The story behind Lucent Dynamics in Bournemouth

2005-2009

Hello, I'm Daniel, Owner of Lucent Dynamics.

STARTING OUT AS A PRINTER/DESIGNER

I joined my families business at 16 after leaving school with 10 A*-C GCSE's. I ran a printing business called Premier Services alongside my parents Leaflet Delivery business (Premier Distribution) in Bournemouth.

My parents worked with various clients from all business sectors including Bournemouth Council, Churches, Bowling Clubs, Local Councillors, Retail Shops, Tradesmen, Takeaways.

This range of clientele allowed me to work on numerous print jobs including designing and printing business cards, compliment slips, letterhead, invoices, flyers and booklets.

2009-2018

BECOMING A WEB DESIGNER

Advertising through print media was on the decline where as websites and online advertising was fast becoming the future.

I went on a website design course for a couple months with Bournemouth Adult Learning where I learnt the basics of web design. It is here I used Adobe Dreamweaver (a front end visual web page builder) and my first functioning website was called veggiegrow.

After the course a client of Premier's helped me along my journey in the web creation world by providing his website hosting services.

I immediately started building websites, some of which are still online to this day and hugely successful.

Check them out:

• www.davidroeroofing.co.uk now www.bournemouthroofing.com
• www.absolutely-plastered.com
• www.aquitaniacollectables.com

My business Premier Services had started to evolve from printing as the main source of income into web design.

I setup my own website called Premier32 and focused on working with actual live projects.

Aquitania Collectables Website from 2011

Bournemouth Roofing Website from 2010

LEARNING MY CRAFT IN WEB DESIGN

I was fortunate in my early years working in website design and development as my parents would sell our websites services to their leaflet delivery customer base.

It was becoming increasingly important for businesses to have an online presence.

I constantly had new projects to design, create and build.

I did everything from purchase a domain name, order web hosting, research, brainstorm, make notes from client meetings, wireframe, draft up a visual design in fireworks (my favourite programme), converse with clients, tweak designs. Then it was my task to build the website using the best practices of code I knew at the time.

Designing a website follows different processes to print artwork. Print follows predefined rules and sizes whereas with a website there are different processes that need to be taken into account - Print artwork is static, Web artwork is dynamic. As responsive web design came into fruition, my thought process had to be dynamic, it created a challenge that I thrived in.

By learning from scratch coding from a blank page I learnt a ton. Over the years I spent many hours in websites backend source code and diagnosing elements and issues. I dove deep into meta tags, CSS rules, html validation, design limitations. I'm so thankful I learnt this way as it taught me so much.

One of the most important skills I learnt was problem solving.

I would come across and fix design flaws and bugs in my designs, experiment with ambitious / outrageous designs to push designs forward, attempt to implement new javascript scripts into the websites in turn improving the interactivity and use of animation to spice up the design.

I worked on around 200 websites in a 10 year period, currently manage around 100 sites.

I dabbled in many areas from PHP, Java, Apps, multiple frameworks however sticking with what I knew best and doing it well proved a simple but successful business model.

UNDERSTANDING SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

95% of the websites I made were for local businesses, so I needed to understand and develop SEO - Search Engine Optimisation skills pretty quick. The main goal for these businesses was to get their website found, attract enquiries and ultimately bring in business.

Many of my clients had limited budgets and paid advertising was often unaffordable therefore reaching high organic listings for clients was made a priority. There was little point building a website if no one could find it.

Learning the skills of web design alongside search engine optimisation techniques provided me with a far deeper insight into website development. My job was not to produce a great website but build an all round quality business profile and website.

Researching local competition, developing relationships with local businesses, optimising keywords, tracking statistics, promoting websites, creating engaging content through text and interactive elements.

Many of the websites created generate dozens of enquiries on a regular basis, simply down to technically implement correct on page and off page practices into a website.

Many of the websites managed by Lucent Dynamics today sit in high organic number one and page one rankings on google for targetted keywords. I am extremely proud of these achievements.

Google Search Results - Painters Bournemouth Page One - Two Painting Companies with website built & maintained by Lucent Dynamics

2018-Today

REBRAND

It was time to grow and take my business forward. The business needed a modern rebrand and a mission statement symbolising what we stood for.

Lucent Dynamics came into fruition.

OUR MISSION IS TO HELP YOU & YOUR WEBSITE BE THE BEST IT CAN BE
We believe in going the extra mile for our clients with a friendly, helpful service that provides exceptional value.

The business name Lucent Dynamics needed to be unique, catchy and personal to me. Fun fact: The name also contains the letters to my first name 'Daniel'.

The logo was created as a hexagon with the letters LD forming the actual hexagon.

To focus on the core functions of the business I also had to grow the Lucent Dynamics team.
- Phil with his background in Midland Bank runs the company accounts.
- Kelly assists in social media management.
- Debbie writes copy for clients websites.
- Simon provides technical support.
- Jimmy is the photogenic model for all promotional photos.

WEBSITE CONSULTING

Over the past five years I have been hired and trusted to manage an entire website portfolio for a local company.

TODAY

My business Lucent Dynamics in Bournemouth continues to grow and evolve.

I get excited everyday getting out of bed to run a business that allows me the ability to help anyone who needs my services in a meaningful way.

I am proud to help and provide value to all the lives of my clients and their families.

WORK WITH DANIEL AND LUCENT DYNAMICS

Whether you are starting out and really have no idea what to do first or run a business and need to develop your online game Lucent Dynamics can help you one way or another.

Come and introduce yourself and say hi to Daniel at Lucent Dynamics today.