Thursday, July 2nd saw us attend the 2015 Big Chip Awards. We’d submitted our entries months ago, and to our delight found out at the end of April that we’d been shortlisted for our work on Anthony Joshua’s website for Best Use of Visual Design.

Big Chip is the UK’s longest running digital industry awards and the biggest outside London. Run by and for the digital industry in the north of England, the awards cover all things digital and are open for work carried out in the north or by businesses based in the north.

Now we’re not exactly awards evening veterans (as we quickly discovered by arriving at the Midland Hotel drastically underdressed), but having been included in a shortlist of 5, our hopes were modestly high of being in with a chance of winning.

Thankfully the debut awards evening nerves were eased somewhat by a familiar face at our table. Mark from AHOY was hoping to scoop the Best B2C E-Business Project, and had brought his Mum along for a night out. We also had the pleasure of meeting Tom Rainford and his better half who was hoping to take home the Best Use of Animation Award.

The awards opened to some familiar faces as both Pete and Paul had taken part in Mighty Giant’s movie for Big Chip, pulling out Oscar worthy performances for their frustration at the fact that “Instagram’s down!”

The announcement of the Best Use of Visual Design award was seventh up, so we didn’t have to wait long to learn our fate. Prior to the announcement though we were mentioned by judging panel chair, Alasdair Scott, who stated that our entry had been specially commended. We’re pretty sure he went on to say some nice things about our work, but were a bit taken aback as a stealthy waiter snuck up on us and presented our award under the camouflage of a napkin, delivering it as if it were a newborn baby.

We were obviously over the moon to receive such recognition, and hugely appreciative of the judging panel in picking out our work as deserving of a commendation. On reflection, our work with Anthony truly allowed us to push ourselves visually, being afforded the benefit of both great content, and a client willing to let us take the lead and trust in our direction and advice.

The winner of our category was ultimately Music, who pulled out some fantastic work for the creation of their own website. As past experience has taught us, creating a website for yourselves can be a challenging, often infuriating task, so huge congratulations go to them.

Our first entry into Big Chip can be looked back on as a great success then. Here’s to Big Chip 2016…