We have been working hard with the team at Pemberton Stewart to work on their branding and website.

The team have done a great job, from initial planning through to design and development. The site went live today, with the job search and cv search integration to be added over the next couple of weeks.

Pemberton Stewart Screen Cast from Artlines Media on Vimeo.

Artlines are pleased to announce that Datrix has gone live!

Using Datrix’s existing brand Artlines refreshed the online presence and ongoing strategy with Datrix, pushing them above current competitors in the market.

Bringing a fresh colour palette to the brand and using new images that create impact with the key messaging helps re-align Datrix as a leading company within the industry.

Providing Datrix with our very own bespoke CMS Arena, Datrix has full control of content and placement. Users can log in, edit, move, add and tweak details of each individual page.

Artlines have an ongoing relationship and strategy with Datrix to measure performance and drive the site forward to get the best results.

Visit Datrix.co.uk.

I’m currently using the http://www.google.com/webfonts service for this latest web development build, more specifically ‘Open Sans’.

I need the use of multiple font-weight variants from light, regular, semibold and bold to produce what I’ve achieved in the photoshop file.

Google lets you quickly select the styles you want then provides you with three options of inclusion, standard, @import or javascript. All three of these produce similar results and gave me the same issue.

I opted for the standard inclusion linking the following into my header: <link href=‘http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,300,700’ rel=‘stylesheet’ type=‘text/css’>

Integrating the font is simple using the CSS declaration of font-family: ‘Open Sans’; on the body style.

But after this threw me something I’ve not come across before.

As mentioned before I needed the use of multiple font-weight variants, as google suggests you can use font-weight: 400; or font-weight: 300; etc to choose between the different styles you selected over at google webfonts.

This didn’t work the way I was expecting, this resulted in nothing… the only result was that it seemed to be showing the last @font-face seen within http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,300,700.

The current issue that I can see is that the font-family names are all the same, font-family: “Open Sans”; Reading online this is also creates problems for for IE7 and IE8 users.

The solution I found was to create my own fonts.css and paste the google @font-face’s within it.
I then needed to rename the font-family’s to something more appropriate. For example font-family: “Open Sans Light”, font-family: “Open Sans Bold”; etc.

I then call the specific font-family within my stylesheet for the correct font-weight variant I need.

This seems to do the trick and works as I need.

It’s been a busy few months here at Artlines Media. Lots of great new clients and projects, so we thought we would share some of the work coming soon:

This position has now been filled.

Artlines Media is searching for a passionate web developer to join our small yet ambitious team, as we begin our transition from a smaller local outfit to a nationally recognised and respected web agency.

Ideally, we’re looking for a multi-skilled individual with strong front-end development skills, who also enjoys dabbling with PHP. At least 1 year’s experience is preferred.

Requirements

• Ability to translate Photoshop designs into semantic, uncluttered and well thought-out HTML and CSS.
• Good working knowledge of javascript (jQuery preferred)
• Responsive web design and optimising for the smaller screened experience.
• Strong awareness of accessibility and browser-compatibility issues.
• Basic programming knowledge with PHP and MySQL databases.

Bonus points

• Any other web-based programming language/framework such as ruby, rails or node.js is seen as a major plus.
• Knowledge of any CMS or e-commerce platforms, such as wordpress, expression engine, magento, etc. (Even though we tend to build our own bespoke systems for projects)
• Working knowledge of using version control within a team environment.
• Experience working with dedicated servers.

This is a great opportunity to join a young and energetic web team, to learn as well as imparting some of your own knowledge and methodologies. Our studio, complete with pool table and arcade machines, is set in the picturesque village of Penn in Buckinghamshire – easily accessible from the M40 and Beaconfield train station (Chiltern Railways Marylebone to Birmingham line).

This position has now been filled.