Most designers will be all too familiar with the communication issues that can arise between the creative and development teams in an online design environment. Fundamentally the characters involved in each department are polar opposites. Priorities will differ and a happy medium needs to be struck between the two parties if the best result is going to be achieved.

The debate between these teams rarely stops here at Zeta. We work through our individual desires together for each project and by listening to one another (with the occasional raised voice) we achieve results that we can all be proud of.

However, workflow can sometimes dictate that we need to outsource development to one of the many extremely talented teams that Zeta occasionally work with externally. more…

Earlier this week on Tuesday 9th February,  Me (Aimee), Brad and Will spent the day at the Rogers Estate Coffees UK Roasting Plant in Wales.

The purpose of our trip was to see exactly how green coffee beans are roasted, quality tested and packaged. It was also a great opportunity for us to meet the PR team who will be working on the launch of one of Rogers new exciting products. Watch this space for more news!

It was a particularly interesting day for me (apart from having to get up at 5.30 in the morning) as it was my first visit to the plant. Having worked on the Rogers Estate Coffees account for almost 2 months now it was great to finally meet some of the UK team and experience the coffee roasting process – that I have spent hours writing about. And not to mention the incredible coffee aromas throughout the factory that certainly kept me awake!

I was extremely surprised that the roasting process is managed by just a small team of very capable and hands on people. Although they use machinery, there is also a lot of attention to detail required from the workers to roast the coffee beans. For example each batch of coffee is roasted for between 17-20 minutes, and under different temperatures  according to the required strengths and flavours. Graham, the master roaster, keeps a watchful eye on the temperature control gague to ensure the perfect roast. more…

The old dinosaur of IE6 has taken another step closer to its final demise.

On Friday Google announced that from 1st of March 2010 it will no longer support IE6 and from that date, users of older browsers (IE6 included) may find that key functionality in Google Docs and Google Sites will no longer work properly. Other parts of Google will also stop working as changes are made without the excessive amount of effort required to make web 2.0 sites work in a web 0.5 browser.

more…