2024 Wrapped

As the year draws to a close and we swap our coffee for mulled wine, it’s time to reflect on 2024—a year that gave us plenty to talk about. From economic curveballs that saw the world tightening their belts to celebrating milestones that made us feel warm and fuzzy. It’s been a rollercoaster of a year. Despite a few ups and downs, we’ve kept our spirits high, our designs sharp, and our Slack gifs even sharper. So, grab a festive snack and join us as we recap a year filled with celebrations and creativity.

The Highlights

It must be what we do, but every year, we attract some unique brands with like-minded people behind them. From charitable websites supporting great causes to Sports England-funded initiatives promoting grassroots sports to private schools looking to showcase their unique values, we’ve had the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects in 2024.

The Ripple Effect of Global Challenges

As we close out another year, it’s hard not to reflect on the unique challenges and shifts we’ve seen. The web design industry, like many others, hasn’t been immune to the ripples of global changes. Across the board, we’ve spoken to business owners who’ve all been navigating uncertainty, adapting to fluctuating client demands, and keeping a close eye on budgets. Our chats have made it clear that there isn’t one industry unaffected somehow—whether we’re speaking with agencies, tech companies, or startups, everyone seems to be in the same boat.

We’ve seen a noticeable trend of larger agencies scaling back, and that’s been evident with the surge of CVs landing in our inboxes, a reflection of how turbulent the waters have been. At Fhoke, we’re nothing if not resilient. We’ve weathered storms before and been around the block long enough (16 years), so we’re always optimistic, maybe to a fault. As we say goodbye to 2024, we stay buoyant, upbeat, and ready for 2025. With planning and a kick-ass team, we already see plenty of opportunities for the year ahead.

Celebrating Milestones

While challenges have loomed large, 2024 has also been a year of celebration. We’ve had the privilege of marking some incredible milestones within the team: Seb’s 9th anniversary, Grant’s 8th, and Kasia’s 6th. This is a true testament to their putting up with Ben and Brett, but it also shows the camaraderie that keeps us moving forward.

In July, we celebrated the anticipated arrival of Seb’s daughter, a mega milestone in his family’s life: becoming a Dad—a role he’s naturally slipped into. Congrats, Seb. Not long after, in August, we celebrated an extraordinary 16 years of Fhoke—a legacy we’re incredibly proud of and an equally sobering realisation that we’ve been in this game a long, long time (since 2000 for some of us).

Expanding our services

Sixteen years ago, we focused on delivering design-only services to other agencies, from branding to planning and designing flat visuals they could use to build their clients’ websites. We also leant on these smaller studios and freelancers for our builds. We took all that in-house seven years later, grew our team to four, then six, and never really looked back. We’ve dabbled with bigger teams, but Brett and Ben, our founders, don’t have the vision of becoming a behemoth of an agency. They’ve realised that being friendly and agile matters, especially now that larger agencies are making cuts. It’s way more rewarding working to create a family-first environment that favours each other’s needs over anything else.

While the team might not be growing exponentially, last year, we looked at increasing our base services beyond WordPress and Shopify websites. Seb expressed a passion for Laravel, opening new doors to bigger and more complicated projects. From developing made-to-measure apps for Shopify to a photographer portal to an AI assistant, the past year has been an exciting change from the norm.

Award-winning

With over 120 awards to our name, up from 65 three years ago, it’s pretty impressive to realise we’re still at the top of our game. Maybe there’s a few more years left in us yet!

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Project Launches & Wins

We’ve had some fantastic wins this year to add to the staggering number of companies we’ve worked with over the past 16 years. We might only have a fleeting moment with some, while others we’ve worked with from day one are now on their fourth or fifth website with us. This year saw the launch of some standout projects and others that we’re excited to push live in early 2025.

Here’s a quick glimpse from the past 12 months and those upcoming projects.

Klindworth Roofing

Sixteen years in design, it’s not uncommon for most of our clients to return two, three, five or even ten years later for a redesign. That’s precisely what happened at the start of 2024 with Klindworth Roofing. Offering a wide range of expert roofing services, they’ve earned the title of the best roofing company in Texas since we began working with them in 2020. So, 2024 was the year a new site should reflect that. With a stand-out brand recognised regionally (which we created), the new website backs up everything they do, from promoting the brand online to showcasing the company’s exceptional work. The entire project has been one of Fhoke’s most successful stories, where the client trusted us throughout to deliver on our original promise. The site also won Website Of The Day with CSS Design Awards alongside numerous other accolades.

Bryanston School

An award-winning co-educational boarding and day school for pupils aged 3-18, set in over 400 acres of Dorset countryside, Bryanston came to Fhoke with an outdated website and a cookie-cutter theme on the e4education platform. Since then, Fhoke has created a new custom website on WordPress to support a substantial content and marketing strategy that aims for exponential growth in the next two years. We are currently working with them to combine several third-party systems and create a centralised, single online store where the school can sell tickets for events and summer camps, as well as school merchandise and accessories.

Paris Tile

Rooted in the rich culture of France and Morocco, Paris Tile is a new brand that blends traditional tile manufacturing with artisanal storytelling. We helped Paris Tile to create a new brand identity that resonates with its heritage. Understanding the significance of the Eiffel Tower in Parisian culture, Fhoke ingeniously integrated its physical footprint into Paris Tile’s logo. At the same time, the website for Paris Tile was designed to blend tradition with modernity. The design is fresh and uncluttered, reflecting the high-quality products on sale. The site has received three accolades from CSS Design Awards, Awwwards, and Orpetron. Not to be sniffed at when we’re talking about an online store.

Leisure Kicks

Supported by the major NGBs, councils and content partners, Leisure Kicks is an annual magazine with a highly dated website on a now-defunct website platform. The home of grassroots sports, Leisure Kicks, encourages everyone to get involved, become active, and find sports in their community. We were tasked with migrating over 10,000+ users from their existing platform into a new site built on WordPress that allows Leisure Kicks to promote sports across the UK alongside insightful sports-related articles, interviews, and food recipes. The site is currently in population with the hope of a Q1 launch in early 2025.

Vesync

Vesync is an international smart brand that, unknown to us, has had its eye on our work for some time, waiting for the opportunity to work with our team. We’re now designing and building their new corporate website on WordPress and providing support to each of the brand’s marketing teams with our website design services. With our experience in UX and UI design, we’ll deliver a new Shopify theme that their Chinese-based development team will roll out across three of the brand’s online stores. This project has allowed us to flex our creative muscles on a global scale.

Nature’s SAFE

Working with Nature’s SAFE, a charity doing incredible work for conservation and biodiversity, was a feel-good highlight of the year. It’s always rewarding to partner with organisations making a positive impact on a global scale and for the world’s future. It wasn’t our first charitable rodeo either, we won the project off the back of WECare, a charity we’ve worked with since 2019 that transforms the lives of street dogs across Sri Lanka.

Looking Ahead

As 2024 draws to a close, we’re reminded that every challenge presents an opportunity. Our successes this year aren’t by luck; they are down to our team’s talent and optimism. We’ve maintained our footing as one of the best WordPress agencies and laid the groundwork for an even brighter 2025.

We’d like to thank everyone—our team, clients, and partners—who have been part of the journey this year. Here’s to fresh challenges, new projects, and another year of growth. Bring on 2025!

If you want to share your goals and ambitions for the next year, contact the team and let us know your plans.