What do you do at Project Simply?

I’m the Ops Director here.

What did you do before you came here?

I started out working in fashion, designing & producing collections and also ran fashion workshops for kids in Manchester – lots of fun! Somewhere along the way took a job as a part-time office manager for a small games company in Macclesfield. I grew with that company as we expanded our offer and team from 4 of us to 25+.

I left that role after over 6 years as the Managing Director, and then went on to be Operations Director on the board of a large full service creative agency in Manchester. I met loads of brilliant people in both roles and learned everything I know from them, and the experiences I had on the way.

Who is your dream client?

It’s always great to work on brand projects with clients that you’ve built a great rapport with – shared trust, good communication and understanding makes a huge difference to the creative that is produced.

I did enjoy MAC cosmetics as client to be honest, free makeup in an office full of hairy developers; I really cleaned up there…

What advice would you give to anyone looking for a career in Operations?

I’d say from starting out as an Office Manager, doing literally everything from P&L forecasts, business plans, awkward HR meetings, washing the dishes and paying the rent cheques – I just got things done and if I didn’t know how to do it I’d ask or work it out.

I got an insight into every area of the business from the bottom up. I watched things fail, watched things succeed and learnt from it all, soaking up every bit of advice I was given.  I’d say listen to your instincts, don’t be scared to speak up whatever level you are at – there is no such thing as a stupid question.

Dishwashing. the key to a successful agency.

Where do you look for inspiration?

I’m not a massive fan of business books for inspiration. I think they can provide interesting structures, experiences and methodologies but the answer can’t ever be found in one place because this business is all about people, and people are complicated!

I’m more inspired when I speak to people –  and they are typically keen to share. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some great individuals who still continue to inspire me and give great advice.

What type of animal are you most like?

Labrador I think. Happy being around people, listening, long walks, usually hungry – I also expect to get slower, fatter and my back legs feel like they might go soon.

A wo(man)s best friend

What album / artist have you got on heavy rotation at the moment?

Some old stuff at the moment – Eurythmics!  A bit of Gillian Welch, Cass Mccombs, Kurt Vile; but I listen to a lot of podcasts at too – Joan and Jericha for dark comedy, 99% invisible for great design stories & the the odd true crime binge to keep it real.

What’s your favourite place for Friday team lunch?

We are spoilt for choice in the Northern Quarter… Sugo or Rudy’s for a luxury, but I do have a soft spot for a good brekky at Ezra & Gil.

We have some great company in this article too

Read about it here on the Prolific North Site

What do you do at Project Simply?

I’m a designer.

What did you do before you came here?

Before here I was working as a designer at a small agency in Liverpool, but that was my first job as a graphic designer. My degree was in Decorative Arts, and then I did an MA in Fashion & Textiles specialising in print design. I worked for a few independent fashion and footwear brands in London for about 7 years, then I did a PGCE and taught Art, Design, Fashion & Textiles in FE for 5 years. I had really begun to crave doing actual creative work myself, so after lots of consideration I decided I needed to change what I was doing. I left London, moved back up North, and signed up to do a course at Shillington College.

Teaching. it can be tough out there.

Who is your dream client?

Well, I love eating really nice food, and drinking really nice drinks, and listening to really great music. Branding is the discipline of design that I love the most – so to do that for a really cool restaurant, bar or music venue would be ace, tying some of my favourite things together.

What advice would you give to anyone looking to change career?

There’s a lot of pressure on young people to know or decide what they want to do when they leave school, but most of us will be working until we are nearly 70, so if you end up not being happy with what you’re doing, have the courage to make a change. Sure, it can be scary and financially risky for a number of reasons, and it does sometimes feel like you’ve dropped behind your (age) peers in your career progression, but on a positive note, it’s good to keep learning new skills and having a fresh start.

Don’t wait too long like these guys. get a new career.

Where do you look for inspiration?

Lots of places – as well as good old-fashioned design books there are a few websites that I often go to for digital inspiration, and I follow all my favourite studios on social media to keep up with them. I also collect bits of ephemera like packaging/menus/flyers/leaflets, and take photos of posters and anything else that I find interesting.

What’s the last book you read?

I started reading ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara ages ago. It’s really good but I keep putting it down, I think I’m scared how sad it’s going to get.

What album / artist have you got on heavy rotation at the moment?

I can’t narrow it down to one. I’m really liking Little Simz at the mo (even tho it’s not my usual kind of thing), and Spotify Discover always introduces me to new stuff. Also still playing ‘Ready to Die’ by Bel on Claremont 56 records, great tune and a lovely young man.

What’s your favourite place for Friday team lunch?

Probably NAM in Ancoats. One of the things I miss most about London is having so many Vietnamese restaurants to choose from, so I was very pleased when this one opened up down the road. The Pho and mini Bánh mì lunch deal is great.

1. Maddison Graphic – Norwich, UK

Maddison Graphic is a design studio based in Norwich, working mainly in print. I love how their work has an almost lo-fi, slightly retro aesthetic; it also feels very British. The projects are presented in a really clean and simple way – with loads of white space, and no explanatory text – letting the designs speak for themselves.

2. Paul Belford – London, UK

Belford’s Islington studio works predominantly across branding and communication. Looking at their work you often think ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ – really clever ideas brought to life with serious design skills. They’re multi-award winning and it’s easy to see why. I absolutely love the ‘From Babies With Love’ branding project. As a big fan of stationery and vintage ephemera, this is really appeals to me. The main identity features a post-mark, which is built on with this cute set of characters created with a naive, collaged aesthetic.

3. Blok – Toronto, Canada

Blok studio’s work properly makes me drool. They’ve worked on some fantastic projects across various disciplines including identity, packaging, digital, editorial and exhibitions. They’ve got a GREAT eye for colour – I’m absolutely loving this fresh combination that they used on theWomen’s Creative Collective project.

4. Studio Dumbar – Rotterdam, Netherlands

Rob and I heard Studio Dumbar’s Creative Director Liza Enebeis give a brilliant talk at last year’s Design MCR festival – she was great – so inspiring. One of the most interesting projects she spoke about was the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, where a custom code was created from the ‘AS’ that transforms music into dynamic patterns – very cool. Technology-led design is fascinating; it appeals to my inner geek.

5. Heydays – Oslo, Norway

I find it hard not to get full on design buzz looking at Heydays’s website. I admire everything they do – not only the brilliant client work – but also the way it’s presented on their website – clean, simple, spacious, with beautiful typography, minimal digital mockups, and cute animations. OutSCANDIng.

Hello, I’m a Senior Designer here at Project Simply.

What did you do before you came here?

My first foray into the design world was working for a jazz and events magazine in Birmingham. Prior to this I gained a degree in Multimedia and Sonic Arts (which for one project involved opening and closing several red phone boxes, as a few of us called each one – now that’s what I call ART!)

I had an interview with the magazine but was initially unsuccessful, then out of the blue a month or so later I got a call to come in for a meeting. Their designer had walked out and they urgently needed design for their magazine and event materials for the Birmingham Jazz festival – I started straight after the meeting! I had no idea what I was doing but somehow came through the other side mostly unscathed!

I moved to Manchester and initially worked at a printers, doing a production role (loading large metal printing plates into printers and designing the Wrexham FC football programme)… After that I was employed in a mix of design and art working roles, working for some of the larger well known Manchester creative agencies. Working for these larger companies was a fantastic experience. I learned so, so much there, but it also made me realise that a smaller, more personable agency was where I wanted to be – where everyone has a voice in the company.

Who is your dream client?

We are working on some really cool projects here now especially within the music festival and events sector. Coming from a musical background; promoting gigs, playing gigs and Djing –  it’s great to have a personal passion that permeates into your work life. So this is pretty close to dream clients for me. I would quite like to work with Wolverhampton Wanderers though, as a fan of the team I would be more than happy to pick up some comp tickets now and again – it’s blummin expensive to go these days!

What advice would you give to anyone looking for a career in Design?

There is so much competition for design jobs in the larger cities, I would say just try and get involved working for a larger agency to begin with, most of them are looking to help out graduates. Often people take unpaid intern roles to get a foot in the door, I think this unfairly favours people with more financial support – I would avoid these companies as everyone has value and shouldn’t be expected to work for free.

You may not get the dream job straight away, but just keep on trying to improve, practise and do loads of personal work. I used to do music posters for gigs outside of work, this allowed me to be more creative and improve my skills, as sometimes client work can feel like you are just rolling out very safe creative. Do you own personal creative, as much as you can and get wild.

Where do you look for inspiration?

It’s a bit cliché but I try and look for inspiration everywhere. I think it’s very important to use other mediums like architecture and sculpture as inspiration as you can find something in these mediums that you can use in digital design that is totally unexpected.

For one of our projects recently we used the idea of Brutalism to inform our design ideas, the basis of this was brutalist architecture. I listen to 99% invisible podcast which is amazing for opening you eyes (ears) to design decisions and the creative process. In terms of website inspiration I use the usual offenders of Site Inspire, Awwwards and Land Book. They each focus on different aspects of web design from minimal forms, wild interaction design or just really solid UX design.

Brutal or beautiful?

What animal do you most relate to?

Hamster. As someone of a diminutive scale, I have plenty in common with the loveable rogues. Mine and my wife’s first pet was a hamster called Larry and I respect their cuddly and relaxed nature mixed with their ability to viciously bite through skin at a moment notice. I also like ready salted nuts, especially in a pub environment.

Tea for two (hamsters)

What album / artist have you got on heavy rotation at the moment?

The last record I bought was Lifestyles of the Laptop café by The Other People Place. It’s a bit of a legendary dance record that was released in 2001 on Warp records, so that’s getting played quite a bit at the mo. I never really do heavy rotation as I always looking out for and listening to music I’ve not heard before. Although I did get a bit obsessed with listening to Watching Trees by Eleven Pond recently. I play NTS radio on my headphones most days, which is a great place to hear new things.

What’s your favourite place for Friday team lunch?

I love a rice and three. It’s a Manchester and more specifically and Northern Quarter institution! There is an ongoing debate about which of the many places in the NQ serves the best rice and three. For me personally it has to be Yadgar. The food there tastes quite sensational, super slow cooked (or standing in the trays all day, depending on your viewpoint) and served basic slapped on the plate. It’s certainly not a looker, but go deeper and find it’s gorgeous personality.

Bless Ezra & Gil for their attempts to commandeer some ‘laptop free’ tables – it’s hard not to notice that amongst the almond lattes, arty industrial interior vibes and velvet couches everyone in there is either mid-interview, business meeting, accounts follow up or networking schmooze (with a laptop).

It’s an amazing community to be part of, with tonnes of business support, collaboration and knowledge sharing events (i.e drinks) to support freelancers, business owners, start-ups as part of the weekly calendar.

ALL this stuff is brilliant for talent pool, and has really put us on the map. The number of creative & Ad industry people moving North continues to increase, and we find ourselves all fighting to hire the same talented individuals.

So, why would a new developer or designer pick one agency over another, or over a freelance career; how do they choose? How do we write a job advert or post a job that stands out from the rest in a marketplace that is full of identical job vacancies and brilliant opportunities?

What can we as a small agency offer, that a 80+ agency with a ball pool, a slide and a rooftop casino can’t?

For me, the fundamental difference is culture – and no matter how hard you try, or how many bells, whistles & perks you throw in to the employment package a big agency culture is very different to that of a startup or a smaller studio.

Bigger isn’t always better.

It can mean big jobs & big name clients, elaborate team events and a wider variety of staff experience to facilitate personal development, there are huge benefits – but there are downsides too… Enter the investors, the suits, the power struggles, permission paralysis, the formalities, communication breakdowns and diluted creative work.

It’s really not all that bad – but it is a very different beast to the smaller owner-managed agency.

Call it boutique, lifestyle, niche, ‘our agency family’ (eugh) – but there are BIG benefits to staying small.

Being part of a genuine creative culture where everyone’s opinion matters can make work feel like spending 5 days with your friends – and we still get the big clients!

The junior creative speaks directly to clients, a senior developer still does the washing up & the MD get’s the brew’s on. The team are the heart of the work, and we really do deliver, reap the rewards and battle the storms together.

In my experience, starting out in a smaller studio allowed me to learn about all parts of the business and not just the job I was hired to do. I’ve developed great direct relationships with business owners, finance directors, entrepreneurs and decision makers. I have learned to understand the day to day challenges faced by designers, developers and project managers and been able to support them directly, and also built genuine relationships with clients that have helped to shape the work that we have delivered. Some of these opportunities would not have been possible or accessible in a corporate environment.

As part of a smaller team, you can define the direction and the quality of work and feel a real shared responsibility for how you are seen as a business – in these sort of environments I believe you really define the culture, because you are the culture.

We are a small but fast growing team, working closely with our clients in the festival, music and lifestyle sectors. We need a digital producer/PM to help us deliver brand, creative and standout websites as well as our own digital product.

We only work with clients we like, really look after our people, and understand the benefits of being an independent owner-run creative technology business. We have plans to open our own ventures arm within 3 years to develop and run our own commercial ideas and work on passion projects for charities and worthwhile causes.

We have also created our own Festival and event website CMS framework which we are constantly improving to better the experiences of festival goers and the marketing teams that run the events. A big part of our work will be scaling this side of the business and as a SASS product as well as an engine to power bespoke festival jobs.

What we are looking for

Not just another number…but a new member of the Project Simply family.

If you feel a bit stifled by larger agency mentality, and want to feel part of the work you deliver through shaping client relationships and projects – then we’d love to meet you!

We are looking for an organisational superhero with a healthy sprinkle of inner-geek, who likes the idea of working directly with clients in the festival and leisure sector and will drive our digital projects forward. We are looking for an experienced, confident Digital Project Manager to deliver great digital work – efficiently.

You’ll provide structure, control and a cool focus and will be comfortable working within a small team across a range of platforms – so you’ll need to be able to flex, and embrace unknowns!

You will work on proposals, quoting and functional scope development, establish realistic concepts and be the first point of contact for our clients. We would expect you to produce clear reports identifying WIP, project basics, profitability and time allocation, and plan clear timelines and milestones for the team on each project. We would also like someone who can help manage and execute case studies and social posts to reflect the work we are doing.

You may have a background in development and design, and understand the nuances of bleeding edge digital design creation. 

Above all you must be good fun, love what you do and be able to get the best out of a team.

Must Haves

• Excellent organisational and time management skills
• Ability to manage multiple projects
• Experience with a contemporary project management tools (we currently use Harvest, Harvest Forecast, Teamwork)
• Approx. 4 years + experience as a Digital Project Manager
• Experience and some knowledge of WordPress / HTML5 development
• Experience scoping projects with developers/designers
• Confident and effective client and internal communication skills
• Passion for the latest digital trends and staying at the forefront of creative digital development, and meeting current best practices.
• Excellent communicator and presenter with the ability to work under pressure and with exceptional attention to detail.

Not essential – but a massive bonus

• Design or Development skills
• Brand experience
• Adobe Products
• Figma/ online UX tools
• Project Management suites
• An understanding of backend development logic
• Interest in side projects and meetups

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• You’ll get to work in our NQ studio with a great team
• Plenty of scope to take ownership of the work you produce
• R&D time
• Plenty of Xbox time
• £1000 personal development budget
• An extra day holiday increase for every year worked
• Additional holiday when the office is closed over Christmas
• Your Birthday off
• Flexible working hours
• Work closely with clients and help them bring their ideas to life.
• Free weekly lunches, fruit, and beer in the fridge
• Monthly team socials

A bit about us…

A creative digital agency based slap-bang in the centre of the NQ – we are a small but fast growing team, producing our own IP and working closely with our clients in the festival, music and lifestyle sectors. 

We build websites, apps, online experiences and strong memorable brands, only working with clients we like and building good relationships along the way. 

A family of experimenters and creatives, we really look after our people and understand the benefits of being an independent owner-run creative business. We have plans to open our own ventures arm within 3 years to develop and run our own commercial ideas and work on passion projects for charities and worthwhile causes.

What we are looking for…

Not just another number, but a new member of the Project Simply family!

If you want to have more ownership of the work you produce, like the idea of working directly with clients in the music and leisure sector, and feel stifled by larger agency mentality – we are interested in meeting you!

We are looking for a proactive, strategic thinker who will help to shape our development processes and the frameworks we adopt.

The Role

We are looking for a Front End Developer to create incredible looking websites and web applications for our clients. You will love to experiment and push the boundaries at every opportunity and understand what looks great, as well as what will work for the client.

Must Haves

• Organised – practice, process and structure driven
• Proactive and eager to develop
• Experience building functional & data-rich web apps.
• An expert ability with all things HTML5
• Git knowledge
• A love of bleeding edge early adoption
• Great skills with building technical interaction design
• A desire to create and experiment
• Javascript and JS frameworks expertise
• Good understanding of PHP and PHP Frameworks
• SASS, NPM, Browserify or similar
• You should be able to understand directional briefs, and business requirements. Then scope, prioritise, and propose suitable technical or process solutions

Not essential – but a massive bonus!

• Design skills
• Adobe Products
• Figma/ Sketch
• Managing your own time and helping orchestrate others
• An understanding of backend development logic
• An understanding of systems architecture and database queries
• Interest in side projects and meetups

Benefits

• Competitive salary.
• You’ll get to work in our NQ studio with a great team
• Plenty of scope to take ownership of the work you produce.
• R&D time
• Plenty of Xbox time
• £1000 personal development budget
• An extra day holiday increase for every year worked
• Additional holiday when the office is closed over Christmas
• Your Birthday off
• Flexible working hours
• Work closely with clients and help them bring their ideas to life.
• Free weekly lunches, fruit, and beer in the fridge.
• Monthly team socials.

If this sounds like you, please do contact [email protected] and let’s chat.

You’ll be part of an experienced and enthusiastic digital team who love to work collaboratively and come up with new and amazing things on the internet.

We provide a fantastic atmosphere for learning and being creative, offering all our employees:

• Half a day a week research and development time for them to focus on their own projects and personal development.
• A competitive salary
• Pension and benefits
• Falafel Fridays (they are amazing)
• Flexible working hours
• A night out each month

We’re looking for the following:

• Experience in HTML5, CSS3, Javascript
• Understanding of PHP and WordPress
• Understanding of pre-processors such as SASS
• Experience using GIT
• Experience with NPM
• A good understanding of UX
• At least a year’s experience with front end development, preferably at an agency

We’re looking for someone who is self-motivated, creative and eager to improve. You’ll be surrounded by digital experts and enthusiasts and we actively encourage developers to share creative design ideas and concepts with the whole team. You’ll need excellent people skills and happy to speak direct with clients. You are well organised and can work to deadlines and create lovely, clean code.

This role is a fantastic opportunity to help you propel your skill set further whilst helping grow an agency that is on the rise. We’re very proud of our team and this role gives you a chance to work with like-minded talent in an environment geared towards creativity and innovation.

Other Perks

• Talented workmates and a great studio atmosphere
• On-going professional development opportunities
• A somewhat friendly office dog
• A chance to grow into a senior development role
• Great clients that share our sensibilities for creativity

If you think you’d fit in at Project Simply, please email a CV and cover letter to [email protected]. The cover letter is really important. Please let us know why this role would suit you, and provide a link to some projects you’ve recently worked on.

NO AGENCIES

Job Type: Full-time

Salary: £20-£22k per year

Job Location:

• Manchester

Required experience:

• Web Development: 1 year