The reason it's been all quiet on the Icon blog front shall now become apparent. We have been busy putting new systems in place to make us as a company run more efficiently. So, firstly, a huge welcome to Katrina Bajic our new Picture Editor! Katrina comes to us with a wealth of experience in the industry having spent 16 years with Guzelian photography, Saltaire on their picture desk. She will be project managing jobs through to completion, from the initial inquiry to the delivery of images. Kat has already assisted me on a couple of shoots in Leeds and has a real appreciation of what's involved not only from a photographers point of view but also the client's. Not only is she very efficient but also incredibly friendly as I am sure you will find out in due course!
Here she is...!
And in our new office environment....
As well as putting new systems in place we have also moved into new offices in Leeds where Katrina will be working from. The office is located within a 5 minute drive of the train station, both motorways and our friends at the Flash Centre! A very contemporary office environment as can be seen by the images that I have taken below to give you a flavour of our new working space.
We have a new library process, using 5 different aperture libraries in our 3 Icon locations across the country. We are now feeding all our raw images, adjustments and changes into one central aperture library allowing Katrina on the picturedesk to have up-to-date output from all our photographers in Leeds, London and the Midlands.
We have also invested in a new online archive (see image below) which has become a central hub for the whole of Icon's work output. This means that all three offices can see the photography crossing the desk and photographers can see what other creative work is being done! Also images can be securely distributed directly to clients from the database, we have already had a lot of positive feedback from clients. Quality can be tightly controlled and new ideas between photographers can be shared and encouraged.
Over the last 3 months we have revamped and reorganised our back office to make us more efficient, recruited new talent and developed a new and exciting structure to allow us to concentrate more resources on what we do best "creating eye catching photography". The next 3 months should see us focus on improving the front office to further improve the client experience and to develop some new ideas. We are looking to invest in some new camera equipment, location lighting and have a few exciting new projects are soon going into production. Much more soon...
