Perfect Storm is a digital agency, founded by Adam Errington and Dave Nutter in 2016.
Perfect Storm moved from Calls Landing, just across the street, to Graphical House in February 2024. Despite ‘loving’ their old office with its views over the river, the team had outgrown the space so when an office became available in Graphical House, which was undergoing a major refurbishment at the time, the digital agency jumped at it.
Although the building originally dates from the 1950’s, the refurbishment meant the team were able to have a big say in transforming the space. The building is largely known for its distinctive contemporary artwork on the building’s exterior, a project completed by Bristol-based artist Mr Penfold as part of the In Good Company project in 2019.
After celebrating a ‘record’ £3m turnover for the 2023-24 financial year, we find out what happens at the agency’s HQ…
Tom Downes, delivery director at Perfect Storm, introduces us to the office…
“In February this year, we moved into our newly refurbished office space at Graphical House. Our core team had outgrown our old office in Calls Landing, and we wanted a space that could accommodate our community of specialist freelance partners, necessitating a move – which luckily turned out to be just across the road!
“This new location offers us the room we need to thrive, with ample space for our staff, partners and clients. Graphical House is a local landmark too, thanks to its striking contemporary artwork. The vibrant exterior is just a hint of the dynamic environment within, designed to foster creativity and collaboration – it’s perfect for us!”
Where is it?
Floor 2, Graphical House, 2 Wharf Street, Leeds, LS2 7EQ
How big is it?
The office is 2,100 sq ft, in an open plan format. Perfect Storm has taken over the entire second floor of the building, which has enabled us to really make the space our own.
There is a large boardroom for meetings and workshops, along with a communal kitchen area. There are also various seating areas and high tables, where our clients, partners or core team can catch up for more informal meetings or to grab a bite to eat away from their desk.
The location is perfect – which is why we didn’t really want to venture too far from our previous office! We’re nicely central, not far from Leeds Market for a great value lunch, and close to lots of public transport for the team and clients.
What happens there?
We are in the office on a hybrid basis, typically working in the office two to three days a week with further ad hoc days as staff prefer. We like to keep it flexible, as we trust our team wherever they’re working from.
Given our agency model, which involves us working with a network of over 100 senior freelance specialists who we bring in to offer expertise for specific projects, we’ve always been used to partners being remote, even pre-covid. So we are the masters of remote working not needing to stymy collaboration!
Our office days are really focussed on regrouping as a team and doing any planning that is more efficient face-to-face. We do Lunch and Learn sessions to help upskill the team and share interesting insight. And, of course, there is also the social aspect – we love a team lunch or being able to pop for a drink after work.
It’s a really great space for a party too, as we recently found out when we were joined by our clients and partners for our office warming!
What sort of work goes on?
We’re a full service digital agency and our unique model means our hand-picked freelance partners typically work remotely delivering across our range of services from UX/UI design, SEO, social, PPC and development.
This means in the office our core team are focussed across strategy and understanding our clients’ businesses, acting as trusted consultants and getting under the skin of their processes, market and customers. Of course, that then goes right through to delivering campaigns and projects for our clients with highly skilled account and project management from our core in-house digital producer team.
To enable close collaboration with our clients, we have hot desks they are welcome to use, if they need to have a base in Leeds or if they want to work directly alongside us for part of a project.
Why is the workplace appropriate?
Fundamentally, and most importantly, our office is a lovely environment to work in. We made sure we were very involved in the refurbishment and everything was well thought through and implemented to the highest standard. As such, we designed it for what we needed, and that means it’s a really great place to work and we all take pride in that.
The slightly unique shape of the building and the large windows means it’s always flooded with natural light. There’s nothing less inspiring than a dark and dreary office!
The main reason for the move was to create more space, which allows for a better working environment. It also means our partners are able to use the office more, which is fantastic. It was important to us that there were lots of breakout spaces to help with collaboration and teamwork. Sometimes a change of view and an informal chat can be just the spark you need.
A giant boardroom and the world’s biggest whiteboard (I mean, we haven’t entered it into the Guinness Book of World Records but it must be close to being a record breaker) means we can easily host all day workshops – and it’s available for our clients if they need it too.
Who works there?
All the core Perfect Storm team work in the office at least a couple of days a week, which is roughly about 16 people, but we seem to be growing all the time! This is predominantly made up of our team of digital producers who act as everyday consultants for our clients, handling a hybrid of account and project management.
Our senior management team are also very visible around the office, as are our strategy team and our talent manager. She is responsible for keeping all of our freelance partners happy and ensuring they have a smooth experience working with us. It’s been our set up since day one so we’re quite confident in our processes and we have some fantastic long-standing relationships with experts in various fields. But everything can always be improved!
We have an open door policy with our freelance partners. Some of the core team hot desk, and others have a set location, but there’s always plenty of free space. Our partners are welcome to use us as a base to work in if they want it, whether they’re working for us or on other clients. It’s nice to have an ever-changing make-up of people and I think it helps all of us expand our knowledge.
There’s also always a dog or two pottering around!
If you would like to take part in a future ‘Where We Work’ or any of our regular weekly features, please contact rachael@prolificnorth.co.uk
