Who are you, what’s your role, and your favorite hand-held food?
[SH] I’m Steve Hawkes, Co-Founder of Blanc. It’s a tough call, but I think a sushi hand roll just edges out a burrito — it’s got the satisfyingly simple construction of the burrito, whilst being lighter and more refined experience. Paul, my co-founder, would disagree. Either way… I’m hungry now.
What’s the story of Blanc?
[SH] We were founded in 2010 when Paul and I merged our two agencies into one studio (largely to simplify this story) after working super closely on a number of projects. Over the years we’ve felt happiest and most engaged whilst working with NGOs as they align really well with our world view. So we made the decision just over a year ago to focus on helping them change the world, crafting one digital project at a time.
We’re growing steadily and now have a great team of 9 people, all designers or developers. Together we ship Django-based web projects from conception and design through to deployment and maintenance.
What’s great about working at Blanc?
[SH] I’m super proud to be a part of Blanc, not just because of the great projects we ship, which in many cases do fall into the change the world category, but genuinely because we have a fantastic team. We love solving problems, the trickier the better. That’s why we love working with NGOs, they bring us really great problems to solve with a massive impact. Our team is a mix of designers and developers who have mutual respect for each other’s process, we’re all focused on collaborating together and with the client until we find a great solution.
In terms of studio awesomeness, we’ve surrounded ourselves with pet projects – everything from a DIY EggBot printer, to any number of RaspberryPi and Micro:bit powered gadgets. Our favorite is a converted flip-dot display from a bus that we use to highlight team events, playing songs on the web-based jukebox or comedy word of the moment, and team stats to make all the online apps we use a little more real. One small problem solved.
Please share some insight into Blanc’s approach to employee and workplace operations. How has Kin played a role?
[SH] Autonomy, mastery and purpose are a big focus for us. Autonomy, because we’ve found that when we empower the team members to make their own decisions, we flourish. Mastery, because in identifying our strengths and providing opportunities to develop them, we grow experts rather than workers. And purpose, because we all need motivations beyond paying the bills – our clients, our work with them, and the difference we make in the world gives us that.
“We try and fight the conventional corporate culture that tries to creep into any company and we find Kin helps us keep everything human.”
As a result, we rarely talk about pushing performance, but instead how we can flow better together. Kin’s been at the centre of the conversation, from giving autonomy over holiday management to making space to listen to how we can help everyone progress and grow. We try and fight the conventional corporate culture that tries to creep into any company and we find Kin helps us keep everything human. It takes care of all the drudgery so we can get back to our passion.
Anything notable going on lately?
[SH] We’ve got a huge amount going on as this last quarter has been our busiest! We donate 1 in 10 of our projects to a worthy organization that otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford our services, free of charge, and our latest is just about to go live. We’re also ramping up to launch some open-source tools which we think are going to make a big difference to the world, and the studio generally has some exciting jobs in progress in partnerships with Oxfam International, Civicus and Lumos. Overall, we’re rather excited about the impact they’re going to have.