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They say nothing prepares you for the feelings you have for something so small?or so runs the TV advertisement for a well-known brand of children?s cough mixture. Well, the arrival of http://www.creativein-sthelens.org, the new St Helens website for creative industries, certainly felt like giving birth; there were also times during gestation when analgesics were needed in plentiful supply. However, if you are considering extending your family of corporate communications tools, don?t let the idea of pain deter you. A pilot programme to identify, establish & develop creative industries in St Helens, was set up in 1999 by St Helens Council with support from North West Arts Board, ERDF cash from Merseyside ACME. It was spring boarded through the formation of a new cross-agency grouping, St Helens Cultural Partnership, consisting of local business support, regeneration, training and arts organisations. Over 18 months we worked with partners, including St Helens Chamber and St Helens College, to map new & potential entrants to the sector, offer bespoke business advice, produce marketing materials for the individual businesses and lobby potential clients to develop a supply chain for their services.

The final challenge of this pilot has been to find ways of promoting the St Helens sector collectively to a wider audience. The best piece of advice we were given at the planning stage was to genuinely consider if an Internet presence was what we needed. Our conclusion was definitely yes. We looked at a range of sites, commercial and public sector, for pointers in our own design. These included sites designed by Idaho for Manchester-based Full Circle Arts, and Oyster who designed both the 10 Downing Street site and the commercial site for Monsoon?s Accessorize. Access was an important issue for us. An excellent seminar on writing a web design brief, held at our RAB, covered access in terms of page layout, image descriptions and action buttons, all of which can prevent or support the use of software such as JAWS which provides a read-back facility for those with visual impairment. Our designers rose admirably to the challenge. The site may not offer perfect access, but it does demonstrate a commitment to disabled users at the conceptual stage and shows that attractive design and access do not necessarily have to conflict.

The creative spark in getting the initial website design off the ground was great fun. Ploughing through the mounds of information, collating, redrafting & proofing was not. This is by far the worst part, along with persuading emotionally volatile artists why their favourite image wasn?t going on the home page. However, despite the late nights and regular troughs, the downs have been far outweighed by the satisfaction of seeing the site go live. Since then, it has been reviewed by a delegation of European journalists and been the focus of a visit to St Helens by Arts Council Chief Executive Peter Hewitt. Early financial monitoring of the businesses is very encouraging. Most gratifying however has been the opportunity to answer all the sceptics.

Jo Broad is Project Manager, St Helens Cultural Partnership and Arts Service Manager for St Helens Council. creative-in-sthelens.org is designed by JunoSystem whose details can be found on the site