Bristol WordPress People

What’s your name?

Laura Hunter and Claire Chappell (Laura is usually the one on the left!)

What do you do with WordPress?

We run a small business called The Digital Grapevine, based in Thornbury, South Glos. We specialise in building WordPress websites for local businesses and charities.

We have different skillsets which means we approach a website project from different angles. We look at the content and design at the same time, making sure they flow seamlessly together. We also have long term associations with freelance designers and photographers and call on them to provide the full package, when needed. We are proud to have built up a loyal local client base and have longstanding working relationships with many, helping them as their businesses grow.

What’s your involvement with Bristol WordPress People?

We are among the regular faces that attend nearly every meet up! We were part of the organising team for a year, helping live tweet, occasionally hosting with Simon and just being a friendly face for people to talk to. Claire also did a talk about website content a couple of years ago as well. We have also volunteered at the two Bristol WordCamps organised by other members of the Bristol WordPress community. We were the people on reception welcoming you in!

What’s your job?

We are both Founders of The Digital Grapevine and run it together. Laura is the more technical of the two of us, having worked as a developer and Business Analyst in previous jobs and Claire is the copywriter writing website copy and blog posts for clients.

How long have you been attending the Bristol Meetup?

We think it have been about 4 years now! It has been amazing to see the group grow over that time.

Why do you attend?

We started attending to learn new things about WordPress and new advances on the platform. We quickly discovered that being part of the group was more than about learning. Bristol WordPress People is a great community that we really enjoy catching up with every month. When you work in a small team it is great to have a group you can chat to about problems you have, not just to do with WordPress but worries or issues with clients or your business. It really can be a great support network.

How have you been long using WP?

Laura first discovered WordPress in 2009 after previously creating websites by hand using HTML and CSS in Textpad! We like how its flexibility makes it a great platform to build websites on. Claire came to WordPress in 2013 through working with Laura and likes the fact the platform is user friendly even as a non-developer like her!

Any sites you’ve built that you’d like to share?

We always enjoy sharing our work. Our favourites are often the ones where we have provided the website design, content and branding.

• The Digital Grapevine  – We love our own website as we feel it really represents who we are.
• Cotswold Discos  – We think this website has a really strong look and was a great collaborative process with the client.
• Office Owls  – This recruitment website made use of graphics in an interesting way.
• Meridan  – This is a financial services website. We wanted to look different and life affirming, whilst still providing useful information.

Favourite WordPress feature/plugin

This may be a controversial answer for some but we are fans of the Divi theme. It is a perfect fit for a lot of our clients.

Anything you’d like to see in WordPress?

The short answer at the moment is no! We feel the platform provides everything we need to deliver websites to our clients.

Tell us something that people might not know about you

We think most people will be surprised to know that we didn’t actually know each other that well when we started working together! Our daughters were good friends and we knew each other through them. Obviously, we are great friends now and support each other through everything. Not being close friends at the start probably made it easier to set out our working relationship.