“He’s just rounded the Lizard!” The great thing about being web designer is the fun projects that sometimes come along. Where you get to learn new things and help out in some way with someone’s project. A couple of years ago I started building a site for a friend who was retiring from the Fire …more
tallhatDesign was instrumental in the launch of twentyfifty.co.uk in 2021. We were involved early on in a re-branding project, and then the build of the multi-lingual website and training of internal staff to manage content and layouts in English and German. New developments for the site are underway for 2022. Another website and branding project …more
Website design, with its usability factors and functionality, can be a tricky business. There’s a lot to think about and juggle, from branding and the ‘graphic design’ side of things, to SEO, to mobile and touch device testing, to conversion rates and ‘reducing friction’. If you’re designing for a medium or large organisation you’re likely …more
17 March 2020 tallhatDesign is planning to continue business during the virus outbreak, but is likely to begin home working very shortly. We wish all our clients the very best in these extraordinary circumstances. Please do let us know if there are any special notices or website changes you need assistance with. All the best, …more
2019 was a busy year. A new tallhat.com website is underway but in the meantime I thought I’d post a few new projects that have been delivered recently. Some of these have yet to make it to the portfolio… Farmhouse A brand new hotel in the Catskills (up-state New York) – tallhatDesign designed and built …more
New website design and build for The Filter (also based at the Guild coworking) https://thefilter.com
I spent a long time trying to find a simple way to batch (bulk) convert .pages files to PDFs on a mac. There were a few Applescript examples online, but I couldn’t get anything working with a simple drag and drop compiled app. Perhaps older Applescript versions that were no longer working with High Sierra? …more
Delighted to have been asked to design and produce the official ‘Owls of Bath’ website for this new event (from the ‘Pigs and Lions’ team). Also produced video content for this at short notice. The website will evolve over the year as the event develops and artists produce their creations for the ‘trail’. minervasowls.org
Requirement: To design and produce a new responsive WordPress website integrated with the business back-office software (Expert Agent), branding and messaging concepts, signage, new PDF templates for online brochures. Deliverables: Website design visuals; build and project management (WordPress), campaign strategy, branding elements, signage artwork, graphic design. Next Steps: Roll out of further branding elements e.g. …more
Requirement: To design and produce a new responsive portfolio WordPress website. Deliverables: Website design visuals; build and project management (WordPress), before-and-after image setup, CMS training and handover. Next Steps: Expanding the projects portfolio Website: www.nickshipp.com
We don’t just do corporate design and websites, here’s a showreel of some of the ‘fun stuff’ – animated content, game development, plus some concept work and personal projects Clients included: BBC/Ecowatch, Nobok (Sports), Festo, Lloyds TSB, Adidas, Orange
I needed some hand-drawn style vector arrows for a project and ended up creating my own. I’ve put them here for free downloading in case they’re useful to anyone else: PDF: 738kb file https://tallhat.com/downloads/vector-hand-drawn-arrows.pdf Adobe Illustrator: 1.7mb file (CS6 format) https://tallhat.com/downloads/vector-hand-drawn-arrows.ai
tallhatDesign has been shortlisted for the ‘Best Designer’ category in the 2017 Creative Bath Awards to be held on 8 June. There is some tough competition in this category, with some talented people on the list. Let’s see what happens! See the full list of finalists. Good luck all – quite a few friends and …more
I was asked to collate a selection of vector illustrations I’d created for various projects, and thought I’d make these available here. See below (click to enlarge), or visit tallhat.com/vector-illustration
This is a bit of a technical article for me (I’m no server wizard), so please excuse any misunderstandings/misuse of terminology on my part. I’ve finally got my VPS hosting working with nginx and WordPress, which, looking at various articles online, can be tricky in a lot of cases. The main reason for doing this of course is …more
I’ve only recently switched to using Gmail for my main email account, and am benefitting on a few fronts e.g. spam reduction, the handy “promotions” tab, better/easier filtering and so on. One thing that really annoyed my though were the font-sizes when viewing emails and typing replies. The “settings” for the Gmail web interface leaves …more
tallhatDesign was approached to create a new website for ‘The Dire Straits Experience’ – a band containing several original members of Dire Straits and recreating the sound and live experience of this hugely popular group. A key aim was to make use of tour photography to get across the energy and scale of the live …more
We’ve worked with Garden Affairs over a number of years and have just launched a brand new responsive ModX website for them, updating their overall look-and-feel, implementing new functionality and content, and improving the back-end/CMS experience from the previous site. www.gardenaffairs.co.uk “We are already seeing improved enquiries coming from the site and have had excellent …more
On a recent project i was looking at web font options for a particular style consistent with primary school typeface usage – i.e. where the lowercase ‘a’ has no top arch (also called “single-story”). There are several usual suspects here, such as Sassoon Primary, FSAlbert, Futura, even (shudder) Comic Sans! I thought I’d also check …more
Requirement: To overhaul branding and an ageing website design and rebuild using a improved CMS. Deliverables: Brand assets, Directing photo shoot, Structural site consultancy (review existing site, assess information hierarchy and usability); website design visuals; build project management (WordPress); training and handover. Website: www.integralchange.co.uk