services

The owner of m’khala, Michaela Stephens, has an extensive background in print and web publishing. She has done everything except operate the actual printing presses and binding machines that produce your printed publications. The services she offers are ones that she is highly experienced in and feels confident of delivering on time and on budget.

The main categories of services offered by m’khala are:

editing & proofreading

Did you know that an editor’s work is at its best when the reader doesn’t notice it?

Good editing is all about making it easy for readers to grasp what you’re trying to say. If you’re unclear in your writing, your readers will have a hard time digesting your words. Good editors often say they’re a ‘reader’s advocate’. If anyone wants to make your book, brochure or web site read a little better, it’s an editor with some spare time on their hands!

Editing is not a quick process – it involves reading through your publication any number of times to address specific issues – plain english, acronyms, punctuation marks, passive ‘voice’, capitalisation, incomplete sentences, unexplained terms and jargon, etc. The list is quite extensive and different publications have different requirements.

It’s also an iterative process – your publication might go through several stages, each addressing different editorial aspects, that culminate with a final look at the finest details. Editing can also be a specialist’s area of work – if your content is outside our field of expertise, we can recommend an editor with experience in your area of content and liaise with them on your behalf.

Editing is best done before the design and desktop publishing or web development stages – it only makes sense to get your content spick and span before spending time developing a detailed design or putting your content into a specific layout or template. The editing process may uncover specific requirements that would not otherwise have been adressed by the design. Also, a layout or web page will have to be remade each time a new version of your content is produced.

Proofreading is a separate process to editing and it happens after your content has been desktopped or converted into a web site. It’s the process of checking the final publication to make sure that designers, desktoppers or developers have followed editorial instructions, that heading levels have been applied correctly, that no spelling or typing mistakes have crept into the layout, etc.

Proofreading is a very different process to editing because, at this final stage of the publication process, it is assumed that the language, structure and grammar of your content is already correct.

graphic & web design

m’khala provides professional design services for both print and web based projects.

We take your ideas, plain text and/or raw images and produce designs that are coherent and unique to your business. Design is more than just sketches and doodles, it’s the framework and backbone for your publication – so it’s important to get it right!

Design is also a subjective process and it is important to us that you feel comfortable with the end product. We’re not precious about our work and we’re open to your input and feedback. So don’t be afraid to butt in, offer your opinion and get your feelings out into the open – you have your own part to play in contributing to the final design solution.

The design process is much like working with an architect: it helps to start off with a long list of all the things you want to see and say in your publication – sometimes overtly through words and pictures, other times more subtly though the arrangement of elements and the overall look and feel.

In addition to our design services we also act as a broker for printing, domain registration and web hosting suppliers. We can help you find the best supplier based on both price and quality.

web development

Once you have a site design that you’re happy with, m’khala can take that design and apply it to your final content (after it has been edited, of course) to produce a finished web site.

Web development is distinct from web design – it involves taking a visual design and converting this into code that displays consistently across all commonly-used web browsers and platforms. It also includes ensuring that your web site will ‘work’ with your ISP’s web server and that it is easy for you to manage, update and control.

m’khala will also ensure your web site conforms to current web standards and industry best practices relating to accessibility and usability. We develop web sites knowing that they will be easily ‘discovered’ by search engines and, just as importantly, that all site visitors will have familiar, consistent and reliable experiences.

If you would prefer to deal with your own content, m’khala also provides a variety of other web development services – ranging from single-page templates to complete content management solutions.

web applications programming

If you’re after a dynamic web site or a fully-fledged online application, m’khala can also help you with this. We can develop applications of any size, from simple online stores to complex corporate applications.

Our area of specialty is in LAMP development Ð Linux (or any unix derivative), Apache, MySQL and PHP. This choice of environment allows web site owners to use tools that are widely available and doesn’t result in the web application being tied to a particular programmer and/or vendor.

LAMP development also gives you access to a large range of web hosting providers (on both price and performance) who can run and support open source linux/unix web applications.

We can develop an application based on your existing project specifications and ‘architecture’ documents or, if these don’t exist, we can analyse your business requirements and design your application to suit your particular needs and processes.

We carefully document all web application projects to ensure they are portable and that future development and maintenance is hassle-free. We’d like your repeated business, but we won’t ‘lock-in’ your return by withholding important information about how applications work or what resources they need to run.

Our rigourous approach to programming and documentation also prevents your application from becoming a stale, ‘legacy’ system that no-one knows how to update or maintain. We believe the extra effort we put into this allows you to keep your applications up-to-date and easily revise them as your business changes and evolves.

desktop publishing

With our long background in publishing, we’re quick at assembling large published documents. We’re more than familiar with the industry-standard software packages (QuarkXPress, Indesign) that are used to layout and build books, brochures and other printed material.

m’khala is able to take your designs (whether they’re our work or from another agency) and develop them, along with your content, into publications that you can distribute on the internet, CD-ROM and/or in print.

We’re also very familiar with the tools that support page-layout – illustration tools like Freehand and Illustrator, image editors like Photoshop, and PDF creation and editing tools.

We are experienced in converting office documents into print-ready PDFs. Office and Acrobat are prevalent in many businesses these days, but producing office documents that print correctly on an offset press requires experience and knowledge of press-ready PDF creation.

Many of the publications we desktop are also published on the web as PDFs – so a key part of our work is making sure these documents are small enough for web use but still retain your design’s key features and elements.

We like to separate design from desktop publishing since they’re two very different processes – one is creative, the other is predominantly technical – one process logically follows the other. By separating the two, you will save time and eliminate inconsistencies. If you try to design something while simultaneously laying it out, each time the design evolves and changes (as you progress through the publication) the layout has to be repeated to incorporate the new design.

Being a supporter of open source software, m’khala can work with content provided in Open Office documents. We’re also investigating the use of open source page layout and illustration programs like Scribus and Inkscape, that are being collaboratively developed and freely distributed.