Alloy research in the UK
The United Kingdom has a long history of industrial metalworking, and even though a lot of our heavy industry has moved overseas, there is still a significant steel industry, and strategically important industries engaged in high tech alloy manufacture. It has therefore been a great pleasure to work with the DARE research project, which combines the strengths of some leading UK Universities in alloy research with key industrial interests to look into the development of the next generation of alloys. My brief exposure to their research programme, writing copy based on the submitted brief to EPSRC, was also quite a learning experience, as the scientific development of new alloys depends on control of non-equilibrium crystallisation dynamics from atomic to macro-scale – which explains why this process is so demanding (for which we can also read slow and expensive!).
The website includes a logo designed by Sebastian Conran Associates, which is base on a crucible, and employs the orange Pantone 151C – that closest to the melting colour temperature of Titanium (1941K or 1668°C). The logo design informs the colour choice throughout the site.
The site itself is rather different to other recent sites by CookandKaye, in that we are using a splash page, screenshot above right; this features a reduced menu, a brief strap line for the project, and a large logo overlying a full screen background image of metal turnings from a lathe. The whole combines to give an instant picture for visitors to the site, letting them know that they have got to the right location (or not!). This is particularly useful on mobile devices, as the simple message can be readily scaled down to whatever real-estate the visitor has to hand.
Interior pages (as above) can carry banner featured images, which are derived from DARE project partners and from stock photos – reflecting the wide scope of the research outcomes. These images give interior pages a strong visual impact, whilst keeping the message simple and easy to read. These pages have a traditional ergonomic menu down the right hand margin of the page at full size, but this folds away to a drop down menu at the top of the page on mobile devices. This allows us an extensive, but easily navigated menu system, while allowing us to devote the full page width to content on narrower screens.
The image above is a mobile view of an interior page of the site, one that describes the project objectives. The production of modern alloys still depends a great deal on the craft approach of trial and error, and approach that the DARE project aims to put on a sounder scientific basis…
