SHOWCASE
SurĽoh
Once the redesign of TEK’s brand and site was completed and launched, Framework won various awards for
UX, design and development and the client also gained a huge followingand there’s always risk when dealing
with freelancers.
We’ve flipped the model on its head.
We have six developers – three at a
senior level – and four designers –
including two seniors – who can turn
their hand to any of our services, with at
least one of the team being experienced
in the service required.
Whenever we recruit, we avidly look
for talent that can add to our existing
skills, adding depth to our offerings and
helping the team’s knowledge grow.What kind of tools and technologies do
you tend to work with?
RM: This list is vast and varies between
departments. The one thing that’s
distinctive at Framework is we do all our
digital work in Sketch. This allows for a
seamless handover to front-end, helping
the team be pixel-perfect with their
outputs. Other technologies that we use
include Vue, Nuxt.js, ES6, Tailwind,
ESLint, postCSS, webpack and Yarn.You recently rebranded a kickboxing
academy. How did you approach this?
HS: This was one of the most interesting
and exciting projects we’ve worked on
and every single member of Framework
became involved. We were approached
by Team Elite Kickboxing (TEK) aroundSo what was the thinking behind
Framework 2.0?
PQ: Our thinking was based on a ‘holy
trinity’ premise: one head in account
services, another in creative and the last
in technology. It meant that as business
owners, at least two of us would [be
involved] with every project that came
into the studio and we could deliver on
our high standards for creative work,
underpinned by well-built technology.You describe yourselves as “honest
perfectionists”. What does that mean?
SH: I’ve always described the digital
industry as the wild west. There are few
standards. Customers play Russian
roulette over whether the work will be
done on-site or farmed off to a third
party. And the quality of delivery is
based on contractual obligations instead
of what’s right. I’ve seen a contract from
an international agency that stated they
could have a margin of error of 10px in
their front-end coding and this was
agreed by a client!
I could rant about this for hours... but
ultimately we don’t believe clients and
customers should be penalised because
of their inexperience with digital. So we
go out of our way to educate and inform.
And if we fail or there are problems, we
hold our hands up, use it as a learning
opportunity and ensure we deliver.You provide a wide range of services,
including digital, motion and print. But
you’re relatively small, so how do you
manage that?
LT: We have a good mix of senior
experienced staff and juniors that bring
in raw ideas. Between us all, we’re able
to deliver on all of the services we offer,
without relying on freelance support.
The studio is also set up slightly
differently to most agencies.
The classic agency model is very
accounts-heavy, with fulfilment
delivered by a small team of creatives
and developers. Work is then outsourced
to freelancers, depending on what comes
into the business, helping to expand and
contract without risk to the business.
The problem with this model is it’s very
hard to deliver a consistent brand styleChristmas time last year for a complete
overhaul of their current brand and site.
The goal was to grow their presence in
the world of martial arts.
We started out with a discovery
session, where we got to see just how far
they were willing to go. (In case you’ve
not seen their site yet, the answer was
‘very far’.) From there, we got to work
on branding, where two of our designers
mocked up lots of different options to
run through with the TEK team. After
lots of meetings and workshops, some
tweaks and lots of ‘wow’s later, we
locked down their final logo. Once the
logo was determined, our design team
jumped straight into UX, where they
mapped out the new TEK site and created
the wireframes for every page.
Once the clients were 100 per cent
happy, our designers got into what most
people consider to be the most exciting
part of a project: the actual designs. TEK
loved them and it took a couple of
rounds of amends to ensure it was
perfect, before we handed the work onto
our development team. While our
developers were working, we filmed TEK
and created all of their video content, as
well as the majority of the photos used
throughout the site.
Once completed and launched, we won
various awards for UX, design and