Summer has been and gone and it's time for a quick update on what coldpie towers have been up to. We're now all well rested and looking forward to a busy couple of months of new website builds.

We recently launched a few websites and we thought we should tell the world. The first is for Phoenix Learning & Care. In their own words they are:

a well-established care organisation providing small, residential homes, registered schools and colleges for a wide variety of young people, 8 to 18+ years from centres across Devon

From Phoenix Learning & Care: About Us: History

The build included front-end design and CMS integration along with a document storage system and extranet sites for both parents and carers and also staff so admin users can display memos and policy documents for staff and also answer questions via the training forum.

The second launch is for Red White or Pink? which is a new online wine business run by Laura Lindsay. The site features CMS, ecommerce engine, wine search, discount codes and video and picture integration for each wine. The wonderful design was by Chris Pallaris and it compliments the brand and sets the tone perfectly for the site.

The third site is a redesign and relaunch of a jewellery retailers online site: Carol Anne Jewellery. Carol Anne own three stores in Devon but needed an upgrade to their website to reflect their new branding and also something which would allow them to easily update the online stock. It features CMS, ecommerce, Gift vouchers, discount codes, wishlists and more.

I'll get some more info up on the work pages about each of the builds in the coming months but we continue to beaver away and are now busy working away on an internal document storage system and another interesting online shop as well as a couple of Phase two and three changes for current clients.

We're "Pink for October"

As you may have noticed coldpie has gone a little pink in support of Breast Cancer awareness. You can read more about the campaign at Pink for October and better still why not donate some money to some of the great fantastic breast cancer charities such as Cancer Research UK. Alternatively you can join in by Wearing it pink on Friday the 30th of October.

We're hoping to have some more informative and opinionated blog posts in the coming weeks and months...

Coldpie have designed and built the new website for The Casting Collective – The UK’s leading casting agency for supporting artistes (extra’s to you and I). The site includes a full online search of the companies artistes, a forum and more. Along with the new design and tweaking the site architecture, the build also included moving the site over to coldpie’s content management system. In addition reporting of the artiste search usage has been added so that the company are able to monitor how people are using the site and their needs better.

You can view the site here: castingcollective.co.uk or read more about the web build here
Related blog post: Design decisions: Making a complicated search form simple to use

coldpie has just helped to launch the new Hauser & Wirth website. Hauser & Wirth are one of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries representing various well known and well regarded artists including Louise Bourgeois, Martin Creed, Paul McCarthy and Pipilotti Rist amongst many others. They have spaces in Zurich and London.

The site was designed and crafted by Catherine Lutman and the front-end HTML was expertly coded by Jean-Michel Dentand. Coldpie provided the bespoke back office software which allows Hauser and Wirth to upload, assign, re-order & display around 4000 images of artworks, installation views and video clips.

In addition Staff are able to publish details of past, current and forthcoming exhibitions as well as calendar entries, information about art fairs and current and future publications and editions. You can read more about the Hauser & Wirth web build here

coldpie wishes everyone a festive couple of weeks!

You can read more about it over on the GCC website or at the FE First awards site. You can read more about the GCC design & build here

In recent months there have been high-profile ‘retirements’ from and new additions into the world of blogging. While serial entrepreneur Jason Calaconis unsubscribed, Sergey Brin, founder of Google, published his very first blog post.

To be fair, I hadn’t really heard of Mr Calacanis until he stopped blogging and that fact was widely reported. Also part of me thought “Really?! – The founders of Google don’t already have a blog?”

It was with these thoughts in my mind that I thought it was time for coldpie to stop being so publicly coy and start publishing our thoughts. And to blow our own trumpet a bit more too.

Not, so you fully understand, because I place coldpie between two massively successful millionaires – although if the idea filters through then great – but because…well why not.

What I mean to say is each to his own. coldpie’s way has always been to speak our mind on projects and to tell clients when we believe what they are doing is right, slightly off, not worth it or one the best things we’ve ever heard of. coldpie has always produced opinionated software and websites and so we thought that we should start doing something similar with the outside world. So i’ll make a start and say

“hello”

Please forgive us while we’re still unwrapping everything and placing it in its proper place. There’s no RSS feed for the blog just yet and some of the shiny pretty portfolio pictures need completing, but this is our new home and we hope you like it. Pop back at any time for tea / coffee or pie.