Hello 2015! Our recap of a successful 2014
We can’t believe it’s 2015 already but we’re excited to see what it’s got in store for us (Hopefully some sweet self-lacing Nikes for me).
2014 was one of the biggest and best yet for our digital agency. We launched some of our largest projects to date, helped existing clients achieve even more success online, welcomed a whole host of new faces to the team, and much, much more.
Here are a few of our favourite moments from Parallax HQ in 2014:
Launching a new website for the Professional Squash Association
Towards the end of 2014 we were working flat out on designing and developing an innovative new website for the Professional Squash Association. Enjoyed by over 20 million people worldwide, squash is growing in popularity every day with an estimated 50,000 courts across the globe.
We worked closely with the PSA to build a new website that shows rankings, tournaments and all information on professional squash. However, the most exciting part that we added was the updates to SQUASHTV featuring live squash streaming, alongside highlights from the world’s biggest tournaments.
One of our developers Richard Crosby spent months working on the project and had a few words:
Having the opportunity to work with PSA has been a tremendously rewarding experience, especially because of my own interest in squash. We’ve introduced some great technology into the project such as Recurly and Ooyala, and implemented them into a beautifully designed site. It’s a project that has demanded the best work from everyone involved and as a result, we’ve produced something we’re very proud of.
Au revoir Town Centre Car Parks, Hello CitiPark
We’ve been working with our friends over at Town Centre Car Parks for several years now, helping them to increase their online presence, implement a pre-booking system, and effectively sell car park season tickets on the web.
The tail end of 2014 saw TCCP transform their brand into CitiPark and we were there to support them through this transition with the design and development of a new website. Complementing their new, modern branding, we built a responsive website that’s even more enjoyable for users, featuring an innovative season ticket purchase route.
Barnaby Cotter, one of our developers was involved heavily in the launch:
CitiPark has been a really challenging, but fantastic project to work on. I enjoyed using cutting edge front-end technologies like angular.js to create a really slick user experience. It allowed us to convert an otherwise relatively dull ordering process into something enjoyable and interactive for the customer. I’m really happy with what we’ve achieved so far.
We’re going to be working with CitiPark throughout 2015 with more exciting features still to launch.
The Parallax team continues to grow
We pride ourselves on having an incredibly talented team and in 2014 we recruited some new brilliant individuals to our family. We brought onboard Chris, our resident Google wizard and SEO Manager (who also happens to be a bit handy when it comes to QA, testing, and general troubleshooting), super brainy, unflagging developers Richard, James, Amit, Adam, and Rob, as well as our new digital designer Gareth, not forgetting Gill who made the impressive jump to an Account Exec role.
Here’s a recent picture of a few team members when the new Manahatta bar popped by the office. Unfortunately Chris was unable to open his eyes when the photo was taken.
James Kirkby has been with the Parallax team for almost a year now and he’s seen a lot of changes:
I joined the team back in February 2014 and I’ve had the chance to work on some really great projects so far. From slick London-based branding agencies to recruitment websites, my work has been varied since day one. The team here at Parallax are super talented and I’ve learnt a huge amount since I started. If you’re looking to move to a new agency, Parallax is where you want to be. Plus, we also have beer on tap!
We’re not stopping there either, we’re constantly on the lookout for new recruits. Want to learn more? Check out our careers section.
Bespoke Expose ecommerce for CCTVdirect
October saw us launch one of our largest ecommerce projects to date through the launch of the new CCTVdirect website. We developed a beautiful responsive website, all sat upon a bespoke version of Expose that allows CCTVdirect to sell products and manage customer accounts.
Jack Sails, project manager on the CCTVdirect website launch was involved from conception to delivery:
CCTVdirect was an exciting project to work on as it gave us the opportunity to add ecommerce functionality into Expose, making its capabilities even broader than ever before. It’s always great to work on consumer facing sites, and making sure we really hit the nail on the head with making this site functional and easy to use for it’s users was a challenge we all enjoyed tackling.
Helping Onyx grow online
Over the past 12 months we’ve been helping Onyx to grow their presence online following the launch of their new website. We’ve worked together to create a whole range of content featuring everything from “What happens inside a data centre?” articles to interactive infographics such as ‘History of the Cloud’.
Our SEO Manager, Chris Mills, has been instrumental in helping Onyx overcome bad links and several high profile Google algorithm changes:
We’ve worked hard to stay ahead of the curve with Onyx, from rectifying their backlink profile, to implementing some pretty important technical changes to coincide with new changes to major algorithms. It’s been a successful year and we’ve seen some incredible movement across the SERPs. We’re excited for continuing the campaign throughout 2015 and what we’ll see change.
We’re looking forward to continuing to work with Onyx throughout 2015.
Creating a new experience for Arriva Bus and Coach
In September we were incredibly excited to announce the launch of a new website for Arriva Bus & Coach. Part of Arriva plc, they’re one the UK’s premier dealers of busses and coaches.
We designed and developed a new responsive website that showcases the range of vehicles that Arriva has to offer. We aimed to provide a great experience for users with a new simple search tool to find the perfect vehicle, as well as huge improvements to selecting parts and servicing.
James talks about security in Berlin
2014 was a year where our director James took it to another level when it came to sharing his knowledge. As well as speaking at various events in Leeds including the excellent Hey!Stac as well as Internet World in London, James took his talk on “Security is Everyone’s Responsibility” to the Beyond Tellerrand conference in Berlin. Speaking alongside some of the digital industry’s biggest influencers, James gave a talk about the state of website security today, the dangers of wireless networking and how we can easily improve security for our customers.
Check out the video from the event here:
James will be doing various talks throughout the year, but his next one will be in London this February.
More work for County Champions the Yorkshire County Cricket Club
September also saw us launch a brand new online shop for the Yorkshire County Cricket Club, just in time for their 32nd County Championship title victory over Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. We love working with winners and it was great to develop a new responsive online shop that sits perfectly within their website.
Introducing AWS Meetup Leeds
Working alongside Amazon Web Services, we launched our AWS meetups in 2014. The idea behind the meetups was to get everybody in the Leeds area working with the AWS services together to discuss best practice, enjoy hands-on labs, and listen to talks from industry experts. We were lucky to have some great guest speakers including Josh from Stac and Ian from AWS.
Check out the recap of our last meetup here. We’ll be announcing the date for the next one very soon but for now, why not join us?
Be part of our 2015
2014 was one of our favourite years so far, but we’re even more excited for 2015. We’re already rushed off our feet with a huge range of projects and we can’t wait to get started with a host of new clients.
Do you want to be part of our 2015? Let us know how we can help you. Get in touch.