What to expect from Rainbow Turtle in 2014

The Rainbow Turtle team has been kept busy over the last year and there is no sign of slowing down for next year.  We've got so much to look forward to in the coming year and here is why…

Logo

Since October we had reviewed our current logo design and decided it was time for a change.  A graphics company, Pod Design, offered to design us one for free and came up with some ideas.  It took a while to home in on the one that we all agreed on but we have finally made a decision.  All of us at Rainbow Turtle are so excited about this new logo and cannot wait to unveil it next year!

New Website

The current website is outdated which has resulted in some of the features not functioning well. In order to keep up with the movement towards online purchases and to give better customer service we have decided to invest (modestly) in a new site which will incorporate the rebranding of the new logo design.  It will also be easy for us to maintain ourselves. The new website will function in two ways, a Fairtrade information platform for schools, churches and businesses as well as acting as an ecommerce website which will include more product selection for customers to purchase.  It will be a work in progress from January onwards so apologies for any disruptions it may cause.

January Shop Window Display

We can’t wait to get started on our new window display next month!  We will be stripping back and keeping it simple with this window display theme and a meaningful message for the start of the New Year will hopefully be picked up on.

Coffee Machine Proposal

Watch this space for information on how you can get one of these fantastic coffee percolators to allow you to serve ground coffee at the flick of a switch at church services and events. 

Rainbow Turtle Website Makeover

The Internet - a global network of computers - allows many people to communicate, access information, learn, buy and sell from around the world, one home, workplace or cafe to another. Businesses and organisations across the UK develop Website's everyday to provide services and information for their clients and the public.

One of the website concept designs. Click image for a full-sized view.

A new Rainbow Turtle website has been in production for the past 2 months, which involved a gathering of information, ideas and prospective designs. Tony, with his experience in computing technology and digital art, began working on designs and content structure; however, as the required information and content began to grow, the designs were remodelled to accommodate new photographs, products and in particular usability for expected website visitors.

This was no easy task, as organising all the information and content to be accessible from different people's perspectives required deep thinking and discussion among Rainbow Turtle colleagues; many ideas had the potential to make one aspect of usability better while conflicting with another, and understanding and accepting the balance between different ideas was found to be the most successful route.

A similar approach was adopted when considering the look and feel of the website; we needed something that provided an accurate presentation of Rainbow Turtle, balancing boldness in colours with a clean, professional and minimal look. Various designs were considered for their strengths and weaknesses between staff and the management committee. At fist, there seemed to be no balance between different feelings towards the contrasting designs; however everyone's ideas began to coalesce into form when Sam, a prominent volunteer at the warehouse, brought fourth a beautiful collection of photographs of the Rainbow Turtle Shop in Paisley (gallery available here).

Tony was able to use the photographs to create potential backgrounds, and designed a clean and readable white page to sit inside shop photographs. With a simple Black, grey and white colour scheme, pages were made very readable and pliable to a large variety of background pictures. A touch of colour through a rainbow strip under the title completed the theme, and the new Rainbow Turtle website was born!

The new website has been developed for ecommerce - the online selling market - a perfect way of selling Pedro's Clerical Stoles, and a new avenue for Rainbow Turtle to take in promoting trading fairly through fair trade business practices.

However, like all web-technology we remain vigilant in case anything goes wrong, and are still making little updates here and there to further improve the website and keep it in fashion! Please contact us if you have any comments regarding the website, or if you spot anything that needs tweaking ;)