SHOWCASE
SurĽoh
What are Noughts & Ones’ preferred
tools and technologies?
AM: Platform-wise, Squarespace and
Shopify will always be at the core of
Noughts & Ones; however, we always
keep our ear to the ground for emerging
web tools and technologies.
One thing we have in place to help
facilitate this is allocated ‘off-project’
time during the working week, which
allows each team member to explore a
range of new platforms, technologies
and development.
At the moment I’m studying a UI
course and picking up Sketch as a tool,
which is really helping to grow my skills
as a creative-led developer.You’re one of the leading Squarespace
Specialists. What’s the secret to building
great sites within its ecosystem?
TL: The secret lies in a combination of
genuine passion for the platform and
ambition to really push the boundaries
of its capabilities. Our in-depth
understanding of the native Squarespace
ecosystem and content structure enables
us to develop completely bespoke
websites that, when deployed and
handed over, are just as easy to manage
and maintain as one of the ‘off-the-
shelf’ templates.I soon found myself feeling frustrated
by the constraints of the templates and
taught myself basic HTML, CSS and
JavaScript to customise the sites I was
building. Through the custom work on
the platform, I established Hive Social as
a leading Squarespace specialist. In 2017,
I incorporated the company, made my
first hires and started pursuing my
dream of growing my own agency.
Last year saw Hive Social undergo a
complete rebrand and we started
working with Shopify as well as
Squarespace. We are really proud to have
grown a number of awesome brand and
agency partnerships and worked on
some seriously cool projects!What is Noughts & Ones’ USP?
AM: We’re more than just developers.
Not only do we pride ourselves on our
in-depth platform expertise but we
ensure that ambitious creativity remains
at the heart of all we do. Working with us
is a collaborative, approachable and
infectiously creative experience.You’re based in Bristol, which has
become quite a creative hub in recent
years. What’s so special about it?
TL: Bristol is built on innovation,
offering an incredible culture for creative
businesses. It has so many distinct areas,
each with their own identities – you can
find something different going on in
every corner of the city!
A big secret to some of Bristol’s
success as a creative hub is down to the
thriving entrepreneurial community that
brings together startups, (loads of)
awesome coworking spaces, events and
essential support networks.What does your ideal client look like?
TL: Because of the nature of our platform
specialisms, we’re used to working on
projects of all shapes, sizes and sectors –
which is something that we love!
Fundamentally, we look for brand and
agency clients that are passionate about
their product/project/client, have
ambitions to really push the boundaries
of their website platform and are open to
truly collaborating and giving us the
freedom to flex our creative muscles.For Half Hitch Gin’s site, you started with
a standard Squarespace template then
rebuilt it. What did this involve?
JC: Half Hitch Gin (www.halfhitch.london)
was a really interesting one! It was one
that we’d call a ‘template-led’ project –
so rather than producing custom website
designs ourselves (or working with full
designs provided by an agency partner),
we simply had some very rough website
‘concept mockups’ provided by Half
Hitch’s branding agency that were
loosely based on an existing Squarespace
template. This meant that we could
quickly get the basic website structure
up and running and then get really stuck
into some of the key custom design
elements and features – which is where
this website really stands out.
We started out by building the website
architecture on the Fulton template and
adjusted the Site Styles to get the core
template as close to the concept
mockups as possible. Once we’d gotten
as far as we could within the standard
Squarespace design settings, we
proceeded to further tweak the design
and layouts with CSS (ie overlay menu
and individual page colours) and
embedded any third-party applications.
We then got down to building out a
number of custom features, the biggestThe Bone Idol shop project included the use of various Shopify plugins to deliver some of the
functions needed, such as the ‘measuring guide’