Archive for May, 2010

3 Peaks Challenge for First Impression designers

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Dan Collins and Rob Jenkins who both work at First Impression in Glossop are taking up the challenge with Peak Active Sport on bank holiday weekend to climb Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon – the 3 highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales – within 24 hours!  No mean feat.

And why are they doing it? It’s to raise money for ‘Agapao’ who work in Africa who Peak Active Sport have been closely associated with. Good luck to Dan and Rob and all the Peak Active Sport team members! We’re sure you will do well and will have a few stories to tell on Tuesday, and particularly sore feet…

You can offer your support on the Just Giving site http://www.justgiving.com/danandrob3peaks

Wise up to the wonders of the web

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Is your website working for your business? Or is it more of a liability?

Many companies launch a website then forget about it. Then, a few years down the line it looks outdated and no longer reflects the business, or worse, it might be losing them customers. Ask yourself these simple questions about your site?

Does it look professional – that you are a company that means business?
Does it show people why they should do business with you?
Is it easy to navigate with clearly laid out information?
Can it be found easily? Or are your competitors easier to find!
Is it making you money?

If you answer no to any of these questions, you could be missing potential customers and even losing business. You need to act now. First Impression can help. We can guide you through every stage of designing, developing and building a successful website and promoting on the Internet.

Take a look at what we have done for other companies on our web portfolio www.firstimpression.co.uk/digital

New publication Glossop Life hits the streets

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

A brand new lifestyle and community magazine Glossop Life has been published and is now hitting the streets. The A4 full colour magazine includes a story from Glossop Mountain Rescue and a brief history of how Glossop first came again. It’s also got a great arts and crafts and music section and 32 other pages to keep you interestered. 4,000 copies have been hand delivered, the remaining 6,000 are being distrubted around the town and surrounding district in key points such as Tescos, Co-op, Costa Coffee. They’ve been flying off the shelves in Tescos, we can hardly keep up with demand and the feedback has been tremendous. And we’ve been getting stories for the next issue…

You can see an online copy here http://www.glossoplife.co.uk/current-issue.php

Do Business in Hyde

Monday, May 17th, 2010

The Do Business event will be in Hyde tomorrow – 18th May. It’s a free event and a fantastic opportunity to network, meet new suppliers, secure new leads and learn new skills. There will be local exhibitors and organisations such as Business Link, Tameside Business Family and Greater Manchester Chamber to help you with your business queries and free workshops to help you get the most out of networking and marketing to grow your business.

There will also be a free speed networking session, tea and coffee and lunch provided. So come and join us at the Joshua Bradley Hotel from 9.45 – 2pm. There’s still time to register for the sessions.

http://www.do-business.co.uk/next-event.html

10 Simple jquery effects/tools we use on most web projects – Part 1

Monday, May 17th, 2010

During the life cycle of most web projects we work on here at First Impression there is always a common set of jquery scripts which we tend to use to add extra functionality and wow factor to a website .

Here is part 1 of our top 10 favourite jquery effects.

1) InnerFade Plugin

Summary 

The jQuery InnerFade is a small plugin which allows you to fade any element inside a container in and out.

The Code


<script type="text/javascript">

$(document).ready( function(){
<pre id="line1"> $('.slider').innerfade({ speed: 'slow', timeout: 4000, type: 'sequence', containerheight: '1.5em' }); } ); 

</pre>
</script>

In action http://copy-writer.co.uk/copywriting-experience.php (The image cycle in the sidebar)

2) Image hover fade

Summary 

A subtle effect which changes the opacity of an image as you hover over it, nice for adding polish to a completed project

The Code


<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
$(document).ready(function(){
$("img").fadeTo("slow", 1.0); // This sets the opacity of the thumbs to fade down to 60% when the page loads
$("img").hover(function(){
$(this).fadeTo("slow", 0.6); // This should set the opacity to 100% on hover
},function(){
$(this).fadeTo("slow", 1.0); // This should set the opacity back to 60% on mouseout
});
});
// ]]></script>

Based on this scripthttp://bavotasan.com/tutorials/creating-a-jquery-mouseover-fade-effect/

In actionhttp://www.firstimpression.co.uk/clients.php (hover over a client logo)

3) Superfish menu

Summary 

Superfish is an enhanced Suckerfish-style menu jQuery plugin that takes an existing pure CSS drop-down menu (so it degrades gracefully without JavaScript) and adds the following much-sought-after enhancements:

* Suckerfish-style hover support for IE6.
* Timed delay on mouseout
* Animation of sub-menu reveal
* Keyboard accessibility.
* Supports the hoverIntent plugin.
* Indicates the presence of sub-menus by automatically adding arrow images to relevant anchors.
* drop shadows for capable browsers
* Can show the path to your current page while the menu is idle.

In actionhttp://www.uccmma.com (hover over fighters in the navbar)

Visit plugin websitehttp://users.tpg.com.au/j_birch/plugins/superfish/

4) Coin Slider

Summary 

Coinslider is a very flexible image slider with lots of unique effects. The script is cross browser compatable, can be customised to meet your requirements and can turn a boring set of images into a funky interactive slideshow!

Visit plugin website - http://workshop.rs/projects/coin-slider/
In actionhttp://www.colourmobilevms.com (the image slideshow in the black feature box)

5) UI Accordion

Summary 

After experimenting with several accordion scipts, this JQuery UI version always prevails! It is very easy to install, it includes an array of configuration options and can be skinned very easily using the available UI themes.
The Code


<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
$(function() {
$("#accordion").accordion();
});
// ]]></script>

Visit plugin website - http://jqueryui.com/demos/accordion/
In actionhttp://www.smilequest.co.uk/fags.html (Click on a question to reveal answer)

Keep an eye out for part two of this article which will be following shortly.

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