…Cheers!

Posted on June 25, 2010
Filed Under Branding & Identity, Design, Interface, Marketing, Open Source, Social Media, The Web, User Experience | Leave a Comment

This week Peapod Studios was informed about the acceptance of our proposal to work on the redevelopment and redesign of the Château Des Charmes website.

Chateau Des Charmes Wines.

A Little History

Château des Charmes story began over five generations ago with a family that traces its roots to the Alsace region of France and the vineyards of French Algeria. Thousands of kilometers from its present day vineyards located at Niagara-on-the-Lake.

In these foreign lands, the ancestors of Paul Bosc began a heritage of fine winemaking that would serve the Bosc family for generations to come. This tradition of excellence continues today in the vineyards of Niagara-on-the-Lake where Paul Bosc and his family carry on this rich heritage of meticulous vinification by harmonizing science and art.

A graduate of one of Europe’s finest winemaking schools, the University of Burgundy at Dijon, Paul Bosc came to Canada from France in the 1960′s. He brought the Old World tradition of winemaking to his new home and he grafted that knowledge and tradition to the soils of Niagara.

Renowned British wine writer Hugh Johnson in his book Wine Companion has written:

“Canada was discovered, in fine wine terms, in the 1970′s when old fears and prejudices about which vines could survive were tossed aside. The formidable know-how that had been accumulating in new wine districts around the world provided answers to problems that had seemed insuperable. Paul Bosc became the first to plant a wholly vinifera vineyard. Award winning VQA estate wines include Icewine, late harvest riesling, an impressive range of both white and red varietals as well as méthode traditionnelle sparkling wines.”

We had to try it

Peapod Studios is picky about our clients, we want to work with the best of the best. We seek out companies and projects we can feel good about.

So we headed off to our local LCBO to grab some of the Châteaus offerings. We ended up with the 2005 Old Vine Cabernet- Merlot and the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, St. David’s Bench Vineyard.

Nom nom nom

The Cabernet Merlot was simply exquisite, the more it breathed the more fantastic it became, and the Cabernet Sauvignon reminded us of that summer in Rome.

We were hooked, The wine is fantastic, and the scenery and chance to visit and work with a company that is in arguably in the most gorgeous place in Canada. A family run business that returns its wealth to the community and environment. All the things we love and appreciate and aim for being ourselves.

“In the belief that quality and value go hand-in-hand, we at Château des Charmes have been dedicated to producing world-class wines in Canada by growing only the finest grape varieties.”

-The Bosc Family

Photo credit: whatsonmyplate

Wanted: Office Coordinator

Posted on June 10, 2010
Filed Under Community, Hiring, Nerd Alert | 1 Comment

overworked

The Office Coordinator is the glue that holds Peapod together. An important role that includes managing and coordinating day-to-day tasks such as, organizing the studio, manning the phones, coordinating meetings, ordering office supplies, plus additional administrative tasks.

Skills and Abilities

• Ability to build rapport and work effectively with all studio members and clients
• Able to juggle many tasks within a short timeframe, with effective prioritization
• Positive, mature and professional, can-do attitude
• Detail oriented, self-sufficient and organized
• Must work independently with minimal supervision
• Solid written and verbal communication skills
• Proactive thinker who seeks to create efficiencies within the work environment
• Intermediate knowledge of MS Office Suite

Experience

• 1-2 years experience in an office environment
• Reception and customer service experience an asset
• Basic accounting and payroll

Nice to Have

• Project management experience
• Interest in design and interactive services

If you are interested in this position, please send your resume by email to jobs@peapod.ca

Thank you for your response, only those selected for interview will be contacted.

Peapod Architecture and Design Process

Posted on April 25, 2010
Filed Under Design, Interface, Marketing, Nerd Alert, Open Source, The Web, User Experience | 3 Comments

When Peapod Studios begins creating a website, we’re not just simply collecting a few key pieces of information and moving directly into the build process.

There is a great deal of discovery and strategy that goes into creating the final products we deliver. We start with several sessions of discovery, where we set the basic goals and criteria we’d like the clients site to meet.

Then we develop several individualized personas of who the key users and stakeholders of the site will be. Personalizing a users experience dealing with a website is a key part of ensuring success. We develop several pathways throughout the site, for them to easily obtain the information they desire or have come for while navigating the site.

Architecture and Strategy Documentation

Architecture Document

We take all of this information and use it to develop our Architecture and Strategy document. This will serve as a resource for both our developers and the client to refer to as we move forward to the point where we can begin the preliminary site mapping and wire-framing of the eventual site build.

WireFrames

wireframe

Once we have established the web sites core functionality and layout only then can we move into creating the initial rounds of designs, a process we call skinning. Initially we like to provide the client with three distinct rounds of creative, allowing the client to have several choices in the future direction of the design.

Design Begins

first mocks

Taking the clients feedback from the intial three mockups we can begin to build out more honed designs based on their feedback. This is not a perfect science, sometimes a client will go through more than one round of creative, although sometimes we nail it from the get go.

Design Sign Off

Final Design

WIth all the elements in place, we finally have the basis for build.

The documentation we have from the preliminary steps allows the developers to work knowing the ins and outs of the final structure, and gives them an extensive library to refer to. Art direction is minimized as most of the design lives within the styles created in the skinning stage.

Asigra.com

Thirteen years of Apple Online.

Posted on April 7, 2010
Filed Under Design | 1 Comment

As the web and web-technologies march forward, it’s sometimes nice to take the time to look back at the evolution of the web and its design through a companies eyes.

One of the first companies to go online was Apple, here is a snapshot of their journey, design and products through the last thirteen years.

Apple Website 1997

apple 1997

Apple Website 1998

apple 1998

Apple Website 1999

apple 1999

Apple Website 2000

apple 2000

Apple Website 2001

apple 2001

Apple Website 2002

apple 2002

Apple Website 2003

apple 2003

Apple Website 2004

apple 2004

Apple Website 2005

apple 2005

Apple Website 2006

apple 2006

Apple Website 2007

apple 2007

Apple Website 2008

apple 2008

Apple Website 2009

apple 2009

this post was made possible by Innocente–Hayart’s Apple Gallery

Open Source Fonts.

Posted on March 5, 2010
Filed Under Community, Design, Open Source | 1 Comment

Free fonts have always been shunned by the design community, and many of the free fonts on the internet are simply poorly crafted ripoffs of actual quality typefaces. They lack differentials in weights, have improper or incomplete unicode, poor hinting and so on.

However some in the typography community are now moving towards the creation of high quality, open source free fonts. This is a sea change in the philosophy we’re used to dealing with from the old school foundries, representing a new age in how we can consume great typefaces.

Today we’ll focus on an open source foundry we just love…

The League of Movable Type

Philosophy: No more bullshit. Join the revolution.

“We’re done with the tired old fontstacks of yesteryear. Enough with the limitations of the web, we won’t have it. It’s time to raise our standards. Here, you’ll find only the most well-made, free & open-source, @font-face ready fonts.”

Quite a statement, and they deliver on that promise. Here’s some of our favourites typefaces from The League of Movable Type.

League Gothic

league gothic

League Gothic is a revival of an old classic, and one of our favorite typefaces, Alternate Gothic No.1. It was originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders Company (ATF) in 1903. The company went bankrupt in 1993. And since the original typeface was created before 1923, the typeface is in the public domain.

You can grab League Gothic here

Junction

Inspired by my favorite humanist sans serif typefaces, such as Meta, Myriad, and Scala, Junction is where the best qualities of serif and sans serif typefaces come together. It has the hand drawn and human qualities of a serif, and still retains the clarity and efficiencies of a sans serif typeface. It combines the best of both worlds.

You can grab Junction here

Chunk

Chunk is an ultra-bold slab serif typeface that is reminiscent of old American Western woodcuts, broadsides, and newspaper headlines. Used mainly for display, the fat block lettering is unreserved yet refined for contemporary use.

You can grab Chunk here

One of our core philosophies at Peapod Studios is to always strive to work with open source software whenever and wherever we can. Seeing this open ideology move to the realm of typefaces is indeed very exciting.

The League of Movable Type Logo