December 1, 2020
It’s December already! How did that happen? In our last Scrapbook of 2020 we’ve got a Q&A with our newest team member, a photoshoot with fighter jets and a heated in-house design competition…
We absolutely cannot believe that this is the last Scrapbook of 2020! It’s a pretty big understatement to say that this has been a very weird year, and we’re sad that we won’t be able to see it out with our usual Fanatic Christmas party. However, we’ll definitely be donning our santa hats and festive jumpers for our Zoom calls!
We have more exciting team news this month – in addition to Katie who joined us as Tech and SEO Support in November (read her Q&A below), we recently welcomed Alice as our new Front End Developer. Being able to expand our team is a testament to the great work we do at Fanatic, and we’re excited to see what 2021 brings!
We’ve been busy creating a new website design for our client Effect Doctors. Over time since the initial launch of the website, we’ve been pushing forward not only the design and user journey but also a new digital marketing strategy to attract users to the site so that they can experience the refreshed design and become a paying customer.
This latest stage of development has seen the visual style take on a new direction, led by the large imagery provided from the client’s latest photo shoot. We have stripped the site back and focused on creating a clean and minimal design that focuses on photography and the user journey, whilst injecting a bit of colour and personality through the typography.
How have you found life at Fanatic so far?
Great! It’s been good to meet everyone and it’s been very supportive and welcoming! There’s been a big variety in tasks and I have learnt a lot already, and I’m excited for the future with Fanatic.
What were you doing before Fanatic and what made you get into Tech and SEO?
I was working as a junior web designer, at a group travel company (mostly stag & hen dos), so it was quite a lively office (to say the least). My job was mixed between design and SEO, but I became more and more interested in SEO and the technical side of it as I learnt more. It felt like the natural choice when I saw the opportunity come up at Fanatic.
What made you choose Fanatic?
The first thing I noticed about Fanatic was how passionate they are about their work, I could tell this just from looking at their website. This is initially what drew me in, but when I got to meet some of the team in person at the office it felt like such a good fit and I have never been so positive at the end of an interview!
What have you enjoyed most so far?
It’s been great to be involved in such a variety of projects from the get-go. Learning different techniques and gaining more technical insight.
What are you looking forward to learning more about?
I would like to learn more about server side technologies and security. I am also interested in user behaviour, and would like to learn more about on-page SEO, and how or why users interact with websites or content in a certain way and how we can use this data to implement changes to websites.
What’s an interesting fact about you?
After finishing my degree at Uni, I started to become interested in SFX makeup for film, so completed a short course, my first gig was a makeup artist on a live action zombie experience in Devon, it was definitely not your usual 9-5!
We began at 5.40am, to discuss the schedule for the day, and at 6am we signed in to the Guard Room at RAF Wittering. After a good stroll round the very large base, we began to follow the day’s events, capturing a ‘day in the life’ story, photographing RAF personnel and ESS team members as they interacted at various stages, including the key ‘downtime’ moments, as the military guys stopped flying their aeroplanes, working on heavy equipment or just carrying out office based admin, to take their breaks.
We were working with photographer Angus Taylor (click here to visit his website) to create a reportage-style library of images. Our aim, as we set out in our recent brand guideline development project, is to photograph ESS customers, whether in the three military forces, on offshore platforms, or in government offices, enjoying the hospitality, food and facilities provided through the extremely wide scope of services provided by the ESS team.
During the day we captured images of customers and ESS staff at work, in the kitchens, accommodation, cafes, shops and mess restaurants, as well as in hangars full of trucks, machines and even Harrier fighter jets, and captured many images that will be part of telling the story of just what ESS provide in the day to day running of military life on and off the base.
James
Since it’ll be Fanatic’s 20th anniversary (!!) in February 2021, we recently had a little in-house competition to design a celebration badge which will appear on our special 20th anniversary hoodies and our email footers throughout 2021.
After two heated rounds of voting, Sam was declared the winner with an impressive design that the team felt clearly expressed the theme of ‘20 years of creativity’. Congrats Sam! Look out for pictures of those hoodies soon…
Sam, Senior Graphic Designer
