• What our mum's think we do!

    What our mum's think we do!

    We thought it would be mildly amusing (and to be honest interesting!) to ask our Mums (and Dads!) to describe, on the spot and without thinking, what they think we do all day here in the tictoc family therefore below are the responses so far. I have to confess I'm so far hugely impressed with the responses and will happily confess that I guess we underestimate the genius of our parents but then, they are responsible for us so we shouldn't be surprised!!

    Mel 

    Andrews Dad : 
    "You create, from scratch, these wonderful web site thingies that most companies, conglomerates, councils and even individuals see as being
    necessary to advertise and promote their particular areas of expertise, their facilities, resources and abilities.

    I understand you also create programmes in several computer languages, so you could be known as a polyglot in the computer world. What you do with these programmes is a bit of a grey area for me, but I assume you use them to make your web sites do interesting things at the touch of a button, rather than just provide contact details and an e-mail address to which all queries should be sent."


    Colins Mum :
    "You put together on a website text from a customer to advertise his product, with suitable pictures, and sometimes set up a buying facility"

    Mels Mum:
    1st answer - "Design logos and brands and build websites" 

    2nd answer - "hopefully make enough money to keep me in the manor to which I expect in my later years!!"

    Alans Dad :
    "I haven't a clue! Do you sit at the computer and play around with designs and pictures?"

    By Melanie Russell
    Published: 26 June 2007
    1 Comment

  • Global engineering firm are on board

    Global engineering group Proclad have confirmed the appointment of tictoc to revamp their website. Proclad Group is a global network of companies operating worldwide with manufacturing sites & offices located in Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, C.I.S., & North America.

    For Proclad, understanding how their site could work harder for their business will be the first step. Working with tictoc they are now aware of how they can more effectively use their site and are keen to take advantage of effective web technologies in creating a dynamic website which will benefit their business, generating a real buzz around the Proclad brand.

    By Melanie Russell
    Published: 25 June 2007
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  • London fashion party

    Apparently I've been promoted (or is it demoted) to the role of Art Director by our friends over at international fashion photography agency Jed Root. Jed was celebrating the opening of his new London office and the end of a gruelling round the world trip. I didnt manage to win the award for most desirable man of the evening despite my best efforts, this chap walked away with that accolade. To my colleagues in Glasgow - it's all in the name of networking, honest! Thanks to our client Sven at Kaufmann Stanley who also runs Jed's London office for the invitation.

    By Super Administrator
    Published: 22 June 2007
    0 Comments

  • Bill, IDEO and the RSA

    The tictoc London office went off on a trip to see Bill Moggridge, founder of world-famous design business IDEO, and interactive design guru, give a lecture titled ‘Designing Interactions’ at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) last night. Aside from the beautiful surroundings, the thing that most stuck in our minds was Bill’s comment that ‘everything that can be beautiful will be’. Bill also showed a short film of Tim Mott, the creator of the ‘desktop’, coming up with the original idea on the back of a napkin. It proves that great ideas not only come from anywhere, but at any time and place.

    By Super Administrator
    Published: 14 June 2007
    0 Comments

  • A day in the life of the tictoc developers

    Watch the video on YouTube.

    Hard at work eating biscuits and drinking coffee. A frame was captured every 10 seconds using an excellent little program called Gawker. The music is a track called PWSteal.Ldpinch.D from the Aphex Twin's latest album Chosen Lords.

    By Tom Beddard
    Published: 1 June 2007
    2 Comments

  • Online shoppers seek more information

    A recent poll by Harris Interactive that surveyed 2,873 US adults found that 44% of consumers had abandoned their shopping cart because they couldn’t find the answers to questions about the purchase or the product they wanted. It also went on to state that 68% of consumers said they were compelled to browse a website after receiving an email from a retailer. Download the Harris Interactive Online Poll report (pdf).

    By Super Administrator
    Published: 1 June 2007
    0 Comments

  • Natural is best

    Natural is best

    Our London office is on a roll at the moment, winning two clients in one week. This time it’s the natural flooring company Solid Floor . The brief is to try and replicate online the warm, cosy feeling you get from visiting their small but perfectly formed stores. And they want to take a more premium, luxury positioning. We took the brief in their Notting Hill store and fell in love with the back office and it’s eclectic-ness. It was like being at home, so comfortable and easy. We’re going to try and bottle it! Keep your eyes peeled for the new site which hopefully goes live before 100% Design in September.

    By Super Administrator
    Published: 24 May 2007
    0 Comments

  • It's about results

    More and more clients are understanding that their website must provide effective business results. It’s our approach to measurable, goal-oriented websites that has given Teammania, a new start event management company, confidence to develop their new website with tictoc.

    As a company Teammania believe in providing business results through effective team building, incorporating events, fun and play. We are now working on developing a creative and effective solution for this forward thinking client. We'll keep you posted on its progress and of course the results.

    By Melanie Russell
    Published: 23 May 2007
    0 Comments

  • Planet Organic join our family

    We kicked off a shiny new project with Planet Organic today by meeting the founders Renée and Brian Elliot. It’s an exciting new project for our London office, not least because Planet Organic have never embarked on a major online project of this kind before. They told us that many agencies had been knocking on their door. This makes it all the more prized, and we’re proud and delighted to be chosen as their partner as they’re the kind of visionary, ethical client we like the most. We’ll keep you updated on progress, and you may even see some news in various magazines and websites very soon.

    By Melanie Russell
    Published: 23 May 2007
    0 Comments

  • Introduction to Microformats

    Introduction to Microformats

    As web standards start to become, well, the web standard, we can start to use some of the power that this structured approach to web development affords us. Microformats, that is, standardised chunks of web pages that represent data, will allow machines to not only read our published data, but to understand it.

    As an example, hCard is one of the more established microformats. The hCard is used to represent people or organisations and can be used in situations where you would traditionally offer a vCard file. As support for microformats in browsers grow, the browser would automatically detect the contact details and ask if you would like to add the contact to your address book. Taking it one step further, search engines could 'know' that your contact page contains information to contact you. The search engine then becomes a massive online public contacts database (Although in the future this could be abused to help find John Connor).

    Likewise, selling online has a potentially interesting future under microformats. Rather than posting a classified advert on an online marketplace (such as eBay) simply add an advert to your own website. The next time the search engine spider visits your website, it understands the advert microformat that you are using to display your classified ad and uses the information accordingly. Your advert could then be added to a global (and local) searchable shop-window without any further effort on your behalf.

    Microformats make your organisation's information more accessible to the Internet. Right now, the support isn't there, but it is coming. Both Microsoft and Mozilla are expected to support microformats with the next major version of their browser and who knows, desktop software (such as Outlook or Thunderbird) may follow. For those keen to have an early preview of microformats in action, Mozilla Labs released Operator, a Firefox extension to detect microformats as you browse.

    With the momentum behind the microformats movement, understanding the concept and potential of microformats can only benefit those involved in the website procurement process.

    By Andrew Donaldson
    Published: 17 May 2007
    1 Comment

  • Welcome to the new blog

    Welcome to the new blog

    At last it is here! We've been busy working on the new site for the past couple of months and after quite a few revisions we've finally ended up with something we all like.

    The new site is built upon our Clever Monkey System (CMS), the same platform that powers all the recent websites listed in the showcase. Everything is tagged for easy navigation and categorisation.

    We'll share some details and insights into the working processes and interests of the tictoc family shortly, but for the moment have a look round the site and let us know what you think.

    By Tom Beddard
    Published: 11 May 2007
    4 Comments