Digitally Refreshing

A touch of colour from the original Pixel Juice website.

The design is far from finished but the greys and blues of the semi-complete style sheet were a little too bland.

I’ve moved the navigation into a tabbed structure at the top of the page, giving me more width to play with and I’ll be styling the existing left navigation area soon.

Who says lists are boring? Well, mine are for the time being, as they’ve only been mildly styled with the help of CSS techniques I’ve learnt over the years. Here are a couple of my favourite list styling tutorials:

• alistapart
• cssplay

The CSSplay page has dozens of real examples – a great list styling tutorial resource.

Pixel Juice will now be called Digitally Refreshing. The pixeljuice.co.za domain will still be alive for a while yet and will point to this website - but I felt it was time for a brand evolution.

Digitally Refreshing far better describes what we do here, which is building digitally refreshing websites!

Now comes the hard bit - the big redesign! I’ve decided to proceed in a way that I’ve never tried before. Why begin with an image typically created in Photoshop, why not just jump straight into the CSS and design from the code up?

Check back for my daily progress. And along the way I’ll make sure to share all the CSS secrets and unwritten rules I find…

The South African Breastmilk Reserve takes pride in "bringing milk to babies, safely"

Based in Gauteng the SABR collects, pasteurises and delivers breast milk to homes and orphanages in need of healthy milk.

With recent appearances on television and related websites, Stasa Kersevan is making strong headway in the fight to keep babies healthy. With the already high number of AIDS mothers’ growing daily, her work here in South Africa is critical.

We were challenged with the creation of a corporate identity for a brand which needed to grab the attention of potential mothers willing to donate milk. We felt that steering clear of conventional "baby" related imagery was a must. SABR needed to make an impact upon its potential donators often from the wall of a nursery or doctor’s room.

Aloe Nursery needed a one page, quick win result. We were able to quickly understand customer requirements, design and implement a one page site for Aloe Nursery.

“The site will grow in time, but for now I just need a simple, effective and attractive presence” – Owner.

We feel we have met the objectives laid out by Aloe Nursery. Take a look for yourself, and while you’re over there order some aloes for your garden!

A nail-biting encounter took place on the Ash River outside Bethlehem this weekend when current SA Champion, Cameron McIntosh, narrowly kept off an impressive surge by junior Michael Watson to win a historic 7th national title

Read more about Cameron and his development teams on his website, CameronMcIntosh.com.

Cameron approached Pixel Juice for a website solution which would allow him to regularly update his own website without having to pay costly updating fees. We used a Wordpress solution and custom built a look and feel template which is easily updatable. When Cameron reaches the Olympics, we’ll be able to update the look and feel of his website in order to reflect this achievement.

Another website from Pixel Juice! Tiffany Markman, of www.tiffanymarkman.co.za, needed a cost-effective website she could manage without having to visit expensive web designers. Now, simple content changes, up-to-date articles and a very interesting blog (stop by and have a read) are just a few clicks from Tiffany’s editing fingers.

Built on the Wordpress content management system, Tiffany’s website details her editing, copywriting and corporate training services. And when she needs a new look ‘n feel or wants to add information, it’s as easy as 1 - 2 - 3. Edit a few files, tweak some CSS and she’s away, driving her web presence into the future.

Tiffany specialises in editing and writing for websites, newsletters, brochures, proposals, presentations, atl &amp btl advertisements, scripts, books, magazines, reviews, speeches and more… Make sure to stop by and see what she’s all about.

“Sitescore is a free tool which rates how well designed, popular and accessible your website is.”

And it works very, very well. I was quite taken aback by the depth of their analysis. Typically this sort of information would have been reserved for paying guests. Make sure to try it out - I did…

This is the rating I received for Pixel Juice:

CSS design rocks my world, edit a few lines of code and you can change the entire look and feel of your site.

This design is based upon my other site, MattBowden.co.uk and will change again soon to reflect the true taste of Pixel Juice, funky fruity with a dash of fizz! Watch this space for a new flavour!

“A portable solar power generator and energy bank means energy even when there’s no sun.”

Make sure to enter the competition and stand a chance of winning a great solar product.

Another example of a pure CSS layout with the use of tables where tables are required. I’m trying to perfect using lists for navigation, with the use of CSS I’m able to create a great shadowed tab look and feel - help yourself to the code if you like what you see.

Visit the Flexopower.com website now and browse through the great and innovative products on offer.