Design

www.haydock-park.co.uk

Haydock Park is one of the UK’s premier horse racing venues located between Manchester and Liverpool in the North West of England. Steeped in history and prestige it attracts large crowds all year round. Much more than just a horse racing venue it plays host to a wealth of conferences, events & music concerts.

Having worked with Haydock Park delivering its offline marketing materials for a number of years, Access was selected to develop its new website. A website that would reflect its position as one of the regions premier venues, increase visitor participation and repeat visits, and ultimately increase conversion and drive ticket sales.

The Roundhouse in Camden holds almost legendary status as a cultural and historical melting pot, most famously known as a music and performing arts venue. To name but a few, it plays host to the iTunes Festival, Electric Proms and recently solo greats such as Smoky Robinson and  Bob Dylan (of which I was lucky enough to get a ticket). However it isn’t just a venue, it’s a charity that prides itself on its strong youth focus with its doors open to 11-25 year olds who are free to use and encourage the learning of TV, Radio , Music and Media Production in any of the 24 state of the art studios that reside underneath the iconic, acoustically prolific upper performing space.

A Brief History of Web Design & Usability

In the early days of designing and building websites there were very few conventions to follow; everything was new, exciting and uncharted. Elements that we are now familiar with on the web, like search boxes, buttons, headings, navigation, layouts and logo positions were often interpreted & presented in a wide variety of new styles, some good, some not so good- standards had yet to be set. The web was a difficult place to find your way around; a dark room full of unknown signs, signals and doorways.

In the world of web design, using typefaces other than the very limited list of cross platform system fonts has meant using images, flash or some other piece of webtrickery, often resulting in content being difficult to update, format or index in search engines. This has meant that most web designers have simply stuck to the usual stack of well known and safe options – Arial, Georgia, Comic Sans [gasp -not really] etc and avoided alternative fonts in body of their designs, unless absolutely necessary. However, at a time when the web is moving forward rapidly in so many other ways, is avoidance your only option? I personally think we may have just quietly turned a rather lovely and fruitful corner…