StreamUK Website and Showreel
Thursday, December 14, 2006

Our latest project has been the complete overhaul of the StreamUK website. Our aim from the outset was to rework the site using a tableless layout implementing xhtml and css to create a more flexible, accessible website. This layout can easily accommodate various text sizes and amounts of content. It's a design that expands or contracts along with whatever is placed within it. In addition, by separating the core content from the design, we have improved the ease with which content is edited and code updated and maintained, while at the same time not hindering the design.

We were subsequently comissioned to produce a showreel for the home page encapsulating StreamUK's core services. We spent a long time developing the concept - that televison is now being sidelined in favour of online broadcasting - and storyboarded this idea before we opened any animation packages. After tweaking the straplines with invaluable help from the client we developed a punchy, modern showreel which sells their services and entertains at the same time.

Thanks Finn, it looks great. So good it made me smile.
Duncan Burbidge - CEO StreamUK

posted by Surestate at 10:07 AM      

Latest E-Commerce Project Goes Live: Online Book Store
Friday, December 01, 2006

Our latest e-commerce website has just gone live. Hay on Wye Booksellers is one of the UK's largest second hand book retailers. They carry a vast stock of around 30,000 book titles, many of which are as good as new.

They commissioned SureState to redesign their site and build a new online shop. Like many second hand book dealers, they use the AbeBooks Homebase system to manage their inventory. SureState built a unique administration system that allows Hay on Wye Booksellers to maintain their online shop by simply uploading and importing a file from AbeBooks Homebase.

In addition, this site has some great additional features: it is run off a SQL Server database, which allowed us to exploit SQL Server's great text searching capabilities. It also uses Protx's blazing fast and cost-effective payment gateway that ensures that the customer never has to leave the merchant's site. Lastly, we built a powerful administration system that allows Hay on Wye Booksellers to manage their special offers, wholesale book sales and the processing of their online orders.

Works great! Very pleased with it. Thanks Very Much.
Oli Greenow, Hay on Wye Booksellers.

posted by Surestate at 4:01 PM