Alex Hardy

Just a quick post to mark that it’s five years to the day since I joined The Foundry. I know this because I checked the scratches on the wall beneath my desk.

I kid… Five years may not seem like such a long time, but in this industry it’s not uncommon for people to leave after much less. It says something about the place that I’m still here and have no desire to move on.

I might as well also mention that a group of us are doing the Great Manchester Run again this May, which will be the third time. We are all running for the children’s charity Barnado’s this year. This is in memory of a client and friend of the company (and supporter of Barnado’s) who I’m sad to say passed away last year.

I’ll be putting together a Justgiving page very soon.

Better get training, then!

The Foundry Communications is looking to hire three people to join our team.

The Foundry is a design agency based in Altrincham, Manchester UK. I’ve worked there happily for five years and would urge anyone to apply for these roles if you think you fit the bill. With several new account wins and an imminent move to a new office, these are exciting times for us. Here are the job descriptions:

Creative

Art Director? Designer? Don’t pigeon-hole yourself! Talented, innovative problem solver required to join our fantastic team. Your track record will speak for itself.

Web Developer

Devoted developer to join our expanding new media department. Wants to excel, working on many international brands. PHP/JSP, MySQL, XHTML and CSS essential. Flash, ActionScript and Dreamweaver experience are highly beneficial.

Mac operator

Enthusiastic, type lover, doesn’t want to be a designer, but a brilliant artworker.

Disclosure: There is a bonus for an employee that is instrumental in filling these positions. Please use my contact form to express your interest.

The Foundry’s recent run of Flash sites continues with Daisy and Friends. Daisy is a cow who would you believe, loves nothing more than making toasted sandwiches. She and her friends live on a farm where you can download recipes, wallpapers and play the “Crazy Daisy Challenge” game. The range of products starts with a rather cute toastie maker with cow print on it.

A new website by The Foundry went live this morning. Cheeky Monkey Business Solutions deliver “a human approach to innovation and change.”

Designed by our very own Mital Daya and built by myself, we had lots of fun working on this one.

Explore the site and see how many secret animations you can find!

In keeping with our accessibility guidelines, a HTML version will follow soon.

Yes, it’s true. I don’t sit around all day thinking of things to post on my blog. In fact, I have a day job! I work for The Foundry Communications Ltd – a design agency in Altrincham, Manchester.

The Foundry is currently interested in hiring two mac operators to help support its busy creative department. These permanent roles are as follows:

Senior mac operator

“Excellent typographical and organisational skills, photoshop, illustrator etc would be a bonus.”

Junior mac operator

“At least 3 years experience, enthusiastic, loves type, doesn’t want to be a designer, willing to listen and learn.”

The Foundry has an strong list of clients including Scholl and Scottish & Newcastle and is home to some of the most talented people I have ever met, who produce consistently great work. It routinely outdoes agencies much larger than itself.

The atmosphere is friendly and relaxed with a hard working team spirit, and you can’t ask for much more than that. I’ve happily worked here for over four years.

If this sounds good to you, you can either contact me or contact The Foundry directly.

Disclosure: There is a bonus for any employee that is instrumental in filling these positions. If you contact The Foundry directly, please do me the courtesy of stating that you found out about them here.

This morning we braved a chilly Altrincham to have a group shot taken for a pitch.

Glad we didn’t use the “waving” one.

Clickey for a biggun.

On another note, it’s only a week until the Manchester Run! Yipe! You know what to do!

We’ve just had a bit of a techno swaparound, and now I’m getting used to the rather compact keyboard of a Core Duo MacBook Pro. It’s a very nice machine, and will be even nicer wen i gET USed t0 typng n iT.

We’re going to install Parallels Desktop and Windows XP on it. I look forward to finding out how good a solution that really is, or whether I’ll be scampering off with the Acer off Ian’s desk every so often.

Today is the first day (in work) of my fifth year at The Foundry, a creative agency in Altrincham, Cheshire.

I was hired principally for my Director skills to maintain a presentation system for one of the company’s major clients. Time passes, and that particular project has run its course. They keep me around though – must be for my charm and wit…

These days, I’m almost entirely occupied with building web sites and applications. My toolbox includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Zinc, Final Cut, XHTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. Work is pretty varied, and an enviable client list keeps life interesting.

Occasionally I get my crayons out to do some design work, but that isn’t really part of my remit here. I work out any creative frustrations that I have via this website and the occasional freelance job with Stephen of D3 Creative, a friend and former Foundry colleague.

At 28 years old, this is the longest stint I’ve put in at a company to date and I’d attribute that mainly to the people. I’m all too aware of friends and family who endure difficult environments. I’ve also learned from experience that working alone from home doesn’t suit me, so to spend my days with people whose company I enjoy is worth a great deal.

In the long term I haven’t entirely decided where my ambitions lie, although like Brent I think about this as the Big Three-Oh looms closer. My gut feeling is that I won’t always work in an agency, but for the foreseeable future I’m happy where I am.

That is all. Back to work.