About Saffron Tax Partners

Saffron Tax Partners is a specialist tax business, providing a dedicated and proactive personal service to private clients.  Based in The Gherkin building in the City of London, we provide a wide range of tax services, helping clients steer a path through increasingly complex tax legislation.

Expertise

Areas of expertise include compliance with the rigours of the Self Assessment regime, through the completion of annual Tax Returns for individuals, partnerships and trusts, and dealing with all correspondence with HM Revenue & Customs on our clients’ behalf.  We are particularly experienced in dealing with the specific, and especially complex, tax issues for individuals not domiciled in the UK.

We also address any appropriate tax planning issues with a view to the mitigation of liabilities, covering capital gains tax, inheritance tax matters and at the same time raising awareness to any other relevant commercial considerations.  Most importantly, the Saffron team of vastly experienced tax professionals all take real pride in understanding our clients’ differing needs, and building long-term business relationships.

Working With WDL

We have worked with WDL since our inception, and they have proved invaluable in establishing the Saffron brand.  We have received several compliments on the quality of both our website and corporate identity, a testament to the fine work undertaken by WDL. We have been especially grateful for the highly responsive way Elliot Smith and his team have dealt with our business.

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At the beginning of the year it’s always a good time to have a clean out and shed the mountain of useless rubbish you may have accumulated over the previous 12 month period. It can also be a great time to give your website a fresh coat of paint it has been crying out for since 1997.

apple.com 1997

apple.com 2012

Looks aren’t everything I hear you cry, but having a website that is modern and professional in design can help maintain user attention for longer which, will help push your site up the search engine highway.

Ask yourself this when you next visit a website that you may be making a purchase from. Do you trust that company with your credit card details? What worked 10 years ago may not be working for your site today. Modern browsers are smarter and include features which are waiting to be used. Below is a list of some of the latest trends which will be making a big impact in 2012.

Bright and Colourful is Key:

Neutral colours are great for subtle design elements but bright hues of color can really grab a user attention and make a call to action stand out on your site. It can be difficult when selecting the right colours for a website but the general rule of thumb is to keep with no more than three main colours. It is also important that the colours on your website match your current branding otherwise it can make a logo stick out like a sore thumb.

Typography:

Font style is a vital ingredient with any design. They can help to change the meaning and tone of a sentence. It can be a struggle for any web designer when selecting fonts to use on a new design. Generally we are limited to web safe fonts which can be very generic and lacking in character (pardon the pun!). Luckily there are some ways to get around this. There are many free font archives available which offer a wide range of free font styles. Google offers its own version of web fonts which you can download and use in your new design http://www.google.com/webfonts.

Bigger text is better and if you want to get a message across it is always good to increase the font size. There are many good reasons why increasing your font size can make a big impact on the usability of your website. For example at the age of 40, only half the light gets through to the retina as it did at the age of 20.  The following article has put forward a good argument for increasing the size of the body text on a website which I hope will have a big impact in the New Year http://tiny.cc/4f4kh

CSS3 + HTML5

These two have been around for a couple of years now but with the legacy that is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 still on its death rattle it’s been hard for these new features to be used during the building stage of a website. It is said that CSS3 and HTML5 will be big this year and there is plenty of reason why it will be great move in the right direction.

There are many options available including box shadows, animated buttons, multiple backgrounds, rounded corners and transparent images. All these can help to create amazing new website layouts.

Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design refers to the development of a website which changes the contents layout depending upon the size of the screen the user is viewing the site on. Why would this be important to me you may ask yourself. Have you recently viewed a website on a mobile device or tablet? Some sites which are not designed for mobile devices can offer a poor user experience and in some cases will not work at all.  Mobile devices currently hold around a 7 percent share of web traffic, which is set to increase by 17 percent in 2012. This, in turn, will only further increase as we enter faster mobile broadband territory. These are potential users which may not be getting the experience you wish them to have from your current site.

For more information:

http://inspirationfeed.com/articles/design-articles/web-graphic-design-trends-in-2012/

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

http://designmodo.com/responsive-design-examples/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20118380-94/mobile-devices-driving-nearly-7-percent-of-web-traffic/

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www.hiexpressbirminghamsouth.co.uk/ is launched today.

WDL was asked by Mosaic Publicity to design and build a content managed micro site for the Holiday Inn Express Birmingham South. The client was looking for a sophisticated and professional design which matched the wider Holiday Inn brand and shared the design and structure elements of other Holiday Inn Express micro sites.

The deadline – before Christmas – was met so they could catch customers looking to stay in Birmingham over the Christmas period. The booking form is key to the design as the client wanted this to be featured throughout the site to enable the user to gain access at any stage when browsing the website.

Other features of the site include, a newsletter sign up, a virtual tour and special offers areas.

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We will be running a skeleton staff between Christmas and New Year, but it’s business as usual from Tuesday 3rd January 2012. See you in the New Year.

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John Fowlers LLP, a Colchester-based solicitors, asked us to redesign and refresh their current website so that it retained their traditional beginnings, but also appeared contemporary and modern, to showcase today’s company and its services.

For the design, we created a fresh, modern layout, which allowed the text content to be easily-read and invites the user into the page. We complemented the layout with subtle details and textures to bring the layout together and added traditional elements, such as the effects on the main navigation. This was all complemented further with effective typography, designed to combine the traditional and modern, as outlined in the brief.

Another part of this project involved taking on-site photography for the website and maybe for other media forms further down the line. This provided a challenge – with so many different offices, lighting proved to be a major factor on the outcome of our imagery. But, with some well positioned lighting, we prevailed and the nature of the rooms combined with the lighting helped to create imagery which captured the history and heritage of the company.

Now, we wish all the best for John Fowlers and hope the site helps in bringing significant success to their business.

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WDL project www.downhall.co.uk went live this week. Working closely with Mosaic Publicity on one of many hotel sites, we designed and built a new site for the client to replace their old one.

When we received the Downhall brief it was clear they were unhappy with their existing website and needed to create something that was more inline with their branding.

With the help of Rodney Appleyard (Mosaic) we worked together to create a modern and sophisticated design which represented the company and how they wanted to be perceived.

One of the main criteria for Downhall was a need to show off the beautiful surroundings and luxurious architecture of the building, which we achieved by making the background of the website fill the full screen of the browser. In addition we made sure the user could also hide away content on the homepage so that they can enjoy the slideshow in the background.

We’re pleased with the results and we wish Downhall all the best for the future.

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Just a quick heads up on the next Colchester Digital event on Wednesday 2nd November, 2011.

Incidentally we need a venue for this event. If you can help please contact us at social@colchesterdigital.co.uk. More information can be found at the above link and previous venues have included; 15 Queen Street, Mosaic Publicity, WDL & Browser Media.

The second in our series of speaker events will see Give Up Art’s  (site is currently being redeveloped) Stuart Hammersley telling us about some of his recent work, including the Official Chart Company and music label Tempa – most of you will be familiar with his design for the Katy B album (below).

Give Up Art (GUA) is a graphic design studio, formed in October 2006 by Stuart and Emma Hammersley. Producing bold, effective design and communications for clients both large and small – they’ve achieved a growing international reputation for their music design work – with clients such as Tempa, Rinse FM, Apple Pips, Bleep.com, FWD>>, Bloc Music Festival. As well as working with clients in the publishing, advertising, travel and broadcast sectors; advertising agencies and production companies, working across print, motion and digital.

To attend this event please join the group at Colchester Digital, or, if you’re a member already don’t forget to RSVP to secure your place.

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When WDL were contacted with regards to building a website for Colchester Executive Job Club we understood the thinking behind it and what they were trying to achieve. Losing your job can happen to any of us at any time and as such we felt compelled to help with the project. We offered our design and build services at a reduced rate and worked closely with James Cracknell (founder) throughout the project to help get the message across through a website that is clean and simple to navigate. It was a pleasure to work with Colchester Executive Job Club and we wish them the best of luck for the future.

James Cracknell

“I found the whole process easy and enjoyable. From the initial meeting to the last they (WDL) have been informative and helpful, understanding what I am trying to achieve and respecting my wishes. Despite my requirements being far from standard they embraced the ideas and delivered a web-site that is accessible, easy to manage and the core of what I am trying to achieve.”

For more information about Colchester Executive Job Club or to visit the site click the link.

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Last night saw the Colchester Digital group meet for the 3rd time in it’s short 3-month history. Around 25 members attended the informal get together at the River Lodge bar in Colchester.

Members from many different areas of the digital spectrum – software developers, social media guru’s, web developers, digital marketers, SEO practitioners and graphic designers – were among the attendees. Topics of conversation ranged from the Google + social platform to the new html5 markup language and the various projects that members are working on.

Colchester Digital is a Meetup group for individuals and businesses in and around the Colchester area.

Spanning the digital sectors, our members are developers, designers, digital image and video specialists, marketers, PR, social media and SEO experts, and everything between.

The group welcomes freelancers, graduates, experts, professionals and anybody who feels that they could gain from the group, or add something to it.

Colchester Digital members meet once a month (usually the 1st Wednesday) at various locations in and around the Colchester area. We get together to share knowledge, experience and information, and where possible to collaborate on a wider scale. It’s essentially a group of like-minded people who want to grow a bigger and better foundation for the digital community in Colchester.
Please note that you can still join the group even if you are unable to attend a Meetup or event. The group pages allow for interaction with other members and for dialogue to occur, and your suggestions on future Meetups or events are more than welcome. There are no expectations if you join, all we ask is that you give us your feedback and input your ideas when you can.

Future Colchester Digital Meetups will include speakers, trainers and workshops on various aspects of the internet and associated industries. So tell your friends and colleagues to join Colchester Digital. The more members there are, the more you can get out of it.
To join the group, and keep up-to-date, simply go to www.colchesterdigital.co.uk and click the button in the top right-hand corner of the page.

If you have any questions email us at social@colchesterdigital.co.uk, or join and leave a comment.

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WDL was commissioned to come up with a redesign of alloywheelworld.co.uk’s existing website as well as add new functionality to help increase sales and drive more traffic to the site. The vision was to create a new site which would stand out from the crowd and that was clean and simple to use. They didn’t want to alienate existing customers but at the same time they wished to make it easier for new customers to find the wheels they were looking for.

The initial stage of the project was to come up with a new design for the site that would reorganise their existing homepage into a more coherent and clean layout. The company was very impressed with the design and felt that it ticked all the boxes that they had set out when deciding to change the existing websites look and feel. This new design was integrated into the company’s existing jshop e -commerce platform.

The main goal for the homepage was to drive as much site traffic into the vehicle selector as possible which would give the user a faster and more effortless way of finding wheels for their car. We created a simple to use vehicle selector interface at the top of the page that would filter the vast selection of alloy wheels available.

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