We work on exciting web design and branding client projects and are constantly pushing ourselves to ensure our work is of notable high quality.

Our current team of 7 has room for 1 more, someone who can work closely alongside the managing director to assist in project and account management, as well as general studio management.

This person will need to be highly motivated and have a natural passion for the web and graphic design, as well as a strong acumen for business.

It is essential that this person has, at least, a basic knowledge of web design and development, in order to effectively comprehend and relay knowledge between clients and designers/developers.

Responsibilities will include:
- project management
(we use a very helpful online tool called Basecamp to assist with this)
- account management
(maintaining communication between clients and Substrakt team)
- studio management
(generally helping out with resource management)
- new business
(occasional help with quoting, proposals and pitches)

We are looking for a committed person… in other words, we don’t plan on going anywhere and just want to get bigger and better, so it is hoped that someone joining at this stage will grow with us and enjoy the benefits of doing so.

If it sounds like this is the job for you then please get in touch directly with the managing director, Andy Hartwell, andy@substrakt.co.uk

NB Candidates must have a good sense of humour and taste in music.

No agencies please.

Some people might know me through my work with Rhubarb Radio, whose website Substrakt designed and I built. I also gave a talk at this year’s Moseley Barcamp about developing stuff from scratch. I run a successful web application for Twitter users, make podcasts and put in occasional appearances on Rhubarb.

A week is a long time in technology, but when it’s packed full of interesting things to do, it certainly flies by. I’ve now been at Substrakt for 7 days, and I’ve packed a lot in already. After a year working for myself, it’s great to be back in an office environment, and especially one as vibrant and friendly, and to cap off an exciting 2009 with a new position at a well-respected and growing firm is a real joy.

I’m hoping to bring my back-end dev skills and front-end know-how to the party, and help develop some of the exciting new projects the team have got in store. And any excuse to play with audio and video tools will add just a little to the already amazing pool of talent we already have here.

So that’s me. I’m @moxypark on Twitter, so come and say hi if you fancy a chat. I’ll be posting my occasional thoughts – when appropriate for public broadcast – here, and on my personal site when they’re not.

Light House

We were successful in winning the pitch to re develop the Light House website. We were really keen to work with the Light House on this project as it looked like an ideal project for the Substrakt team. The Light House is at the impressive Chubb’s Lock Works building in Wolverhampton, definitely worth a visit if you haven’t been…

Light House aims to increase the enjoyment and understanding of technologically – based media, in particular film, video, photography and creative media and to emphasise their importance to the cultural, social and economic life of Wolverhampton, the West Midlands and further afield.

We’re extremely pleased to be working on this project with the Light House team and aim to have the website launched early next year.

Punch Records

We have been working with Punch Records on a new web presence, the website will be launching early November and aims to effectively communicate Punch’s work and allow the team to successfully integrate their growing social media presence.

Punch specialise in a range of music events and touring productions including spoken word, theatre, dance, film and visual arts.  Punch is also an official Arts Award centre.

Producers Forum

We are delighted to be working with Producers Forum after winning the pitch to re develop their website.

The aim of the Producers’ Forum is to push the West Midlands forward as a vibrant centre for film production by supporting the region’s film professionals, whilst providing them with networking opportunities and high quality training from leading industry experts. Our aim is to put the West Midlands on the map by utilising the region’s talent and facilities to create a sustainable film industry.

A main part of the web development is to implement a members section which will enable user to join and build up their own profile pages as well as effectively communicating with other members. We’re looking forward to getting stuck into this.

Website due to launch in November.

Selco Builders Warehouse

We’ve just had confirmation that we’ve won a great new contract and will be working closely with Selco Builders Warehouse. We’re re developing their web presence in order for them to effectively display their vast product range online.

(I’m in the process of doing up my house so am well into the old DIY at the mo… hoping i can sort a cheeky membership)

Last, but by no means least… NHS

We’re obviously very pleased to add the NHS to our client list. We are working on some web development with NHS Birmingham East and North. Not too many details to dish at the moment, but we’ll update when the 1st stage of the project is complete.

Oh, and finally…

We are super chuffed to have an awesome new web developer, Mark Steadman, who will be introducing himself on the blog shortly.

My invite on the trip was thanks to BCU’s invovlement with a project called ‘Creative Metropoles: Public Policies and Instruments in Support of Creative Industries’. This project presents shared vision of 11 European cities on creative industries and creative economy. There was 4 from the West Midlands who traveled including myself, Steve Harding (head of BCU corporate development), Kerry Thomas (Fused Magazine) and Nina Lakeberg (BCU). (special thanks to Jon Hickman for thinking of me and Substrakt!)

The first event, Blender! was held at Aalto University Design Factory and aimed to give creative companies the opportunity to discuss the future of the industry and how doing business is affected by global changes. We were divided into groups and discussed the trends and weak signals relevant to our businesses, we then selected 2 themes to discuss in depth. The objective of these discussions was for the group to focus on the themes and develop a new business idea. Our business idea was an interactive platform called ‘Grandmother’ a concept inspired from attempting to oppose the ‘Big Brother’ concept. This is a blog post for another time i think!

I met several really interesting individuals and companies, especially a chap called Tuomas Siitonen from Part. We had a great discussion about projects involving new media within the built environment and i see a great opportunity to work with Tuomas and Part in the future.

CEB (Creative Economy and Beyond) was a 2 day international conference on the creative economy. There were several fascinating presentations, 1 of which that I found especially relevant and interesting was a talk from Professor Joachim Sauter from the Berlin University of Arts. Joachim runs a company called ART+COM that produces some pretty amazing interactive media solutions. I wrote a brief post about 1 particular interesting ART + COM project on a brand new blog Substrakt has started called Architekture. (more to come from this blog soon)

We managed to get to the launch of Design Week held at Helsinki’s impressive Cable Factory (seems like it’s standard for all good creative venues to be old factories!). It was inspiring to get close up with the Helsinki creative scene and experience the type of work the city is producing.

All in all a fab trip and I highly recommend the city to anyone who fancies a visit. So thanks again to those people who got me involved.

This site has more features to come including the expansion of a blog / resource section and the integration of social media including image feeds from Flickr and video feeds from Vimeo.