Jason - Co-Founder & Developer

You’re Co-Founder of Shape, how did it all start?

Before I got in University I’d already been freelancing for people throughout the country, and knew all through University that I didn’t want this to change. I didn’t want to work for anybody else, I wanted to pursue my own goals and build my own thing. Luckily, I had an awesome tutor throughout Uni (Mark Scargill!) who put me in touch with Andy (Due to his Macromedia Flash skills being replaced by HTML5!) and it all boomed from there. I developed websites, whilst he designed them. Then we decided it would just be better if we merged… Shape was born!

Have you always wanted to be a web designer / developer?

Up until around 15 years old I wanted to do a more physical job… a Fireman! I used to be obsessed with anything fire related (I wasn’t an arsonist!) and I remember visiting numerous fire stations across Manchester. Not sure what happened, and why there was such a drastic job change though...

What's your favourite aspect about working at Shape?

Every project we work on brings a different set of challenges and something new to learn. The fact that we do this means that we progress our skills and every day is interesting (Even Mondays!)

Did you ever think when you was younger that you’d own your own company?

In the back of my head I knew that’s where I wanted to go. My Dad ran his own company for a few years and I know that inspired me to give a bash at it myself.

What’s your favourite night spot in Manchester?

Oooo, now this changes regularly. If it’s a bit of a chilled night I’m down for a bit of Grub MCR (Who doesn’t like street food and craft beer!) and then heading in to Manchester the usual haunts are Gasworks, Gaslamp or Brewdog!

Which project was most satisfying for you to work on?

Even though it’s a few years old now, and one of the first “big” projects we worked on… It has to be “Blackberry - A Calendar of Tales”. The thing that I enjoyed about this project was that it pushed me quite hard to learn new things in such a short period of time (Not to mention physically also - There was a fair few 16 hour days!) It was also the first job we’d got working with such well known people (Neil Gaiman) and companies (Blackberry)