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How was your festive time? Did you rest, drink, sleep and eat? I do hope so, you worked so hard you deserved a treat.

AD7 Due to an odd selection of gifts from team curlykale I’m writing this blog posting dressed as a giraffe drinking a glass of cockspur rum (it’s been a stressy few days back)

This is one of those long rambling posts, so you may want to give up now if you’re after design / web design / font news.

You decided to continue, I shake your hand for your bravery.

It’s been an interesting year at curlytowers ™ I thought I’d sum everything up in headings for fans of proper structure.

Vicky & Matt

This year both Matt & Vicky came onboard full time, due to a recent desk rearrangement both are forced to sit within my zone of interference (ZOI), yet manage to continue their work unharmed. Curlykale Design (also known as CKD to the trendier followers of the kale) started out many a moon back as me in my back bedroom, working like a maniac for those brave enough to employ me. I answered business calls whilst in the sea naked sat in an arm chair (unfortunately matt was there to witness this) I worked late into the night, drove around the country, and generally worked like a very large bean to get CKD going. We are now going. CKD has grown into something FAR larger than me, I cant imagine it without the wonderful Matt & Vicky..left to my own devices we’d be in a very different place.

Office

We’ve moved around quite a bit. This year we took the next step and moved down the road from the wonderful Remedy Centre which we simply adored being part of (give them a ring if you need fixing – they can fix most human problems) The most wonderful team at Glasgows had a bit of office space going upstairs and invited us in. We’ve now been installed for 2 months and are simply adoring being so close to them (they smell lovely) We’ve been making full use of both hot and cold running water…fans of early curlykale will be pleased to know that 100% of our chairs are now industry standard safe (many thanks to those who didn’t sue us from falling off our old chairs). Next week our new sign is to be installed – we are officially office trendy.

Clients

You guys are ace. We are so lucky, we seem to attract the most wonderful, interesting, beautiful, lovely clients. 2012 Saw a massive influx of more beautiful people into the curlykale tent, people starting new businesses, big businesses who are sick of the old ways looking for a more stress-free approach and those lovely people in the middle. It’s simply a joy to welcome you at the door, you’ve already read the blog, you know I dont wear shoes, you already know we have a cat on twitter, you are part of our family before you even come in.

So what’s the plan for 2013?

We are growing. More and more people are coming onboard the good ship kale, I’m determined to keep the Curlykale spirit alive. The plan is to continue onwards, I’m determined we’ll never wear suits, I’m determined to keep answering the kitchen line no matter what time of day, I’m not going to wear shoes and our cat will continue to be a cat. If you want to be part of a something that will look after you, guide you and inspire you…bob by right now for a mediocre coffee!

It’s been a busy week, I wont lie to you, I’m writing this whilst attempting to make dim sum, my attention is not fully on my spelling and grammar…no doubt there will be lapses, apologies to all fans of grammar and spelling.

We’ve had a lot of lovely people pop in this week. Bravely, they step forth into the design world. They expect the worst. Long words, pantone booklets, folders, longer words and contracts, men in suits, trendy water, pool table…a clean office…you wouldn’t believe the relief I see upon their faces after they meet us.

We could be doing this business lark a LOT better. We could corporate ourselves up, we could have a clean website, we could send out boring eshots, attend networking events, drone on and on about design on twitter and on our blog..we could have time to tidy our office, time to make powerpoint presentations… and time to put on / buy shoes.

But we dont.
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Hi there, if you are reading this (I assume you are, if you’re not we’ll get into some form of tree / forest / sound loop) we’ve just launched our new site complete with coffee stains and increased levels of purple.

We had be using our previous site in various versions of fiddling for nearly 3 years, possibly nearly 4. It had served us really well, as with many other businesses these days our website is our shop front and our first contact with our lovely customers.

We’ve grown so much in the last year, our shoes no longer fit, I’m getting more and more grey hairs and our website didn’t really fit any more. I hope our new version remains true to our style, our brand and style / method of attacking business which means everything to me.

We’ve been attacked by salesmen this week*(see starred ramble) and it has just reinforced my thoughts that the way to do business and get on in life is to play cricket. Do good work, talk to people normally – actually talk to them, don’t bombard with big words, dont hassle for sales and dont whip out contracts – It’s important our website reflects this – I do hope it does, shout at me if it doesnt and Ill install more unicorns

*Seriously I couldn’t believe it …Saleslady 1 was so confident in her £100/ month service that she started filling in the contract whilst still talking to us (partial mid posting note – cows are eating next doors potato garden, I suppose I should make a noise to scare them off) This angered me greatly, I gave her a good old stare and she left with her trendy shiny shoes. (If you are interested we went with the company quoting £40/month and didnt even send out a saleman, they just talked to us nicely on the phone and gave us what we need)…we are a small company, after walking through our door, why on earth would anybody try and sell us a £100/month magical magnotronic super whizzer ™ as used by Fortune 100 companies…we can just about afford a pen each**

**which I eat

I appologise dear reader, this could possibly be our worst blog posting, the structure, rhythm, grammer and spelling are appauling. Grammar police feel free to shout at me below.

In summary… I raise my glass of Friday red to our old site, I cant bring myself to delete the files from the server, they shall remain in hosting limbo. I shake our new site by the hand with a stern manly handshake, I expect great things from you, you have a lot to live upto.

Adam

Hi there blog fans, remember me?

It seems every time Im posting something here Im also rambling on about how busy it has been, this time is no exception, gosh it seems so long ago that we started this blog and most of the postings were about toast (see here!)

I’m caught between worlds of thought about what a blog should be and want I think people want to see.

Being design lads and lasses we should be blogging of design trends, the latest fonts, interesting uses of colour, a nice bit of typography that we found whilst out and about, a curious T, a hilariously bright new red.

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I’ve had a glass of wine, I apologise in advance if this gets a little carried away!

Gosh that was a year. It’s almost the end of 2011 and I feel this past year really has made us us. (If that makes sense?) We’ve been up, down, side to side, up and down again, and then round the other side.

Its been a pleasure to meet so many fantastic new people this year, I really adore the unexpected knock at the door, not knowing who’s going to bob in for a chat. I am really quite passionate that we always remain nice guys, open house and rather laid back, no jargon, no fancy words, no contracts, just getting down to business.

We seem to operate different to other businesses… We live what we do. We are the business. We don’t go home and think about something else, Curlykale is our world, it’s more of a lifestyle than a business. We worry if something isn’t working right, I cant get to sleep some nights just from rattling through ideas in my head. We tweet what we are cooking at night, we love having a natter on the phone and we often overrun meetings by hours just chatting away.

I’m often told that we need to be more business-like, we need to go out and attend networking events, we need to submit ourselves for all the various awards and that we need more pens in the office*…buts it’s just not what Curlykale is, I/We thrive on just getting down to doing the work and talking to people, doing their work, and not charging the earth. Playing fair, being honest and telling it as it is.

We don’t have a trendy office, we don’t have a corporate meeting room full of bagels, biscuits, whiteboards, and big comfy chairs. But we do have a lovely office full of odd chairs that we adore, we love that we have a window, we love the quirky guys at the remedy centre downstairs (seriously, they can fix anything) and we love (and are slightly scared of) the ghost that lives on the stairs.

Its an absolute honour when you guys ring up and choose us…it really is. Curlykale seems to attract the most wonderful, interesting and very driven clients, I can’t express how much we adore you all.

I’d like to thank you all for choosing (or considering) Curlykale, we look forward to working with you in 2012.

*…I promise I’ll buy some more pens

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Good Friday (Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday depending on your time of viewing) dear reader. (For those expecting a blog posting on that fantastic CSS curvy thing, I think you will need to wait a little longer)

How has your week been? It has just been a normal week at Curly towers ™ nothing too exciting to report (although we have managed to completely finish off Elizabeths box of biscuits in 4.5 days) Quite a thoughtful week, my mind has been pondering this and that and the future of the kale, lots of exciting things on the horizon, I’m just not quite sure which order to put them in.

I do believe we have a lovely little business here, its a pure joy to meet so many wonderful people on a daily basis, nice, honest people, all approaching business in the same way that we like to..no fuss, no messing around, no contracts, no long words. We know you, and you know us…it really is wonderful.

I’m quite passionate about cutting all the rubbish out of web design / graphic design / seo / whatever. If you call or bob by for chat, we’ll tell you how it is, what to bother with and what not to bother with. We simply aren’t going to take your money to start an SEO campaign that will be a waste of time, or to setup a load of social networking systems that wont deliver you any results. If we can’t do it, will let you know who can!

It’s late and I sense I’m rambling on too much. Maybe I’ll have an epic end of year ramble, or take some time to put my thoughts down in a more eloquent manner and place within the site somewhere (we are due a website refresh / revamp )

I will leave you with the master and his Lazer Harp (Really want one of these) – Do you think he really requires the glasses to operate this instrument?

Have a glorious weekend

Another post with nothing to do with web design, sorry design fans.

Another wonderful visual treat from the Disney lads, I brought our broadband to its knees streaming this in 1080p. I hope watching parts of this will bring a smile to your Fridays.

Skip to the best bits, I know you’re busy:

2:00 Disney showing off their coloured bulbs
17:42 scary bits mixed with pirate action
22:50 disney happy ballad time
24:20 Beginning of the Big Disney Doodah buildup
26:20 epic action