Beaver Design has recently finished the website for “Back the Boys”, the official PA team for Reading FC at Madejski Stadium responsible for all matchday music, announcements and video screen requests.

The new website features a screen requests page, which gives visitors the opportunity to post personal messages to show on the screen at the stadium. So if people want to see a birthday message, anniversary announcement, etc. – they can simply fill in the online request and see it next match they go to.

The site also features a blog and gallery for supporter news and pictures, as well as occasional polls on stadium events. A simple design with some easy to use features has given Back the Boys a web presence for supporters and visitors to the stadium.

For more information and to view the site, please go to:
www.backtheboys.com

Last Wednesday, Beaver Design went to the HBI Business Expo at the Galleria, Hatfield. This is the second time Beaver Design has exhibitied at one of these Business Expos (you can read about our previous time here) and it was great to meet and talk with so many businesses from the local area.

We were pleased to see so many start-up businesses and get a chance to talk about the need for strong branding, quality marketing materials and of course, good website design. Many of the people we talked to were also interested in our digital signage services and if you would like to find out more about digital signage, as well as some video case-studies, please take a look at www.beaver-group.com.

For those of you who gave us your business card or entered it into our bowl, there was a chance to win a bottle of Taittinger champagne. We are pleased to announce that the winner of this bottle is Nicole Foulger from St John Ambulance. Congratulations! It will be finding it's way over to you in the next few days.

If you would like any more information about us or what we do (graphic design, web design & digital signage), please take a look around this website or just give us a call.

This month our article in Axis Magazine looked at the future of the web and a little bit about where it all started.

Download your copy of our July article from Axis Magazine (1MB) >

The web is constantly evolving. New technology and innovation does not come in generations, it comes as a continual drip over time. To keep ahead of the game, companies, organisations and individuals need to continually re-evaluate their web presence and update things accordingly. Just because you have a good web presence now, doesn't mean your web presence is sorted forever.

Key to success in the changing world and on the web is to watch how your customers interact with you and adapt as their needs change.

What are you talking about?

Here are some explanations of different terms and the sources which are referred to in the article:

Facebook: Statistics on the usage of Facebook >
Google Maps: Content is being added by everyday people >
YouTube: This broadcasting is even being used by the government >
Mozilla Foundation: See the quote in the article? Find out who they are >

‘RSS’: what it means and how it is used by the BBC >
Semantic Web: What is this? Watch a intro video to this concept >
Linked Data: Video of Tim Berners-Lee on his idea for ‘Linked Data’ >
Cloud Computing: Watch this very brief overview on the concept >

Predicting the future...

Here are a couple of articles which are well worth a read if you are interested in more information about the (possible) future of the web:

Sir Tim Berners-Lee: “the future web will rock the boat" >
Gordon Brown: "The internet is as vital as water" >
iPhone 3G S: A new mobile phone which is taking full of advantage of the web >

The gala award ceremony for the Federation of Small Business (FSB) Awards 2009 was held last week and Beaver Solutions, part of the Beaver Group, is proud to have won second place in the category of “best e-business”.

Beaver Solutions is the sister company to Beaver Design, both of which form the Beaver Group. The Beavers beat off a lot of difficult competition with our innovative and successful work in the field of digital signage and web development. The awards noted our continuing work in integrating digital signage with a range of different web technologies.

All the Beavers are proud to have won another award for our work and would like to congratulate all the other winners and finalists from the evening.

As part of our service to market research for some of our client’s products, Beaver Design provides packaging for various kinds of products.

This month Beaver Design provided over 4000 printed boxes to test three different products in four different countries and each project involved the design, layout and finished artwork for each product. The boxes were then printed and shipped ready for filling in Poland, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK.

The results of this market research will go on to help well known brands deliver better products for consumers around the world.