Many CreaTers will be familiar with the Spinnerij – a building that used to be a textile factory, but is now occupied by many small, but innovative companies. Examples include CreaTe-startups Printr & Homey. Two doors further, another Creative Technology related company is located: Label305. You may or may not know them from lunch lectures. But if you were too focused on your subway lunch, we spoke to them personally to answer your questions!

We’re interviewing Joris & Olav.

Joris Blaak is a software engineer who is also responsible for employee management. Olav Peuscher is responsible for UX and UI design and the front-end implementation of it. Together with two others (Thijs Scheepers, software engineer and Xander Peuscher, art director) they founded Label305 on 10-10-2010. Label305 was merged from 2 small student businesses who wanted to go further together.  As the company started to grow, they moved from the Bastille (on campus) to the Spinnerij. Since 2012, they are officially called Label305. Apart from the 4 founders, they have 8 employees.

We ask them what Label305 does.

They explain that customers who have great ideas but do not have the technical know-how or resources to realize them, come to Label305. These guys will be there from the ideation phase to the production of the product. One thing they focus on is connecting given hardware to software developed by Label305: for example the web or Android devices. CreaTers may recognize the Internet of Things in this. But it’s more than implementation: going through the whole process of creating a product, start to finish, with the customer is what they’re good at. Label305 is looking for challenges and new products.

So, what is a day at Label305 like?
Label305 works with a scrum-like system which you may recognize from your own projects as a CreaTer. There’s a short introduction of the week on Monday. Plans are made and goals are set. A day of work at Label305 usually starts around 9 and ends around 17.30. However, many of the employees work there part time.
A project lasts about 2 to 4 months, and usually Label305 is handling around 5 projects at the same time. Teams are made for each project, and every employee is given a large responsibility. If you start on something, you finish it for that project.
On Fridays, the days are recapped and there is a friday afternoon drink like you may all be used to…

Max van Ijsselmuiden is one of the CreaTers over there.
He walks in while we’re interviewing. Does he like it there? “No!” he shouts. “That’s a joke, I like working here a lot.” Max designs user-interfaces and also is a font end developer. It ties in neatly with his studies.
Joris & Olav see the CreaTers a bit as hackers: “When they have a fun idea, they just do it,” says Joris. “And only afterwards they start wondering how and why exactly it works,” adds Olav.
There’s room for all kinds of Creative Technologists who are into software development, or the connection of it to hardware development. Label305 sees CreaTers as visionaries, and they very much like to welcome them.

Of course, Creative Technology is not Computer Science. Is what we know and do enough?

Eventually, Label305 wants skilled people who can deliver a good end result. That means you need a good basic understanding of programming. However, as there are many languages and different ways to develop software, there’s room to learn as well. They encourage taking your Processing skills a step further and become good at Java. Another tip: get to work with JavaScript! Once you have a solid basis in those two languages, all the others will be easy to learn. And: at Label305 CreaTers can put more of their (soft) skills to use than just programming.

We hear Label305 is moving to a different room within the Spinnerij.
But, they have no plans to become a large company. No more than around 20 people. They are looking for multiple teams in the future though: right now they have people in Amsterdam. Their projects come from all over the Netherlands. From Amsterdam to Zwolle, and there are even German customers. Are there any ambitions to move away from Enschede?
No. They admire the “Enschedese” mindset, and with the University of Twente campus nearby, here are people who know what they are talking about.

Thanks to Joris Blaak & Olav Peuscher for this interview!