Firetop Ltd » firetop

Web Design Basics – Firetop’s Trainee

Matt Peskett — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:21:05 +0000

With modern technology evolving as fast as it is, it’s always useful to get the opinion of the younger generation on what’s up and coming in the digital environment. Our young apprentice web designer (aged a little under two and a half) is getting to grips with web usability and layout, today she came to work (late grr!) for two minutes to lay out a basic website design – a 2 columned content area, left menu and horizontal banner… take a look at her handy work, we were fairly impressed:

Magazine Website Template Goes Live

Matt Peskett — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:31:12 +0000

This month the Firetop designers have been hard at work in creating a new optimised website design for William Reed Business Media and the Federation of Wholesale Distributors (FWD). Their rebranded magazine Wholesale News (formerly ProWholesaler) now has a shiny new website design at www.wholesalenews.co.uk (right) incorporating their content and news headlines from thegrocer.co.uk.

The site sits on a PHP/MYSQL based Content Management System (CMS) powered by Hungarian web development company Pressflex. The folks at Pressflex have been super efficient and managed to tweak our HTML to fit their needs for all browsers (including the dreaded IE6). We like their CMS, it works very nicely indeed for publishers and enables traditional print-based publishers to upload XML files for each printed issue whilst also editing and tagging the content themselves.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: Nintendo DS

Matt Peskett — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:14:46 +0000

In 1987 I picked up a second-hand copy of a Fighting Fantasy adventure game book called The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and was completely hooked. The idea of the book was (and still is) simple, you read a paragraph and choose which path/action to take next by browsing to relevant numbered paragraphs – attempting to complete the book in the process. For a 10 year old boy this level of pre-video game escapism was very addictive. I seem to recall that the book cost me a mere 10 pence, a small sum that lead me to read nothing else but the entire Fighting Fantasy range for the whole of that school year. Today whilst Googling I discovered that 22 years on The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is being released as a Nintendo DS game in October 2009!

Now it won’t have passed you by that my company is called Firetop Ltd, a name which enabled me to take a childhood addiction to choosing your own destiny, and apply that tenuously to search engine optimisation (‘Fire’ ‘top’). Indeed in the office here there is an autographed copy of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain signed by authors Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (as well as many other original books). I’m pleased that with the help of Canadian developers Big Blue Bubble, Ian and Steve have decided to take their brand into the Nintendo DS era for a new generation. I’m also pleased to report that the original books still cut it with the modern generation anyway (having recently converted a 10 year old relative to the books as a gift).

From what I’ve read online the DS game doesn’t have a UK release date yet but does come out in the US and Canada around the 26th / 27th October and some time later as an iPhone game. Here’s the game trailer (embedded from YouTube); quite different to the books that inspired me but given my Firetop obsession I couldn’t resist a posting of this modern version.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: Nintendo DS Game

Firetop Website Relaunched

Matt Peskett — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:58:44 +0000

In this, Firetop Limited’s sixth year in business as a Limited company, we finally made some time to rebrand and produce a new website to go with it! I hope that this new website – which is a hybrid of a blog and a corporate website – provides a more insight into what Firetop has become and those that are involved in client projects, as well as more regular news and a return to blogging!

‘Firetop’ is now a registered Trademark within the scope of Classes 35 and 42 (advertising services, business management and anything computer or website related) – hence the small ‘R’ symbol on our new logo. As I have some quite large plans for company growth (even in the current economic climate – which I see as a big opportunity not a threat) I felt it important to give the company a degree of legal protection from any newcomers to the market.

Finally there’s not much more to add, take a look around at our new content and don’t be a stranger – we will be making regular blog postings around company news and industry comment. You might even like to follow me on Twitter.

Matt

Matt Peskett – Managing Director