29 Nov, 2018

Pixelbuilders, Panza and Pentland Hills Gin

Here at Pixel Towers, we enjoy a good old-fashioned client meeting. It helps us put names to faces, get to know each other and of course gain a better understanding of the work we’re doing together. Over the years we’ve had some pretty interesting client meetings too… and Friday the 2nd of November was no exception.
It was a day when we had the pleasure of hosting a meeting with one of our newer clients, Pentland Hills Gin. Now gin is a subject we can get excited about anyway, but with Pentland Hills Gin in particular, it’s especially pleasing for the more discerning gin fans in the office. It’s a handcrafted, Scottish gin, distilled sustainably and produced in small batch quantities.

But while their batch size may be small, their ideas certainly aren’t! The plan is to launch their brand-new website before the peak of the Christmas season with the aim of introducing Pentland Hills Gin to the world over 2019!

With so many big plans on the horizon, it was important we all got to know each other before the journey progressed. The meeting time was set for just after lunch, a time chosen not only because it ensured there would be no rumbly tummies but also to allow Tabatha and Phillip the luxury of time, for the long journey down from Edinburgh (Pentland Hills Gin truly does come from the Pentland Hills) to Leeds! 



It was to be the first time most of the team here had the pleasure of meeting Phillip and Tabatha, although we have been in touch with regular phone calls while we’ve been working on creating their new website so far. This particular meeting however, was to be a meeting that would mark a first in the history of Pixelbuilders (and the team were very very excited about it). We were going to be introduced to a very special member of the Pentland Hills Gin team; Panza, the devilishly handsome Chocolate Labrador and pawmaster at Pentlands. 

How we’ve made it to ten years old as a company without ever having a pooch on the premises is rather baffling too considering we’re a team made up of some very serious dog lovers. Our commercial director has two Cocker Spaniels, the marketing team have two Springer Spaniels and Cocker Spaniel between them (having a spaniel is a bonus but not a requirement of working here), our UX designer has a hankering for a huskie and our office manager has a Cavapoo that looks like Gail Platt. In other words, meeting Panza was at the top of many of our teams’ priorities for Friday. 

With all this in mind, we started to make our meeting preparations early on the Friday morning, in the hope that we would not only make a good first impression but also that we could ensure their four-hour journey down to see us would be as useful as possible.
 

The preparations!

Like most digital agencies, we like our technology. Our meeting room boasts one heck of a TV screen for presentations, accessing the internet and viewing design files but sometimes, as snazzy as this is, getting back to basics works out so much better. While the TV is definitely not going anywhere (don’t panic!), we have been getting out the old pens and paper much more often, sticking up design sets on the wall, indulging Rachael in her love of post it notes and even taking to the whiteboard for site structure diagrams and wireframing. 

That’s why for this meeting, it all started with printing out the complete set of website designs for the Pentland Hills Gin website and arranging these in order on the meeting room wall. The hope was it would give Tabatha, Phillip and Panza a better overview of their website as a whole, while we continued to work on developing the preview site. 

With that task completed we also got the various documents we needed to discuss up and ready on the TV screen and put together a mini agenda for the afternoon. Biscuits were at the ready (dog and human varieties of course), water bottles and bowls were on hand and the kettle was on standby.

Like clockwork, Tabatha, Philip and Panza arrived about one o’clock and much to our surprise, the rest of the team were also along for the journey too! Their three other Labradors were granted a short reprieve from Panza (whom we’re told can be a bit of a pest amongst his relatives), as he came up into the office and the others were left to have a well-deserved snooze. 

All in all, we have to say, our first experience of having a four-legged friend in the office went more or less without a hitch and we certainly look forward to Tabatha, Phil and of course Panza visiting us again soon. Who knows, maybe next the whole family can come in for a biscuit!