DigiKev: website design and digital spaces

DigiKev Birmingham digital marketing agency and social media marketing

HOLA!

Hi I am DigiKev, this is the silly name I call myself for my little online presence. My real name is Kevin Rapley, I prefer Kev and some call me Kevlar for reasons unknown. I get called some other names too but these aren’t appropriate here. So here comes the guff:

DigiKev is a digital media, website design and build outfit. Digital media is interactive and thrives on conversations. I engineer this ability and allow people to converse in a digital space. This type of capability of starting online conversations and social networking has been coined the term Web 2.0.

For the rest of us it is just a common sense approach to using the technology for business, social and networking purposes.


Birmingham website design, web development and Birmingham digital media examples from the portfolio

Latest work

I was asked by Fierce! and the Royal Shakespeare Company to produce a mini-site for the unique collaboration where they will be recording a series of everyday public service announcements for broadcast across a wide range of public spaces in Birmingham and Stratford upon-Avon: including shopping centres, train and bus stations, sports stadia and schools. The announcements will be recorded and broadcast by RSC Associate artists whose distinct voices are easily recognisable and who include Sir Ian Mckellen, Patrick Stewart and Dame Judi Dench.

You be the bard!


 

Visit You be the bard!


I worked with Bristol illustrator Sarah Newman to create a portfolio website which coincided with her masters final exhibition. Sarah knew exactly the look that the website needed to take on and producing her own design with cardboard and paper created a web page in the real world while I prepared it ready for digital media. The project involved combining Sarah’s illustrative style with accessible web design and Flash movies.

Sarah Newman Illustrator


 

Visit Sarah Newman’s illustration portfolio


Birmingham digital media and Birmingham social media blog

Latest conversations

How to make Web sites a haven for journalists

Introducing a selection of Web 2.0 and social internet tools that build a Newsroom for your business.

A Newsroom is an area on a Web site specifically built for journalists. Journalists are forthcoming writing an article about your business when it’s possible to disseminate company news and information. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a factor in getting the content out there [aggregated on the Internet and through news readers], but is not the be all and end all. It is merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of the Newsroom. Going beyond RSS the Newsroom provides rich content—images, video and audio capabilities—as well as social tagging and enabling wider reading on content subjects.

[Read more on How to make Web sites a haven for journalists]


Digital Web and PR, The Lines Blur

27 May 2008

The landscape has changed when it comes to both Web and Public Relations (PR) professionals. PR cannot exist without social media, social networking, social bookmarking, tagging, RSS, E-Zines, Blogging, Vlogging, Podcast’s, SEO and Micro Blogging. If you’re in PR and you are not familiar with these terms you are antiquated. It is as clear cut as that. Journalists that you rely upon to get your story out have all adapted to these formats commonly referred to as Web 2.0. Clients demand web presence and not just a presence but a lively existence Online. Non adoption of the techniques required to make the clients voice heard will result in lacklustre success. This is nothing short of new information, PR 2.0—the term coined by Brian Solis—has been around since the 90’s.

[Read more on Digital Web and PR, The Lines Blur]


Why graphic designers are not Web designers

25 May 2008

I used to think my vocation would always be graphic designer. Christ, I even took a degree course in graphic communication. However, I haven't the foggiest about type setting or colour separation. These technical specifications are what graphic designers are au fait with—not me. This is why I soon left my course and landed my first Web design role at Diskeeper Corporation.

I knew my strengths lay in what we—online experts—have come to call today, digital media. Whereas the technical specifications of a graphic designer are type setting and colour separation plates, the Web designer working knowledge is in Web page expansion, graphical user interface (GUI) design and accessibility considerations.

[Read more on Why graphic designers are not Web designers]


Twitter: Separating content from Hashtag Meta data

19 May 2008

Okay, so I don’t normally go in for these ultra geeky posts but I think I have thought up a really helpful solution to tagging tweets in Twitter without disrupting the regular flow of a conversational tweet. I have been intrigued by the use of hashtags in twitter to store snapshots and ideas that may be called up in the future, for instance #idea. But I am with Dave Couston when it comes to hashtag use. I absolutely detest the thought of annoying people with something that is only meant for my own consumption, or the consumption of a small party of people involved in a unique hashtag.

[Read more on Twitter: Separating content from Hashtag Meta data]