Web design and development by Front, a strategy, design and technology studio in Belfast, Northern Ireland

We’re doing some research into the user experience of content management systems, so if you’ve ever been involved in managing a website, we’d love to get your insight.

Click here to take the short survey!

We say this a lot, but there is nothing more important to Front than its team.

We take a lot of care and attention when we build sites for our clients; drawing on a diverse and highly-skilled team. Everything that we do is founded on the hard work of our team, and we recognise that we can only be successful as a company by putting our people first.

I was lucky enough to overview of last year’s web2 expo, and Paul May’s summary from 2008.  We keep coming back to events like this because we believe in the value of getting out there.  Learning from the world’s brightest experts - and sharing our ideas with others - is what keeps us fresh.  There’s really no substitute.

Perhaps the end of the decade is making me reflective, but there has been so much happening that its hard to believe its only 12 months since I welcomed 2009. Time has flown.

The Front Team

Since the start of the year we’ve been working towards the Investors in People standard (and hope to have good news here soon).  Jamie, and Paul both passed their Prince2 Practitioner exams, so that we now have 5 professionally qualified project managers available - with the rest of the team completing their Prince2 Foundation exams too.

We’ve welcomed Lee Braiden and David Hughes onto the team along with internal promotions for Adrian (now officially our senior developer) and Paul May (now our user experience consultant).

Romance has been in the air; I got married this year too (as did three other Fronties - but not to eachother). Being able to switch off my mobile phone for a month and leave things to the team here was a sign of the way the company has grown and matured. 

The Front Studio & Website

The studio has had a bit of a well deserved face-lift with new collaboration rooms (see more images of the studio on Flickr) and some old kit sent off to Kenya.

The front website is still very much a work in progress, although we’re slowly getting there with a summary portfolio  and new careers page.  We’ve also written plenty of articles for the blog this year, including my Why Great Design is About Problem Solving and Paul May’s Smart Procurement: Buying Online Expertise.

We’ve started publishing content elsewhere on the web, with a great selection of photos on Flickr and videos on Vimeo.  Best video of the year has to go to Paul May for his most innovative use of a fruit metaphor:

We worked on several potential ideas for 4ip with the help of the incredibly talented Ewan McIntosh. We’d like to wish Ewan all the best as he leaves Channel4 after doing a sterling job to reshape and rethink public service broadcasting.

We’re still here to help, but will have some temporary procedures you should keep note of should you need us for a support issue.

We’ll only be accepting support issues from customers with service level agreements.  As the studio is closed, we’ll only be accepting issues via email - so if you have a priority support issue during this time please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). 

We’ll let you know that we’ve got your email and what we can do to help. (We can’t guarantee a response if you post on basecamp or phone the studio – so please make sure you email the support address).

Apart from that – have a very Merry Christmas, and we’ll see you all again next year!