Andrew John Smallwood

I was recently commissioned to produce a new website for a new consultancy that helps businesses to optimise their services.

Onwards and Upwards are available throughout the UK and focus on a range of services including:

• Professional Support Services
• Project Management
• Business Risk Management
• Business Performance Management
• Cost Management

All websites should be responsive

Having read the bible of responsive design by Ethan Marcotte, I’ve recently taken a stance that all websites should be responsive whereby they fit to mobiles, tablets and desktops and provide a consistent display of information accordingly.

In addition, I’ve been researching the use of Twitter Bootstrap as a framework to speed up delivery times. Why spend all day coding buttons and the like if you can use a starter pack ready to help you succeed. It makes perfect sense.

The website was completed within three weeks with an ecstatic client claiming:

“What a fabulous looking website – well done, thank you.”

The site is also built in WordPress in order for the client to keep it updated and I sourced all the imagery from iStockPhoto.

Take a look at the website now

My latest project took me in a very different direction. I was approached by a top fashion blogger who had been using Tumblr but wanted to exploit the power of WordPress to take her blogging to the next level.

We met one rainy night in London to plan the project and a few weeks later we had a customised, responsive website ready for her to blog to her hearts content.

The site itself was based on the awesome Bones framework from Themble. It allowed for rapid deployment and gave me more time to focus on the look and feel of the site.

Continue reading “Dress up show up” »

The University of Westminster have launched a campaign to restore the birthplace of British cinema back to it’s former glory.

I designed the accompanying website from start to finish and based it on the 320 and up framework. The intial concept was designed in Photoshop before transferring to an HTML5 test site. The final steps consisted of splicing the code into a workable wordpress template designed specifically for this website.

Continue reading “Regent Street Cinema” »

A budding beautician based in Ipswich launched a brand new service at the start of 2012 and she needed the perfect compliment to her business: a mobile website.

This was my second project for 2012 and I was determined to build on my first fully responsive site. The website for Alice Mobile Beauty is, again, quite simple. But that’s all it needs to be.

The site showcases the price list for Alice and couples it with an online booking form as well as an option to buy gift vouchers online. Alice herself is available via her blackberry and her customers can get in contact with her via the website whilst they are on the move.

Continue reading “Alice Mobile Beauty” »

In my years of designing websites, I would always begin every project with my trusty sketchbook and pencil. But I would always end up calculating millimeters to pixels, which lengthened my design process significantly.

Architects have been designing to scale for years, so why can’t online designers produce scale drawings based on pixels instead of millimeters?

Imagine being able to produce a scale drawing of your website, interface or mobile app before transferring it to your computer.

Enter the Meta Stationery pixel based ruler.

Available in various sizes, the first two products from Meta Stationery (a Coast Design Ltd brand) were launched in November 2011. Sales have been steady but 2012 will be an important year while I attempt to target retailers as well as pushing online sales. Continue reading “Meta Stationery” »

This website in it’s own right was a great project to work on. I’d been reading about responsive design and in particular, the 320 and up framework.

It coincides with Luke Wroblewski’s Mobile First theory and basically flips the idea of web design on its head.

Instead of designing for the desktop, and taking content away for mobile, just design for mobile first. It’s a bold move but it makes so much sense. Design the core content for 320px wide (mobile portrait), add an additional stylesheet for 480px wide (mobile landscape), another one for tablets, 600px and 768px, then finally your layout for 1024px screens.

Continue reading “AJ Smallwood” »

Comdronic Ltd are an engineering company based in Ipswich who offer a unique product called the Comdronic AC6 Manometer. It is an  electronic manometer programmed to carry out differential pressure measurements primarily on balancing valves within the HVAC industry.

The client’s old website needed drastically updating because it was based in tables and they were unable to update it effectively.

This was the first ecommerce website that I’ve completed and I chose Lemonstand as the platform. Lemonstand is an up and coming ecommerce framework that is being actively developed buy Limewheel Creative over in Canada.

Continue reading “Comdronic” »

A fledgling company based in Suffolk, Absolute Adventure offer adrenalin fueled experiences for corporate team building and charity fundrasising events.

The client needed a simple, quick website in order to showcase an emerging product offering so I decided to employ WordPress to enable rapid development and ease of use for the user.

Continue reading “Absolute Adventure” »

RJ Dean Plasters are an experienced plastering company based in Ipswich. They needed a complete branding as well as a website and print presence, at the same time, they were being pushed into the 21st century by an energetic young Director of the company.

My service and their enthusiasm complimented each other well and we managed to produce a website and complete branding at an exceptional rate.

The client was given a full breakdown of the creative process behind the logo concept and the transparency encouraged collaboration before emerging at the final destination. They were supplied with the logo in various formats to enable them to source suppliers for the various paraphenalia they needed including:

Continue reading “RJ Dean Plasterers” »

I was invited to take part on a project at the University of Westminster in late 2010 to help produce a mobile application that would aid students in their journey at University and act as a tool for productivity.

The app would be developed by a company called oMbiel who are specialists in the field of application development, especially for Higher Education. The basic framework for the app was in place but there were a number of tasks that were outstanding and ended up being tasked to me.

My part in the project included:

Continue reading “iPhone app” »