Leaving SHOWstudio
Today’s the day I’ve been excited about and dreading for a couple of months now. It’s my last day as a full-time employee at SHOWstudio. Today I’m SHOWstudio’s Back End Developer; tomorrow I’ll simply be a freelance web developer. It’s brand new territory for me but something I’m very excited about and have always wanted to try.
Being at SHOWstudio these past five years has given me so many wonderful experiences. The people I’ve met and the challenging things I’ve been able to work on: I wouldn’t change any of it.
It’s strange to be leaving now as something of a veteran. People like Ross Phillips, Alex Fury and Harry Hanrahan were the veterans when I got here. They were smart and kind and knowledgable, but they eventually moved on to other things, and without realising it I became an old-timer just like them. I’m surrounded by other old-timers though, and I’m grateful to have worked with these wonderful and talented people for so long. Sally Northmore, Front End Developer and my closest colleague – Ross paired us up in the beginning and we’ve had this incredibly productive working dynamic ever since. Jon Emmony came in like many of us as a junior and has quickly flourished into our Art Director, and an awe-inspiring creative force. Marie Schuller, Carrie Scott, Niamh White, Lauren Juska – every one of them someone I’d want to employ myself in my imaginary dream company. Lou, Liam, Sarah, Charlotte Spencer and so many others I haven’t mentioned – every person here is impressive and I’ll be impoverished for not being exposed to their ideas daily.
At the centre of all this has been Nick Knight himself, never wavering in his total commitment to what he does. It’s truly inspirational to have someone like this running the show, and it’s thanks to him and Charlotte that this uniquely creative environment is possible.
I’ll look back with the utmost pride on the work we did. The highlight of it all would be the website rebuild, launched in 2012. It was a long slog and we put our all into it. We pulled everything down and then we built it all back up again from scratch. It was a huge task but I’m so grateful to have had the chance to work on it. Since then we’ve worked on many other exctiting things: building the new collections, working on our live streaming setup, and so much more.
Thankfully it’s not so much “goodbye” from me as “see you in a few weeks”. I’ll continue to work with SHOWstudio as a freelancer. I’m glad about that, because when you’ve worked in a place this special, the last thing you want to do is leave it behind completely.