What’s happening at Boulder Design

By Ross Hume

On Friday 14th August 2009 I ran the first of our web design workshops in Morpeth, Northumberland. Instead of people with enterprise ideas, the recipients were the Business Advisers who work in offices across the region supporting SMEs. This made things quite tricky, as their motivations for attending were different to the intended audience. The group of 17 ranged in ability from techno-phobe to rockstar computer user.

On the whole things went well. As a result of this pilot the content will probably change slightly (I think the curriculum was a little hopeful). The Introductory workshop will now focus on the role of a website in a business and the impact of design, whilst the advanced workshop will contain all the technical stuff about building a site, customising templates and managing content.

The biggest success for me was the technical implementation. I have written a shell script to install multiple, bespoke copies of Wordpress and setup all the databases so that each learner can work on their own site and can then retrieve it at a later date when they have sorted out a domain name and web hosting etc.

From the 1st August Boulder Design is being re-homed in the Parish Rooms in Wirksworth, Derbyshire. In the heart of the community, in the heart of the country, these premises will give Boulder an opportunity to establish itself as a leading enterprise servicing the local community, and businesses across the country.

The large space will also be home to paintings by our favourite local (and not-so-local!) artists, and we have offered space to the Wirksworth Festival team when it comes to the frantic preparations before the big event (see www.wirksworthfestival.co.uk for more details).

If anyone in the area is interested in getting involved in any new groups or activities then just send us a message.

Understanding that a website is not only a shop window, but is key in demonstrating the flair, values and style of Boulder Design, we have launched this new website.

We hope you find the information you need, and enjoy the portfolio of work available. We will be adding more articles and resources over the next few weeks, so come back soon for a look around.

If you have anything to say about the site, and just can’t keep it to yourself (good or bad!), just send us a message.

Boulder Design has been asked to design and deliver a season of workshops to business start-ups across Northumberland. We will be running sessions in six locations across the county each month from September 2009 through to March 2010 (and beyond, if funding allows).

The workshops will be split across two sessions: an introductory half-day, followed by a more advanced session.

We have decided to focus on what having a website means for your business and highlight some of the key issues from the web development world, rather than try to teach the aesthetic and technical processes of web design. The initial brief was to introduce attendees to a “all-in-one” website design package, but we felt that this only proliferated non-standards-based code, and frankly low quality sites.

On the 6th June lead designer Ross Hume joined Bakewell based charity Village Aid at “Peace in the Park” in Sheffield. Peace in the Park is a one day free festival which promotes peace and understanding by bringing together communities through artistic, musical and vocal expression.

One of the chosen charities this year was Village Aid, an international development charity that Ross has supported in various events over the past few years (e.g. The 3 Peaks Challenge, the London Triathlon) and for whom Boulder Design has created a new website and loads of printed design work.

It was a great opportunity to get out and promote Village Aid’s fantastic work whilst enjoying the free entertainment!