Jack Barber / Website Design

News Roundup - Spring 2017

News Roundup - Spring 2017

There's been a fair bit going on here lately - so I thought I'd share a few of the highlights:

Work Experience Going... Well!

In September 2016 Cameron started joining me on Monday afternoons and Thursdays for work experience. I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to provide him with any meaningful work - Cameron's not yet ready to be released on client projects. But as it happens, we've both benefitted from 6 months of side projects - and are looking forward to more diversions from 'real work' over the next few months!

So far we've covered:

  • Basics of HTML, CSS and Javascript
  • HTML Canvas - which was new to me too, so we both benefitted from exploring that together
  • Perch CMS

In reality this has meant Cameron has built his own website (www.cameronteasdale.co.uk) and we've worked on a Raspberry Pi based desktop arcade machine together. I'll write up more about that shortly.

Now we're looking at Raspberry Pi based cameras - getting a project I put together for Staithes Festival back up and running and building a new camera using an old camera - a Raspberry Pi Zero inside a Kodak Brownie. It's going to be great!

New Photos, Loads of Projects

This week I was joined in the office by Ceri Oakes who did a great job photographing some of the project I've undertaken over the last 12 months. I'll be sharing most of these over the coming weeks.

I'm not very good and keeping my site updated with new work - so it's easier to do it in bulk, once every few months. There's a great mixture of projects for all kinds of clients so I'm looking forward to sharing a bit about how these came about, who they were for and what the end result was.

Perch CMS - (Probably) the Best Business Decision I've Ever Made

I took the decision to drop my self-built CMS about 18 months ago and move to developing with Perch. I have to say it's revolutionised how I develop websites - it's really easy to setup and provides loads of powerful features with a simple interface my clients can understand.

As a result of signing up to be a recognised Perch Developer I've started getting more work for clients from around the world, and over the last few weeks have helped out on Perch projects for:

  • An American design agency
  • A website development firm in Oxfordshire
  • A large London-based SEO agency
  • A designer based in Saudi Arabia
  • A UK design agency currently based in Australia... more on that below!

I'm really enjoying the variation that picking up these bits of work for international clients brings.

From Local to Global

When I first became self-employed people would often comment on how I'd be able to work for anyone - regardless of their location. While in essence this is true, it's not entirely how things have worked out. Most of my work remains local - as Whitby-based businesses trust me to design and develop websites which support their physical business presense.

However, this week I got asked to do a bit of work on a Perch-based website by an agency currently located in Australia, for a client of their's located in Africa. I got the details for the project on Wednesday evening and by bedtime the site was fixed. I try not to work out of hours too often - but in this case, having understood the nature of the problem, I decided to fix it there and then.

It is amazing what opportunities the internet opens up.

Time to Start Running Again

It's been a bit colder this week than last, but today the sun is shining and it feels warm (out of the breeze). Last year I completed 3 trail marathons, and promptly stopped running in November.

I've already signed up for Goathland Hardmoors Marathon again for this coming November, so the training will begin again shortly. I've enjoyed having a few months off - and havn't had much time for running to be honest. But I'm getting itchy feet and know I'll be out stretching my legs again before too long.

Current and Future Projects

I'm currently completing a handful of web development projects - with a few more in my sights for the coming weeks. If you're interested in talking about a project please get in touch. I'm currently scheduling new work for May onwards.