Pixelcode: NewsBlog

Now accepting work for 2014

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 16:54:00

We are currently accepting new projects from February 2014 onwards. Please contact us if you have a project that we can help you with.

Work Schedule for 2013

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:23:00

We are unfortunately unable to accept any new web design projects for the remainder of 2013. If you have a project and wish to be placed on the cancellation list, please let us know.

Work Schedule for 2012

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:36:00

Due to a contract committment, Pixelcode will not be accepting new work for 2012. We will, of course, be providing maintenance for all our clients, as before.

Recent Website Launches

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:34:00

Towards the end of January, we launched two new websites, FitzMarquees and HealthEvents.

FitzMarquees is a marquee hire service based in Dublin. We created a new site showcasing their previous work and providing information for prospective clients.

HealthEvents is a health conference company, organising and running health conferences throughout Ireland. We build a custom order system for conference attendees to book their ticket online.

Support Web Standards Relaunch

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:35:00

We're really pleased to report that the relaunch of SupportWebStandards.com, with a new design and new products, went exceptionally well. SupportWebStandards is a collaboration between Pixelcode's John Rainsford and Jeffrey Zeldman. It is a online shop for selling products to help you show your love and support for Web Standards.

More information is available on our portfolio, but we'd like to highlight the new products, as well as the promotional video that Pixelcode produced. Visit our portfolio page and the website.

Christmas Closing

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:27:00

Pixelcode will be closed from Friday 16th December until Tuesday 3rd January 2012. We'd like to wish all our customers and visitors a safe and peaceful Christmas and a great 2012!

Athy Lions Club website launched

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:45:00

Last Friday, 9th December, we launched a website for the Athy Lions Club, to help publicise their good work. Pixelcode sponsored the work on the website and we have also collaborated with the Athy Lions Club on another local project, Athy Events, which will be fully launched in 2012.

View the Portfolio page or visit their website.

Pixelcode T-Shirts

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:02:00

We like to brand physical stuff almost as much as we like branding websites. As part of a fun exercise, we had some t-shirts screenprinted with the new Pixelcode logo and they're now available for sale on The Bleed Edge, in both red and black. Check them out!

PalletBoxHire.com launched

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:51:00

Last week, we launched PalletBoxHire.com, a new business set up to provide a hire service for Dolav Pallet Boxes. Not sure what a Pallet Box is? Visit the website today and find out more!

Bradbury's Website Launched

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:41:00

We launched Bradbury's new website a short while ago. Bradbury's is a local bakery and restaurant, specialising in wedding and occasion cakes. Visit their website today and check out their full range of cakes and other delicacies.

The Bleed Edge launched

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:15:00

A couple of weeks ago, we relaunched our own online shop, The Bleed Edge, where we sell a range of printed goods that we design and produce. The case study is now online and you can visit the site directly.

The Bleed Edge products will become more integrated with Pixelcode over the next few months. The Pixelcode tshirts advertised on our homepage will eventually be sold through The Bleed Edge. More to come soon!

Advantages of GooglePlus

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:20:00

Google recently announced their new social network, GooglePlus, which has the potential to replace Facebook as the preferred social network. As website owners and administrators, how does this affect you?

Before going any further, we should reiterate our stance on the relationship between social networks and your business or organisation's website. Like we've stated on our Web Design Services page, we think that your website should be the hub of your internet presence. All of your content should be added to your website and then distributed to social networks.

We created the graphic above to explain the flow of content.

Social Buttons

We have started to add Google +1 buttons to websites, alongside the Facebook 'Like' buttons, to allow visitors to show their approval of your site. We feel that this is a better feedback mechanism than comments, as you don't have to remove abuse and spam.

When a visitor clicks the +1 button or the Like button it shows up on their GooglePlus or Facebook page, respectively. The added benefit is that their friends can follow the link back to your website- new visitors are always good visitors.

Advantages of GooglePlus

There are many social networks that can be utilised by a website owner, but we don't always recommend installing them on websites. An example of this is Twitter. We found two main issues with installing a 'Tweet This' button- the first issue is the mechanism to track the number of Tweets is inconsistent and doesn't return the true number of Tweets, and the second issue is the fact that Twitter isn't as popular in Ireland (yet) as Facebook.

We recommend Facebook Like buttons as they help to advertise the content of a website on to Facebook, and we would recommend adding a Google +1 button for the same reason, the true advantage with GooglePlus, is it's integration with Google Search.

We installed a +1 button on the Athy Heritage Centre-Museum's website and now when a Google Search is made, looking for their site, we can see the recommendations of people who we are friends with on GooglePlus for this website.

Google is the number one search engine in the world. It is in the best interest of your website that you do your utmost to integrate your site into Google's infrastructure.

Putting a +1 button (or Facebook's Like button) is a pretty simple process and does not interfere with your site. If GooglePlus does not succeed, it can be easily removed afterwards.

If you are a client of Pixelcode and wish to integrate your site with social networks, contact us. If you would like to avail of our web design services, please see our Work With Us page.

Clancy's of Athy updated

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:19:00

Pixelcode originally designed clancysofathy.ie in 2009 and we were delighted to be asked back to redesign it for 2011.You can view the portfolio page or visit the site. We hope to have a case study soon.

New Pixelcode Website

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:47:00

Late in 2010, we decided to redo our logo and branding guidelines, rebranding Pixelcode. Once we had our new logo and branding worked out, we started work on pixelcode.ie. After many months working on it, alongside our client work, we finally finished it and we launched it last week.

There are still a few pieces that need to be further polished, but we’re happy with the start we’ve made. We’re still working on our portfolio of work, we hope to complete more case studies as time permits. We won’t be completing case studies for all our projects, but we hope to do as many as possible.

We use the HTML5 doctype (it’s the least anyone should do) and we hope to migrate the elements to HTML5 specific elements (header, footer, section etcetera) in the near future. We also use some Google Fonts for the main body typeface, PT Sans, to add a little more character and also we felt it was a good match to the the font we used for our logotype, The Serif Bold.

We’re really looking forward to further developing the site over the next few weeks- we tell our clients that owning a website is a continuous process of refinement. This is a case in point.

A further personal retrospection will eventually be written on johnrainsford.com but further information about the logo redesign can be found here.

There are a few more additions coming down the line shortly, including some nice new Pixelcode-branded tshirts and notebooks. You should subscribe to our RSS feed, follow us on Twitter or befriend us on Facebook to be kept up-to-date.

Pixelcode Rebranded

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:36:00

We're finishing up work on our new brand for Pixelcode.

We hope to have everything updated by mid-April. John wrote more about the rebranding exercise on his blog-

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3