A little bit about how SiPat.inc started: 

From 2005–2011 I worked in the marketing department as a Halifax (near Leeds) graphic designer at an office supplies company where, in addition to providing general marketing support, partner liaison and marketing strategy, I used Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator for product catalogue design, marketing campaigns, flyer design, branding designs and graphic logo design.

Further back, from 2001–2005, I was a sub-editor at the Halifax Evening Courier newspaper where I used QuarkXPress (page layout design software ultimately usurped by InDesign) and Photoshop for newspaper design and photo editing.

All the while, on evenings and weekends, I was providing marketing support for a handful of companies. I created things like Mailchimp newsletter designs (email newsletters, email marketing) for people like Veritais. I needed a company name to invoice with so I called myself SiPat.inc.

In October 2011 I left my 9–5 and, alongside working at Halifax full-service marketing agency Prime Creative, put all of my time into growing SiPat.inc, a tiny collective of Hebden Bridge graphic design and Todmorden website design people. It was mostly just me [print design person], my friend Kevin [web design wizard who just loved ConcreteCMS content management system and then warmed to making WordPress websites].

In November of 2011 I personally started working with Raise the Youth Foundation CIC in Bolton. After 10 years in the 9–5, working with Raise the Youth Foundation was a startling experience! Teaching graphic design to young people, business startup advice, creating graphic and web design training modules, helping with their branding design (they were only a few months old at that time) and also a ‘design website’ brief. It was buzzy, sometimes edgy (on the streets of Bolton) exciting and fulfilling. You can read a massively appreciated recommendation from their CEO, Jason Steele, here.

Since then SiPat.inc has worked with over 110 organisations and businesses (correct as of 5th May, 2022). You can take a look at some of them below. We can’t name them all because we have non-disclosure agreements in place.

ALL of this work was generated by word-of-mouth, meeting new people through people I knew and going from there. No Google or FaceBook ads, no cold (or even warm) calls, no flyer drops. Our friendly yet informed and straight-talking approach results in good design, effective results and long-term working relationships with a high level of transparency and good faith. 

Also since then we set up a little web design and graphic design training company in Leeds — Digital Skills Training CIC.

Give us a call today – we’d be happy to set up a quick video call with absolutely no obligations. We volunteer with Digital Boost if you want to get to us that way. It’s part of an initiative with Digital Skills Training CIC where we volunteer our time to small business owners.

Also since then we moved to Woodlesford; graphic design near Leeds that is. Web design near Leeds also. That was in 2016 and we’re very happy here :] ‘Graphic design agency Leeds’ also ranks high on Google’s keyword planner – an amazing free tool you can use to investigate which terms you might want to include if you are on the path of ‘build your own website’ or on a web designing course, or asking a website design company to do it. We do just need to add here that web design Woodlesford is a search term we would like to rank on!

Thank you for reading

Simon