Wayne
We Are LS1
We’re now settled into our new office in Leeds City Centre, enjoying the plentiful food options and doing more outside of work with so much on our doorstep. Clearing out the previous office I clocked 40 miles’ worth of steps over four days according to my watch. The amount of stuff we had!
Enjoying a Warmer Autumn
I spent a week in Norfolk to reset and refocus, sticking to a strict diet, training every day and walking along the coast every morning and evening. It’s amazing what just a couple of days focusing on yourself can do for your energy levels.
Out and About on Client Visits
And then back to it. A trip to London to meet Mino at MDM Glass meant I got to see the factory where their bespoke glazing is made, while discussing their internal processes and meeting the people who handle the enquiries we generate. We had a good chat about business and shared advice with one another. Speaking with Mino reminded me that there are thousands of people running businesses and facing the same challenges. A good conversation is the support you need, when you need it.
Next came an eventful trip to Jersey to see our client Reto Finance. I travelled over on the Thursday for a Friday morning meeting and was due to fly back that same afternoon, but Storm Austen put a hold on that and one night turned into four. It meant I got to meet more of the team, with the chance to visit them again on the Monday morning. Writing my follow-up email, I quickly realised just how much we got through. They’re a great team, full of ideas, all on the same page and determined to make Reto succeed in a competitive market.
To 2027 and Beyond
The unexpected time alone was spent productively. It allowed me to get ahead with forecasting what 2027 will look like, including our monthly targets, the number of sites we’ll aim to deliver in the year and where that work comes from. I’m excited to roll out a new incentive programme to the team in January as part of our start-of-year meeting. We didn’t get to do our usual new year kick-off meeting in 2026 because we had so much going on, but now we’re working more efficiently and everything is where it needs to be, so I’m looking forward to the end-of-year break and recharging for a big start to 2027!
The Budget
If anything is going to pee on your parade, it’s the budget. We’ve become accustomed to expecting the worst, and that’s typically what they deliver. SMEs are put under more pressure as the minimum wage rises, which on the surface may seem like good news. But the personal allowance stays frozen, meaning more of that rise goes straight to the Treasury rather than into workers’ pockets. If you want to give people a pay rise, raise the personal allowance!!! Tax is set to hit a record 37.9% of GDP in 2027-28, debt will peak at 97.3% of GDP in 2028-29, and interest on that debt is forecast to reach £160bn by 2031-32, up from £39bn in 2019-20.
Business owners and CFOs have to make the numbers add up every single month, and I’d trust them to make these decisions over anyone whose only experience of a budget is spending someone else’s. But it’s not all doom and gloom… We’re getting 4p off a jar of gherkins. Just as well, I love a burger!
Andrew
New Rewards System Project
We have now begun working on a new rewards platform to incentivise purchases. I am looking forward to this build as it is quite unique. It also involves a lot of data processing to match customers to targets, spend and products. That is something I strangely enjoy doing where I think most people would probably find boring. We have got the designs for this now and I think it’s going to look really cool especially when the animations are done.
Responding to Vulnerabilities
Something that hit global news has been the critical PHP vulnerability that left websites open to attack. I think we can expect this to happen more often with AI becoming more powerful and more utilised across the world. Exploits that have been hiding in plain sight for years will get unearthed across software throughout the industry and it is now more important than ever for us to be ready.
As we have done with the PHP vulnerability, we will be on standby to apply emergency updates when vulnerabilities are exposed to make sure we can keep client websites online.
Holiday Outings
I managed to get some time away at the beginning of October where I enjoyed the last rays of sunshine from Gloucester. We had a great time admiring the local scenery and enjoying good food at Hickories. Before getting back to work, I had attended a birthday meal at the world buffet in Wakefield which was lovely to see family members I’ve not interacted with in a while. It also started pouring it down the moment I came back up north. A very big change from the constant sunshine I got while down south.
Switching to Solar
We are now making that step to get solar installed on our property and I have just had the survey for that. We are looking to get setup early next year once we can afford the deposit. The technology is cool and I am looking forward to the idea of energy independence or even just increasing the value of the property.
Reece
What I’ve Been Building
This month has been spread across a few existing client sites, adding new sections and working through updates to keep them improving and doing more of what each client needs. It’s the steady kind of work that keeps a site moving forward rather than standing still, and there’s always a nice list of smaller jobs to pick off that add up to a real difference over time.
The one I’m most looking forward to is a React build I’ve just started for a client’s incentive portal. The idea is somewhere customers can log in and see exactly what incentives they’re getting, all in one place, laid out clearly so there’s no digging around for it. It’s still early days, but it’s shaping up to be a really cool project and one I’m looking forward to getting into properly.
Away From the Screen
The highlight was a trip away, taking in Munich, Salzburg and Vienna. All three were great in their own way, and we managed to pack a fair bit into the time. Three very different cities back to back, which kept it interesting the whole way through.
It meant a serious amount of walking, close to 30,000 steps nearly every day, and the blisters to show for it. Worth every one of them though, it’s the best way to actually see a place, wandering about on foot and stumbling onto bits you’d never find otherwise.
Salzburg was a standout, mostly down to the fortress, which was super cool, sat up high with the mountains towering behind it. It’s one of those places that doesn’t quite feel real when you’re stood in the middle of it. Vienna was something else as well, every single building just insane, the kind of place where you spend half your time looking up. Caught some ice hockey while we were out there too, and spent a couple of good evenings in the beer halls in Munich, which were exactly as lively as you’d hope. Hard to beat.
What’s Next
Good month, and plenty still to come. That React build is only just getting going, so looking forward to really getting into it and watching it take shape over the next few weeks. There are some new website builds on the way too, so the next month or so is shaping up nicely. On to November.
Liam
This month has really seen the harsh weather draw in, the nights are much darker, mornings feel colder, suddenly summer feels so long ago! Thankfully we’re remote now so no driving to work in the pitch black, pouring rain – lovely!
Branding Season
This month has seen a few new branding projects come through the door. The first began last week with the kick-off meeting and has taken up a decent chunk of this week working on the 2 initial stages. This is a really fun project to get my teeth into. It’s more of a brand ‘refresh’ rather than starting from the ground up, but the client said they wouldn’t mind seeing one route that goes a little bit where there aren’t expecting. I usually like to work this way anyway, something on the ‘safe’ side that isn’t going to offend, and then a second option that hopefully catches them a bit off-guard and makes them think a little differently, or shows them a new angle they never considered. I’m super excited to present what I’ve come up with next week and take it from there.
Using Claude to my Advantage
I started work on a new website this month that I think I spoke about in last month’s blog, and I’ve been experimenting with Claude and Figma, in particular with animations and prototyping. Animations are something I’ve worked on in the past, but it’s often quicker to explain to our devs how I want bits to work or show them similar references, rather than tying myself in knots trying to animate everything and often what’s in my head is really hard to execute with Figma’s fairly limited animations.
However, in my experimentation with Claude, I’ve discovered with a direct connection to Figma claude can animate the components I’ve created and hook them up to my prototype much quicker and much more effectively than I’m able to do with the time I have. This workflow is allowing me to build out more pages and work on my designs, whilst simultaneously prompting my ideas for animations into Claude and letting him work on them in the same file. It isn’t perfect and it requires a lot of back and forth before my vision comes to life, but it’s a huge step forward and opens so many doors for me, since ideas in my head that once were impossible for me to create can now be executed.
On top of the animations, Im now also using Claude to link up all of my pages and create full prototypes in seconds, a process that would usually take a good hour or so at the very end of a project, allowing me to spend that time thinking of more animations or more interesting elements on the website. Overall a much better product and experience for the client, and handing over laborious, time consuming tasks to claude while I make my projects more fun and exciting, its a win win, and probably the best use of Ai I’ve adopted so far.
Remote Working
October was also our first month of remote working. We went into Leeds last week for a meet up which was really nice, grabbed some dinner together after work and had a few pints and a catch up. The co-working space we spent the day at was really modern and lively too, we had our own office room with unlimited coffee and snacks and it was good to work amongst people after a few weeks of being at home. The plan is to meet up there once every two weeks which I feel is a good cadence.
Working from home has felt really productive this month, I have a nice setup at home and I’ve been getting out for walks or runs every morning which is something I just didn’t have time for when I was commuting to Leeds. It’s also amazing to finish work and not have to sit in your car for an hour. All in all it’s been a really good first month and I’m excited to get into the routine of meeting up every other week and working our way through all the best lunch spots Leeds has to offer.
Outside of Work
Outside of work we travelled to Dublin with a big group of our friends. Such a great place with such friendly people. Not a huge Guinness drinker over here, but when in Rome it’s hard to say no, and one trip to Dublin has made me love the stuff. We managed to see the Guinness factory and did some traditional Irish dancing, but mostly we toured all the pubs, heading a bit out of the city centre to avoid the 10 Euro pints, and in turn finding more authentic and friendlier pubs away from all the tourists. Brilliant place I would highly recommend.
Laura
October in the Studio
October has been a steady and productive month for me. A big chunk of my time has gone into digging into the data across our clients’ social accounts, analysing performance and pulling out insights to help shape our content strategy going forward. It’s been really interesting work and has given me a lot to think about in terms of how we approach things for each client.
Beyond that it’s been a solid month of keeping everything ticking over nicely across all of our clients’ channels, which is always satisfying in its own right.
I also cannot wait to share more about the office move and what it means for our content! We’re going to have a brilliant new space to work with and I have so many ideas already. More on that soon, watch this space!
Autumn Vibes and Baby Cuddles
Personally, October has been absolutely lovely. It’s one of my favourite times of year, and our whole family loves it.
The kids are absolutely obsessed with Halloween, and we’ve had the best time with it all. Pumpkin picking was a highlight this month. I also got to meet my friend’s brand new baby this month which was VERY exciting, and I’ve been spending plenty of time babysitting my mum’s kitten, which is always fun (and chaotic).
Nicola
A New Office Space in the Heart of Leeds
This month marked the beginning of the team working remotely but also meeting in a new office space in Leeds. Yorkshire House is a bustling office space with a cafe and roof terrace and we enjoyed meeting up to work together, host visitors and then catch up and socialise with a meal afterwards.
We’ve been busy with lots of different projects, from new build websites and design and branding to updates for our regular customers, across all sorts of businesses.
Next week we all meet up again for another busy day in Leeds with more visitors and client calls and meetings.
Halloween and Half-term
This month I joined an evening group walk which visited a local farm that creates a pumpkin patch each year and hosts ‘pick your own.’ There were pumpkins of every colour stretching as far as the eye could see, plus lots of spooky scarecrows and Halloween props and bizarrely, a skeleton in a speedboat!
It is the time of year for trawling the various school and college open evenings and I seem to have been to several every week for the past few weeks. Interesting to find out how much sixth form/school leaver options have changed since my day; there are so many independent colleges and sixth form centres now that provide a variety of types of courses, not just A-levels or BTECs.
The highlight of half-term for the children was going to see ‘Deadly 60 – Live!’ at the Leeds First Direct Arena. Steve Backshall and team put on a great show with video clips of his adventures, fossils, inflatable animals and even some dinosaurs!
