Kooba Latest News

Desktop, Tablet, Mobile Oh My!!!

Clodagh — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:01:04 +0000

Ensuring your site is visible on various platforms is becoming more important. You may have seen some of our tweets since the new year where we have highlighted that – Reports emerging recently show that customer consumer loyalty is 54% more likely if brands have an effective mobile website (full article), tablet visitors spent 54% more than smartphone visitors in 2011 ( more ), and with online shopping site ASOS reporting that on Christmas Day 19 percent of ASOS’s traffic was via a mobile device ( full report )

As users are visiting your sites from an increasing array of devices and browsers it is now the time to consider investing in Responsive Design, but what is this new term that everyone uses? It is not actually all that new, it holds its base in fluid design but also now integrates flexible images and media queries. Enough of that techy stuff, in simple terms what it does is change the layout of your website depending on the viewport (browser) size the user is using, that means that a smartphone user will get a different layout view to an ipad user and different still to a full browser window. Perhaps some images will help to explain….

So where is our responsive design? It is in development at the moment, so watch this space…

For you web designers out there, some references I recommend -
Responsive Design Boilerplate – www.getskeleton.com
A Quick Tutorial – www.webdesignerwall.com
Just grab it and drag it (lovely) – www.dolectures.com

Cross platform social media awesomeness

Edward — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:32 +0000

It’s January, it’s cold, everyone is miserable and here at Kooba HQ we’ve started dreaming about where we’re going on holidays later in the year.

After a little browsing we came across this fantastic social media campaign from SAS.

It’s a really engaging, humorous and creative execution and shows the limitless possibilities that are very quickly evolving in integrated cross platform campaigns.

The target audience is addressed directly and their reading of their analytics have been nicely simplified to tell a story that’s relevant and attractive to their users.

The graphics are clean and simple, the user journey takes in email, mobile, video, QR code and web and it’s seamless, the creative interaction envisaged is playful and fun. The copy is completely appropriate and works perfectly with the simplified icon based step by step look & feel.

So that’s our first design tip o’ the hat for 2012 and it’s for ‘Couple Up to Buckle Up’ for SAS. Great work.

We’re jealous.

Hello 2012!

Emmet — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:34:57 +0000

Firstly we’d like to wish all our clients a Happy New Year. 2011 was a very exciting year for Kooba, we got to work on some great projects and finished the year by being awarded Best Web Design & Development Agency at the Eircom Golder Spider awards.

Going Mobile
So the pressure is on to beat that this year. We’ve a number of big projects we’re currently working on that are due to be launched in the coming months so we’ll keep you posted on all upcoming launches. We will also be “freshening” up our own site and launching a new mobile version. Clodagh has completed the designs so it’s just a matter of getting the time to actually build it.

Resolution
Finally our New Year’s resolution is to blog more. If you’ve actually read our first post of the year, we thank you. Now if you feel that you’ve not read enough, click here to learn about Mashable’s Digital Predictions for 2012.

Kooba are hiring – PHP Developer

Emmet — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:58:27 +0000

Kooba are seeking a PHP Developer to join our growing web team. We are looking for someone with a genuine passion for design, development, the Internet and the technology industry.

What do we require?

Third level IT qualification
Minimum 2 years commercial experience
PHP, XHTML/CSS, Ajax, Javascript, MySQL, XML, Linux & Apache
Facebook API & iPhone/Android SDK desirable
Expression Engine & Magento development experience a plus
An excellent understanding of web design, accessibility (WCAG 2.0), usability, search engine optimization and information architecture.
Excellent team working and communication skill
Accuracy and attention to detail.
Excellent debugging and troubleshooting skills
Experience using Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop & Adobe Illustrator

What’s in it for you?

Permanent full-time position
Salary: Negotiable depending on experience
Pension
Gym Membership
Health Insurance

Interested?

If you are interested in this role can you please send in an updated CV with your availability, salary expectations and examples of your work to careers@kooba.ie.

HTML5 Mobile site design featured

Clodagh — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:52:43 +0000

We are really happy to announce that one of our sites has been featured on a gallery dedicated to websites optimised for mobile viewing. The site is a HTML5 iphone targeted site that we built for our medical marketing client PHASE II International to coincide with the new www.phase-ii.com we launched earlier this month. It is great for both us and our client PHASE II to get recognition for the design, and for taking into consideration the new ways people are browsing their site! The mobile site can be viewed here if you are on a smart phone and the feature can be seen on Mobile Awesomeness among BBC Live Radio, The Guardian Jobs, and Best Buy.

And that is not all, we have also recently launched another HTML5 mobile site for breastfeeding.ie. You can check it out at Breastfeeding.ie. We love when people take into account other browsers than the desktop type! Plus, it is great to be working with technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3! We are in the process of building ours, but as you all know there are only so many hours in a day!!

Design award for kooba.ie

Clodagh — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:21:45 +0000

We are absolutely delighted to tell you that our own site has been featured on The Best Designs. This is great news for us, as The Best Designs showcases the most impressive designs from all over the world. We would see this as a collection of the highest standard of web design. The Best Designs has over 1 million page views each month from designers, agencies, web professionals, business owners and design enthusiasts.

And that is not all, we have also had one of our recently launched sites featured in another CSS Gallery. The lovely Top Dog Grooming has been selected to feature on CSS Mania

The inmates have taken over…

Emmet — Fri, 20 May 2011 16:27:47 +0000

As our usual blog writer is off in sunnier climes (Wales), we have the chance to take over blog. We decided to highlight a number of news articles which have caught our attention this week.

Kindle books outsell print books for the first time
Even though we are a huge fan, it’s an amazing feat considering the Kindle was only released for the first time 4 years ago. Since the beginning of April this year, Amazon has sold 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books sold – [read more]

The death of IE6
It has caused us endless pain over the years but it was great to see WordPress join the masses this week in dropping support for IE6. It certainly won’t be missed and even Microsoft want to see the back of it.

We are hiring!
Kooba are currently looking for a Sales Developer to help grow the business. So if you know anyone that loves sales, the web and Kooba; then please send them our way.

kooba wednesday scribbble

Clodagh — Wed, 11 May 2011 10:59:39 +0000

We haven’t been updating our scribbble the last month because we have had a heavy production schedule. We are happily producing lots of html email templates, microsites, mobile sites and web sites all running to tight deadlines. As well as that we have had babies born, weddings and birthdays to celebrate! Whoop whoop!

To make up for no scribbble we are having a Wednesday scribbble, and we are bringing you a wednesday scribbble and we have updated our portfolio. We have a lot going on in the development department and a few of our projects are coming near launch stage. We also have some projects kicking off that are definite Golden Spider candidates. We are really excited about our new clients and are looking forward to showcasing the work we do with them.

Will be resuming normal service with the scribbble so check back to see more of what we are working on.

Creative Website Design

iPAD Sales Tool

April Fools Scribbble

Clodagh — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:34:54 +0000

As promised, here is a sneak peak at two of the projects that have kept us busy this week. One is just at planning stage, and we are getting excited as it begins to take shape. Web development has been massively busy this week, with great new projects for ipad, web and mobile!

Illustration

Creative Design

kooba friday scribbble

Clodagh — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:12:50 +0000

As we have all been very busy this week and quiet on Twitter and Facebook. We thought we would show you a peek of what has kept us so enthralled! These are just two of the design projects we are working on, we will have an update soon to announce our exciting web development projects that launch soon.

Web Design

Web Development