web design lancashire Archives » Curlykale Curlykale

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!

I’m glad the sun is out and the warmth is slowly returning to this green land of ours. I do hear rain is on the way but still no need for log fires (though I do adore them) and central heating boosters as the warmth is here and here to stay(hopefully)

Things have been changing at curly towers and glad to be busy busy. We even have a work experience chap called Alex, who is enjoying every tremendous design task that is sent his way (with added cats)

With spring in full action we see new life and a new season paving the way for the sun. It is this time of the year that makes me feel very positive, a time when I feel like things can really get going and I even venture outside without the aid of a very thick woolly jumper. More and more people are spending more time outside of the office and we have noticed it here at curly towers. We are so pleased to see a new face pop in for chat or a friendly voice on the phone who we have worked with before. So if your have an idea that you have been mulling over for a while why not do it at this prefect time of the year! It will be Christmas again before we know it

I shall now publish this post and enjoy the view the window provides me while enjoying a tasty cup of cheap coffee (which is actually quite nice)

Gosh (Im not going to mention being busy, I know you are bored of hearing about it) It’s been a lovely, exciting, unexpected, engaging, inspiring, sweaty, fast, complex and phone-tastic week. Three times this week we have exceeded our chair capacity (CC). We (well I) have been neglecting the blog, apologies to all CAT fans, he will shortly return.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time this week driving up and down the country chatting with people, inspiring people, devoted and driven people, all passionate about their businesses and just needing a little help with the marketing side of things…and not wanting to pay a big trendy scary design company.

I harp on about this all the time, but I/we are really passionate about helping people out, from people just starting out in business who need everything from copy writing to photography and branding, to some bigger guys expanding and needing some corporate bits and bobs (and needing them right away! (Believe it or not, today I was on the capital centre car park whipping up an extremely last minute advert that was needed in 15 minutes (brackets in brackets in brackets- really? (yes) ))

Running a business is hard work. Everybody is out to get your money. I hope Curlykale is a safe haven for all business souls looking for a friendly honest chat and decent(ish) coffee. Give us a bell, come and have a rant, marvel at our window and ample parking facilities, drink our coffee, sit on a dangerous chair, lets get down to some work.

Enjoy your weekends

Golly. The New Year has started in an epic format at curlytowers ™ I know you are bored of hearing me moan about how busy it is…so I wont.

These last two weeks have just been a joy. So many people bobbing in, wonderful people, all looking to just get cracking with their businesses. They aren’t interested in hiring a company to spend hours round a whiteboard brainstorming strategy and synergy, dont give a flying flipple flapple about an 80 page SEO report, dont give an electric monkey’s purse about which shade of green is most lonely…they just want to push their business on, get some people looking at their website, and make some sales. No fuss, no messing around, just getting down to the bare facts…I love this.

I’m going to stop before I ramble on and on about this, I’m far too passionate about a more informal approach to doing business that im only a glass of wine away from setting up some form of anti-whiteboard association.

Have a lovely weekend, thank you for reading, lots of exciting news to come

Golly its been a busy one on the phones this week. We are overjoyed that the team from the Equity Advice line have come onboard with Curlykale to help them out with some marketing bits and bobs.

Really looking forward to working with Dental@Media city, a lovely team of nice and most importantly not scary dentists. We’re going to be helping them out with some of their marketing bits and bobs. Give them a peak if you are in need of a nice dentist in salford

Well, gosh, what a year it has been. I will be back to have a really big ramble before the end of the year (‘YAY’ I hear you cry), so much as happened this year I’d like to thank those who have helped on our journey.

But for now, the phones are closed and we can’t accept any new work enquiries until the New Year. If you have something really urgent, I’ll still be available here and there on the email.

I’m going to take opportunity of the down time to improve our hosting and database infrastructure and hopefully have a nice tidy up of our onlineness before we switch back on in the new year.

I’ll be back soon with a more intensive ramble!

Have a lovely evening!

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Golly gosh its snowing at Curlytowers! Technically its fast, fat sleet, but I’m counting it as snow. All of a sudden winter seems to have landed and we are getting closer and close to Christmas.

Its got a little manic as everybody trys to get all of their projects in and sorted before the new year..now really is your last chance to get in touch if you need something before the Christmas break.

We are closing down the towers on the 16th, but no doubt I’ll still be available on the email if you have urgent bits and bobs you forgot.

Stay warm!

Happy Friday everybody! I’m kicking off a new feature that I am sure you will adore. Web design fans look away. For the Friday evening blog post, is the blog post from the kitchen!

This evening Im attempting what I hope is a traditional Lancashire hot pot. The aga is on a mediumish heat. The cat is entertained by a potato…let us begin!

You will need some of this:

No doubt your potatoes will look better than these I found at the bottom of my veg basket (yes I have a veg basket) Before you start, you will need to drink that glass of wine.

Stick a nice heavy pan on your heat source (no doubt your heat source will be cleaner than mine!) when hot, fry your lamb bits at hot as you dare to seal

Remove to oneside and now do the same with the liver. Ive never really cooked with liver before…the after taste always puts me off, I hear the way forward with liver is either really fast or really slow…we’re going really slow.

Put the liver to one side, now we need to fry an onion or two in that lovely oil

The best part…when nice and soft, add some flour and BEAT LIKE MAD with a wooden spoon, let all the days stresses out..most of my stresses revolve around full stops and quote marks being put in the wrong place and bringing down an entire site.

Maybe Alice from accounting borrowed your illuminated novelty unicorn pen and never brought it back? Maybe Jez from the trendy company across the road parked in your place this morning with his shiny shiny car (Do you think he washes it every week?) ?…let it all out, show Alice and Jez you wont take that type of behaviour, STIR, beat, mush those onions into the flour and oils….stir! stir!

…Then add stock (we are an oxo family) a bit at a time and continue showing Alice and Jez that you wont be messed with.

And here we are with our tasty base, now add the lamb and liver back and take off the heat.

We now need to slice a potato or two and arrange on top

You’ll notice my degree in illustration coming in use with my arrangement.

Now we need to cover our tasty friend with tin foil and place into a low low oven…I set our aga to ‘quite cold, but still a bit warm’ – With anything like this, the longer its in there, the better.

Mine has now been in for 4 hours, Im going for a bath, and will pop back to post the results.

Now this must be better than a blog post about DIV positioning or some statistics that nobody cares about?