Marmalade Melbourne is a small and vibrant digital studio operating out of Melbourne who describes themselves as the ‘custodians of great ideas’. Needing a website befitting this claim, they set out to conceive and design a dynamic and highly interactive website. They required complete control over their content but weren’t happy with the overheads and mainstream nature of commonly used content management systems. They required their new site to operate and impress on all devices as well as possess a good ranking on Google searches. Unfortunately, they were unable to develop their dream site in-house and were searching for a powerful partner to nurture their idea from design, through development and to deployment.

Rosytown immediately swung into action designing a custom XML based content management system developed to Marmalade’s specifications, empowering them to manage their own content in a format that makes sense to them. The site uses a lightweight PHP system to read this XML and output well-formed, elegant HTML, optimised for search engines. A dynamic, interactive site such as this required a structured, class-based JavaScript stack – including Rosytown’s proprietary jTown framework – to do the heavy lifting at the front-end. This is where the site really shines and the final product speaks for itself. Such as site required a pragmatic tapering back of function to suit hand-held devices and ultimately, this ensures a smooth experience in all scenarios. The site retains its high Google ranking propelling Marmalade high into search results and at the forefront of users’ attentions.

The RSL of Australia partnered with Ryebuck Media to produce a website that would be used as a learning resource for primary and secondary teachers. The site was to be a content rich and engaging experience for classrooms around the country seeking to education on Australia’s proud wartime history. Fourteen interactive modules had to be designed and developed to be among the learning experiences available. These modules were required to be tablet-friendly and run independently from the main site. Important content such as learning units, news items and important links had to be managed externally via a content management system. On top of this, a smart video gallery had to be constructed. A Swiss Army Knife of digital solutions was called for and we delivered.

The site itself leverages the content managing powers of Wordpress, while the front end is a potent concoction of dynamic markup and Rosytown’s very own jTown framework. The site is built to be fast, lightweight and easy to navigate for teachers running their classroom activities, where every second counts.

The interactive modules have been optimised for touch devices, which have solidified their spot as a standard learning tool in classrooms around Australia. Special code was introduced to ensure the tablet experience is faster and more reactive, affording a more fun and exciting learning experience. Each interactive can be viewed and shared autonomously, without having to load or navigate through the main website.

Well renowned Melbourne based law firm, Arnold Thomas & Becker required a full website redesign and development. A new online presence that represented their modern and respected brand. The site had to leverage the power of an easy-to-use content management system and empower their users by providing the most efficient form of contact hour to hour. It had to be reachable and visible far and wide and device friendly. Employing the strategic and marketing powerhouse that is M&C SAATCHI a new and stunning vision was created.

Partnering with M&C SAATCHI, Rosytown was charged with the development and delivery of this high profile and intensely strategic site. And delivery we did.

Wordpress was decided on for the content management system and within it, a powerful page-building tool was used to create the spine of the site. Pages, news items, testimonials, important case studies and personnel can be updated with ease as is required from a fast-paced, large-scale, law firm.

A powerful concoction of JavaScript and PHP was used to develop a dynamic contact form. This smart form accounted for the time of day and directed the user through to the best contact method, meaning the busy lawyers at the firm never missed a beat.

The site is delivers powerful tracking tools such as Google Tracking and Yoast, allowing gathering of user metrics, which facilitates the ongoing strategic decision making that makes this site so important.

The talented team at Inklab were contracted to redesign and redevelop Bottles Of Australia’s main com.au. A critical element of this was to be a customise feature which allowed users to personalise their own drink bottle, save it, share it via social media and ultimately order it for production. Being the early days of HTML5, the decision was made to use Flash in order to leverage its optimised implementation of 3D. This was a huge task and required a monolithic effort not only of development but of planning and execution. Unfortunately the Inklab team just didn’t have the fire power to achieve this by themselves. They needed the steady hand of a seasoned operator.

Rosytown has strong roots in Flash development and scripted physics so the opportunity to wade neck-deep into the world of 3D engines and advanced geometry was simply too delicious to pass up. Using Flash’s in-built Stage3D class and GPU acceleration capabilities, along with the ever popular Alternativa3D engine, a 3D representation of each bottle’s customisable areas was cast.

Every detail of the customiser tool from the type of bottles available and their names, all the way down to the minute details of their cylindrical structure was housed in an external XML document. This allowed for momentary changes to go live without the need for the managers at Inklab to republish anything from inside the Flash tool.

An intricate PHP script was developed to capture the user’s customisations, saving them server side in PNG format and dispensing a unique ID. This unique ID was then used to deeplink into the application at the very point the user saved it, allowing seamless sharing and retrieval for production.

Ryebuck Media had been commissioned by the National Museum of Australia to create a digital interactive for their Australian History Mysteries program – a content rich, educational resource for primary and secondary teachers. The unit’s purpose was to introduce students to the infamous 1813 crossing of the Blue Mountains attempted by Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth in a fun and energetic manner. The interactive was to be available online and able to run on seamlessly on tablets too, as their usage in modern classroom environments increases rapidly. The decision was made to gamify the experience by constructing a choose your own adventure style quiz to put the students in the shoes of the explorers, charging them with the responsibility of making the tough decisions and ultimately testing their mettle. An experienced and savvy studio was required to oversee production, from design to development and all the way to deployment.

Rosytown jumped at the opportunity to get on board and be involved. Educational applications are not only fun to create but also very important in engaging the next generation of students, whose attention spans are naturally hyperactive and hard to pin down. To combat this, the application employed slick, fast moving transitions and engaging user interface techniques. Specialised touch gestures were leveraged for tablet usage in order to give the application a vibrant and gratifying feel. An animated map feature was installed to show the students their progress through the mountains, making their advancement all the more satisfying, urging them on to their next task and ultimately seeing them complete their experience. As any teacher will testify to, a busy student is a good student.

When Asciano teamed up with Hard Hat Digital to redesign and redevelop their com.au they decided to indulge their audience in an animated and interactive experience. Sitting right there on the new homepage was to be an expandable, scroll-dependent, fullscreen animation depicting how Asciano is run and why they are best in their business. If it sounds complicated that’s because it is. Hard Hat designed and illustrated a gorgeous set of storyboards but needed expert HTML5 and JavaScript skills to produce the slick end product they envisioned for deployment. Enter Rosytown.

Naturally an animation of this magnitude requires the management of many visual assets and this is why a custom, intelligent image handling system was developed. Cutting edge HTML5 and JavaScript frameworks were used to capture the user’s scrolling and propel the animation to the desired location seamlessly. A big thumbs up to the great team at Greensock for making their TimelineMax classes available. This allowed us to created and control each minute detail of the animation with code.

The experience itself was developed in isolation from the surrounding site and was carefully crafted so that it could be retrofitted at the finish line without causing issues. Needless to say, it was a great success. The team at Hard Hat were so thrilled with the final product that Justin (co-founder and MD) called to say so. “Wow” was the word he used. This is what Rosytown is all about.

Devondale’s main com.au is an intricately built site powered by a high level content management system known as ExpressionEngine®. Managing the constant flow of content updates has proven tricky and cumbersome at their end. There is a staging site to deal with and version control can be tedious. Luckily for them, nothing is too hard for Rosytown.

As with all things new to us, we excitedly popped the hood to look inside. Before long, we had deciphered the content management system’s landscape and found a way to easily navigate its structure. Version control is something we take very seriously here and keeping content aligned has become an obsession for us. A healthy obsession.

The directors at Notice Board Systems are astute business professionals, hardened by years of conducting big business with big supermarket chains. When the time came for them to update their website, what they lacked in technical know-how they made up for in the ability to extract value where possible. They wanted a site that showed their prospective clients that they’re top of their game, they’ve crunched the numbers and they’re ready to roll. They wanted bang for their buck.

A very important feature of this site is the treatment and hierarchy of information. Statistics and numbers can be dry content at times and it’s important to illustrate these important aspects in an easily digestible and inspiring manner. A simple, yet custom themed Wordpress site was applied using custom posts and fields, allowing maximum control over important statistical data, measurements and contact details. A responsive HTML5/JavaScript overlay was installed to ensure the site’s consistency on all modern hand held devices for potential clients who are always on the move.

Stadia Media and Isobar Melbourne needed gun ActionScript 2.0 development to maintain and update one of their legacy projects. A little application you might know as THE MCG SCOREBOARD! That’s right! In 2012, in a well-publicised development, the decision was made to increase the physical size of the scoreboard’s screen. Along with any physical updates came the ever important software updates. The problem was that after years of updates, countless developers and huge platform upgrades, the once grand application had become, how do we put this nicely? It’s a bit of a mess. Did we mention ActionScript 2.0? Oh don’t mistake, it’s beautiful on the outside but the inside is enough to send the most battle-hardened of developers screaming into the night. Surely somewhere out there is a brave knight who can tame this dragon.

As with most things in life, there is no substitute for rolling up your sleeves bravely and getting your hands dirty. The immense application’s inner workings had to be understood and tracked in order for the updates to be installed correctly. Special care had to be taken not to introduce new bugs into the system or override any pre-existing and essential flows of data. On top of this, working with an ancient language such as ActionScript 2.0 meant that every line of code had to be painstakingly written, published and tested. Needless to say, the application was soon made to yield and now the majestic and world famous MCG scoreboard is bigger and better than ever.