SHOWCASE
SurĽoh
Series Eight focused on bringing Best in Grow to the forefront so it could stand out from the competitors
with a strong and cohesive design systemMV: At the start, we found the odd client
didn’t feel comfortable about hiring a
remote team – perhaps it didn’t feel
credible to them that we all weren’t in
one place. However since it’s becoming
increasingly popular in the industry, in
recent years each and every lead we’ve
had hasn’t seemed to be fazed by it at
all. At the end of the day, it comes down
to the projects in our portfolio, our
referrals and our reviews that have given
us credibility.
Also, our processes on how we work as
a team have to be right on. The way we
handle project management and
communication came under scrutiny,
leading us to continuously refine our
processes and become fluent in our
tools, which I strongly believe has led us
to become better at what we do.You create your own tools and functions
and put them on GitHub (github.com/
serieseight). Tell us a bit about them.
MV: We always seem to grab inspiration
from other open source code or reusable
components and it’s amazing how
someone’s tool that’s been released for
free can help another designer’s or
developer’s way of working.
We set out to make the most of the
components that we use on a daily basis,
such as smooth scrolling or a simple andYou operate as a fully remote studio. How
did you come to this arrangement?
FV: London will always be our favourite
city – it’s an amazing place to be.
However, with both mine and Mario’s
roots in island living, we felt the daily
London grind was taking its toll on us
and we yearned for a slower paced,
sunnier lifestyle. Series Eight was in a
place where a lot of our business was
coming from abroad, particularly the
States, so this made our decision to
move feel less risky. We also listened to
the experiences of other remote
companies and had the opportunity to
receive mentorship sessions from people
we really respect, which gave us some
confidence in making what we felt could
be a make or break decision.What difficulties can your remote model
bring and how do you cope with them?
FV: In our experience, the remote model
was only difficult at the beginning. It’s a
bit like moving to a new neighbourhood;
we just had to learn how to adapt and
iron out any teething problems. Once we
found our feet, going remote has actually
brought so much strength to our
business; we’ve tripled in size and our
portfolio has really diversified.
Going remote isn’t for everyone
though: team members have to be self-
starters, effective communicators and
great project managers all in one.
Finding new colleagues to fit this criteria
was our number one struggle when we
first left London, as pure talent is simply
not enough. It’s taken time and patience
but we’re now in a place where we’ve
been able to hire based on incredible
skill and character rather than location.
Slack and Google Hangouts are our best
friends; we have multiple channels for
everything from dev chat and design
inspiration to Netflix tips! We like to use
video chat as much as possible and on
Monday mornings we have a team
huddle where each member does a show
and tell of what they’re working on.
We’re a smaller team so we’re able to do
this easily and everyone feels included
and connected. It’s also a great time to
share things we’ve learnt whilst working
on different projects to each other.lightweight parallax feature, free for the
world to use. This also allows the public
to try it out and make suggestions, which
in turn helps us improve our codebase.
We also have a whole bunch of
Statamic CMS add-ons that we’ve built
for free. These are features that we built
for some of our clients and felt they
would be super useful to the public. You
can check more of them out at serieseight.
com/internal.Some of your recent work has been with
cannabis-related companies. Is this a
good market to be in?
MV: Since the legalisation of cannabis
for either medicinal or recreational
purposes in various countries around the
world, the industry is obviously
expanding rapidly and [therefore]
leading to many cannabis-related
companies being formed.
To date, we’ve worked with a smart
packaging company for medical
marijuana, POS software to keep
cannabis companies compliant and most
recently some team management
software for dispensaries. What each of
these companies have in common is that
their teams are made up of innovative
and dynamic people who are passionate
about advocating for the legalisation of
cannabis and creating products and tools