Digitally Refreshing

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…

Make sure to keep up to date with browser stats when designing for the web. Take time to check out who is using which browser and operating system. Ensure that your design will work for the most popular screen resolution and see how many web users have javaScript enabled.

See all this and more online at W3Schools

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.

Taking photographs is one thing, finding models that’ll hold pink handcuffs is another. I quickly found that it’s quicker, easier and cheaper to photograph yourself than it is to find and convince a model to do the same. Yup that’s me.

See more photos like this: Nature, People, Objects.

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.

I’m all for free content, who wouldn’t be? But, when you can’t trust what you read what’s the point of reading it at all?

Change perspective, imagine you’re the contributor. What if you spend hours researching and writing a piece of content only to have it plagiarised, and what’s more, to have it copied incorrectly?

Last month the prestigious journal, Nature claimed that Wikipedia offered content that was, by far, more accurate than the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Their report was fundamentally flawed and quite frankly, I was horrified to the extent that Nature had lied about what they had published.

Read the original BCC news story. Read what Britannica and Nature had to say.

Now for the theft part of this clip: I’m (Matt) teaching myself how to play guitar. I use a number of sites for reference. One of which is Ultimate Guitar. It’s a great site, loads of music (tabs) and tutorials for free.

However, after trying for hours to get my guitar to make a noise similar to that of a Blood Hound Gang song, I learned that the tutorial I was reading had actually been plagiarised by the Ultimate Guitar’s contributor. It was stolen from another guitar website, Ape Guitar. When I went to the source of the tutorial, Ape Guitar, I was able to spot the mistake I had been making.

Now that publishing to the Internet is almost as cheap and restriction free as preaching in the middle of the town square we (readers and writers) have to keep an eye open to the pitfalls of free and contributed content.

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.

When an ad agency decides to complement an advert with a soundtrack, how much thought do you think goes into the selection of the song or tune?

The most recent Hunter’s advert sports a great beat, Blinded By The Lights, originally performed by The Streets. The lyrics have been changed but the vocals still carry an English accent, and that’s my first question. Why is the new version not sung by a South African?

The chorus is still pretty much the same, sung by a female vocalist, these lyrics begin with “Lights are blinding my eyes…”. However in the ad “Lights are blinding my eyes…” refers to the lack of shade. In the original soundtrack this line refers to the lights within a night club.

Here are a few more lyrics:

Maybe I shouldn’t have done the second one; I feel all fidgety and warm…
(People pushin’ by, and walkin’ off into the night)
Whoa, everything in the room is spinning; I think I’m going to fall down,

Do you think that Hunter’s realise that the original song is about taking ecstasy? Or maybe they did know and felt that their quality beverage, Hunter’s, could help with this line:

“Gotta get rid of this pill taste…”

Another website from Pixel Juice. Thermitec, specialising in engineering solutions approached Pixel Juice with simple requirements. They needed a no nonsense approach to web design. In the words of Thermitec ‘we need a site that tells people what we do and what we offer, clearly and succinctly’.

Visit Thermitec now for all your engineering requirements. All on-site photography supplied by Pixel Juice.