20 years in the industry

Wow, 20 years, I've been in the industry for 20 years. That's nuts 🤯

We've had the best year to date professionally at MadeByShape, but personally - I've had the worst year ever. And I'm just looking back to reflect on where we are now, and how far we've come as an agency, I'm so proud of what we create daily and the high standards we've set within the market. 

My first taste of design was at Fred Longworth High School, when I decided to take Graphic Design over P.E. (because I thought I was going to be a Footballer and I didn't need P.E. as a subject). At school, it was all hand based drawing and ideation, my final year project was to create my own football team - including Name, Badge, Identity, Stadium, Marketing, Everything - I absolutely loved it.

I then went onto complete a National Diploma at Wigan and Leigh College, again this was mainly traditional Graphic Design with very little use of computers. It was only when I went onto Salford University where we used Macs daily to design. Within my second year, I was introduced to Web Design and that's where my career really started to bloom.

I gained around 200 freelance clients whilst I was a student at University, through networking, practicing my service offering by helping other students with their projects, and doing as much free work as possible to improve my portfolio. I also completed work experience at multiple design agencies to learn from people in the industry.

Once I graduated from Uni, I was offered some jobs, but decided to continue working freelance with the idea that, if this didn't work - I could still go and get a job. I was lucky enough to be offered a part-time role as a University Lecturer on the course I'd just completed, and at the age of 21 I thought this was great for my CV, so I accepted the role and I taught on the course whilst building up my freelance career.

It was only a couple of year later that my freelance career naturally turned into an agency, and MadeByShape was born. Myself and Jason were already working closely together on freelance projects. I'd go out and win the work, network, project manage and design the website - then hand it over to Jason to build - we just split everything 50/50. We were so busy, this had to turn into an agency, a proper business, a fully fledged adult decision.

We started as a pure Web Design Agency in Manchester, we didn't offer any other services. This is what we were known for over a period of time. But we realised over time, that there was a gap in the market for an agency who can offer Brand, Web and SEO all in-house.... to a very high standard across the board.

So we hired and built up specific teams in those 3 key areas. We can now help individually with Branding, Web Design and Development and SEO or clients can come to us for the full package.

We love working with a range of clients, from small start up brands through to large global organisations. I've always wanted to work like this, and we always will for a few reasons. Mainly because it keeps our diary exciting, you're not just working on one project for ages, you can keep the brain ticking by working on a range of clients/industries/projects.

We're going to stick within these service pillars, and are happy outsourcing other services like PPC, Social, Photography and Videography to our preferred partners.

Our first studio was in Manchester city centre, a nightmare of a commute and a total waste of time in my opinion. Our decision to move outside the city centre was positive all round, I can't think of any negatives. It's far more flexible for staff/clients to get to and from. And with our flexible working system, it was one of the best business decisions I ever made.

As you build a business, you'll learn over time, from mistakes, from advice, from findings - it's natural. And the biggest change over the last few years internally, is that our processes and workflows have continued to develop and move with the business. It's really important to adapt and evolve.

We've had Project Managers, we've used different tools, apps, sales techniques, tried various routes to market. And I think we're in the best position ever, today. I fully trust my team to deliver the best work, at speed, and to make it fun. Which is rare in my opinion.

We've grown over the years in terms of team members. We've grown as people. We've grown into experts in the field. I genuinely believe we're one of the best brand and web design agencies in the UK, and that our portfolio backs this up.

Financially we've improved year on year, and although we might not be the biggest, we're profitable, it's sustainable, and we provide security to our staff. I'd much rather be in this position than have huge growth but be unstable and everything fall down like a tonne of bricks. I've come across many agency owners who have had difficult times and I'm proud to say that we're still going as strong as ever.

The remaining time in 2024 is all about finalising projects, and looking after extra support clients. But 2025 will bring a range of new, exciting, projects that will allow our team to get stuck into and we go again.

2025 will also see me raise my personal brand, AG, where I talk about my journey in business and how we've grown MadeByShape to what it is today. I'll be doing this via Video content over on my LinkedIn account so give me a follow if you're interested. I've included the very first AG video I did below.... but then I've had to deal with a load of sh!t personally this year, so the videos were put on hold until 2025.