans themselves. In addition there will be an online availability and booking calendar for each of the campervans. I’m also taking care of the photography for the site and setting up a photo shoot for the vans on the beach here – hopefully on a sunny day. The photos will be used on the website and also on any printed publicity material.

Along with the other new projects I have on at the moment, and a few other in the pipeline, this make me quite busy. Always a good thing when a freelancer and what’s more, the projects themselves are enjoyable as they are, in the main, relatively small projects that I’m starting from scratch. Most of it is front-end design work and user interface stuff too. So, rather than doing lots of  bug-fixing, head-scratching, messing around with server configurations and such like I’m actually getting a chance to get stuck into some actual web ‘design’ work. My days have been, and will for a while be, spent inside Photoshop and bathing in the joys of plain old HTML, CSS and some jQuery.

It’s always nice to be creative and have something to show for your efforts, even better if your clients like the designs as well. I’ve got the basics down for most of these new sites already. I can’t show you them yet as they aren’t ready for public release and still need quite a bit of work, but the screen shots should give you an idea of the designs.

Website Design Mock Up

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to have started work on a new website design project for a local holiday accommodation provider.

Bay Cliff and the Lodge are quality, comfortable self-catering holiday lets in Borth, Wales. Run by the third generation of a family of holiday accommodation providers in the area. I have already built a website for the parents of this new website so it was pleasing to see that they had been pleased with my services and had recommended them to their family members.

The website will be a simple, brochure style website outlining the features and facilitates available within the accommodation, highlighting some of the local attractions and providing booking information.

I hope to have the website live soon.

Pixelwave Web Design has just started work on a new website for an Event Catering Company in Wales.

Event Eateries Website Design

This new venture is a collaboration between two independent mobile caterers who will provide quality, bespoke catering services, incredible food, facilities and resources to event organisers. Event Eateries is backed by Trailer Tech UK, a local catering trailer manufacturer who already have a website designed, built and maintained by Pixelwave Web Design.

The new website for Event Eateries will be a bright, eye-catching website outlining the new companies services and background and providing information for event caterers.

Watch this space for updates on their new website

It seems to be the season for re-branding at the moment as I’ve been hard at work re-branding websites.

BBT Website Rebranding

One of the sites that has had a complete rebranding is a site promoting businesses and activities in the Brecon Beacons. I built this site several years ago when the Brecon Beacons Tourism group was newly formed and finding its feet. At the time, the site was a farily complex mix of tools for the group, and a way for businesses to promote themselves and their events whilst providing information on things to do, areas to visit and places to stay for visitors to the Brecon Beacons.

The site had performed well and the Brecon Beacons Tourism Group has gone from strength to strength. Fashions change though as does the focus of new start up businesses so I’ve recently been working on an overhaul of their website.

In addition to a whole new look with clean lines and more subdued colours, the emphasis of the site has changed from that of a website for visitors to the Brecon Beacons to a directory of businesses aimed more at the business owners themselves. Several keys organisational changes were made to the working of the site behind the scenes and much of the content was re-written too. I’m just glad that my initial coding was clean and well-commented as it certainly helped when it came to some of the more fundamental changes with the way the site worked. The site now also has Facebook integration and a more prominent weblog based latest news section.

The re-branded website has now gone live and initial reports on the new look are all very positive.

Website Re-Branding

A smaller, brochure style website that I built for R.J Little Engineering a few years ago has also undergone a revamp. Jon has registered a new business name – Trailer Tech UK – and wanted the website rebranded to reflect this. Rather than putting an emphasis on his engineering services and credentials he is now trying to create a brand name for the trailers and event catering products that he offers. I registered and set up new domain names and e-mail accounts for him and rebranded the site to reflect these changes to his business.

It’s good to see people keeping their websites up to date with changes happening in their businesses. Far too many people have sites built and them leave them to gather cobwebs. Updates cost very little and really do make a big difference. A website is probably the most important promotional tool for your business or organisation and it deserves some TLC now and then.

Pixelwave Web Design has recently started work on a new project for Wames, the The Welsh Association of ME & CFS Support charity.

Their website is intended as an information point for people looking for info about ME in Wales. It is aimed at adults, children, patients, cares, friends, professionals and the media. Many of the target audience are ME sufferers and have vision and concentration problems so one of the primary concerns of the site is that it has to be easy to read with straight forward navigation and conform to various accessibility guidelines. In addition the site is to b bilingual and built around a Content Management System so that the charity administrators can update is whenever they wish.

I’ve already started working on an overall layout and have been discussing information architecture issue with my clients to ensure that the site is well organised and as easy to use as possible. They intend to present a huge amount of information through the website so arranging that within a sensible site hierarchy is going to be one of the main challenges.

I’m pleased with the look and feel so far and will hopefully start adding some real live content soon. I tend to concentrate on aspects of accessibility and SEO when building website rather than adding unnecessary flourishes that tend to impede access so it’s nice to be working on a project where these aspects are also of prime importance to the client.