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Edit text in context and design faster, with Rocketspark’s new text editor

At Rocketspark we are focussed on helping you design beautiful websites fast. As a step towards that vision, we’ve introduced a new text editor which will revolutionise the way you edit text on Rocketspark. This feature is a move away from the pop-up text block and a move towards editing your text in-context and in real time. This will make your design process faster, by seeing your beautiful typography adjust in real-time and see your website design come to life. With that, we are pleased to ...

Introducing Saved Brand Colours to design beautiful websites faster

We have created a feature which will allow you to improve your workflow and design beautiful websites faster. We are excited to introduce — Saved Brand Colours. This feature lets you save all your client's brand colours as swatches. You can then automatically update and reuse them in other places on the website. This way, you can manage all your brand colours in one place. Plus, you can control which colours your clients can use after you finish the project....

Assign images to product options—online shopping decision-making made easy

Do you have an ecommerce store that sells products in different sizes, colours or patterns (to name a few)? Do you want your customers to see the image that correlates to each product option you have on offer? Well, we are pleased to say, now you can. Introducing Rocketspark’s new ecommerce feature—assign images to product options. ...

Announcing—The Announcement Bar

Have you ever wanted to add a banner above your header to draw attention to key messages to your website visitors? Well, now you can. We are excited to announce the launch of the Announcement Bar. The Announcement Bar will allow you to engage your website visitors by communicating key information shown on every page of your site. This means you can be seen by your audience, drive action with a clear call to action and link, is versatile across an array of industries and is optimised for mobile! ...

Rocketspark Academy—online courses for business and web design best practices.

Loving and excelling in creativity and design is something you’ve either got or something you don’t. And you’ve got it—wahoo! But as many designers well know (and have experienced), making a living from that talent and passion requires a very, very different skill-set. Not only do you have to start the business, get clients, patch together some processes, but eventually you have to create and sustain a profit margin..all while maintaining work-life balance. ...

The 5 technical elements you need to know to design websites for clients.

Graphic designers, Marketers, VAs, just like you, are designing portfolio worthy websites that get results for their clients, without writing a single line of code, or being ‘tech-y’ people.  The reality is, most businesses don’t have complex website needs that require the skills of a web developer (coding wizard). Restaurants, mechanics, boutiques, bakeries, schools, tourism attractions and so on, actually only need basic tech — the value for them is in well written content and...

How to optimise your SEO

You might be the best at what you do, but if no one can find you online, who is going to care? In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketsparks Head of Partnerships, we cover what Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is, why you should care about it, and how you can use it to help your business....

Taking control of your Header—Introducing: Full-width Header, Header Overlay, Header Button, and Blank Template

Gone are the days when you needed to start building a website from a pre-designed template. Now with the new Blank Template option, you can start afresh on a blank canvas where the header isn’t tied to a pre-designed template. You can have beautiful full-width headers that utilise the full width of the browser and choose different header layouts, getting your creative juices flowing. Design freedom is further granted with the introduction of the Header Overlay with the first Stack below Header...

How to use line height and letter spacing effectively in web design

Line height and letter spacing are equally as important as typeface when it comes to making written content look good. In fact, if text is hard to read and not broken down into manageable chunks it can distract from the content all together, decreasing engagement and confidence in website visitors....

Two new integrations to streamline your shipping—Starshipit & eShip

As an online store owner, the process of printing address labels, packing slips, courier barcodes, booking pickups, and sending orders can take up a lot of time.  Rocketspark has now joined forces with Starshipit, to provide Rocketspark merchants with a direct integration where order details are sent automatically to Starshipit in a time-saving way to streamline the whole shipping process. If you’re a NZ Post customer, you can also connect eShip with your Rocketspark online store through...

Mailchimp wiz explains the importance of email marketing

Debbie Mills Robertson, email marketing, newsletter, online course planning and website creation specialist has owned three businesses and worked in a lot of different industries over the years.  She has used her combined skills to become Task Diva, her current business and passion. Read on to learn how she has shaped her current business and why she believes email marketing is key for online marketing. Debbie ran her first business with her husband, a small construction company, but they e...

Varntige, normalising doing good

For one day out of every year a local Waikato business closes its normal doors in order to open themselves up to community work. When Chantelle Good started Varntige six years ago, it was with the simplest of missions: to help business owners be happier and less stressed while running their growing businesses. Chantelle said she didn’t get into business just because she wanted to make money.  “Having a business and a team, for me, is about providing a good service and being able to give...

Human Digital Supports Mathematics Education Non-Profit

Ben van Rooy, founder and director of Human Digital, enjoys giving back to the community. Human Digital is an experience design agency that helps organisations grow by attracting, converting, and retaining customers. In late 2020 Human Digital, a Rocketspark design partner, took on Mathematics for a Lifetime Charitable Trust as a pro-bono client.  “We’ve worked with Rocketspark for a few years now and we find the simple user interface and great customer support perfect for clients who w...

Learning, to give

A passion for learning, and the mutual benefit it brings, is the drive behind Les Huett’s community work. Empower Business & Accounting Solutions NZ Ltd (EBAS) team member Les Huett has developed various community sites in the past on a number of different platforms. These have included an amateur orchestra with a private area where orchestra members access their scores and a site for blind and partially sighted people that had an innovative navigation system that used voice prompts to guide p...

Giving, a beautiful thing for local Rocketspark Design Partner

When things get quiet around the Varntige office in Te Awamutu, the virtual assistant team doesn’t just sit around, they find someone to help. In April this year Rocketspark gifted each of its Design Partners, Varntige included, a lifetime Rocketspark website subscription to give away for free to a deserving not-for-profit organisation. Learn more about the Rocketspark Gift-it-forward initiative here. Varntige found a very well deserving candidate and went the extra mile making all of their de...

Where to find inspiration

Sometimes it can be hard to get inspired, writer's block or design fatigue can come at unexpected times. In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketspark Head of Partnerships, we cover where you can find inspiration, and then, where you can find it, if you can’t find it in the first suggested places....

From grief stems life

A cemetery beautification project that grew out of one woman’s grief has spread seeds around the world.   Our in-house storyteller Kyra Piccione recently sat down with Rocketspark Design Partner, Tonia Hill, founder of Greenhouse Creative, to talk about a website project close to her heart; Flowers from Felix. Flowers from Felix is a giant community flower garden situated in Purewa Cemetery, the garden started with Miriama Tomms. “Miriama is a videographer and friend and we had bee...

How to rank in Google for multiple town locations

In a Formula One Grand Prix, there are 20 different drivers all competing for a podium top three finish. There is only one spot on the podium for first, one spot for second, and one spot for third. Just like with a Grand Prix, the top spot in Google search results gets a lot more attention than second and third and the podium finishers get much more attention than those further down the rankings....

Design partner creates business saving website

In the Mix, a bakery that started out selling at a local Auckland market, had one of the most fortuitous experiences with their website launching just days before the New Zealand lockdown of 2020.  Rocketspark Design Partner Tonia Reid, founder of Greenhouse Creative was a finalist in five different categories at Launch 2021, she ended up taking out Partner of the Year. One of the categories she was up for was Best Client Impact for the work she’d done with In the Mix. As a baking busines...

The benefits of creating a website strategy

Is your website design strategy a little light? Or do you need some fresh strategic insights?  You already know the value websites can provide and how, but maybe you’re having trouble knowing where to start with planning a really high impact website beyond just laying out content and pictures so it looks nice. With the help of one of our top design partners, and our own Rocketspark experts, let’s dive past the skin deep beautiful websites into the high impact substance that makes for an...

Branding key for Riverside Escapes

Trading the city for the far north was the best move Maggie Dalziel and Brooke Noonan could have made. The second best, for their business, was reaching out to Rocketspark Design Partner Natalie White, who gave them a new brand identity. Natalie (Nat), Creative Director at Magic fingers Graphics, worked with the couple on their business website for Riverside Escapes and was nominated for three different awards in relation to that work at the Rocketspark 2021 Launch Partner Awards. She won two of...

We’re in the market of marketing

A big part of Rocketspark is our story and how we tell it. That story is part of everything we do. We use it to give our customers the best experience possible when they’re on our website, social media platforms or using our products. One of the main drivers behind crafting that experience, and keeping it relevant, is the marketing team.  This team is made up of artistic designers, communication specialists, storytellers, analytical masterminds, partnership creators and product developers...

Australian web designer helps her community

Jill Vella, founder of Terramirra Press, says her love for the environment and connection push her to help her local community. Jill has helped two community groups of the last year by designing them websites for free and says she has another two currently underway. She was also a finalist in Rocketspark Community Good Award category at its annual awards earlier this year. The first volunteer based organisation that Jill helped was Nerrena/Tarwin Landcare, where she has been the secretary for qu...

The importance of connections

As much as it is about what you know, who you know can play a major part in a freelancer's business. In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketspark Head of Partnerships, we cover what kind of connections you might need and why. How you make those connections and how you keep them....

The 10 most common web design mistakes to avoid

If you’re new to web design or are struggling to get your websites looking exceptional, while functioning well, there are some fundamental basic tweaks you can make for a better result. Read on to discover 10 common web design mistakes, and ways you can avoid them.  A great website is not only about having all the bells and whistles, it's knowing how to strategically and aesthetically place your content. A website needs to have really clear call-to-action prompts, that guide the visitor a...