Hornblend is a new online magazine that aims to view the world through both African and Western lenses, providing insight into cosmopolitan life, heritage and culture for a multi-cultural audience.

Ech were excited to be asked to develop the branding and web site for Hornblend, working in partnership with the client who had a clear take on the style and feel that was required. We have developed a textured style in keeping with the subject matter to provide a rich photographic look to viewers of the magazine. Viewers can browse content across ordered columns, slideshows and full width articles, maintaining a consistent viewing experience. This aesthetic style is matched by fully featured blog functionality to allow readers to browse content by category, leave comments and be encouraged to explore through related posts and random posts showing alongside articles.

The first issue has just launched and we were delighted to get involved in setting up the initial site advertising and sourcing images. Look out for the next issue in the coming months which will no doubt witness the continuing evolution of the visual style.

www.hornblend.com

City Year, the well respected and Obama approved young people’s charity is coming to the UK. They aim to offer young people the chance to volunteer to serve a year in urban school’s helping to raise achievement and to gain great life experiences.

City Year London, the first outpost asked Ech to design a new website that would help to translate their well established branding to a UK audience. We have worked to develop a fresh visual style which picks up on their distinctive identity.

The website is fully content managed, allowing staff to edit content, upload images, documents and media files. The site employs photo galleries to showcase the charity’s initial work in the capital, news feeds and randomised quotes. It enables the charity to advertise upcoming events, allows online applications and links in with their social-networking pages.

www.cityyear.org.uk

Swakeleys School asked Ech Design to develop a new website to showcase the school to parents and students (prospective and existing attendees), keep visitors up to date with useful information and to celebrate achievements and news.

We have developed updated branding based around their enjoy, achieve, aspire, succeed motto and a new site which is fully content managed – allowing staff to edit every aspect of the pages, add news and flag important announcements. They can upload documents such as Ofsted reports, add images to the photo galleries, keep the calendar up to date and advertise recruitment opportunities, all wrapped up in a clean looking, easy to navigate site which makes use of embedded video, font replacement techniques and image slideshows. The new site has been generating impressive hits, with visitors spending time on the site and digging into the pages and is appearing prominently for school related and area based search terms.

www.swakeleys.hillingdon.sch.uk

Awards of London have the widest variety and best quality of awards, plaques, trophies and medals in the UK. They asked Ech to design a new website which would help them to showcase their products and encourage online ordering to go with their busy phone and shop sales.

We have developed a shopping cart driven site that allows the visitor to quickly find the type of trophy they are looking for, stipulate extra requirements such as engraving and place orders. We have implemented a strong visual style to differentiate Awards of London from their competitors and have concentrated on showing the products clearly, providing clear routes of navigation and offering the same level of service that you get if you phone the company directly.

We look forward to embarking on a programme of search engine optimisation (SEO) on the site to drive traffic and make the content even more visible to search engines.

www.awardsoflondon.com

MyPureRush provide their loyal client base with the best pit bikes, quad bikes, parts and equipment for the most fun on the track. Their existing site ran on a bespoke ecommerce php based platform, which was performing well, but the site design needed a lick of paint. Ech were commissioned to design an updated look for the platform and then to re-skin the entire site, integrating with the existing database and payment system.

We have gone for a tarmac, dirt, paint and engines inspired design, expanded the viewing area and streamlined the layout. Along with refined navigation and display of products, we have also built in ‘new items’ and ’sale item’ scrolling listings and ‘customers also bought’ suggestions on the individual product pages. Ech are looking forward to orking with MyPureRush over the coming months to re-categorise their content and to further develop the payment system.

www.mypurerush.com