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Having made much of his fortune through web based ventures he was perfectly placed to help the team and also focus us in the exciting new direction of Debug Design

The course covered important topics including:

• Markets and Industries
• Products & Customers
• Market Segmentation and Trends
• The Five Forces and Competitive advantage
• Execution and Excellence

Doug delivered the presentation with a no-nonsense approach and raised many interesting points which will change the company forever

Watch this space!

Katy submitted a tasty starter which was a goats cheese, mushroom and chutney tart and Ian; 3 bangers and mash stack.

Having BOTH got through the preliminaries they went for their first days filming at Pinewood studios in London.

Katy was first to go and was up against a wild vension and strawberry crush, and despite some crazy nerves she held it together to produce an amazing dish which wowed the judges securing her place in the regional final.

Ian sadly had to have a sausage and mash off with another bangers and mash… The wild boars won and Ian sadly walked off into the void.

Katy will be filming throughout June so check back to hear the FULL story..

[View with PicLens]

With this in mind we have created a list of 5 open source alternatives to software needed to tinker with images, code and documents.

Aptana Studio instead of Dreamweaver
http://www.aptana.com/studio
Aptana Studio is a HTML and CSS design suite. It is also used by programmers who write in PHP, Ruby and others. It works very similarly to Dreamweaver in that it has both a design and code view, has syntax highlighting, comes with code snippets, and will also FTP files to your website for you. If you have used Dreamweaver in the past then Aptana would feel very familiar to you, with a few nice surprises (especially for those AJAX lovers out there).

GIMP instead of Photoshop
http://www.gimp.org/
GIMP is almost a ‘clone’ of Photoshop. It works in very similar way with its layers, selections, filters and painting tools. It can even read and write in Photoshop format, making it ultra compatible with your Photoshop using colleagues or clients. The software doesn’t feel quite as polished as Photoshop does, and its text manipulation is a little behind Photoshop’s. But, if you’re like the majority of people who use Photoshop to resize their images, reduce the colours, and maybe add the odd special effect to add a little extra to your websites, then the GIMP is definitely something you should try!

Inkscape instead of Illustrator
http://www.inkscape.org/
Inkscape is a vector drawing programs with features similar to that of Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. It has a very large feature set, including n-sided object creation, text effects, raster images, gradients, layers, opacity and paths. It can read and write in many formats, including XML, SVG and complies with W3C standards. It can also read AI and SVG files exported from Illustrator. A fine and free alternative.

OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office
http://www.openoffice.org/
Open Office.org (or OOo for short) is a direct replacement for Microsoft’s Office suite (excluding Outlook). It is a very mature project and they have very recently released version 3.1.0. You can use replacements for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. OOo can also read and write in any of the native file formats, as well as a few others (like PDF) which older versions of Office can’t. Being a Linux man myself in a predominantly Windows environment, I find OOo a life saver. This one comes highly recommended.

Mozilla Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express/Webmail
http://www.mozillamessaging.com
Mozilla Thunderbird is a feature packed mail program which allows you to organise, customise and secure your mails.  Each mail can be tagged, searched, secured and with so many personalisation options you can make it your own in now time.  And most importantly, its free.

The website features a bespoke content management system built to allow simple and easy updates to cruise, lecturer and ship information.  The website was coded in PHP and CSS with modal windows. The modal window has many advantages; when a modal window contains a smaller element, the user doesn’t need to load an entirely new page just to access it, the modal windows allows them to view the content overlaid on their current page, improving the usability of the website. Having to load pages over and over will annoy most users, so avoiding that is definitely a good thing. Modal windows also allow you to save space by getting rid of large elements that don’t need to be on the main page.

Debug Design have just launched a brand new website for the Adastral Park Gym in Martlesham.

With a refurbishment, new equipment and additional facilities it was time to re-vamp the website. The new site features a PHP based online booking system with AJAX usability components.  The online booking will make it much simpler for members to reserve their session times and news pages aim to bring in new members.

The custom made CMS (Content Management System) allows the team at Adastral Park Leisure and Sports to create new facilities (ie: squash court, tennis court), add recurring facilities, cater for clubs and communicate with all of its members with the newsletter functionality.

Would you like an in-house chef to create healthy balanced meals for you every day?

Butterflies Tailored Cuisine do exactly that, and chose Debug Design to create their new branding and identity.

The client wanted a professional and elegant look. After working through a variety of concepts, we were all very happy with the chosen logo; an aqua marine and sharp black contrasting butterfly icon accenting the luxurious font.

We also created business cards and a holding page for the client.  We wanted the cards to embody the concept of Butterflies, and a little something special was called for.  We have added a spot gloss varnish to the logo.  This will bring it out in the design and accent it, also providing a silky texture to the deluxe cards that will make the customers want to keep them!

These include:

-  SEO Freindly URL’s
-  Google Search Suggest for the search box
-  Automatically updated share price (as they are listed on the UK stock market)
-  User friendly AJAX Highslide contact forms
-  Integrated Google Maps
-  One Click Lightbox Galleries
-  CSS Print Styles
-  Custom CMS system

Panther Securities are enjoying the current slow down in the market by increasing their portfolio of properties ready for the revival next year.

Their primary objective is to maximise long-term return for our shareholders by stable growth in net asset value and dividend per share, from a consistent and sustainable rental income stream.

To achieve these goals they work alongside their tenants for their mutual benefit.

Over the next few years they will continue to expand their investment portfolio by uncovering commercial opportunities which offer a high yielding return on our investment, or the reasonable expectation for such a return.

This small but highly experienced management team are able to evaluate opportunities quickly and efficiently and so expect alot more from them in the future.

Visit their site at http://www.panthersecurities.co.uk

“We were very impressed with Debug Design, whom understood our requirements perfectly, and then expertly guided us through the design process.  Their help and guidance was invaluable as we were unclear on how best to position our web presence, especially as we had no formal corporate identity, in terms of logo and design.  We now have the perfect looking professional website in terms of functionality, and utilised the logo developed by Debug design (for the website) on our accounts and corporate stationery, as such I would have no doubts in recommending them.”

Simon Peters
Finance Director
Panther Securities PLC

]]> http://www.debugdesign.com/2009/04/21/edge-re-branding-stationery/feed/ 0 http://www.debugdesign.com/2008/11/23/health-matters-book-cover-published/ http://www.debugdesign.com/2008/11/23/health-matters-book-cover-published/#comments Sun, 23 Nov 2008 13:06:13 +0000 admin http://www.debugdesign.com/?p=160 A recent project for Patient UK involved Debug Design creating a new book cover for the family health compendium ‘Health Matters’.

The design had to incorporate various cartoon characters, be eye-catching and appeal to a wide family audience. Debug Design also created various associated marketing collaterals and internal drawings to go with the book

The book in on sale in various stores and can be purchased from Amazon for £12.99 – Click here to go to amazon >>

The front cover for the family health compendium Health Matters

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