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Video Courtesy of by Fight for the Future

We love typography here at Ion and were always on the look out for great typefaces to add to our collection. Whilst browsing the web a few weeks ago we came across the collection from the Lost Type Co-Op.

They say that:

The Lost Type Co-op is a collaboration between Tyler Galpin and Riley Cran. It was founded with the intention of providing unique and quality fonts based on a pay-what-you-want model. All designers get 100% of the donations their font receives.

We think that the collection both Tyler and Riley have amassed is worthy of note and well worth a look, remember that whilst you can download for free, it always well worth donating a few £’s to the cause :)

Blanch

Blanch is a display face, designed for the ‘Fruita Blanch’ brand, a family-run company. A traditional font with a contemporary feel, The Blanch typeface family is comprised of 6 weights; 3 condensed weights and 3 caps weights.

Download Blanch

DESIGNED BY ATIPUS  www.atipus.com

Cubano

Cubano’s personality is defined by its rounded corners, wide strokes, and semi-condensed letterforms. Featuring 167 glyphs, Cubano is available in all caps with numerals, punctuation, symbols and most accent marks. And with webfonts included, you can easily solidify your next site with Cubano!

Download Cubano

DESIGNED BY C. VAN DE WATER  chandlervdw.com

Bender

A chunky face for display type in two weights: inline and solid.

Download Bender

DESIGNED BY JIM DORE  jimdore.com

Avril Sans

Arvil has strong lines with rounded, soft terminals, to produce a strong, yet friendly letterform. Available in all caps with numerals, punctuation and also a wide range of symbols, Arvil is versatile and sure to deliver your next message with style.’

Download Avril Sans

DESIGNED BY BEN DALRYMPLE  bendalrymple.com

Atreyu

Atreyu is a contemporary textura blackletter inspired from Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts of 14th century Germany. I’ve always had an affinity for blackletter since I grew up drawing calligraphy. And lets face it nothing can say Heavy Metal to Happy Holidays like a good old fashion blackletter.

Download Atreyu

DESIGNED BY GREG ECKLER theviciouscircus.com

Lavanderia

Based on lettering found on Laundromat windows of San Francisco’s Mission District, Lavanderia features numerous opentype features and three weights.

Download Lavanderia

DESIGNED BY JAMES T. EDMONDSON work.jamestedmondson.com/

Carton

A strong yet sensitive slab-serif inspired by letterpress.

Download Carton

We love gadgets and gizmos here at Ion Digital and we’re super happy to be working with Giant Red Seven who are UK retailer of RC Toys; from model M1 Abrams Tanks to F16 Jet Planes.

Launching in December 2011 the Giant Red Seven store is naturally built in Magento,  the design is modern and targeted towards the 18 – 40 age range and perfectly displays these ultra cool big boys toys.

We’ll update our portfolio page during the progression of this project.

Ion are pleased to be working once again with C.W Sellors of Ashbourne, Derbyshire on their lastest eCommerce refresh.

Established for over 150 and years, W.Hammond (a C.W Sellors Brand) retailer of fine Whitby Jet jewellery approached Ion Digital to refresh their eCommerce site for their bricks and mortar store in Whitby.

Magento was an obvious platform to use and it encompasses flexibility with up to the minute eCommerce technology. The website was designed with traditional value throughout it’s core to retain it’s long standing brand position.

The new store is due to be launched January 2011.

Established for over 30 years in the West Midlands, Hughie Willett Machinery approached Ion to rebuild their outdated eCommerce site that retails agricultural, horticultural and groundcare equipment.

Magento was an obvious choice for our developers to use for the new build of this project, the client had certain criteria that had to be met for both ease of use and future flexibility

For a brand name that has been established for well over 30 years, we were also tasked with refreshing the Hughie Willett identity to co-exist with both new and existing media.

Ion we’re tasked with creating a new brand  for a local Allotment Association based in Chesterfield. The brand presented is classy, ethical and traditional.

During 2012 a new website will be developed alongside the brand, for members of the general public and users of the associations grounds to participate in sharing of recipes as well as growing tips and tricks.

We are delighted to be working once again with Tim Wharf from U Source of the design of his new website for his workforce management software u_WFM.

The software elements are currently being created by a third-party specialist software development agency whilst Ion are creating the graphical elements that will fit around their framework.

The roll-out of the Digital Region initiative has numerous implications for the future of eCommerce in the South Yorkshire area – and for web design in Sheffield in particular.

Sheffield is at the core of the project, which aims to deliver superfast broadband internet access at speeds of 25 Mbps on average to both businesses and residential customers throughout South Yorkshire.

For companies with an online presence, that means it is the perfect time to look into more modern web design as Sheffield residents gain the kind of bandwidth needed to deliver graphical, integrated eCommerce sites more quickly.

Jeremy Sheehan, sales and marketing manager at Digital Region, reveals that some firms are already capitalising on the potential of the project – including some new to the region.

“The Digital Region network is increasing business competitiveness within South Yorkshire and providing a platform which allows businesses to grow, as well as attracting new and existing businesses to base themselves within the region.”

However, it is not only online retailers who stand to gain from the possibilities unlocked by the scheme, as all businesses should find enhanced flexibility in their day-to-day operations.

“Not only will businesses be able to take advantage of the superfast broadband network to allow employees to work from home to increase productivity, but they will also be able to take advantage of the latest interactive audio-visual technology.”

With this in mind, companies have until the end of the year to enlist a Sheffield web design specialist and get their online product portfolios and shopping cart software up to scratch, if they are to beat the rollout of Digital Region.

Mr Sheehan notes that many local firms have already signed up to use an approved Digital Region ISP, putting the scheme well on track for the end of 2011.

“We already have a large number of businesses connected to the network via our internet service providers, and the first phase of the network build is on schedule to be completed in January 2012.”

Ion Digital can help deliver expert web design for Sheffield businesses, whether you have a clear brand identity in place or need ideas on colour schemes, logos and so on.

We are based in The Electric Works at the heart of the city’s Digital Campus, a stone’s throw from Sheffield station – to talk through your needs, pay us a visit or give us a call.

Just come across this neat little video that explains just what Google plus is and how it basically works.

So you have a website and you want to make sure you’re targeting a local search audience?

That’s actually not as hard as it might first seem – in fact, Google is already doing some of the work for you. Google Location will tailor the search results people see based on where they are, so people close to where you are should be more likely to see your site ranked higher in their results.

How is this done? It’s really quite simple…

Google Location’s Effect on Search Results

Google Location bases its search results on one of two things:

• IP address
• ‘My Location’ in Google Toolbar

Either of these can let Google know where a person is located – IP address automatically, and My Location as a manual setting.

There is no way to fully switch off Google Location; however, Google Toolbar users can manually edit their location to encourage search results relevant to a particular place to be returned on their results pages.

Location of Website Traffic

Depending on the nature of your website, search traffic might not be the major part of your visitor base.

If you have large amounts of type-in traffic, pay per click visitors or social media referrals, you might want to track the location of those audiences separately.

Our previous post on segmenting Twitter traffic in Google Analytics guides you through the basics of flagging your social media visitors so you can easily analyse them separately from the rest of your site traffic.

However, you can also segment your data by Source or Medium – along with plenty of other ways – by using the ‘Filter’ box at the bottom of most Google Analytics report pages to segment out the desired data on the fly.

Tracking Location with Ion.so

If you followed our guidance on setting up Twitter traffic tracking in TweetDeck, you should already be using Ion.so as your URL shortener.

The good news is, you can also use Ion.so to check which countries your clickthroughs occurred in.

Add an exclamation mark to the end of the Ion.so URL and you will be directed to the link’s statistics page – complete with a breakdown of which countries’ web users have been visiting your page.