Wedding considerations

The Comlongon Castle wedding calculator has been updated and restored to display more information on each of the wedding and accommodation options and this is now updated again with the new additions for seat covers (to customise your wedding banquet) and the Honeymoon Lodge.

The castle now has a new Honeymoon Lodge in the castle grounds. This is complete with underfloor heating and is decorated with sculptures by Lucianne Lassalle and interior design by Jason Shackleton.

New potatoes

We've been updating the JBA Seed Potatoes website and it now boasts a new design by Kit Allen Ltd. There is some added functionality such as the advanced search and a streamlining of the basket and checkout process.

This site is updated regularly with content and new potato products and information so we hope 2010 will be another good year for the seed potato website.

A Scottish Perspective

We've been playing around with a newspaper style blog for the Dumfries SNP (Scottish National Party) website. The site is aimed at providing a platform for highlighting local issues in the town and region to engage the residents of the area.

It can also act as an advocate for the wishes of the community by allowing contributions from interested readers.

Still some work to be done on the blog design to incorporate video footage, clips and more information...

We are illuminated

Well it took a couple of days longer than we thought but that allowed for some final feedback and tweaks to improve the eProjectorLamps website functionality.


This is a portfolio design so the web design and web development team Callisti brought together for this project should be proud. Lots of use of jquery and vb script, moving away from the previous php incarnation, have made this into a more direct, search based ecommerce site.

A nice feature is the credit account option for public service bodies, schools, colleges and government offices so that they can be part of the eprocurement scheme for local authorities when buying projector lamps and replacement bulbs online.

All the projector manufacturers and models, e.g. Epson Cinema 200 lamp for projectors, can be found using the home page search filter or by navigating using the 'more from this manufacturer' links. You can also enter the projector lamp part code or model number to find the bulb you are looking for.

They call it projection

You know when you do or say things in a roundabout way to distance yourself from them but the same message, at least once removed, comes across? Projection.

That aside, Callisti is currently working on a lovely design and build for a projector lamp supplier who needed to sweep out the dead wood and breathe new life into the competitive world of replacement bulbs.

The user interface is being tested and is behaving across the browsers, and the website should be able to handle a variety of product feeds from suppliers to stay agile in a changing market.

Oh and if you ever hear someone say "future proof" with any seriousness when trying to sell a technology-based idea, ignore everything they say from that point on...

Script free opacity

I was fooling around with the Callisti Logo and decided to make all the green squares useful in some way. Rather that start using scripts and alternative images I was able to use CSS and some opacity styling courtesy of a good resource by Mandarin Design.

You'll see that each colour uses opacity when rolled over and the links are consistent in a colour coded way. It's very out of your face (as opposed to in your face) so might be too subtle unless a visitor moves or sweeps their pointer over the logo.

Some other content updates have been made, e.g. updating the privacy statement to keep in line with Google, and some content and meta tag updates to reflect the organic shift in services that we offer.

Organic Farm in the Scottish Borders

Current website development news:

Organic meat from Liddesdale Selection is a website outlining the farm produce and services of a farm in Newcastleton in the Scottish Borders.

The web design is being signed off and will be converted to xhtml and css compliant brochure website for the organic farm produce in the first instance.

We'll then monitor and move on to developing an ecommerce website as required with any SEO work ongoing.

Garden Hammock

Callisti is working on the seasonal hammock project for a local Galloway company and embracing Actinic 9 as an ecommerce solution.

The website design is trying to capture a fresh outdoor feel which should be an improvement to the legacy look of the original website.

Interestingly, the search term 'hammocks' is very seasonal especially in the UK and we are now noticing the rising traffic to the website as the spring equinox approches. Some of the Adwords tools from PPCBully, keywordcountry and keywordspy.com show the value of a click for this keyword and also who the competitors are. Tough market!

As usual we will be applying Callisti SEO philosophy to the site so that the internal housekeeping assists in keeping CPC down and ROI up.

Enterprise agencies

Cycling about town today in a green sort of way. We had a constructive meeting earlier with the local Scottish Enterprise agency for Dumfries and Galloway where Callisti will be suggested for tenders for new work in the region.

This work will be for clients requiring a suite of services, from search engine optimisation, website design and development, and video editing for the web.

There are other opportunities in conjunction with the creative arts and art events groups in the region which will be followed up in this next quarter.

Writing for fun

Callisti services include website copywriting and document preparation. Copywriting is a key part of any communication as this is the message. This is what is expressed and this is what is interpreted and processed by the reader.

On a webpage this is a component of the design, especially when the page uses the visual appearance to convey a sense of style, mood, movement and the many other presentation techniques used today. The text message however remains key to a successful site as this is read by humans and search engines alike and is very effective as a vessel for meaning.

Document preparation is quite a wide area. Taken from a basic letter to a published book, a leaflet to a high value proposal, a presentation to a newsletter - there are so many ways that documents are made public to as many different audiences. Callisti can combine desktop publishing and layout tools to give your documents that consistent professional appearance. We can edit copy and proofread to reduce embarrassing typos. We can also get your documents print-ready using postscript software for consistent delivery.

How important is your document?

Named in the bible

Interesting fact: Queen of the South is the only football team named in the Bible.

Well, more accurately, the Bible mentions a Queen of the South and there is now a football team that shares this name. It's not like Queen of the South Football Club were around 2,000 years ago and someone thought they should mention his allegiance to the team.

Anyway, they are having trouble with their official website from what I can gather from the various unofficial blogs and supporters' message boards - the official message board is not available, possibly due to bad press.

A lesson for all you web site design companies out there trying to make that step up to professional service delivery: be careful what you promise.

And if you can't deliver what you promised, at least test your development site before you put it live.