Started as an interim support contract for a client's site, launched at the end of 2011 and tried out for a couple of months, we think it's time to introduce our new service to the public – Server Support. Actually the service was first tried and tested in the beginning of summer 2011, when we welcomed our first in-house system engineer. He put our hosting infrastructure in order, enriching our experience with his. Our good friends from KEO Films were the first to evaluate the usefulness of the service, as due to some bespoke optimization and skilled maintenance the performance capacity of the machines exceeded our and their expectations (and saved a lot of money too).

The next logical step was to offer this support to anyone who may need it. So now you can see for yourselves what a good server support stands for:

• “Office hours support” or “24/7 support” depending on your requirements
• No more  bot replies and “sick-of-it-all” operators - our small support team consists entirely of system engineers, and they will be the ones to answer your call even in the middle of the night
• Thorough inspection - prior to taking an engagement our team always spends some time checking out the code of the website and the application and discussing with clients the priority the issues to be handled. One never knows what’s around the corner, so we prefer to have a certain idea about the actions to be undertaken and the sequence of these actions.
• Our clients will be granted access to our own server monitoring application (we will soon post more info about it).

We take our work personally. In order to provide the most adequate support our system engineers follow the inner relations between servers’ software and the hosted applications, as well as the impact of various events – software updates, introduction of new modules, etc. Thus they are few steps forward to the solution when the server fails to perform. And you know that speed and accuracy are of great importance when your reputation and money are at stake.

Today we’d like to tell you a little story about the new website we built for our friends from KEO Digital.

At peoplefund.it each great thinker gets the chance to put his idea to the test and try to find supporters and funding to make his project grow into a successful business.

How it works?

Simple…

Once you have your project all cleared up and predefined, you should set the target sum and time for raising it and start collecting pledges. Put in all the ingredients to make your stuff attractive  – rewards, videos, pictures, inspiring texts. Then wait to see how people like it. Or love it, or adore it.

This is how it worked for our featured heroes - The Bicycle academy. Two guys had an inspiring idea to start a bicycle framebuilding school and give away every first bicycle to the people who really need it – in Africa! Thanks to crowd funding and peoplefund.it they reached their target for less than a week and managed to raise more than £40,000. Fascinating, isn’t it?

How could this happen? They had an ingenious idea, but it wasn’t enough. They had to add in their passion, dedication, inspiration, love and make it as popular as possible. And it was up to www.peoplefund.it to prove that this could work. It was really astonishing how quickly the pledges were made and the goal was reached. We are proud of our work and even more satisfied of how the site helped an original good idea to become reality.

See for yourself how The Bicycle academy made it.

And next time YOU have a brilliant idea in mind – don’t let it slip away. Test it here to see whether peoplefund.it.

For almost two months now he’s been working hard to put some order in our hosting infrastructure. The latter is not a piece of cake as the number of servers is steadily growing and living in a world where even Amazon have cloudy Fridays the sanity is vulnerable and the stress is taking over.

But having Emil on our side – a server whisperer, Python zealot and a Django fan – the team is in full force to cope with any adversity the web could throw at us.

And what is more important – at last Milen can have his good night’s sleep not having to worry about the clouds in the web sky.

The mobile version of the site was not a major project but had some treats in store for our team. The site is a place full of items, packed with all kinds of information and shop products, so we had to sieve all the necessary features and make them fit into your palm. At the same time we had to make sure that nothing precious would be sacrificed for the sake of simplicity.

The result is quite satisfying – an easy to access and fast to browse through mobile-friendly site that gives you the feel you are staring at the whole picture. The mobile version of Dizzyjam provides a simple checkout process and works brilliantly as your personal merch stall wherever you are.

The focus is set on the shop items – so they are presented in their most – the logo designs and the variety of the products are easy to see and even easier to buy. This gives the shop owners yet another way to advertise and propel their business as they literally have their shop in their pocket.

With the summer almost over, and September knocking on the door, the kids are getting ready for school.  So is our team. The perfect project to get us in the mood was the Newlyn School of Art’s web site. Launching http://www.newlynartschool.co.uk/ just a few days ago made us feel involved in the whole “back to school” hullabaloo.

We are really proud to share with you the outcome of our work and hope it will inspire you and colour your day.

Hopefully we are back on track and have a few new things to show you.

First of all we would really like to share what a wonderful job the Hugh’s Fish Fight website is doing. Last week the 4^th episode was played on Channel 4 and we definitely hit some new records of public interest. The web site scored some of the highest numbers of visits we’ve seen and we are really proud of it managing to meet all the interest. Previously in the campaign our team expanded the range of the site and it went international – now it’s live and functioning on 11 different European languages.

The campaign is already making fisheries policy change and it wouldn’t be so successful unless it was the perfect combination of powerful and charismatic impact of the initiative and the strong and stable support of http://www.fishfight.net/.

Our arrival in UK was the perfect time for launching another MTR Design project – http://www.lifeinukthetest.co.uk/ which is quite a coincidence to start with. This site can give you some really useful information – something we could say for sure trying it at our moving to UK. So did lots of people who have benefited from it for the last couple of weeks (as free from the website stats). The website provides a throughout  information about the history, society and everyday life in UK and scrolling through the variety of lessons one can receive the best chances to pass the British Citizenship Test.

We are having great time in Cardiff. And no wonder as the Dizzyjam headquarters is situated here together with its most eminent members – Daf and Neil who are dangerously familiar with the club life in the Welsh capital. Well it hasn’t been exactly partying all night long during the last two weeks, mostly because of the many thing we had to deal with. Nevertheless the results are dizzying at the end of the day and make us happy the morning after. Some of these are the new feature of Dizzyjam – embeddable shops.

The Dizzyjam shop owners now have at their disposal a tool which helps them set and embed their shop on their own websites. Following few easy steps every merchandiser can integrate the functions and adjust the looks of their shop in their own web space, thus gaining more popularity in the crowded merch scene.

Well, that’s all for now. A humble sunray is sneaking through the clouds so we’ll try to catch it. All of you – our lovely UK friends and partners, feel free to join us any time you are around – just give us a call and we will find time for a beer and a talk.

via Reason Magazine

(zoomed version of the image)

People tend to appreciate things by their appearance. Overcrowded flash websites or minimalistic hidden menus – it’s all about the hype of the day and the needs of the users. Or at least what we consider their needs are. Sometimes web design gets lost in the visuals and the original purpose of the web site is being pushed into the background by pretty animated pictures.

So it’s very important not to forget that in web design “web” comes first and “design” follows. Web sites are not just a couple of damn good artistic layouts, they are built for a reason, so they must be designed in a manner to serve this reason in the best possible way.

Of course I’m far from bringing in a manifesto for a web without pics, although I definitely stand for banning the flash.

The good design is crucial for drawing the users’ attention. But it should not distract them from their initial intention, or even worse – make them wander while searching throughout the site for what they needed in the first place – such a walk won’t last long.

On the other hand the extreme simplicity can give you much trouble. If you have several stylish “Kandinsky squares” on your site, while all the important features are out of reach, hidden somewhere in abundant site menus, they will be of little use for your exquisite visitors.

It’s easy to recognize when things have gone wrong in an application or a site. Unfortunately it’s not that simple to make things perfect. One could never guess what the preferences of all users will be – the rationality and emotionality are in different proportions in each person – some will like this http://www.alistapart.com/, others will go for that: http://waterlife.nfb.ca/ (it will take some time to browse all the elements). It depends on what you’re looking for. Fun, recreation, knowledge or service – not getting it on time can be frustrating even if there is a sweet melody playing and some terrific animation spinning around. Well, I’m in the park right now, using the municipal wi fi and I’m really doing my best to understand what is this orchestra and floating squares all about. Well, I gave it up. You’ve got my point.

It’s good to have smashing layouts, but it’s better to have the right design which will suit your website’s goals.

Remember when I mentioned how hard it is to blend the perfect mixture of emotional perceptions and rationality? In fact I found my own way for mixing both drinks – I always use the reason as a finger to point me what is the best solution. Every piece of the design should have a meaning and stand on the web page for a reason. Every image should have a story to tell. As long as I can explain the purpose and designation of each element on the site, I can tell for certain that the designer has done a great job.

Though designers want their full control over the creation process and the tools they use, it’s the project manager’s job to ask for reasonable and functional layouts.

Everybody should be left alone to do what they are best at, that including the manager who’s got the power to explain the concept to the designer and to bring together art and functionality in building an almost perfect, yet beautifully functioning web site.

MTR Design participated in this multiplatform campaign by creating the website of the initiative and we are absolutely delighted to see our labour being rewarded.

We know for sure when our efforts are worth it – it’s that  delightful moment of perfection when a great project has spoken out loud and the raw idea, vested in stimulating digital presentation has made a great impact in the real world. In Fish Fight we have it all – a powerful cause, a storming digital introduction and inspiring results.

So enjoy this video and find out what it takes for your ideas to make a difference.

Diversification is the key to success. So now the artists can be successful merchandisers using not only their account on Dizzyjam, but making their Facebook profile work for them as well. And after all the more the pub - the more the fans – both results – multiplying the sales and the growing number of fans are gratifying.  Just install the Dizzyjam Facebook app and enjoy your fans’ number boost.

The app is quite simple to manage and unobtrusively mingles with the interface of your Facebook page. It’s easy to install and configure, even easier to use and is a real business galvanizer.

So have a nice time on the web and feel free to be seen everywhere with your wonderful designs.

Our latest project was just finished -we launched the new website for isaysolar Limited , the latest "rent-a-roof" business in UK. Collaborating with our friend and very talented designer Ed Ovenden, we did the frontend coding and the CMS programming.

The website itself is promoting their free solar panel offering. If you're a homeowner, why not check out their website and see if you can benefit from free solar electricity and in the same time help save the planet from climate change?

And dear English friends, I guess you already know that your government spends more than he earns (app. 152 billion pounds budget deficit for 2009), but did you know that this excess is 5 times greater than the revenues of the Bulgarian government (our GNP for the year 2009 is app. 30 billion pounds)?

Internet definitely will not save the world, but I personally haven’t found yet a better way for meeting some of the best minds on the planet. Jamie is surely one of them: a person with a clear purpose, that excites and inspires thousands with his wishes big enough to change the world.

Hardly anyone (even in Bulgaria) could recall that MTR Design was started in 2005 as a design department of the highly successful Bulgarian online magazine Media Times Review.

Today, five years and a hundred completed projects later, we have established our UK branch, and it is pretty clear that 2010 will be for us an exciting year!

In our work we overcome many challenges, and constantly learn new stuff, so we thought it would be good to have a team blog, where we could share some useful info with you. Here we will be posting project updates, hot news and cool ideas! Keep an eye on it.

About the authors

Milen is a Project Manager, and a co-founder of MTR Design. He is also the first point of contact for our clients, and is personally “guilty” for the successful completion of a long list of web projects. Throughout the years he was responsible for the crafty befriending of clients such as: The Electric Sheep Company, River Cottage, BAA, and many other happy “victims”.

Nikolay is a former salesman turned Marketing | Business Development | Project Manager, and a co-founder of MTR Design. He is also the last point of contact for our clients due to his imaginable inability to improve his level of English. Throughout the years he successfully produced a number of inappropriate ideas for web applications, but to this very day his status of a “co-founder” keeps him steady in the team.

There is also a whole bunch of other highly suspicious individuals at MTR, that must be mentioned as they love being noted. Elena, Velentin, Stanislav, Vladimir, Marush and Alex all say hello to you.

See you around!