Recent Projects
Designed for you
All of our websites are designed from scratch to meet your needs - we don't use generic templates written by other people. This means that we are able to ensure that your website does exactly what you want, whether it's an online shop, a blog, or simply a way for your customers to find out where you are based and to get in touch.
Charter Health & Safety Solutions
Our brief was to completely redesign and rebrand their business online, creating a website that professionally reflected their capabilities and customer base in Construction & Property Development, Landlords, Building Owners & Facilities Managers, Businesses, Offices, Corporate Clients, Industry & Hospitality sectors.
The website includes the latest version of our content management system (CMS) which enables website owners to edit all aspects of the website themselves, using a smart admin interface designed by us in house.
Our new CMS includes a search engine optimisation (SEO) console that enables the website owner to change important metadata such as page titles & page descriptions, ensuring that
keywords and phrases are available to Google.
The SEO console also shows analytical information such as website page views / visits, keyword search terms used to find the website, referring sites, most popular content etc, all without the use of cookies.
Charter are keen to actively market their business online, using their integral blog. All of our blogs are coded to be actively indexed as a new page within Google and other search engines within minutes of their being written.
The Imperial Car Supermarket
Our brief was to design a microsite which would be integrated within the Imperial car Supermarket's existing website. The microsite gives their customers more detailed information about their car warranty products, in a format which fits within their existing site. The microsite also includes an embedded video.
Visit The Imperial Car Supermarket »
Pack Me
This is a great site full of wonderful graphics and information for restaurants and corporate clients who need bespoke children's activity packs.
Ever wondered where the wonderful colouring and activity sheets children receive in restaurants etc come from? Then take a look at this website!
Our brief was to put across a vast amount of information about the variety of kids packs and services Pack Me offer, under the banner of 'Bags of Fun', as well as case studies relating to the fulfilment packing services the company undertake for clients such as Lancome and Nandos. We used subtle fades to show more information to the visitor without the need for them to keep clicking through the site, and you may notice the logos and styling alters significantly to tie in with the area of business being visited.
This website includes our new content management system which allows Pack Me to be in control of all of the web content, view their website's performance and keep their integral blog up to date.
Cartoonists and Graphic Designers such as Simon from Ceratopia provided much of the wonderful imagery :)
Packaging Supplies
Our brief was to design a corporate website to attract clients to Packaging Supplies' Ltd fulfilment and contract packing business. They work with companies such as Lancôme, Drambuie and Biotherm as well as many other famous brands.
The site has movement within it to create visual interest and to deliver key messages to the website visitor about the services Packaging Supplies offer. These animations are developed without the use of Flash, so that they work on all mobile devices including iPhones and iPads. We also developed their logo, so that the lid of the box opens and slowly closes whenever a new page is viewed.
The website is styled to complement their partner business' website for Pack Me (Bags of Fun), which we have also just designed and launched.
Heritage Will Writing
We really enjoyed redesigning Heritage's online presence, our brief was to put over a vast array of information in a comprehensible format, and to retain a lighthouse in the logo.
Using a range of “easy on the eye” blues, as well as hints of red on a white background supported the nautical feel of the logo, and also made the site easy to read and navigate through.
Jane Bidwell Flowers
We really enjoyed working on this project with the Jane Bidwell Flowers team, as we got involved in the logo design, branding, professional photography and all of the copywriting; we even got to name the bouquets and arrangements available in their online shop which was great fun!
Our brief from Jane Bidwell Flowers was to completely redesign their old website to create a professional, contemporary and funky feel, and to also provide an online flower shop with secure payment systems. With the current trend for vintage colourways we chose pink and cream tones for the site, and chic bird and floral embellishments to highlight key information and 'calls to action'. The front page shows several animated messages and images to illustrate what their shop can offer, whilst a very fun to use online flower shop enables customers to choose, order and buy flowers quickly and securely. With a click of a button flowers re-sort themselves to show a large range of bouquets and arrangements available to order by colour, price and occasion - this interactivity encourages to people to really engage with and re-visit the site.
The website includes our professional on location and studio photography in the wedding flowers gallery, here the thumbnails can be clicked & viewed as enlarged high quality images - perfect for prospective brides to view. With on page SEO built in, and the site designed to be easily viewed on all devices such as the iPad, this local flower shop are already receiving orders within their online shop.
yay retro!
This funky website was a great project to work on! Our brief was to create a fab, fresh and fun site to sell vintage china online. We got cracking on every aspect of this website from the business marketing and strategy, copywriting, logo design, studio photography and of course the web design and development!
The site takes all it's information from a database, labelling items which are 'perfect gifts' or 'sold', and sorting them so that featured items are shown first. As with all our sites, on page SEO ensures that Google and other search engines know it is there and within days the site and images were appearing in search results very highly.
yay retro! can easily update their website with new products, descriptions, pricing and images via a bespoke and easy to use content management system or admin interface.
Stephensons Photo Electric Shop
Focal Strategy are very pleased to have launched a brand new website for Stephensons Photo Electric Shop in Hythe, Hampshire.
Stephensons asked us to design a fresh, clean looking site, which was easy for customers to find and navigate around. They also wanted a new logo to tie in with their existing shop front, so we created a rather smart camera for them, which appears in the header.
The site has sliding images with key messages, highlighting the wide range of services and products Stephensons can offer from their village based shop. These images are also navigable via the simple buttons at the bottom right of the slider.
A blog will enable Stephensons to keep their customers and potential clients up to date with their news and offers, and this will also assist with search engine optimisation (SEO). By using the analytical package we have designed for them, which is accessed via their website content management system they can assess how well their website is performing each month.
Stephensons offer an extensive photo printing service in their store, and will be opening a new online photo printing service in the very near future. The website will then link into the photo printing application provided by Livelink, and customers will be able to pay online via WorldPay.
Blackbrook House
This stunning care home offers elderly people care in a truly splendid setting.
We chose a Georgian style typeface for the website, and have used subtle embellishments inspired by printed articles from the 1700-1800's to highlight certain information. The idea was to reflect the Georgian era when the house was built.
The colour scheme for the website has been taken from the high quality interior design of Blackbrook House, which includes sumptuous warm reds, golds and creams, and we have incorporated a wallpaper background which actually matches some of that used in the house itself.
The site includes all of our professional photographs. We have created some movement in the site by adding slowly changing images, whilst a large image gallery gives visitors a real flavour of Blackbrook, before paying the home a visit.
Finiki Foods
Our brief was to create a funky, warm website, which shows the wide range of yummy fresh foods Finiki offer, and which ties in with the friendly upbeat atmosphere of their cafe. We retained the brilliant cartoons (created for Finiki by Simon Chadwick of Ceratopia) from their original website.
Striking use of hand selected large images, and strong deliberate use of language quickly gets their unique selling points across, whilst the fun navbar with the snazzy pointy arrow we devised, delivers key messages.
This new website has a bespoke content management system so that Finiki can enter 'todays specials' on the chalkboard (complete with chalk), and alter their cafe opening times whenever they wish. They can also change the main text by themselves.
The Posthouse B&B
Focal Strategy are delighted to have launched an elegant website for The Post House B&B and Self Catering.
Our brief was to design a site using the Farrow and Ball colours which are found within the property, and which made it easy for visitors to navigate around the various options the Post House offer. The owners also requested we design a bespoke online booking and payment system for them.
As well as creating a logical navigation route through the site, we drew a up a range of floor plans to illustrate each booking option, and designed a gallery with large images.
Our neat responsive design (an option we have just brought out for newer websites) ensures the whole site resizes and presents itself in a suitable layout for iPhone, iPad and Android users, making it simpler for those using mobile devices to book online whilst on the move. A particular benefit for B&B and hotel owners looking for last minute bookings.
The online booking and payment system was designed from scratch by our resident coding wizard Rich, this neat system is easy for them to update and manage online, is flexible and totally within their control using our purpose built content management system.
I Want To See My Children
Warner Goodman LLP Solicitors of Southampton asked us to design a website with commerce. The website is aimed at helping people through the legal system, and has 10 low cost fact sheets explaining the court process, the laws about child contact and tips on how to succeed. These are easily purchased and supplied through the online shop we have designed.
The whole site has been developed to be very accessible and user friendly, and enable people to quickly get the information they need. Calm colours, easy to read text and simple navigation are purposefully used in this informative website.
Shawfix Autos
This neat website has a professional yet friendly feel, and is packed full of useful information for Shawfix customers.
At the beginning of the project, Focal Strategy photographed the brand new MOT bay and the Shawfix team at work. Special attention was paid to the colour of the cars in shot, and any clothing worn, so that everything toned in with the company colours on the website. This kind of attention to detail ensures the photographs continue to be useful for offline marketing campaigns too.
Things we love about this site are the subtle sliding blue gradient, highlighting the navbar on the left, and the way the page slides down to reveal the contact form. We also like the stylish speech bubbles and the cool team photo!
Transworld Yachts
This database driven website neatly extracts the boat images and information Transworld have already entered into Yachtworld.co.uk via an XML file to create the boats for sale information page dynamically. This means the data is always up to date and only has to be inputted online once.
The boats for sale page is fun to use, visitors can click on one of the search terms; age, length or manufacturer, and watch the images snazzily re-sort themselves.
A detailed spec sheet is shown when clicking on an individual boat, which can be printed off, and an enquiry button makes it really simple for customers to email Transworld about a particular boat.
The site also includes a news blog which keeps customers up to date, and supports the company's online marketing, whilst being a Google friendly search engine optimisation tool.
The clean, classic design, alludes to a plimsoll line in the navbar to give a nautical flavour.
Alison Philps Wedding Singer
Our brief from Alison was that she would like a professional website, which was delicate and feminine, but not flowery. She also wanted a pink colour scheme. We came up with an artistic scroll embellishment set upon a soft parchment textured background.
A clearly marked 'listen to me sing' navigation tool ensures visitors can quickly get to the embedded sample tracks of Alison's lovely singing from wherever they are on the site.
All of the photographs were professionally taken by Focal Strategy across several venues to ensure visual interest.
Lonelm Business Solutions
This simple one page website has everything that a multipage website has, in a neat and compact format.
The contemporary hot pink page with flowing design combines with easy to use navigation.
Click on one of the tabs and the page slides to the appropriate position, or simply scroll up and down.
Carefully chosen stock images and spam protected contact form complete the professional finish.
Neville Stanikk Landscape Photography
This fully searchable database driven website will eventually contain around 30,000 images - all uploaded by Neville himself using our purpose designed multi image upload tool. The website has been cleverly coded to automatically create thumbnails as they are uploaded, whilst auto recognising image tags to assign each image to the correct place within the database.
Using the bespoke content management system, Neville can rate his favourite photographs to appear in the 'best of gallery'. He can also edit page text, and change image tags and captions once the photos are uploaded to the site, giving him complete control.
Visitors are able to search by region, place name, or by a tag (beach, bridge, night etc), or by using the free form facility using the search box. Dynamic 'breadcrumb' location generation assists with website navigation. There is an easy to use wish list facility to enable customers to make personalised photo collections, before purchasing them online.
All 30,000 images and blog entries are proactively auto indexed with Google, so that they are easily found online, making the website fully search engine optimised using on page SEO.
Badgers Holt
Our brief from Badgers Holt residential home was to design a website which looked 'sharp', we had free rein on the colours and design, providing we included a badger! We chose a variety of warm greens as this ties in with the home's location at the edge of the New Forest, and also the fresh interior decor.
Bold, clear text ensures it is easy to read, and along with all our websites, it has also been created to ensure visually impaired people using screen readers hear all the information on each webpage, and receive descriptions of the images. You can find out more about this in our blog article about accessibility.
The website includes a range of photographs, some taken from their old website, combined with updated professionally taken images by Focal Strategy. We have included links to the homes CQC report and included testimonials in full, along with snippets in the footer.
GR Care
Focal Strategy are pleased to launch an updated website design for GR Care of Hampshire.
The new site has to put over a lot of information to it's visitors who will be care providers and those working in the care sector, this has been interspersed with graphics from Ceratopia and our professional photography.
The website has a responsive design, adjusting its layout according to the screen size of the device on which it is viewed, from mobile devices such as an iPad, iPhone, Android or Blackberry to large desktop monitors.
Higher Class DJ Entertainment
This website is full of bling, from the dancing people on your first daily visit, to funky colour changing pages, psychedelic circular motifs and a glittery star on the logo.
The site has images provided by the client and a wide range of YouTube embedded videos. Visitors can turn the sound on or off depending on their mood.
An interactive contact form enables clients to enquire about particular event ideas and the wide range of services that Higher Class offer, whilst a news blog keeps people up to date, and assists with search engine optimisation.
The Bathroom and Kitchen Academy
Our brief was to create a website which fully reflected the wide range of high quality kitchens and bathrooms in the Bathroom and Kitchen Academy Showrooms in Dibden Purlieu.
We spent a day photographing the many product displays and room settings the team have on site in their store.
The website has been designed to suit their company colours and existing logo, and features a simple gallery to show off their showroom displays as large clear images.
Sliding pictures on the welcome page, and brand names scrolling across the bathroom and kithcens pages add visual interest.
As with all of our sites, our bespoke content management system ensures that the Bathroom and Kitchen Academy are able to make changes to their website, access Google Analytics, their email and also update their blog easily.
de Boer & Taylor
de Boer & Taylor Equine Veterinary Surgery needed a website to promote their business and to provide useful equine care articles and advice to their clients.
We were commissioned to visit them working on location at stables to take a range of professional photographs of them in action!
The animated swing tag highlights special offers, and has a link to a email registration form for customers to complete. The tag is non flash based to enable it to work on mobile devices such as the iPad.
A news blog is fed to the home page, and is also linked to de Boer & Taylor's business Facebook page for maximum effect.
We also designed and provided a range of matching marketing materials - posters for shop windows, compliment slips and folding leaflets etc.
Waterside Network Group
Another collaboration with Simon from Ceratopia, this site combines a fun, fresh feel with local professional business and community content. We have included a few subtle animations and effects to liven things up. The dots under the navbar were a bit of a challenge.
We particularly like the Our Members page with Simon?s bee and the animated member tiles. As always all our own code and designed to work in every browser and on mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone.
The top blog posts are highlighted on the home page to add value to visitors and to keep the site dynamic. We have also linked the blog into the Waterside Network Group's Facebook page. The site has been designed so that Google and other search engines will find it and the blog will enhance search engine performance.
Chapmans the Building Company
We really enjoyed taking the photos of Dean's amazing building projects and creating this stylish showcase website. The site design includes subtle animations, a creative gallery of images and a project showcase area. Because we didn?t use Adobe Flash this site works on all browsers and even the iPad and iPhone.
Building on Chapmans original colours we created a new logo and quality feel to better reflect the prestigious nature of Chapman?s work. We love the combination of red with black and white.
We set up a business Facebook page and sorted all the mechanics... email accounts, domain name registration, on page SEO and an easy to use Content Management System.
Roynon Dance School
The dark background, hot pink, designed logo, graphic elements and selected stock photos combine to create a stylish website. As well as presenting the School's capabilities, the site has useful information for existing students - timetables, key dates and a blog to help with communications. So a functional site as well as good looking one!
Simon from Ceratopia designed the logo and recommended us - many thanks.
We set up the organisation's Facebook page and Twitter account to help get information out there on news, shows, events....and exams! We also sorted out new email accounts.
The site is Search Engine Optimised and properly structured to help Google find it.
Hi-Q Building Services
Jason and Jordan fitted our new en-suite shower and ended up with a new website! This is another lovely looking website designed from scratch - no templates here at Focal Strategy.
HiQ have a great reputation and provide excellent, good humoured service and we wanted their new website to reflect this. The choice of colours (red and pink) was purposeful to make it attractive to our feminine side - usually the decision maker and the shower head telephone is a subtle injection of humour.
Once again we sorted all the mechanics of the website and associated services (domain name selections and redirects, email accounts, Google Places ownership, blog, links into social networks, etc). HiQ have also booked our blogging service to help with news posts - they are too busy working on projects!
Buchanans Jewellers of Lymington
Our brief from the guys at Buchanans was to incorporate their signature logo and colour scheme into a chic, crisp and classy website design.
The site includes easy to navigate pages for all of the jewellery brands they supply, and will include an online shop during the next stage of the project.
They plan to use their blog which feeds in to a range of social networks to keep people up to date with latest offers, and to support their offline marketing campaigns.
Just for a bit of fun the 'who we are' page, has a counter which calculates how many days Steve has been working in the jewellery business!
A&E Cleaning Solutions
Leigh came to us knowing exactly what his company needed and with established branding (logo by Wayne Burgess). The design was created around the branding, using the strong logo and colours to deliver a clean (obviously) easy to read, informative website. The blog is linked up with A&E's Facebook page helping Leigh to communicate to a wide range of customers and proactively improving search engine results with dynamic useful content. As with all our new websites, the client has an easy to use Content Management System accessed via a useful admin panel. All our sites also use Google Analytics to monitor traffic levels and a whole lot more.
Visit A&E Cleaning Solutions »
IT South
We revamped an existing site giving IT South a new look - describing their growing range of services for both business and household customers. Another strong logo by Simon of Ceratopia helped us determine the design fonts, colour scheme and graphic elements.
This simple site delivers clear, professional messages about the services on offer. Carefully selected images combine with the graphic design to make it pleasant and easy to read and navigate.
All our sites are visually designed using Adobe Fireworks and CS5. All our coding is completed from scratch using text editors.
Splash Display
Another website overhaul for us, working hand-in-hand with Splash Display. This site has a unique, visually interesting feel with strong use of graphics, animation and images. Stewart from Splash is a designer himself so we worked collaboratively to create this new look.
The website is designed so that it can be expanded and managed effectively. All our websites are driven by a behind the scenes database making it easy to deliver content flexibly. A shop will be added to this website enabling Splash customers to purchase all standard products online. New project examples will also be added as they are completed and we just about to create an area to enable clients to upload artwork - so this site has been designed to be future proof!
Due to the complexity of this site we used wire-framing techniques to discuss structure with the client before getting into the visual design. Once again this site had to work on the iPad so all animations are created without using Adobe Flash.
Southampton Hackney Association
This website design works so well, mainly down to the excellent photos... all taken by Focal Strategy. We really had fun photographing the taxis in Southampton and the ships from the dockyard. We designed a new cleaner, fresher logo for SHA and they love the end result!
A relatively simple site providing useful information and with some functionality - enquiry forms, downloadable documentation for taxi drivers, a blog and links into Social Networks (Facebook and Twitter).
We really like the Our Partners page with flippable tiles for advertisers - a nice touch.
We also set SHA up with Google Checkout account to enable them to email invoices allowing their clients to pay securely online.
SHA booked our blogging service to help get them going with useful posts that help with SEO, add value to their visitors and reflect the nature of the organisation.
S&A Logistics
With all new customers we take time to help understand (or develop) marketing strategies before launching into the website design. This might include gaining a better understanding of customers and competition and thinking about how a new website will fit within the overall business strategy and publicity campaigns.
We worked from a outline brief with Gary from S&A Logistics, designed his new logo and chose the strong blue/brown colour scheme. This fairly simple site make it easy for visitors to see the range of services offered and we've made it more interesting by using subtle animations and by keeping text to a minimum.
The images are a mix of stock photos and those taken by Gary himself. We applied a blue overlay to tie the website design together.
We helped with sorting out new email accounts, domain name registration, ownership of Google Places, applying Google Analytics and setting up Facebook and Twitter.
We even convinced Gary to purchase a new MacBook Air to replace an aging laptop... all part of the service!
TrueCare New Forest
Replacing a terrible template site and sorting out domain name ownership kicked off our design work with Colette at TrueCare. This clean, fresh site incorporates an existing logo with flowing graphic design and contextual photographs.
The use of "call out" boxes makes it easy for a visitor to quickly pick up the key messages from this very caring organisation. Since launching and by using our Content Management System, TrueCare have enhanced the Testimonials page by dynamically linking with The Disc Directory to deliver customer reviews directly to the website.
We love the forest vector footer and think it appropriately softens the design indicating not only the location of this organisation but also their caring values.
We helped this client with all the services associated with the site including links into Social Networks, multi-user email accounts, Google Places ownership and site analytical data.
Ceratopia Ltd
Working with Simon Chadwick is always such fun! Between us we have great plans for an amazing new site to show off his skills. We have a preliminary design which looks really exciting with colour, fun, exploration, animations, characters, etc.
In the meantime here is a simple but effective holding site with Simon's very active blog, mini-gallery and interesting contact me page!
We often get asked to design and put up holding or temporary sites in a hurry, while we design something better - so feel free to contact us for any site (micro or massive).
TailorMade Gems
TailorMade Gems came to us as a relatively new start-up business who needed to present and sell their handcrafted jewellery range online.
We worked with TailorMade Gems to create a new logo, colour scheme and a clean elegant style. We were also commissioned to professionally photograph each item in our studio on a white background.
We designed and built their secure online shop by setting up a product database. The advantages of doing this include the ability to sort items into collections, gifts, categories and to easily add products or update details such as prices.
Dartrite
Dartrite were looking for a small website to give prospective clients information about their business, and to convey the modern attitude their company has.
We built a simple site with pictures and videos of their work and a way for people to contact them.
Seika Financial, Strategic and Operations Consultant
This website design had to put over a lot of complex information in a concise, informative and visually interesting way.
By cleverly using stock images and clear diagrams we think have created a user friendly site which users can interact with. Visitors can visit the site, and click the icons on the open book to read information in a clear step by step format to quickly find out about the services Seika has to offer.
Wedded Bliss Bridal Studio
Wedded Bliss Bridal Studio wanted a major revamp of their existing website. Their brief to us included a wish to make their site more feminine - hence the colour scheme and embelishments.
They wanted to use a new blog feature to selectively post news and events items to their front page and to automatically add posts to Facebook and Twitter.
We also intoduced the ability to sell a selection of their products and accessories online. This includes a simple user interface which they use to sell designer dresses.
Other useful tools provided included a new web based email account and online calendars, improved contact form, listing on Google Places and location map.
The Final Touch
Based in Lymington (Hampshire, UK) this successful business wanted to completely re-style an existing website. We worked with them to design a contemporary clean design including a new fresh logo.
The site has a number of interesting features including a sortable case studies table, a press/news page which has a user interface allowing The Final Touch to add their own articles, drop down menus which do not use Adobe Flash, and before/after galleries featuring The Final Touch's own photos.