Today I found what I was looking for last year in Saudi. I found the beautiful, bold designs of the Middle East applied to a website, please see this website at www.diadiwan.com to see what I mean. I have searched a hundred wonderful publications and I have seen their work in print but never on-line. I now feel confident that I can find someone to work with here in the way I wanted to. I would like to partner with a local designer and hope that we can both influence each others work and pass on these benefits to our clients on both sides of the East/West divide.

A brand new project for jewellery designer Emma Jones has just begun. The site should be finished next month and is already looking very stylish - you can see a temp page here. Emma’s site will fit in well with the creative stable we are building here at The Pig Farmer Designs and we look forward to seeing the end result - with her own little ‘twist’.

After a lot of thought on what to do about the obvious problem with my brand in the UAE I have decided to keep the same basic logo and name but just twist it slightly. I was initially thinking about either scrapping The Pig Farmer and replacing it with something more globally ‘acceptable or coming up with a second brand for the UAE … but then what next? So I am going to stick with The Pig Farmer but shorten it to TPF designs - both in English and Arabic - and I am going to add the UAE colours to the ‘piggy snout’ logo … that’s about as much as I have planned so far - all will be revealed as it happens! The brand wil only be used here in the Middle East and I will continue to do all work in the UK under the recognised brand - no change.

At last I have arrived in Dubai and settled in to a villa in Uptown Mirdif, east of Dubai Creek - away from the ‘complete’ madness of the city centre. As a working environment it is fantastic and I am maintaining my links with the same partners back in the UK, so it’s business as usual and hopefully a more regular BLOG.

Fiona Crawford is an outstanding Equestrian Photographer who I first met a couple of years ago when we created her original website. Fiona is developing her portraiture and wanted the site to reflect this.

I have just finished updating the slideshows on Fiona’s website and they look great! The images are fantastic, particularly the new ‘portraiture’ shots - beautiful. I have used a new code for the slideshow and have been playing with a Ken Burns effect and more besides - I hope to use this again in the near future.

January saw the annual ritual of Romantica updating their beautiful image galleries with all the new stock. My head vanishes in to the laptop for several nights as I go through the hundreds of dresses, trying to decide which ones to use as the background images in the site design. Again this year saw a shift in styles and all are beautiful but I have to say the imagery used for the new Phil Collins Bridal collection was very special - and a joy to work with. All 4 of the Romantica sites and that of Phil Collins Bridal have a very simple look and it is all about the imagery and a simple user interface designed to get you to the dress you want and information on where you can see it, - as soon as possible. The new look sites can be seen here at Romantica Bridal, Pure-Bridal, Bluemoon and Bridesmaids.

The Devon Furniture Makers‘ website continues to serve them well and has really gone down well with their members and their clients it would seem. I can also add that several of my own clients have commented on the site when I have asked them to show me something they like - for reference.

So, it is good to get it back up on the screen this month as the Devon Furniture Makers have asked for a News page to be added that they can easily edit in their CMS.

This is a bit of a delayed ’story’ as things have been so hectic lately, but the site is now live for www.ruckinrugby.com - which is great news. I hope the portfolio will fill up this year and we can see more clubs go on-line with great websites. From now on, all news associated with Ruckin’ Rugby will be in it’s own BLOG. Many thanks to Technology Angel for their fantastic support on this project and let’s hope it now floats and serves us both well, I think it will.