Maz joins ID for a few weeks!

Marianne is spending a couple of weeks with us. She's studying photography and has been shortlisted in the War On Want Photography Award. You can see her entry here - http://www.waronwant.org/news/events/events/latest-events/16755-document-photography-award-2010.

Here's one of Maz's shots:



Some more info on the award can be seen here - http://www.documentphotoaward.org/

Marianne will find out on Thursday how she did... fingers crossed.

While Marianne is with us she's looking at effective website design and usability, finding more out about the digital channels and what steps are involved in building great websites.

ID's triumph over the mighty goliaths

Following on from the recent successes in the W3 Awards, ID have been awarded a silver award for the NST Group website in the 2008 Davey Awards.

We recently entered the NST Group website rebrand and are proud to announce that we came away with a Silver award in the travel websites category!

What are the Davey Awards?
The Davey Awards is an international creative award, focused exclusively on honouring outstanding creative work from the best small firms worldwide.

The annual International Davey Awards honor the achievements of the 'Creative Davids' who derive their strength from big ideas, rather than stratospheric budgets. 'David' references the David who defeated the giant Goliath with a big idea and a little rock - effectively paying homage to the sort of thing small firms do each year.

The Davey Awards may be for smaller organisations, but the judges have big reputations. The Davey is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media, advertising, and marketing firms. IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Condè Nast, Disney, Estee Lauder, HBO, Monster.com, MTV, Polo Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, Yahoo! and many more.

Winning criteria
Entries are judged to evaluate distinction in creative work.

In determining Silver winners, entries are judged on their merits based on a standard of excellence as determined by the IAVA, plus considering the category entered. Entries are scored on a ten point scale by the judges. Generally, Silver Winners receive a score of 7.0 to 8.9.

The NST Group site is visually appealling with strong links to both brand - NST Travel Group - and audience. Combining functionality with visual design, the site uses destination listings, page features and strong emotive imagery to engage the audience. Behind the scenes, our Content Management System ensures that the site is easy to use and control from NST's point of view.

Going for gold

Following in the footsteps of Team GB, Team ID came away with two Golds in this year's W3 Awards...

We recently entered the Yorkshire Water Recreation site into the 2008 W3 Awards and are proud to announce that we came away with not one, but TWO gold awards!

What are the W3 Awards?
Approved by the International Academy of Visual Arts, the W3 Awards is the first major web competition to be accessible to everyone - from the biggest development companies to the smallest firms.

Upholding a high standard of excellence, the winning entries are selected by the IAVA from a multitude of international entries. Less than 10% of entries are selected as gold winners and we were one of twelve UK based companies to receive a gold award. Each category could have multiple winners, or no winners at all.

Winning criteria
The criteria for website based entries included creativity, usability, navigation, functionality, visual design and ease of use. We won in the web-based PR and Branding categories, which takes into account all of the above, as well as the development of the marketing brand and connection of the organisation to its intended audience.

The Yorkshire Water Recreation site is visually appealling with strong links to both brand - Yorkshire Water - and audience. Combining functionality with visual design, the site uses Googlemaps, video and social networking links to engage the audience. Behind the scenes, our Content Management System ensures that the site is easy to use and control from Yorkshire Water's point of view.