MadeByPi® Blog

Reeling back the years @ MadeByPi®

Today is an exciting day, we’re having a party, but not just any party. Because today it’s our birthday party! Tonight we celebrate 15 years of making websites and an array of other digital stuff. If you hop on over to the www.madebypi.co.uk website you’ll see lots of information and case studies about what we’ve made in the last few years.

I’ve now been with MadeByPi® for almost 12 years, in such a dynamic and changing industry there's a real focus on looking what is coming next and rarely do we look back on how we got where we are today. So in a break with tradition, today seems like an ideal opportunity to get a little nostalgic and look at how we got from our humble beginnings to a team of 35 experts in digital solutions.

You see we weren’t always called MadeByPi®, indeed up until 2008 we were known as Pilot Interactive (or PI as we were known colloquially - hence MadeBy "PI").

The Early Years

Formed in 1996 as a spinoff of Pilot Design, PI started to make CDROM, interactive presentations and touch screen kiosks. We’ve had to dig deep into the recesses of the archives, but proud to share some of the early pre millennium websites we made for ACDO and Cheestrings.

As the millennium came and went the team was expanded and started to gain momentum and reputation in the young .com boom, making the first online interactive game show "POPZ" with its on pack bonus codes, animated host and the opportunity to win games consoles.

PI also saw its first foray into the financial services sector via the creation a mortgages quotation and calculation for Halifax intermediaries

Nestle saw the quality of design and interactive games that PI had been developing and over the next 2 years built some major brand websites for a range of their confectionary brands including Rowntrees, Aero, After Eight and Wonka

As Seen On TV

It wasn’t long before our gaming content and design style attracted the attention of children’s TV channels and we were soon making games for CBBC and Disney Channel

We then started working closely with the channels and production companies on content for weekend morning tv shows. Notably Disney Channel Diggit and the BAFTA winning "Smile" show where we pioneered live on air interactive games between the studio and players at home.

In The Magical Kingdom

The early ‘00s saw us undertake many projects for Disney. We made and adapted countless games and minisites translating them into over 15 languages. We worked on some major Disney projects including kiosk installations at Disney Land Paris

We also worked closely with their development teams designing and implementing site frameworks and reskins

Sweet Dreams

The mid 00’s saw us continue our work with the Nestle brand websites including Aero, After Eight,KitKat, Milkybar, Polo, Quality Street, Rowntrees and Smarties.

Full Circle

In addition to many Bluechip clients we’ve also produced some of our best work for smaller organisations. Army Cadet Force, National Media Museum, Redsquare Vodka and JCT 600

We’ve then broadened our User Experience offering designing and assessing Halfords e-commerce. Our trophy cabinet is practically buldging with awards for a number of bespoke specialist projects for first direct.

Just to prove a point and bring this article full circle one of the first clients I worked on for MadeByPi was Sinclaire Fabrics and today they still use us to host and maintain their website, which first went live in 1999.

Hope you enjoyed that little trip down memory lane,  and remember if you want to see our more recent work then head on over to www.madebypi.co.uk and check out our most recent client work.

Happy Birthday MadeByPi®!