our work

web design

IBEX Information Management

IBEX is a new business formed by Zero Paper and has acquired Alexander Young, a document archive and records management business based in Preston.

The new site uses a content management system (CMS) so that IBEX can add and edit material.

Story Homes

Part of the Carlisle-based Story Group, Story Homes is an award-winning housebuilder with a range of development sites in northern England and southern Scotland.

The new site has a database to hold all the property details and this information can be viewed by the user in pages for each development site, in search results or in popups as they move their mouse over the siteplan for any particular development. A featured property box on the home page highlights specific properties. The admin back-end of the site allows Story Homes to edit property details such as prices and availability and also to update other pages of the site such as news stories.

Red Radish Catering

Red Radish is based near Carlisle, Cumbria and provides outdoor catering services including gourmet pies, carvery, crepes, croissants and coffee.

The business wanted a site that would work well across a range of audiences as they offer services for weddings, corporate events and festivals. The brief was to produce a site that was as distinctive as their business name - professional and serious about food yet with a sense of humour. The site uses large food-themed photographs in a black background and gives a lot of space to the business's cartoon style logo.

"You have done a fantastic job and we've had great comments!" – Rachel Faulkner, Red Radish Catering

Story Group

Story Group, based in Carlisle, Cumbria, is active in land acquisition and development, construction, house-building and rail projects.

The content managed web site enables Story Group to update content and add news stories.

Music on my PC

Music on my PC is a successful online retailer of products used in producing music on a computer, including keyboards, microphones, sound cards, interfaces and software.

The project was to re-design the templates for the existing e-commerce site. The re-design was an opportunity to "de-clutter" the site and the new design has much more white space, allowing the products to be the focus of attention. Product photographs are very important for this site, and the new design introduced multiple photographs for each product, using a "lightbox" effect to scroll through the pictures.

"We are genuinely delighted with the new site. And customers who've responded to our survey have commented that the site is clean and uncluttered and easy to use." – Frank Wilson, Music on my PC Ltd

Story Land

Story Land is a division of the Carlisle-based Story Group, focusing on the acquisition of land for development.

The web site uses a content management system (CMS) enabling Story Land to update the site themselves, which is important for areas of the site like news, awards and community consultations. Successful development projects are illustrated in photo galleries. The home page has a Flash slideshow with text fading in and out over the pictures.

O'Reilly Financial Services LLP

O'Reilly Financial Services is a new firm of independent financial advisers formed when the financial services activities of O'Reilly Chartered Accountants were separated out into a new business.

The business required a new web site based on the corporate style of the sister site for the accountancy side of the business. At the same time that the new site was created, all the financial services activities had to be removed from the accountancy web site.

Coniston Launch

Coniston Launch operates two launches on Coniston Water in the Lake District, offering scheduled ferry services along the lake as well as special cruises and group charters. The business was taken over by new owners in 2008, who wanted to update the web site.

Interact's priority in designing the new web site was to streamline the wealth of information on the site and make it easier to understand. Timetable and fares for the scheduled services were pulled together onto one page with simple maps and descriptions of the services. The groups information was strengthened, with new pages for weddings and schools. Beautiful photographs of Coniston and the launches were incorporated into a photo gallery.

DevelopChange

DevelopChange is a performance improvement and change consultancy.

Interact built a web site for this new business using a content management system (CMS), so that DevelopChange could update the site themselves. In particular, the "News" section is simple to manage, as articles are automatically displayed in reverse date order and the newest articles will always be displayed first. Whilst the initial site is fairly small and simple, the CMS is a powerful system that will enable the site to grow as the business develops.

The Bower House

The Bower House is a luxury holiday cottage for two on the edge of the pretty village of Morland in Cumbria. Interact designed a brochure site including a photo gallery.

Vivers Mill

Vivers Mill is a converted water mill offering 4-star bed & breakfast in Pickering Yorkshire. Interact designed a simple brochure site.

Howe Projects

Howe Projects is a shopfitting and project management business based near Kendal in Cumbria. They have completed shopfitting projects for major national high street names like Clarks, Toni&Guy and Lowe Alpine.

Howe Projects had an existing web site that had become rather out of date and did not illustrate the quality of their recent work and the extent of their client base. Interact re-designed the site largely around the photography of recent projects for well-known clients. The new site includes 15 separate Flash photo galleries.

"We're really happy with the new web site. It's only been live for about a month but we are already getting some nice enquiries from good quality prospects who have found us through search engines. It is particularly pleasing to see that some of these are from fairly local organisations, which are especially good prospects for us." – Paul Howe, Howe Projects Ltd

Mill Yard Cafe

Mill Yard Cafe is a new cafe in Morland, Cumbria.

Interact designed a simple brochure site with a photo gallery of shots of the cafe, interior and exterior, as well as the village.

intranet for Directorbank

Directorbank is a unique executive and non-executive recruitment business and holds a market leading niche in the private equity sector.

The business wanted to set up an intranet to make a variety of information easily available to the staff, who work from various locations around the UK. Directorbank wanted to build and update the site themselves and had some experience with Dreamweaver. Interact designed a series of web templates for the intranet, to give the site a professional look that was similar to Directorbank's public web site.

ZeroPaper

ZeroPaper LLP is a new business set up to acquire and actively manage small to middle-market records management companies with up to £50 million in revenues.

Interact had a blank canvas with this new business and produced a logo and colour scheme as well as the web site. The site is a very clear and simple corporate site, designed to give the business credibility with investors and potential vendors of businesses.

John Richardson & Son

John Richardson is a long-established, family-run timber merchant based in Penrith, Cumbria.

Richardsons had an existing single page site, which couldn't describe the full range of products and services and which did not meet their requirement to present the business professionally. The new site has pages for each department and uses simple Flash slideshows to illustrate the product range. Richardsons will update the site using Adobe Contribute.

"We're delighted with the new web site. It has only been live for a few weeks, but timber sales have already increased, we've had two enquiries for full kitchens,and one has been converted to an order! We also love the fact we can update the website ourselves, giving us more flexibility. The service and advice has been excellent. Many thanks." – Liz Gibson, John Richardson and Son Timber Merchants Ltd

Sykeside Camping Park and Brotherswater Inn

Sykeside Camping Park is a camp site by Brotherswater near Hartsop in the Lake District. On the same site is the Brotherswater Inn, a pub offering meals and accommodation. The business had an existing web site that was confusing to navigate because it was split into two separate sites - one for the camp site and one for the pub. Ongoing updates were proving difficult because of lack of support so the owners decided they needed a completely new web site.

Sykeside has some great photography of the surrounding area and the new site makes the most of this with a photo gallery page (using Flash). The two sides of the business were brought together in the new web site, which has a top navigation bar for common pages (like "news", "location" and "activities") and a side navigation bar for all the accommodation options and services ("camping", "caravans", "bunkhouse" and so on). Some pages of the site, such as "news" and the "tariff" page, will be updated by Sykeside themselves using Adobe Contribute.

Pioneer Capital

Pioneer Capital is a new business specialising in providing funding for successful individuals who wish to complete a management buy-in and need support whilst they are searching for and negotiating an acquisition.

Interact worked with the new business in developing the business name and logo. The web site is a clear and simple "brochure" site describing the business. The site is targeted at potential buy-in candidates, investors and the venture capital community nationally.

Felix the Fast Tractor

Felix the Fast Tractor is the central character in a series of children's books written by Cumbrian author Catherine Cannon and published by her under the imprint Red Wellies Publishing. A simple brochure site (built by Interact) already existed but Catherine wanted to add an e-commerce facility.

Although there is only a small number of products (books and t-shirts), a proper e-commerce system with a shopping basket was used so that customers could add more than one product to their shopping basket. This also provides an admin area where orders can be processed, with automatic emails to customers, and invoices and packing slips can be printed. Catherine wanted to offer signed copies of her books, so the site was set up to allow customers to submit their own short messages (e.g. "Happy Birthday!") for Catherine to include when signing the books. Payment through PayPal was integrated with the checkout process. The home page features a simple Flash slideshow, using some of the illustrations from the books.

Interact demonstration e-commerce site

For the purposes of this demo site, Interact has invented a business called Fellfood which produces a range of ready meals with names based on Lake District lakes and mountains.

Feel free to play around with this site; browse through the shop categories and add items to your shopping basket. If you want to look at the checkout process, you will need to register - feel free to provide false information when creating an account. But beware - the site is linked to the live PayPal site so if you see a PayPal page, we suggest you stop at that point and return to the demo site. Otherwise, you may end up making a real payment for products that do not exist and which will not be delivered!

2 Gems

2 Gems is a new business producing handmade gemstone jewellery in Cumbria.

Interact was able to help this new business with its positioning, by creating a strapline "Handmade jewellery inspired by the beauty of the Lakes". The site design is clear and simple and features many photos of the jewellery products. A small Flash movie was used on the home page and this included a Lake District landscape to help reinforce the positioning. 2 Gems will edit content on the site themselves using Adobe Contribute.

"We would just like to say how impressed we all are with the finished product. Many thanks for your patience." – Mick Maguire, 2 Gems.

Cumberland & Westmorland Herald

The Cumberland & Westmorland Herald is the weekly newspaper for Penrith, Keswick and a large part of North and East Cumbria. The Herald had an existing web site, but were finding it very limited in its capabilities and time-consuming to update.

Interact proposed a new web site using a content-management system. News stories would be stored in a database linked to the web site. It was originally proposed that stories could be added to the web site, and edited, in the content-management administrator pages. But as the project developed, the scope increased to include integration of the web database with the Herald's in-house systems. Stories being written for the newspaper can simply be copied into folders on the in-house system, which are regularly synchronised with the web site. In addition, about 120,000 news stories from the last 10 years have been uploaded into the web database, providing a fascinating resource for anyone researching local issues.

O'Reilly Chartered Accountants

O'Reilly is a firm of accountants with five offices across the north of the country. The firm's previous web site had been designed in-house. One of the main objectives for the site was to attract new clients. New pages were created describing why clients should choose O'Reilly and outlining several case studies of how the firm had added value for specific clients. A "meet the team" page was created giving short biographies of partners and staff to show the breadth and depth of the team and to encourage clients to contact individuals directly. Three "topical" pages were produced to allow new material to be added on a periodic basis - one of these focused on the agricultural sector, an historic strength of the firm, and one on small businesses, a sector targeted by the firm for development. The site continues to be upgraded - most recently with the addition of a simple Flash movie on the home page.

"Interact have met the brief perfectly. They began by looking at a range of accountancy web sites and discussing with us what we wanted to achieve. Their marketing perspective led them to propose a slightly more aggressive approach than we had previously used - for example, including testimonials from named clients and spelling out why new clients should consider using O'Reilly. I am very pleased with the result and would be happy to work again with Interact." – Andy Neeve, partner, O'Reilly Chartered Accountants.

BakerWood Marquees and Events

BakerWood is an established catering business based in Cumbria that is expanding into marquee hire for weddings and other events.

The new marquee hire business is at the premium end of the market and, to emphasise this, BakerWood requested a subtle Flash animation on the home page presenting some stylish photography of marquees. Whilst this has an impact on download speed, other elements on the home page download quickly enabling users to view information and navigate around the site.

"We are really pleased with the web site and we've had lots of positive comments about it from clients. For weddings, we may be dealing with a bride down in London and a mother up in Cumbria - but, once they see the web site, they become really interested in what we can do for them. Like any company, the correct image is crucial and we feel that Interact Partners portrayal has accurately captured the essence of our business." – Andrew Baker, Bakerwood Marquees and Events.

Buzy Lizzie

Buzy Lizzie is a new garden design business based in Cumbria.

The new web site is a showcase for the design business and consequently includes many photographs and several examples of garden design projects. A small Flash slideshow shows more photographs illustrating a range of possible client requests.

"May I take this opportunity to say how delighted I am with my new web site. The comments I have received have all been very favourable with several people remarking on the style of the site, which was something we both agreed was so important in my line of work....it was a pleasure working with you. You bring a rare mix of creativity and marketing experience to the process supported by your attention to detail and rigorous testing procedures." – Liz Newport, Buzy Lizzie.

Gilsland Spa Hotel

Gilsland Spa Hotel is located very close to Hadrian's Wall between Carlisle and Hexham.

The hotel's previous web site no longer met their requirements. The hotel management wanted to add much more information to the site about local activities. Hadrian's Wall is becoming increasingly important as a visitor attraction and is the focus of new walking and cycling routes - the hotel wanted to tap into these growing markets. Previously, the text had been difficult to read because a coloured background had been used, so black text on a white background was used on the new site. The hotel had access to a wide range of very good local photographs, and wanted to add as many as possible to the new site. The new site also contains virtual tours of the hotel and a holiday cottage, produced by Interact.

Retro Aviation

Retro Aviation supplies static aircraft and aviation spares. The business is an established agent for military aircraft and spares from Eastern and Central Europe. Retro Aviation can also loan aircraft, cockpit sets and aviation props for movies and TV work.

Interact developed the new name, Retro Aviation, and designed a logo. A simple brochure site was required to promote the business nationally and internationally. More recently, a short QuickTime movie has been added to show a Buccaneer cockpit supplied by Retro being used in an ad shoot for Johnny Walker Whisky. The business has developed into supplying spare parts for classic DC-3 and DC-6 aircraft. The web site now includes a database of about 7,000 spare parts searchable by part number or description. This part of the web site was built using an e-commerce system.

Jonathan Melling

Jonathan Melling is the organist and director of music at the church of All Hallows by the Tower in the City of London. He wanted a new web site to help communicate nationally with organisers of music recitals.

This small site is extremely simple yet promotes this musician in a very professional way. Two main pages describe his background and provide a list of future and recent recitals. Another page provides detailed information about two organs in London churches that are used for regular series of recitals.

Cottage Angels

Cottage Angels is a new business offering services to owners of holiday cottages and second homes in the Lake District and Cumbria. Services range from performing regular checks of the property to repairs, maintenance and makeovers.

The site builds on the business's strong corporate identity and uses the angel logo on each page. The range of services is described in detail. Blocks of colour change on different pages to provide visual interest.

Tilberthwaite Farm Cottage

Tilberthwaite Farm Cottage is a self-catering holiday cottage near Coniston in the Lake District. The owners had previously developed their own web site for the cottage, but this was proving difficult for them to update.

Interact proposed a site making good use of the client's photography of the cottage and the beautiful surrounding area. Testimonials from guests were added to most of the pages. A simple prices page showed the price for every week in the year and this could be simply updated when bookings were taken to show which weeks were no longer available.

"I am really pleased with the website - it has improved my out of season and weekend bookings. People comment on the speed of downloading and the colouring." – Dorothy Wilkinson, Tilberthwaite Farm Cottage

Lakeland Office

Lakeland Officepoint Ltd is a supplier of stationery and office supplies based in Penrith, Cumbria. The company originally had a very basic web site created and hosted by a national directory producer but Lakeland found this service to be very expensive and inflexible.

Interact started by proposing a new trading name: Lakeland Office. A new domain name was registered and web hosting and email services were set up. Interact designed a new logo and then produced the web site, which describes the range of services offered by the company and its commitment to customer service, demonstrated using testimonials from major customers. More recently, the site has been extended by linking to a supplier's online catalogue, customised by the addition of Lakeland's branding.

"I was delighted with the service from Interact. We had a number of issues to resolve and they took us through those issues one at a time, offering marketing advice at each stage. At the end of the process, our business has a new identity which is much more up to date. Our web site now promotes the full range of our services and provides a lot more information about our business." – Tony Burton, director, Lakeland Officepoint Ltd.

Wilkes-Green and Hill

Wilkes-Green and Hill is an independent estate agent based in Penrith, Cumbria. They already had a web site hosted by the provider of their estate agency software package. But this site was focused exclusively on the database of properties for sale and Wilkes-Green and Hill wanted to include much more information about their business. They had recently been one of only two estate agents in the north-west (and the only one in Cumbria) to be recognised in the prestigious Estate Agent of the Year awards for 2005.

Interact re-designed the site giving prominence to the Estate Agent of the Year awards, alongside testimonials from clients, a profile of the team and links to sites providing useful local information. The design of the new site was then applied to the existing property search pages, by customising the page templates and stylesheets for those pages.

"We gave Interact a brief and they came back having produced exactly what we wanted with very little further input from us. We’re really pleased with the new site and have already received very positive feedback about it from clients." – Amanda Vollans, director, Wilkes-Green and Hill Ltd.

virtual tours

Gilsland Spa hotel - each view about 80kb (tour help)

Link: virtual tour of Gilsland Spa hotel

A virtual tour for a hotel.

business names

Exponent Private Equity

Exponent is a new private equity business, which has raised a fund of £400 million to acquire UK mid-market companies capitalised at £30 to £250 million. The new business has been formed by four former senior directors of 3i, the UK's largest venture capital and private equity firm.

Interact was asked to produce a name for the new business. Having already generated scores of potential names, the team of founders was aware that many good names were not available because they were already in use by competing firms. The new business needed a strong identity that would not be confused with other players in the private equity arena particularly in the UK, where the business is based, and in the USA, where it is raising funds. Given the scale of the American market, this was a challenging brief and considerable time and effort went into checking whether potential names were already in use. At the same time, the team had no real wish to adopt an invented word as their name - they preferred to have a name that conveyed some positive aspects of their business. Time available to complete the project was very limited, as the team wanted to begin formal presentations to potential investors as quickly as possible.

The name finally selected was Exponent. This linked to two very positive concepts: the definition of an exponent as a leading practitioner and exponential growth.

"Interact were able to respond very quickly to our requirement for a name for the new business. Whilst we weren't short of ideas, we simply did not have the time to consider and research each potential name ourselves. We were also keen to generate some new ideas from outside the business to give us a wider range of options. Interact were very helpful in structuring the search for a new identity - starting from what the business does and how it might best present itself to various audiences. They produced a range of new ideas, each of which had a direct association with our business. We are delighted with the result." – Richard Campin of Exponent.

project management

Directorbank Executive Search

Directorbank is a unique executive and non-executive recruitment business and holds a market leading niche in the private equity sector. Many of Directorbank’s clients are venture capital and private equity firms seeking chairmen, chief executives, non-executive directors and finance directors. In an innovative strategy, Directorbank has made its candidate database completely available through its web site on a subscription basis, enabling venture capital clients to use it as a tool for deal origination and due diligence as well as for board-level appointments.

Directorbank asked Interact for help with a project to upgrade its web site. This site is integral to Directorbank’s business and is a key channel for delivering service to clients. So the site upgrade required careful consideration to ensure that significant improvements were delivered for clients and candidates. Interact started by surveying clients and candidates to assess their reactions to the existing web site and to ask how they thought the site should be changed. The searches that clients performed on the site were analysed so that the search functionality could be upgraded. Web sites of competitors in the sector were reviewed to generate more ideas for improvements.

Interact delivered a thirty-page document specifying in some detail how the upgraded web site should operate. This specification covered the proposed structure for the site, the content required in each of three main areas and a description of how the site navigation should work. Significant changes were proposed to the search pages including the addition of an “advanced search” page, a complete re-design of the “search results” page and the addition of a “shortlist” function. Interact’s recommendations were illustrated with screen layouts showing how the proposed changes would affect the layout of various key pages throughout the site. After approval of the specification by the client, and the appointment of developers in London, Interact was asked to project manage the development of the site.

"Going through the process of having an independent consultant draft a formal specification has helped us tremendously in getting this major web site upgrade underway. We were finding it difficult to dedicate enough resources in-house to this project. Interact's involvement also gave us the benefit of an objective assessment of our situation. Interact's specification has been sent to several web developers, who will now all quote for the development work on the same basis. I am confident that we will end up with a far better web site as a result." – Jonathan Hick, chief executive, Directorbank Executive Search Ltd.