D4 has joined forces with DKPM, one of Yorkshire’s most respected brand communications agencies, to offer a broader, more comprehensive and reinvigorated service for our clients.

The new venture combines our extensive web development and new media expertise with the vast experience DKPM has in advertising and branding. Having long respected each other’s work we are delighted now to be formally merging our businesses, enabling us to improve and extend our service offering to all our valued clients.

It’s business as usual, but better…

As of Monday 25 January 2010 the whole D4 team has become part of DKPM, which is great news for our clients. Our philosophy and approach to work will remain unchanged, and we will continue to be based here at The Stock Building so you will enjoy complete continuity of service. What will change is the range of services and expertise we can offer; this will expand dramatically.

Our new colleagues are a fantastic and experienced group of people with a huge range of new and fresh ideas to bring to the table. And greater internal resources will bring exciting new possibilities. DKPM’s impressive portfolio of regional, national and multi-national clients includes Sega, BAFTA, Disney Interactive, moneysupermarket.com, Sony Computer Entertainment, Westfield Health and Servisair.

As Head of Digital I am now part of the DKPM senior management team, and I look forward to introducing you to our new colleagues, including our Managing Director Paul Martin. We will be glad to answer any questions you may have about the changes.

Thanks for your continued support, and I look forward to working with you again in the near future.

Yours sincerely

Paul Herron

In the absence of Rudolf, Santa or even a stray elf we roped in our Dawn to spread a little Christmas cheer. It’s in her job description.

It had been two days since she’d last been seen without her Santa’s hat so she was the obvious choice. And we think she looks lovely.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Greetings, aspiring PHP developers!

It looks as though the credit crunch is finally starting to fade away (at least in our industry anyway), as evidenced by the surge of work that D4 has been getting in these last few weeks. As such, I’ve been tasked with finding a talented Junior PHP Developer to join our web development team. Paul says that ideally the new developer should be a “Mini-Me” (of me, not Paul), so I guess that means you need to be American, addicted to caffeine & nicotine and moan a lot about the weather being too cold (even in the summer).

If you don’t have any of those characteristics, then I suppose your technical skills will have to suffice - so here’s what we’re looking for:

ESSENTIALS

• PHP 5 / MySQL5 - Knowledge of the differences between PHP4 and PHP5 will get you bonus points, but we’re much more concerned about the magic number 5.
• OOP / Zend Framework / MVC - You need to have developed an application using Zend Framework - we’re not bothered whether that project was a personal or professional one, as long as it was a Zend Frameowrk (MVC) application
• IIS6 / Apache 2 - Our development environment is running Apache, but our production environment is running IIS6, so a solid understanding and knowledge of the differences between the two are essential.
• Windows Server 2003 / Linux (see above)
• XHTML / CSS2 - The position says “PHP”, but you’ll be getting your hands dirty with the these two guys as well.
• W3C Standards - All of our code must be W3C-compliant, without exception.
• JavaScript / jQuery - We’ve ditched YUI and standardised on jQuery as our JavaScript framework of choice, so your jQueryness should be pretty good. It doesn’t have to be exceptional, but you *will* be getting your hands dirty with it, so previous experience with it is crucial.
• Subversion - You should at least be comfortable with checking stuff out of and committing stuff back to the repository - everything else is bonus points.
• TRAC - This is our ticketing system of choice, so previous experience is essential. Experience with installing and configuring TRAC would be fantastic.
• Willingness to learn and contribute - sharing knowledge is a 2-way street after all.
• Ability to work in a team and independently - You’ll most likely be left to work on your own after the morning meeting, but you’ll also be involved in a bit of pair-programming from time to time.
• Passion for what you do
• Hard-working and efficient
• Willingness to overcome obstacles / problems - Nothing’s worse than someone who’s constantly complaining that Microsoft is rubbish and refuses to resolve a Microsoft-related issue simply because it’s Microsoft. If that sounds like you, this probably isn’t the agency for you. We’re all about providing solutions to problems, not moaning about them.
• Attention to detail - The development team at D4 strives to produce code that’s of the same high-quality that our creative team puts into their designs, and if you’re familiar with our clients and our work, you’ll know that’s not an easy task - but still, it’s imperative that D4 strives for perfection, and that includes perfect code.
• Ability to adhere to strict coding standards - This is uber-imperative. We have very strict coding standards here at D4, which you will be expected to adhere to. They’re based on Zend Framework’s coding standards with some slight variations, so if you’re comfortable with ZF’s standards, you should have no problem with ours.

DESIRABLES

• 2+ years plus of commercial PHP experience - The more the better!!!
• SEO - We apply best-practice SEO techniques to all of our websites as standard, so a solid understanding of basic SEO would be great.
• Creative thinker - We’re a design agency after all.
• Understanding and appreciation of good design
• ISAPI rewrite / Mod-rewrite - Regular expressions often need a second pair of eyes, so it would be great if we could use yours from time to time.
• XSLT/XML - We don’t get much exposure to these technologies, but knowledge of one or both would great.
• AJAX
• Agile/SCRUM methodologies - We’ve been practising SCRUM for over a year now (without even realizing it was SCRUM until a few weeks ago!), but we’re looking to formalise it in the near future, so anything you can bring to the table in this area will be greatly appreciated.
• Test driven development - We’re not actually doing this at the moment, but it’s something we’d like to get into.
• Mac OSX - As developers, we’re either on Linux or Windows (whichever you prefer), but our design team are all on Mac’s, so it would be nice to have another knowledgable Mac person on the team.

MAIN DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• You will be developing and maintaining client websites and web applications, using mostly PHP/MySQL, whilst adhering to strict coding standards.
• You will be assisting the Senior Web Developer (me!) with almost the entire project lifecycle (Analysis, Specification Building, Development, Documentation, Coding, Testing, Maintenance and Updating)

In exchange for everything you bring to the D4 table, here’s what D4 will do for you:

• Increase your understanding of enterprise-level coding practices
• Provide you with hands-on experience with a wide variety of the latest web technologies
• Provide you with hands-on experience with working for a full-service web design agency (design, development, web hosting, email hosting, marketing, PR, etc)
• Improve your programming skills and give you insight into the creative industry
• Allow you to work closely with a senior web developer
• Allow you to work closely with a team of creatives
• Increase your understanding of the following technologies: PHP 5, MySQL 5, IIS6, Apache 2, HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, Object-orientated programming (OOP), Windows Server 2003, jQuery, Zend Framework, Mod-rewrite/ISAPI rewrite, SVN, SEO, and just about every other acronym you can imagine!

So… If that sounds appealing, drop us an email with your salary expectations and your CV.

Oh, and you must be able to get yourself to Sheffield for an interview and have the right to work in the UK.

Here at the D4 and D4PR Studio, we are inundated daily with e-marketing campaigns designed to illicit a positive response. So it is a shame, therefore, that an abundance of these e-shots and articles actually have the opposite effect – frustration and negativity – due to the numerous spelling mistakes contained within. Instead of grabbing our attention with a catchy photo or well-written story, we simply end up cringing at the shocking mistakes many ‘professionals’ are making in their work.

It would be easy to pass the buck at this point and blame inexperienced interns hired by these big companies, but on many occasions we find these articles are written by journalists and even editors. Maybe their creative flair kicks in during an evening out or when bored on a train journey…

Read the full article on the D4PR Blog

So it’s friday, you’re a beyond busy PHP Developer and there’s simply no time to browse Sheffield’s foodie shops for healthy, organic, pricey loveliness (not that you would anyway - you’re a techie!), as that website you’ve been working on for weeks has got to go live by the end of the day, and there’s a few job tickets to complete before that happens. So what’s a programmer to do for fuel for the afternoon? Well, it’s easy… just do as Captain America (Jeremy) does. Go to the corner shop and buy as much sugar based crap as you can and the job’s a good’un. Welcome to the terrible diet of a Programmer at D4.

Next week we reveal Mr Crisp’s shocking Milkshake addiction… I kid you not.

We saw that the cooling towers made a very brief reappearance on the Channel 4 Big Arts programme a couple of Sundays ago. Representing the sentiments of much of the city, the lads at GO, looked pretty cheesed off when their hopes to build a new piece of public art were quashed following the demolition of the towers on August 24th 2008.

The city may not need to look so glum; blowing rollies whimsically out the window, for there is hope of a revival for those concrete behemoths, as well as their raison d’etre, the former Blackburn Meadows power station itself.

A new project, called Echoes of Blackburn Meadows, comprises Public Geographer Jen Rich and two Sound Artists Lewis Heriz and Tom Dixon. The team is constructing an audio installation using a series of hidden, solar powered transmitters located across a two-mile route close to the site of the former power station. The aim of the project is to reanimate the history of landscape using witnesses to its evolution over the past 100 years. Walkers will navigate a landscape of memories using a map and an FM radio receiver, which will be available for free from local libraries.

The idea of evolution, as well as the cyclic nature of pasts and futures, is crucial to the artwork as the team hopes to return the area to its wild and woolly state. The trio has teamed up with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) to spruce up the two-mile stretch of public footpath in which the artwork is to be installed. 50 16-25 year old volunteers from the local community will be given the responsibility of co-ordinating a structured conservation and landscaping programme.

The team is currently looking for funding to launch a prototype of the installation in September this year.

We think this is a fantastic venture; breathing new life into an area which most of the city turned its backs on the moment the two towers fell to the ground.

For more info, head to the Echoes MySpace at www.myspace.com/blackburnmeadows or the project’s temporary website www.sheffieldelectricity.com.

Mr Crisp is an unusual addition to our team and we would like to give him a very warm welcome to the team. Frighteningly clever with web based technical stuff, we have brought him in due to the large amount of web work we are currently doing. That’s not the unusual part though. His obvious talents with the online languages were actually his hobby, his other forte lies in classical music and composition!

In fact he has a blog called ‘musicalmidget’ which gives a  little insight into his world. We are particularly interested in his keyboard as he uses it to alleviate computer related stress in ten minute breaks from his coding adventures. I think we’d all quite like being serenaded a couple of times a day, helping to provide tranquility and clear our heads.

Alan is also a grade 6 on the tenor saxophone which has sparked the idea that maybe we should run our own Britain’s Got Talent in-house. I myself am very handy with a kazoo and a couple of people have got some fierce dance moves. Any other agencies out there up for the challenge?

Well who’d have thought it, a D4 representative lecturing 35 masters marketing students on online branding?! Clare Williams went in by request of Daragh O’Reilly, Head of Marketing at Sheffield University, to give students an insight into the working world of marketing & branding for online audiences.

We covered topics such as; an introduction to online branding, the creative process, understanding brands, translating values into functionality, target audience demographics, wireframes, results & reporting, email & viral marketing, microsites, online communities, SEO, ageing websites and gave numerous case studies relating back to the specific topics.

The presentation helped to back up eight weeks of theory provided by Daragh who himself is a marketing guru, with an extensive practical background as well as many published papers under his belt. So it really was an honour to be asked by such an inspirational figure.

Despite having done squillions of presentations to boards of directors, business owners and marketing managers, Clare was surprised to find that prior to the lecture her legs had gone slightly jelly like and she had the glare of a piece of glass. However she later admitted this was largely due to forgetting her wonder woman suit.

The presentation was warmly received and Clare was extremely relieved that no-one fell asleep, at least noticeably. In fact Clare has been asked back to lecture 120 in the autumn of 2009. If anyone can find her can they please let her know.

I kid you not, when working late last night I asked if we could take on the office above us and put in some dorm style beds like fireman have (I didn’t mention the pole at the time but I wish I had). ‘Why?’ I might hear you ask, and if not I am going to tell you anyway. We have moved offices. They…..are……beautiful. It’s like we started off a caterpillar in our first offices, cocooned in the last ones and have now unfurled our spectacular wings to the gasps of every client who arrives in our beautiful lift. Yes, you heard it, even the lift is beautiful. Now I am normally very strict about repetition in my writing, but in this instance there is no other descriptive word than beautiful. If you don’t believe me get yourselves down here for a visit. We’ll even let you feed the fish.