Category: Web Design

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Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za

Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com

Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za

Need more bites?

Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com
Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com Photo by Captain Duarte Rato

thesardine.co.za is a great source of surfing, fishing, diving and environmental news from around Southern Africa. 30 Years ago, The Sardine Newspaper was a printed tabloid reaching 10’s of thousands of avid ocean and outdoor readers. After having been bought and sold a few times, it is now back in full swing as an online newspaper. We have been online for 6 years now, and are growing from strength to strength.

Contributors from all over the southern African area regularly submit news and information relevant to their areas and their businesses. Lodges, charter operations, restaurants, tackle shops, tackle brands, boat and outboard specialists, bands, construction companies, cottages for rent, adventure companies…all with an interest in thesardine.co.za’s content and it’s wide delivery. This increases exposure for our contributors across the board, and is an example of how programmatic marketing works.

A PROGRAMMATIC MARKETING programme consists of the following:

  • a Web 3.0 website
  • an SEO and keyword strategy
  • a content channel and publishing schedule
  • an active database
  • social network integration
  • B2B network integration

“Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za…Surfing, fishing and diving news…from all over Southern Africa. And an SEO and Content Marketing platform that produces great results. For cutting edge PROGRAMMATIC MARKETING for your business, contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com”

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Fun with Favicons

Fun with Favicons

You got to get a favicon!

What’s favicon? It’s that cool little icon on the website you are visiting’s tab up top of your browser right now.

It may not seem like much, but it really helps distinguish your brand/logo, from the millions of others out there. Which is what we are all trying to do all the time.

So it makes sense to get your logo or other representative image in there. Logos are commonplace and make sense, but Captain Duarte Rato, the owner of FishBazaruto.com, chose an image of a Skua bird. Skua birds are notably attracted to marlin (like Duarte), and so a Skua is always a good omen and a sign of fish, and looks just great hovering over the fishbazaruto.com web presentation.

Buzz on over to Duartes website on http://fishbazaruto.com and see for yourself how effective a simple and tiny image can be.

You can also consider changing your favicon periodically, updating it whenever you may update your brands representative imagery.

You can use your favicon to theme your website with any current campaign, and if you really were after having some fun with your favicon, why not use it has the call-to-action or the mechanic of an online promotion?

Now there is some new ground. Any ideas?

Captain Duarte Rato, owner/operator of http://fishbazaruto.com, chose a Skua bird to represent his brand, as a Favicon
Captain Duarte Rato, owner/operator of http://fishbazaruto.com, chose a Skua bird to represent his brand, as a Favicon

Need a cool favicon or online campaign? Buzz Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com and let’s see what we can come up with…

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Captain Duarte Rato: Back on Bazaruto!

Captain Duarte Rato:  Back on Bazaruto!

Coinciding with the launch of FishBazaruto’s new website and online campaign, Captain Duarte rato is back on Bazaruto Island and the tales are streaming in!

We would like to invite you all to check out the new website on http://fishbazaruto.com – the site features Duarte’s Captain’s Log from since 2011 and to read it all in one go will leave you a shivering wreck with the desire to go join Duarte out there on the fringe.

The site contains Duarte’s contact details and 2015 package deals, that are still available. The site also carries photos and information regards the different boat and package options, crew portfolios, a video channel, a gallery and a downloads section where you can grab a desktop that will keep you from working for hours!

So, to fire things up, here’s Captain Duarte Rato coming out blasting with an excerpt from his latest fishing commentaries, from over the last few days, on Bazaruto waters…to read the entire report and to see the pictures, you can click http://fishbazaruto.com/2015/05/06/durban-boys-ma…-bite-bazaruto/…

“First bite on the first day was a huge, probably 30kg plus GT that Bjorn hooked on a Bobara, unfortunately the #50 braid was not enough to stop this fish and after a brief fight it cut us off. We then released a smaller GT, some snoek, cuda, wahoo, queenfish and some reef species. The next day we got some cuda, snoek and bonnies on the spinning tackle, a nice dorado on a jube jube live bait, some YFT on rappies and the highlight of the day was hooking a 150 pound Black Marlin on a jube jube live bait on a cuda trace. Solly had a awesome fight on the TLD 30 tackle but unluckily the fish spit the hooks as it jumped right by the boat. Third day was slower as we decided to go north and found some green pea soup, we did hook another monster GT, this time on a 3 kg jobfish live bait intended for a big cuda but could not stop it. We caught some other smaller live bait and got some cuda and a shark and the boys then had some action on a lot of queenfish, garfish and some other smaller species. The weather was supposed to blow us out on the last day so the boys decided we should rather go and enjoy a braai at Magaruque Island. We left just after 9am and decided to just have a quick spinning session before hopping on the island. What followed was 2 hour of absolute light tackle insanity with queen mackerel. We must have had more than 40 chases, lots of cut off´s and ended up releasing 12 snoek and 2 bonito´s. The trip was finished in a BIG way with a delicious braai and a few dops on the Island!”

Thanks Captain Duarte Rato! Keep up the good work! Read the full story here.

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Responsive image destruction

Responsive Image destruction

Since tablets and mobiles have begun their onslaught…responsive web design has been a new buzzword. It means that web pages automatically redesign themselves, to work with whatever device is used to access it with. Great! Well, in theory, but we do have to adapt our work to this new revelation.

Some of my clients are super photographers (Read Captain Duarte Rato), and they work to certain parameters, when framing and taking a shot. They are all about impact and filling the viewfinder with action, telling a complete story – often times using powerful lenses to get right into the mix.
Telling a story with your single frame photograph is what it’s all about. And then a responsive web design  gets hold of your perfect image!
Firstly, most of us and our ways prefer landscape shots. It’s the wider perspective that adds dynamism and it tries to emulate how we see things every day. Spaces are used in telling the story…and the wide shot can tell a lot more than the portrait – especially on a landscape screen.

The incredible rule of thirds, throws the important part of the picture – the subject – into either a corner, one side, or top or bottom stripe, and sometimes, the centre.

Now a responsive theme has to re-render that image, to work in landscape, and in portrait. And this is how great images get sliced into pieces.

The solution. Yip. But some ain’t gonna like it…frame your  shots like this…

Image Destruction
This image, by photographer Captain Duarte Rato, works across all platforms and devices. Note the shaded areas indicated the crops taken when re-sampling from landscape to portrait…a guide to help you avoid responsive image destruction (c) Duarte Rato

…or choose shots for your full page slider website – that focus the subject in the centre.

One more thing – full page responsive sliders achieve far more impact than any other layout, but there is even a second trade-off. Since we are loading the highest resolution we can to cater for big screen presentations and even retina displays (the internal workings between device and server decide the resolution finally delivered), it makes good sense then to choose uncluttered imagery, especially backgrounds – and rather focus your available reolution/bandwidth available, on that subject in the centre of your shot. This makes a huge difference in the size of the file. Blurred backgrounds are highly recommended!

Doing this right can cut your load times incredibly.

Choose your full screen responsive slider images wisely!

Any questions to umzimkulu@gmail.com

Next: Full screen video websites…

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