Web
Your website has to be created in such a way that the overall navigation and design is built with your audience in mind, but which is easy to edit within pre-defined design guidelines by non- technical editors, and which leads to your own objectives, commercial or otherwise.
We create the infrastructure, you populate it yourself with the information and communication that you want to deliver.
We have applied these principles to the sites that we have developed and will be happy to put you in contact with our customers as references.
Mayo Beekeepers Association
The Mayo Beekeepers' Association is a close-knit community of beekeepers dedicated to the support and growth of the beekeeping community in the West of Ireland. It meets formally on the first Monday of each month to provide comment and debate on a range of topics. It supports its members by providing lectures, a beginners’ beekeeping course, a library, beekeeping demonstrations, discounts, insurance and access to honey extraction tools. The website encapsulates this.
Members of the Association are not generally high-end computer users but can rely on the web and e-mail for group communication. The Charlesfort Design web site offers an alternative to hard-copy mail-outs for the community newsletter and can notify members of new issues in an instant.
Barbara Bierach
Barbara Bierach is a journalist and novelist working in the German market out of the West of Ireland. (In the interest of full disclosure she is also married to the editor, for her sins!). bierach.com has been created to showcase Barbara’s literary work: Lügenmauer (Wall of Lies) was released to great acclaim in 2016 and Schweigegelübde (Vow of Silence) in March 2018. The books are criminal detective novels centred on the police force in Sligo town.
The site also showcases Barbara’s blog of her sea change experiences when confronting both the joys and tribulations faced by a city girl suddenly encountering a Connaught rural community.
The German-language site includes audio and visual content and has played a part in Barbara’s nomination in January 2018 for Germany's "Golden Blogger" Award.
Dexter cattle society (republic of Ireland)
The Irish Dexter Cattle Society is dedicated to the promotion, development and marketing of the Dexter Cattle breed in its native land. The approach by the society to Charlesfort Design perhaps encapsulates the philosophy of our company. An internet site had been built according to the latest “best practice” in web design but members were finding that the end-result did not provide relevant information that was easy to find. With too much focus on the “modern” look and feel, site owners can lose sight of why their users need a web site: recent, relevant, fast to access and easy to use content.
The site was designed in close conjunction with members of the Society and now provides valuable content based on three simple principles:
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The promotion of the Dexter Cattle breed as a source of prime beef to new producers.
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Campaigns to make the consumer aware of the quality of this delicious meat.
After extensive consultation and training the site is now fully managed and maintained by officers of the society within design guidelines set out by Charlesfort Design.
old malsis association
Malsis School was founded as a “prep school” in 1920 in the North Yorkshire village of Cross Hills at Malsis Hall, previously the home of wealthy industrial revolution mill owners. It has a close personal connection to the editor as the location where his Irish teacher mother met his English teacher father and where he in fact lived for the first four years of his life. The school ran into financial difficulties in December 2014 and was closed.
In January 2015, The Old Malsis Association (OMA) was formed to represent the views of school alumni from down the years.
The brief was to provide a forum for the members of the OMA to communicate and share stories about their time at the school. The site offers a range of multimedia content including online slideshows, interactive historical quizzes and a range of news feeds that cover the period when the OMA spearheaded a move to revive the fortunes of the school. The focus was to provide easy access to relevant news and information to a group who pre-dated the “information technology revolution”.
The future of Malsis Hall has at least been secured as a Private Nursing Home but the web site still exists for those with memories to share of its earlier incarnation.
Galerie Hedi Probst is based in the small, picturesque Bavarian village of Nonnenhorn. Hedi, the curator, offers professional advice on the construction of collections and the integration of new art into existing collections. She also undertakes custom planning of the display of art in practical living spaces. In addition she consults on the development and support of corporate art projects.
After a lifetime of experience in the central European art world Hedi now boasts an unrivalled portfolio comprising some of the best modern art in the region. Nevertheless, the daily traffic of potential customers to the gallery is by the nature of its location somewhat limited. The global reach of the internet is not.
Charlesfort Design has created an online gallery to showcase the work of artists such as Willi Siber, Clemens Heinl, and Heidi Kucher. Potential customers can review the latest work, leave comments for discussion and contact Hedi Probst directly to make purchases.
charlesfort principles
1: Know why you want a web site
2: Provide an online environment to deliver content & functionality which gives:-
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fast access
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easy & predictable navigation
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consistent sense of place
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ease of use across different devices
3: Provide content that is:
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recent
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relevant
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geared to achieving your objectives
Really, why do you want a web site?