Our Highlights of 2021

2021 has been a big year for us at Optix HQ (and wfh!). In this post we share 12 of our highlights from the year including new projects, new team members and award wins.

We can’t start a post about 2021 without referencing the fact that it was a challenging year, for us as individuals but also for the country as a whole. However, as a team and as a business it’s been a year with some real highlights. We’ve worked with some great clients, both old and new, put live some exciting projects and had some great new people join the team.

Here are twelve of our best bits from 2021:

Being recognised in Campaign’s Best Places to Work 2021

We like to think that Optix is a great place to work and we were delighted that Campaign agrees! There were two parts to the judging: The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics. The second part being a survey to measure the employee experience.

Welcoming Paul Lawrence as our new Head of Design

Paul brought with him over 20 years’ experience in brand identity, strategy and digital design having worked with global brands such as Nvidia, Virgin Media, Playstation and Mercedes-Benz where he won Gold and Bronze DMA digital awards. Paul’s skills and expertise take our design and creative offering to the next level.

Continuing to develop our Sustainability Project

Optix Sustainability was set up by James Dawkins and the programme is centred around supporting our own bee colonies to promote wildlife diversity. You can find out more about our efforts in our 2021 Sustainability Report.

Promoting Becky Brennan to Account Director

Becky has been with us since 2019 and has become an integral part of the team. This year she took on the role of Account Director and has been busy getting involved with looking after our relationship with key clients.

New Brand Identity Projects

Our new Head of Design, Paul, worked on some very exciting brand identity projects, one of which will be launching soon (no spoilers!). Paul started with logo sketches and a mood board, created a brand framework structure and, after getting feedback on initial concepts he presented the final design for the new brand identity.

Being recognised in The Drum’s UK Digital Agency Census 2021

We’re always pleased to receive recognition but it means even more when it’s based on feedback from our clients. We were ranked number 12 on the marketing magazine’s shortlist of 50 British marketing firms based on client ratings.

Promoting Jack Warne to Head of Training

If you’ve taken part in a training session with our Digital Academy you’ve probably met Jack and experienced his warm and inclusive training skills. In 2021 Jack was promoted to Head of Training alongside his work within the Digital Marketing team.

Launching the Michael Spiers Christmas Campaign

This year we developed a large scale cross channel Christmas campaign for the South West’s leading independent jewellery and watch retailer. At the center of the campaign was a television advert, created in collaboration with J Finnis Films, which is currently live on Sky. You can see the advert, and find out more about the campaign here.

Our Digital Strategist Crystal Carter speaking at BrightonSEO

Crystal has been making waves in the SEO industry this year including being featured on Moz’s blog and in an upcoming video series by Google. She took to the virtual BrightonSEO stage in July to talk about how SMEs can you Structured Data to boost their SEO performance.

Launching the new site for Gridimp

Gridimp make automated solutions to link businesses up to the Smart Energy Grid. We worked with them on designing and building their new website. They are really pleased with how it turned out, as are we!

Samantha Smith joining us as Digital Marketing Manager

It’s hard to believe Sam has only been with us for 6 months as she’s become an integral part of the team so quickly. Having worked in both in-house marketing teams and marketing agencies in the past, Sam understands the importance of communication and collaborative working when it comes to Digital Marketing.

Being asked to deliver a Digital Marketing module on the University of Exeter’s MBA program

Jack and Becky from our Digital Academy gave students an industry insight into Digital Marketing fundamentals and implementation. They worked to create a programme of content which would teach a solid understanding of the different elements of Digital Marketing and how businesses use these to strategically approach their objectives.

Optix Solutions will be closed for the festive break from 12pm on Friday 24th December 2021, through to 9am on Tuesday 4th January 2022. Wishing all our clients, colleagues and friends a safe and restful end to the year, and we look forward to seeing you in 2022!