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do1 recently completed the website of Rowlands Castle-based construction firm, R J Winnicott. The company, founded in 1904, is a family run business that continues to be a main player in the Portsmouth area. In light of this, they thought it was time to update their online presence.

R J Winnicott instructed do1 to produce a unique, creative design for their website. Excited by the proposition of a blank canvas, we began to let the creative juices flow. Taking inspiration from contemporary visual styles, Ben, one of our designers, created a tactile and image-led design.

Unfortunately, this was a bit too left-of-the-field for R J Winnicott. One of the main pitfalls of translating brief to concept is understanding what the customer/end-users want and need. The client was looking for something that looked more clean and corporate, but still being creative and with an element of uniqueness. Most of the time an initial conversation and small brief is enough to pinpoint exactly what the client is after, and it’s not often that we miss the mark on the initial concept design. However, on this occasion we found that our understanding was indeed a little off the mark!

With renewed knowledge in hand we created a second concept that hit the nail on the head (no pun intended). Knowing the background of the company, their customers and their likes and dislikes completely streamlined the production process. R J Winnicott’s desire for something creative and different gave our designers and developers a chance to test their skills and create something unique. This came in the form of a horizontally scrolling portfolio bar on the homepage, which took real dedication and time to perfect. Utilising Javascript, HTML, CSS and PHP it was important to get it looking identical across all major browsers. As standard, we ensure compatibility with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 2 and 3, and Apple Safari. However, this wasn’t the only task, as it was vitally important (as with all our work) that the website validated to xHTML 1.0 strict standards - http://www.w3.org

The important thing was to learn from our mistakes. How could we help avoid a similar situation of delivering a concept design that’s rejected by our client? We’d seen the benefits of 100% clarity and wanted to carry this through to all of our projects. We’ve since produced a client questionnaire which we now get all new clients to complete in order to get a full overview of the project. It’s vital to keep your clients happy, after all, this project was a result of a referral through our continued working relationship with Jeffries Estate Agents in Portsmouth.

Check out the new R J Winnicott website and let us know what you think:
http://www.winnicott.co.uk/