This week, Starfishes Kay and Al will be away in Sydney for the Web Directions South conference and workshops.

Web Directions is the biggest web conference in Australia, and has been running in various forms since 2004. This year, Kay will be presenting “Starting and running a successful web development business”, where she’ll share some stories about starting up Clever Starfish.

The outstanding job done by the Web Directions team each year was one of the main inspirations for the Australian Web Industry Association to plan the Edge of the Web conference, which will be held in Perth in November this year.

The 2008 Perth International Arts Festival is well underway, and we’re really pleased to be involved once more.

Art direction for the 2008 site was provided once again by Block Branding, to fit in with the overall Festival theme. PerthWeb provided hosting and additional support, preparing images and video and creating the MySpace page for Beck’s Music Box, the great new music venue on the Esplanade.

Clever Starfish turned Block’s designs into a functioning web site, and integrated changes to the custom content management system to allow Perth Festival staff to maintain the events on the site. A significant change this year was the increased focus on the My Festival Planner, the online tool to allow people to plan their Festival events. Patrons can now upload a photo to their My Festival profile, and the home page features event lists from selected profiles.

Our feature event this year is diva Cesaria Evora, who sings soulful, bluesy Creole-Portuguese folk tunes to Afro-Cuban rhythms - a real melting pot of amazing sounds and textures. More information about Cesaria’s two performances can be found on the site: Cesaria Evora - Perth International Arts Festival 2008.

Other events that you’ll find Starfish staff at include Black Watch, about the legendary Scottish Black Watch Regiment, The Turning, based on the Tim Winton novel of the same name (and a collaboration with Perth Theatre Company, who we also provide web site services to), and New York rockers Sonic Youth.

The Festival program, under new Artistic Director Shelagh Magadza, includes an amazing array of theatre, dance, music, film, visual arts and free events, so there’s definitely something for everyone.

We’re extremely proud to announce a Clever Starfish web site, Ken Drake Photographic, has taken home the Best Small Business web site award in the 2007 WA Web Awards.

Held last Friday night at the Duxton Hotel in Perth, the WA Web Awards, put on by the Australian Web Industry Association, is now in it’s third year and has gone from strength to strength each year. Over 180 people attended the awards dinner, where 13 winners were announced from 36 finalists.

Ken Drake is a great photographer and we’re lucky to have had such great source material to work with. We hope that the award will help promote his pet photography business even further.

Congratulations to all the other winners - we’re thrilled to be honoured amongst such outstanding company.

Related Links:
Ken Drake Pet Photography
PerthNow’s Web Awards Coverage (including video from the night)
WA Web Awards 2007
Australian Web Industry Association