Our blog

We’ve been publishing year-in-review posts since 2017. These offer a good opportunity to pause and look back — take stock of what we’ve accomplished, how much we’ve grown, where we faltered, and all the ups and downs along the journey. Of course it also helps present a snapshot of the company’s journey to the rest of the world, but it is as much an exercise of reflection as it is an exercise in documentation.

We missed out on this for 2020, the First Year of Covid™, so this will be a dual year in review for both 2020 and 2021. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get started.

🌱 Growing Practice

Our core practise remains that of building websites. It is why we show up at work every single day. And while we continue to practise web design and development, project after project, taking a moment and looking back made us realise how far we have come.

• Our engagements have grown in scope, in scale and in ambition. We worked on a university website with 70 different content-types and 18 different micro-sites for various faculties and departments, all supported by a single CMS.

• While we continue to develop deep expertise in Craft CMS, we are just as excited to adopt new tools and technologies and explore unchartered territory. We got our hands dirty with Svelte and the nuances of the OpenType font format in order to build a powerful browser based tool for testing fonts (with a focus on Indic typefaces).

• We have been lucky to have a steady stream of interesting enquiries come our way, and unfortunately we’ve had to turn down several of them because we have our hands full.

• We managed to successfully adapt our intensive in-person workshops into fully remote sessions, staggered over a few weeks, to ensure full participation of all the required stakeholders.

• Guiding Tech, one of our flagship projects, was acquired by a US-based media company. We had revamped their website in 2017, and had since been constantly improving the tech and adding new features over the years.

👯 Team Effort

We have been building websites for over ten years now. But for most of this time, the execution was done by Souvik and/​or me. We were now starting to grow a team, both on the project execution side of things as well as the operations side of things. This meant learning how to distribute work. Align on outcomes. Defining a voice and a benchmark for the studio which resides not just in our heads but is accessible to and mould-able by every member of the team. Lots of processes were experimented with. Lessons were learned, extra baggage was shed, new tools were adopted and old ones discarded.

We added two new people to the team — Paul Manem and Divya Chauhan.

• Paul is a self-taught web designer and developer from France but based out of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. He has been making websites for 10 years and had already been using Craft CMS for some of his projects before he joined us in the summer of 2020. If you meet him, watch out for his dry sense of humour and witty side-remarks.

• Divya joined Miranj as an executive manager to help with the operational side of things. She comes from the hospitality industry and is great at tackling operations, logistics and client interactions. She joined us in early 2021, and ever since our team activities and celebrations have become livelier and full of cheer.

We still have a long way to go, but we’re steadily growing more efficient, predictable and timely with our processes and deliveries.

🎂 Ten Years Young

Did I just mention we’ve been building websites for over 10 years now? That’s right, we completed a decade in business! Feels like a long way back when Souvik and me were running around accountants, trying to come up with names that had .com and .in domains available, and reaching out to friends and family to land our first client. What a ride it has been. Despite remaining small throughout, we’ve travelled a long way from a tiny basement office in 2011 to now having a distributed team across India and Cambodia. We had big plans to celebrate this milestone with our clients, friends, collaborators and well-wishers, but sadly had to defer that due to the pandemic.

There are a bunch of other Indian companies that started around the same 2011 (plus/​minus one year) period who we like to think of as our batchmates — HasGeek, 3 Sided Coin, Blue Tokai, Zerodha etc., and we’re glad to be in their company. At the same time, we also remember a lot more who are no longer around. Ten years often does not feel like much in lifespan terms. Yet it is long enough to have experienced few of our clients’ entire team undergo two rotations of its members leaving and joining, while we’ve been steadily supporting their websites all along.

We are grateful to everyone who has helped us make it this far.

🏕 Remote by Default Only

A pandemic. In our lifetimes. Much like the rest of the world, we had no idea what to expect or how things were going to play out. Everyone complied with the lockdowns, of course, but we continued working from our homes. The office was around, something we’d go back to once things were normal. Normal, heh. Calls upon calls seemed to be the new normal. No social interactions seemed to be the new normal. Blurred lines between life and work seemed to be the new normal.

At some point, it became increasingly apparent that there was no going back in the foreseeable future. We decided to let go of our (beloved) workspace and instead decided to invest in everyone’s home setups. We decided to have a team member from a different country and ensure they were treated no different than a team member in the same city. We switched to regular virtual team activities in the form of daily stand-ups, weekly town-halls and monthly chill-sessions.

🎂 Birthday celebrations for Souvik (left) and Divya (right).

We strived to operate in a remote by default mode even when the entire team was co-located, so the initial lockdowns didn’t quite bring the house down. But we have now managed to completely re-orient ourselves to become a fully-remote organisation.

🧧 Giving Back

We have finally started giving back in the form of regular institutional donations. We decided to donate a percentage of our profits at the end of each financial year and, after much deliberation, decided to split our pool three ways between projects or organisations that:

1. Impact our work
2. Impact our industry
3. Impact our society

Everyone on the team is encouraged to nominate (and campaign for) worthy candidates in all three categories. We then conduct a poll for the submitted candidates and pick one winner in each category. So far we have made donations to Gulp, The Internet Archive, and Goonj in 2020 and Software Freedom Conservancy, Mozilla, and AltNews in 2021. We urge you to join our efforts in supporting these organisations if they resonate with you.

👥 Community Initiatives

One of the things we love about the web industry is the community. All of us at Miranj learned web design through the abundance of knowledge and resources made available by fellow web designers of all levels — beginners, practitioners, and experts; freelancers, studio folks, and big tech workers. We too have always wanted to give back and grow this pool. We have written and spoken about our techniques and shared our code, albeit intermittently. But we were able to do this in two big, consistent ways recently.

• Content Web — Weekly sessions to discuss various facets of creating and managing content-based websites such as marketing/​business websites, publishing sites or e‑commerce sites. It ran from July to December 2020 and was hosted on the Hasgeek platform. We tried to touch upon the three key practices that work together for any website creation i.e. content, web design and web development. Some of our favourite sessions (in no specific order) were:

  • Designing custom grids that scale by Hamsa Ganesh
  • Getting started with Web Typography by Karl Fernandes
  • Modular Typography for the Web by Hamsa Ganesh
  • AMP and Core Web Vitals by Naina Raisinghani
  • Using Web Page Tests (WPT) effectively by Satiya Prasath
  • Creating Responsive Data Visualisations by Gurman Bhatia
  • The Modern Approach to Search Optimisation by Souvik Das Gupta

• Two Studio Heads Walk Into a Bar — Bi-weekly sessions for discussing the business side of small creative service agencies. Kick-started in July 2021 by Souvik and Tejas (from 3 Sided Coin) and joined by some of our peers and acquaintances along the way. Some of the highlights from the first season:

  • How do you choose projects?
  • Transitioning to Value-Based Pricing
  • To fly yourself or to build a crew?
  • Letting a Client Go
  • How do you maintain health and balance?

🎙 Appearances

Talks

• Micro-caching in Nginx for High Performance at the Bangalore Site Speed meetup.
• Critical CSS for CMS-based, Server-rendered Websites at the CSS loading and Critical CSS conference.

Features

• A demo of our Router Craft CMS plugin in Ben Parizek’s Craft The Planet newsletter.
• The type testing testing tool we built for Universal Thirst at TypeLab Asia 2021.
• A case study on our work for Guiding Tech on The Hard Copy.

Discussions

• “Developers are from Mars, Designers are from Venus” on the dev​Mode​.fm podcast.
• Curiosity and Information Architecture panel at 24 hours of UX.

Writing

• Why Your Website Should Look Beyond English on The Hard Copy.

The Lows

There was a noticeable, undeniable increase in work load and stress during the last two years. Some of this was undoubtedly directly attributable to the pandemic raging all around us, but a lot of it was also due to our struggles grappling with the gradually blurring lines between life and work. Some of it was due to growing pains inside a young team still figuring things out. There were also reasons that had nothing to do with work. Regardless, all of us struggled for different periods of time over the last two years. We talked about it, took time off, travelled when possible, and attempted a lot of small changes. We are in a much better place now, but remain careful and reflective of the time gone by.

We also saw a departure from the team. Archit Chandra, our first long-term team member decided to move on from Miranj late last year and explore other opportunities. We’ll be missing out on his deep care for process, constant feedback/​engagement that helped us get more organised as a studio, and his astonishing levels of trivia and general knowledge.

Archit put together a quiz for the team as his exit interview.

We wish him well and continue to cheer him from the sidelines.

Lastly, a project that we had worked on and completed during the first few months of 2020 has, after awaiting a public launch for almost a year, now been shelved completely. Another project that had launched in 2019 went offline after a year as the organisation ceased all communication (and perhaps operations).

2020 – 21 in Numbers

• 2 new team members, 1 departure
• Undertook 13 client projects
• Worked with 5 collaborators
• Hosted 2 events and 2 talk series
• Worked with/​in 5 geographies
• 6 project launches
• 1 new plugin release
• 1 person got married

Our sites have undeniably grown in complexity over the years. Each year we send more data, show bigger images and process lots more JavaScript per page than the year before, growing steadily for at least the last decade and outpacing the gains we’re making in computing and network capacity. The bloating of the web hasn’t gone unnoticed though — sites take their own sweet time to load, eat through data allowances, drain out the battery and bring the computer down to a crawl. Thankfully, the web community realises and acknowledges the problem. Performance is no longer an afterthought. Yet it is no easy band-aid either. Performance is impacted by a multitude of factors, so achieving success in this domain requires a multitude of solutions.

The folks at Hasgeek recently put together an event focused on Critical CSS (under the JSFoo(!) banner) and we got on stage to share how we approach and implement this technique on sites we build at Miranj.

Critical CSS for CMS-based, Server-rendered Websites on Vimeo.

We look at an end-to-end solution that we have evolved and battle tested over the years. Starting with a primer on Critical CSS and its place in the larger performance pie, I go over a 4‑part strategy to introduce Critical CSS generation and delivery to a CMS-based website. We look at some performance metrics impacted by Critical CSS, cover identifying target templates and page selection, leveraging the Critical library to extract critical CSS, automating the extraction process using Gulp, reducing response size for repeat visitors, and getting this entire system to work with the caching layer(s) that you may already be using.

Hello! Hope we caught you at a good time.

We ended our last newsletter bidding good riddance to 2020. Little did we know that 2021 had completely different plans. In the six months between the two emails, the world around us has endured some significant blows. A couple of our neighbouring nations have experienced the toppling of democracies, and here in India, we suffered a heart-breaking second wave of the pandemic. These past months have been a rollercoaster of emotions, anxiety and dwelling on existential questions. Hope you’ve been keeping well during these times.

Amidst the gloom, work has been a saviour of our spirits and mental health. We’ve had our hands full doing some interesting gigs and feel lucky to have enjoyed a steady rate of incoming enquiries. Having had to turn down several interesting opportunities during this period, we’ve decided to undertake a different challenge i.e. adding a senior web developer to our team. More on that (and how you can help us) a little later. But first, let’s run through some highlights from this period —

1. 📅 In February, shortly after we turned 10, we organised another edition of the World Information Architecture Day. This is the first time we pulled off a virtual event with logistical support from our friends at Hasgeek and local WIAD volunteers. The talks touched upon some interesting subjects: Computational Gastronomy, Indoor Gardening and Visual Narratives. You can catch the recordings on YouTube in case you missed the event.

2. 🕊️ In March, just like last year, we donated a portion of our profits towards three causes — one that impacts our work, another that impacts our industry, and finally one that impacts our society. After much deliberation within the team, we picked these three wonderful organisations—

   1. Software Freedom Conservancy (supporters of several open-source projects) 
   2. Mozilla (the makers of Firefox web browser)
   3. AltNews (fact-checking media organisation)

   We urge you to join our efforts in supporting them.

3. 🐣 Over the next couple of months, three of our projects went live —

   1. First up was Obvious — a Bangalore-based digital product and strategy consulting firm. We developed their new website in Craft CMS in close collaboration with their designers and communications team. Their new site launched in February, with a gradual rollout of newer features over time.
   2. Next was Azim Premji University — an institute in Bangalore widely known for its emphasis on education for social change. The university was set up to fill the need for well-qualified professionals in the social sector. We built their website in collaboration with Shalini Sekhar and Kavya Murthy. The site was launched in May and has received great feedback. We’re excited (and humbled) to have played a small part in their journey towards a more just, equitable, humane and sustainable society. 
   3. And the third one was Internet Democracy Project — a Delhi-based policy and advocacy organisation working towards digital rights and democracy in India. Back in 2013, we’d created a WordPress-based website for them. This year the website underwent a complete technical overhaul with migration to Craft CMS and some minor updates in design. This site also went live in May, with some new yet-to-be-revealed sections bidding their time.

4. 🏛️ Having spent over a year working remotely we realised that it was hard to find time to interact as a team. So in May, we started a new internal initiative called Townhalls. Every Friday, for about 1.5 hours we get all hands on board to discuss various work-related topics. It can be a past project retrospective, internal policy discussions, working out issues faced at work, sharing new learnings, or exploring new territory. The idea is to facilitate team communication beyond day-to-day project talk (and once-a-month chill sessions) and for the team to grow (and chart out the studio’s future) together. If you’ve dabbled with a similar initiative within your organisation, we’d love to hear and learn from your experience. Do drop us a note.

5. 🗣️ In June, Souvik was invited to a global panel on ​“Curiosity and Information Architecture” at 24 hours of UX. The hour-long conversation between Ghada Kandil (Egypt), Hertje Brodersen (Germany), Jason Roa (The Philippines), Andrew Jung (Canada), Luis Alveart (Colombia) and Souvik Das Gupta (India) was insightful and represented views from around the world.

6. ✨ Also in June, Prateek took the online stage at TypeLab Asia (part of Typographics 2021) to demonstrate a new Type Testing Tool that we’ve been developing closely with Universal Thirst (a type foundry in Bangalore and Reykjavik). If you missed the live demo, you can catch an early sneak peek through Prateek’s slide deck.

7. 🎙️ In July, Souvik and Tejas (from 3 Sided Coin) kick-started Two Studio Heads Walk Into a Bar — a space for discussing the business side of small creative service agencies. You can catch the live stream on YouTube and ask questions every alternate Saturday at 11am (or go through the recordings at your own leisure). If you’d like us to discuss a particular topic, or participate in a future conversation, please reach out to us @twostudioheads on Twitter.

8. 💉 By August our entire team got fully vaccinated. This is certainly an important milestone. We feel a lot safer and we hope that the vaccination numbers around us climb up rapidly so that we can get back to normalcy.

Job Opening

We are looking for a mid-to-senior level web developer (with around 5 – 7 years of experience) to help us continue making great websites. This is a remote position and the candidate may be located anywhere in India or the rest of the world (with at least a 4‑hour time overlap with the Indian timezone). Would you know a suitable candidate who shares our passion for web development and can confidently handle modern web projects? If yes, please refer them to us (we’ve got a handsome referral fee for a successful hire). Please do spread the word.

Coming Up: Double Appearance on Sat, 28^th August

1. The next episode of Two Studio Heads Walk Into a Bar will feature Hamsa, Tejas and Souvik discussing the two modes of running a small business — as an independent freelancer/​consultant, or setting up a team. Catch Episode #5: ​“To fly yourself or to build a crew?” live on YouTube at 11am IST.
2. Prateek will give a talk on ​“Micro-caching in Nginx for High Performance” at the 6^th Edition of Bangalore Site Speed. In his talk, he’ll deep-dive into our caching strategy for lightning-fast websites. Catch the online event from 11am to 1pm IST.

Leaving you with some snaps from the conferences, chill sessions, and a rainy day when 4 of us managed to get together and play some badminton. Do write to us about how things are going at your end.

Stay safe and see you around,
– From all of us at Miranj

Miranj is Archit, Divya, Paul, Prateek, and Souvik.

Hello!

Trust this email finds you in a state of well being and optimism.

🎂 We’ve turned ten! 🎉

In a world where businesses often fall out, disband or get acquired, we’re glad to have been profitable, sustainable and resilient for a decade. Despite remaining small throughout, we’ve travelled a long way from a tiny basement office in 2011 to now having a distributed team across New Delhi and Phnom Penh. We’d been eager to celebrate this milestone with our clients, friends, collaborators and well-wishers, but the world had other pandemic-sized plans. Hopefully someday, within this 10^th year, we’ll reach a point when social interactions are safe again, travel restrictions are lifted and we get to celebrate with you in person. If you’re reading this letter, you’ve definitely played a part in our journey and we’re grateful for your support.

Six months back, we were in a tentative state of mind. The pandemic had impacted several businesses around us, but slowly, the world adapted, pressed on, and so did we. Here are a few updates from this period—

1. 🔌 In August, we packaged a handy bit of code for content filtering (and URL routing) into a Craft 3 plugin called Router. The plugin got featured in the New and Noteworthy list curated by the makers of Craft CMS and also in Craft The Planet newsletter in the form of a demo by Prateek.

2. 🤝 In November, one of our flagship projects Guiding Tech announced its acquisition by a US-based media company. Guiding Tech is a consumer technology content platform that had approached us for a revamp in 2017. Since then, we’d been constantly improving the technology and design of the website. This includes WordPress to Craft CMS migration, fresh Information Architecture, new design and UX, and several external integrations. We’re proud of how the website has scaled, performed and succeeded.

3. ⛔ In December, we decided to close down Base Station — our 6‑year-old office (and a co-working space) in New Delhi. We’ve been working from home right through the pandemic and the office was left completely unused. We made some great friends and memories while running Base Station as a co-working space. If you’re one of our past co-workers, thank you for giving us your company. For now, we’re embracing remote working and adjusting to the new normal.

4. 📡 Speaking of remote working and collaborations, one activity that we’ve always gone out of our way to conduct in-person is client workshops. However, in the last few months, we’ve undertaken two online workshops using tools like Dropbox Paper, Google Sheets, and more recently, Miro. We’re still experimenting and adapting our process. If you’ve been conducting online brainstorming and strategy workshops, we’d love to know your approach: What process do you follow? How do you keep it engaging and interactive? What are you using to replace stickies, markers and whiteboards?

5. 🗣️ Continuing our initiative since mid-2020, we hosted several more sessions of Content Web (weekly discussions covering various facets of creating and managing content-based websites). If you are interested in the subject, we particularly recommend the following sessions —

   • Using Web Page Tests (WPT) Effectively and On HTTP3 by Satiya Prasath Padmanabhan
   • Securing Websites from WordPress Hacks by Anand Krishna
   • Getting Started with Web Typography by Karl Fernandes
   • Designing Custom Grids that Scale and Modular Typography for the Web by Hamsa Ganesh
   • Creating Responsive Data Visualisations by Gurman Bhatia

6. ✍️ The Hard Copy, India’s homegrown publication on building digital-first brands, recently published Souvik’s article on Why Your Website Should Look Beyond English. Do give it a read and tell us what you think.

7. 👩‍💻 And lastly, our team grows by one more person. Meet our newest team member Divya Chauhan. She joins us as an executive manager who will be helping Miranj with everything operations.

Coming Up Tomorrow

We’ll be celebrating World Information Architecture Day (WIAD) once again on 27^th Feb 2021. This is the first time WIAD will go completely online with the help of our volunteers Manish, Saurabh, Abhishek, and logistical support from Hasgeek. This year’s WIAD sessions will touch upon a diverse range of topics: Computational Gastronomy, Choice Architecture, Indoor Gardening and Visual Narratives. Do register and join.

The worst of the pandemic (read: 2020) is behind us. We’re excited about this year and have some great plans (and work) ahead of us. We also look forward to reclaiming our social lives and hopefully interacting with all of you in person. But until that day comes, do write to us about how things are going at your end. 

That’s all from us. We leave you with some snaps from our New Year and 10^th Anniversary celebrations (and of the instant cameras that Santa got us).

Stay safe and continue with the precautions,
– From all of us at Miranj

Miranj is Archit, Divya, Paul, Prateek, and Souvik.