How has it been 25 years of Feel Design?

Reaching the end of August, and moving into September, for me, at least, is one of my favourite times of year. For me, it is always a time of movement and change and I’m often spurred on, if not to change direction, but to accelerate into new territory, because I associate September with new starts. From childhood, in the UK at least, we start a new school year in September, new classroom, new teacher, new clothes, new pencils, new subjects. Then, we move on to college, a bigger change, and then university, so, I associate the end of summer and the drawing in of the nights, and the later sunrise, and that first chilly morning, with the possibility of something new, and, also a time to reflect on the last year.

In redesigning our website, and bringing over old news posts to create an archive of our work over 25 years, rather than have them all in as portfolio jobs, it has made me reflect on the fact that Feel Design will have been going for 25 years in 2025! Where did the time go? The perils of getting old are the increasing speed with which time passes. The last couple of days, looking back through old projects, and events around Feel Design has made me realise just how much we have achieved over the years.

I don’t have a 100% accurate count, but, we have dealt with well over 1200 different clients, worked on over 3000 individual projects, built just short of 2000 websites and have worn out over 20 computers over the last 24 years! Phew!! I have no idea how many cups of coffee…

How Feel Design started in 2000

We have come a long way from the initial setup of Feel Design, whilst I was doing an MSc in Interactive Multimedia Production at Huddersfield University in 2000. Fresh from jumping ship on a primary school teaching career I had started in 1992, but had found increasingly frustrating in its lack of creative outlet, having trained in graphic design prior to that. While on the course, I was asked by a friend to sort a logo and one page site for their record shop. I did this, and realised I needed “a company” to bill from, although, in fact, I ended up getting paid in beer!! My friend said “You have a real feel for design”, and, so, the name was born.

I moved on to freelancing for a couple of design and web firms , one in Harrogate in December 2000, and one in York in the March. The former I created various websites, learning on the job how to do commercial work, having only built a couple of websites for schools and education projects in York before, and it taught me a lot. The firm in York, I ended up in charge of the main project they had, a CD ROM for a property development project, as I had learned Macromedia Director on the MSc and was, at the time, on the 3D module, so I did that as well. Real “in at the deep end stuff”. Again, I learnt a lot. Firstly, how to manage multiple tasks, but, mainly, seeing what they had taken on, and their budget, how not to take on too much and come unstuck, and know when to say “No” to a job. Valuable lessons.

On finishing the MSc (with a distinction) in the summer 2001, I started work in the web department of a design and marketing firm in Leeds, staying there till the February, when I moved to another, more web oriented firm elsewhere in Leeds, and worked there till the May 2002, when they went under, something I could see coming from the April , so was prepared, and three of their team went off and set up our own things, but working together.

Finding myself suddenly, with baby and family to support, a new house, meant I had to get Feel Design up and running, and fast!! I made a lot of phone calls, and went round places, talking to people, landing sub contracting work, for design firms in Harrogate and York, mostly in Flash, that was my speciality at the time, animation and interactivity, and started landing my own clients as Feel Design, and got a website up to show that off. The first proper client was Snow Home in York, who we worked with for many years, and a couple of others, and then in the September, out of the blue a call from a children’s book publishing company, Peter Haddock, who had seen our site and wanted a website. Suddenly a big client, owned by DC Thompson, who produced The Beano, and had, most definitely been a Beano kid growing up – still have my Dennis The Menace Fan Club membership wallet, I think paid for with postal orders as stuff was in the 70s!!! .A lot of work followed for them, and other companies in the group. We were away! Sadly, the Beano site never happened!!

Lecturing in web design, photography, graphics and multimedia at HArrogate College and Leeds Met

To supplement this income, I took on a lecturing job at Harrogate College and Leeds Met, in November 2002, building up very quickly to full time by the April as they realised the breadth of applications and subjects I could teach the students, looking back at my diary, although initially brought in to teach A Level photography, (only having done a GCSE myself 10 years before and not been in a dark room since) they must have suitably impressed as a week later, I was asked to teach HND Photoshop, and in the January I was in more of less totally full time 5 days a week teaching a dozen or more different modules, web design, photography, video, Photoshop, Illustrator, animation, you name it!!

In September 2003 they evening classes to my work! All the while new clients were coming in by referral, and the freelancing for other design firms helped too. We were building a bit of a reputation!! The evening classes helped spread the word to people in Harrogate about what I could do, and bring in clients, as I was running 12 week “Learn to build a website course” and often at the end of it, although they knew what to do, people would ask me to sort their company a website instead!!

This continued with me teaching on many different course, GSCE, A level, HND and Foundation Degree, (even one on Forensic Science photography) until Summer of 2004 when I moved to just evening classes, as Feel Design demanded a lot more time during the day to meet with clients, until at the end of 2005, finally I dropped the evening classes (and the occasional “Oh, can you please run this 12 week, 2 hours a week course for…”)!!!!

A new brand identity for Feel Design in 2007

By this point, with 2 children to support, one with school fees and the other due to start in a year or to, it was a pretty daunting prospect!! I rebranded the company, using images from Ogdens Cigarette cards from the 1930s as my father who died in January 2003 had been on one of the set from 1931 (Southport beach 1931 Sandracing, dad is number 6, as he did there and across the North of England, Morecambe, and Pendine and more! They gave us an identity that, as once person said when we posted our folder and media pack (in the days when that was the thing) “It’s like the birthday card you get at 17 from an aunt who thinks you are still 12, wonderfully old fashioned!!”

Feel Design grows and build a client base in Yorkshire and beyond

But, we moved onwards and upwards, building our client base rapidly, gaining experience, then freelancers, then full time employees, 2 by 2010! By this point we had a huge number of clients, a flow of new work, and when our last full time employee, as the other had, moved to London, leaving us in the lurch, I reached out to our freelancers, who, in all honesty, had been the skill-set mainstay, whole the full time employees did the everyday work, leaving me free to travel to meetings etc, as we didn’t want more people, full time in our home, where Feel Design has always been run from. This revelation, that we could exist without a large on site team was a changing force in Feel Design and from then, till now, 14 years later, we have worked on the basis that we bring in people, when needed, for their individual skills, and,. because, they, like myself, are their own bosses, it is their reputation on the line, and they get paid when the job is done, rather than a firm where 90% of people are on a salary, and they get paid as long as they get away with the minimum effort. I give maximum effort and I know the team I have assembled over the last 24 years, all of enom have been with me for 10 or 20 plus years, will give their all for our customers!

Feel Design’s clients

We have gained so many customers over the years, and lost a number too. Sometimes it’s because we were not “big enough” and they wanted a larger company, with fancy offices, and, often, when they go, they move on to one, then another, and another large agency, having been let down b an impersonal corporate structure, and are perhaps missing the personal touch of a small company like Feel Design, who, as I always say, punch way above our weight!! Those clients that have stuck with us, loyally, for 23 years in some cases, and 20 plus in many, have had that loyalty reciprocated.

We have worked with our clients for so long, they are friends, we have seen babies born, grown and then off to university, just like our own sons, we have shared moments of joy, grief, and more with clients, and we have forged long lasting relationships. We have lost a few clients to more than a change of agency, sadly, particularly Bob, a children’s entertainer, and magician, who I met when running the aforementioned evening classes in 2002, and who we worked with from then, until he sadly passed in 2023, 4 years after he had told me, in a meeting, in 2019, he had mesothelioma. RIP Bob, a pleasure to have known you! But, we have maintained so many customers for decades, that’s what makes me proud, Clover House Dentists, despite the original owners retiring in 2023, and many more.

The future of Feel Design

What does our 25th year hold for us? Who knows?! I know we plan some big changes of location, while still maintaining our client base in Yorkshire, made possible by the last 4 years, post pandemic, when we got so many customers through lockdown, we got so many of our clients through those nightmare times with online ordering and click and collect systems, all via phone calls and Zooms/Teams/Google Meet online conferences.

The key things I take from the last 24 years, to bring into our 25th, are:

Don’t take on a job that’s too big and out of your scope – say no and walk away. You know what you can do, don’t let someone down though arrogance.
If the first meeting or call feels wrong, it is wrong. You are not the right fit. Say no.
Do your best, every time, get back to people as soon as possible, and they will appreciate that, and stick with you. That means a lot. The biggest moan I hear about “the last form” is that they never got back to customers.
Don’t cut corners, with things like hosting, cheap hosting will be slow, and the support terrible, we have an amazing relationship with Namesco, our hosts, having used them for 19 years, and are their largest customer, and that gets loyalty and excellent service from my dedicated server team there, who I know personally after many years. We could go cheaper but the result would be poorer service.
and If you are working with, or referring someone, who lets you down, stop using them, you can find better, you always will, and I have that team now, it’s taken a long time and a lot of let downs and people vanishing and not returning calls after a couple of jobs.
Listen to people, I have had a number of calls from clients, and random enquiries, that turn from an enquiry, or update request, to a therapy session. Sometimes the call is not about work, it’s about necessity. they need to sound off about some awful stuff that’s going on, and they have picked you. Go with that, it’s an honour. Take some time out to listen, you might well save a life.
Keep notes, get a decent CRM, we use Daylite and have for 20 plus years, keep everything, never delete a thing, because at some point someone will ask you for a login they gave you in 2004 for their hosting, and, if you have that, you are a GOD!!
Back stuff up. Back everything up. Daily. On multiple locations. I know one company who lost a months worth of work when a computer died, and it closed them down, having to redo all the work, for free, killed them. The cloud is your friend.
Every client is an individual, you have a process, but they have an identity. What works for one person, won’t necessarily work for the next.
Never send an email before your first coffee unless a total emergency!

Cheers!! 25 years is a big thing, one I never considered way back in 2000!! Below, one of the images we used as part of our branding in the early 2000s until a few years ago. Ogdens cigarette cards from 1931, my dad is rider number 6!!