If you happen to find yourself a bit peckish / thirsty and in the Marylebone area, why not visit the newly opened ‘Rooftop Kitchen’? Venture to the top floor of ‘Alfie’s Antiques Market’ and you’ll find the charming new café and equally charming staff ;)

Rooftop Kitchen asked us to handle their online presence so we came up with site that reflected the café’s quirky and vintage style.

Through the Umbraco CMS they’re able to manage their daily specials, menus, events and galleries as well as keeping customers up to speed with integrated facebook, instragram and twitter updates.

All in all a pretty tasty package even if we do say so ourselves, check out their site here

Well, it's been an interesting couple of weeks for me, having thoroughly submerged myself in learning html5 and CSS3. I've been reading a slew of books on the subject, my favourites being (in no particular order) 'Responsive Web Design' by Ethan Marcotte, 'HTML5 for Web Designers' by Jeremy Keith, 'CSS3 for Web Designers' by Dan Cederholm and 'Hardboiled Web Design' by Andy Clarke.

It was a talk given by Jeremy Keith on vimeo that originally stoked my interest in wanting to learn more about how we approach web design, and how for the larger part, most of us have been going about it in the wrong i.e. taking print sensibilities and trying to apply them to digital.

Jeremy's talk and the books above explain it a lot better than I can, so I won't attempt to try here.

But what I would like to talk about is something that I first read earlier this year in an article by Meagan Fisher, and in a presentation by the aforementioned Mr Clarke. Firstly, I would like to point out that both Meagan and Andy's posts are from way back in 2009!!!! A staggering 3 years ago, and I still don't hear of many designers using this approach.

What they are both advocating is a 'mockup in markup' approach, to do away with static visuals and show clients what they're actually getting, not some impostor. And as Andy says "We aren’t designing copies of web pages, we’re designing web pages."

This isn't to say that you should never touch photoshop, illustrator, fireworks (or whatever graphics program you like to use to design sites in) again, of course not. But what we should stop doing is letting a client see a static, fixed sized visuals straight from these applications.

So last week I thought I'd give this approach a go with the web project I'm currently working on. I decided I'd create the wire frames for the site in html rather than illustrator (my preferred design tool) as I felt it would be beneficial for both me and the client. The benefits to me were if these had been illustrator files any minor changes like changing the name of a section or moving something to another area would have taken a considerable amount of time (there would be over 25 different visuals - it's a big site), then there's a saving a jpeg of each visual as well, attaching them to an email, blah, blah… all that time spent on something I can't use for anything afterwards. Building in code first means everything is reusable, it's the foundation of the actual website – and that's what really is a benefit to me.

For the client, the benefit is seeing an actual working prototype that looks and behaves like a website – because it is! Yes, these are just wireframes at the moment, but allowing them to have a proper sense of how the site works in different browsers, devices etc. is invaluable in a project of this size, to them and me.

I would like to point out that creating the wireframes did take me longer than it normally would have if I'd have made them in illustrator, but I truly believe I've saved myself a heck of a lot of time here in the overall timeframe of the project. Also, using this approach more often means I'll get better and faster at it, and I do believe in time I'll be just as fast in making mock ups in code than I can currently do in illustrator.

This also hopefully means I'll become a more proficient coder and my clients will hopefully save money because I'll have less time to bill for …hmmm… maybe this wasn't such a good approach after all… but you get the idea ;)

I really do feel this is the way forward for web designers and I hope I see and hear more of it being used :]

We've been working with PCCC since 2010, what began as a few simple web banners has grown into a wonderful working relationship where we look after their digital and print work.

So we're very pleased to announce the launch of their brand spanking new website! Built around our favourite CMS umbraco, PCCC's website is crammed full of news, galleries and interactive tours of their wonderful venue and grounds.

Click here to visit PCCC's new website.

We’re very pleased to announce the release of our very own iPhone app.

It’s been in gestation for a while (the idea came back in 2009) our client projects have been keeping us busy bees, so we’ve been fitting it in around the few spare moments we had.

DissPlay is a fun app that lets you share your thoughts with your friends (and enemies) by scrolling your messages across your iphone's screen. You can also use the app's symbols to let people around you know what you're thinking.

Get your message across with attitude and style. DissPlay doesn’t go unnoticed.

Click here to download the app to your iphone!

24hourlondon is an ingenious app by Emma Hartley to help you find places that are still open in the wee small hours – ‘the definitive guide to London after closing time’ no less!

We were asked to create a new, improved version of the existing app, which was in need of bit of a overhaul. We added several of new features including facebook and Twitter log ins, optimised the code for improved performance and incorporated a ‘check in’ button on venues to notify user’s friends via their facebook and Twitter profiles.

So if you find yourself looking for somewhere to go when everywhere around you seems closed why not give the 24hourlondon app a whirl and find that elusive late night bar – cheers!

We've certainly tried to with our latest website design and build!

We first met Will / Zenith Consultants back in 2008 when we had the pleasure of creating a video showreel for his company.

In April this year, Will asked us to have a look at redesigning his website. Will’s site had already been through a couple of incarnations and he was keen for the look and feel of the site to focus more on the companies consulting and events management expertise.

With emphasis on the new direction Will wanted to take the website, we worked our little cotton socks off and created the lovely new Zenith Consultants website – take a peek!

Moving all your worldly possessions from point A to point B, can be a real mission. But what makes or breaks the big move for me is how much help the help is.

I can't stand it when people come to help, but they've only turned up to be seen to be helpful and maybe carry a pillow or two. Saying that, when good people help it can go pretty smooth - apart from the "must be time for a cuppa" moments.

This week I experienced what it's like to have a pro help out. Luckily for us it was the help of a friend (who is a pro). Check Mr Vantastic Man himself - James - out. We helped him with his website and branding some time ago, but have finally had a chance to use his superb services.

Check that logo on the van out!

A band that we're big fans of are the wonderful Sargasso Trio. We've a few disagreements on the music that is played in the A-T HQ - you can monitor Lenny's music from the homepage thing on the right hand side - but ST can solve everything.

It's terrible, and somewhat embarrassing to watch us at a Sargasso Trio gig, then chat to them like tongue tied fools post performance. It would only be harder watching Jackson meet Take That.

Anyway, if you are not aware of them, check them out, if you are, we hope you are as excited about the launch of their second album "Get To Grips" which will be available at the launch gig on the 2nd July.

download new track "LIVING WITHOUT YOU" | follow on twitter | sweet soundcloud goodness

Not that we're really the kind of people that like to name drop but we’re pretty chuffed with our latest branding work we’ve done for tennis legend Jimmy Connors.

The 'Tennis 109’ iPhone app is a one of the first things to go live for a series of projects we’ve been working on for JC. We’re currently designing and developing several sites for Jimmy as well, which will be going live in the next few months promoting various ventures

For this we created a bespoke typeface to allow the JC brand to have it's own unique feel and presence.

Not content with designing and developing their websites – we've now taken our first, tentative steps into the world of fashion design ;) and created some t-shirts for the one and only Premier Model Management.

We were asked by PMM to design some t-shirts for their 'Phew! Party' they threw recently to mark the end of their popular TV series where they were auctioned off to raise money for the charity 'Teens Unite'. You too can also bid for these t-shirts on eBay, so please be generous when bidding and let's raise as much money as we can for this very worthy cause :]

Click here to go the t-shirt eBay pages