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2004 saw us take our first real steps into the freelance world of design. After many years of working within agencies and large corporate companies we decided, hang on a minute I’m doing all the work here and they’re getting paid. We offer as much expertise in the world of design as many big companies but at a fraction of the price. The majority of our work in 2004 was artwork based for the TV channel Men and Motors (which is no longer in existence). Work for them included the designing or company artwork, DVD covers and a rebrand of their website. Examples of artwork created can be found on the portfolio page.

2005 – saw us building the online presence for professional photographer Henryk Hetfliasz. His site was an ASP based online portfolio of his work. Unfortunately the site is no longer live. We also built the website for The Rooprai Spinal Trust. We have since updated the design but the initial concept was very successful. The site is dedicated to helping those affected by spinal injury, inspired by Marrianne Rooprai – herself the victim of a spinal injury (www.rstrust.com).

2006 started out as an interesting year. Our major project was www.showsreunited.com – which is the online reunion service for the entertainment industries. Users of the site can create an account, create their profile, then search and attach relevant TV shows, film productions, music projects or theatre productions to their profile. They can then search and contact similar users or previous work colleagues as a means of networking and building social networking groups. The site was the brainchild of Kris Lythgoe, son of famous producer Nigel who has a wealth of experience in the entertainment industry.

2007 saw us undertake out first major projects for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful group. First up was and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, closely followed by Sound of Music the musical. Both shows were big West End hits and we were commissioned to build their online presence. Both shows no longer run in the West End but the sites can still be found online (www.josephthemusical.com, www.thesoundofmusiclondon.com.

In 2008 we undertook work for LX Captial on their then recently purchased acquisitions of SamKnows (who provide broadband performance solutions and broadband availability data for consumers, governments, ISPs and application developers) and Partner Platform, which is a simple, flexible, dynamic affiliate campaign reporting, support, management and planning system. We were asked to provide the designs for the re-branded websites *Please note the SamKnows website has since been re-designed by another company and Partner Platform now only exists in its Czech version. Our designs can be viewed on the portfolio page.

2009 saw us commence the largest project to date. We were asked to design the themed sections for the official Really Useful Group Website (www.reallyuseful.com*). With offices in London and Sydney, The Really Useful Group is the corporate arm that produces and co-ordinates Andrew Lloyd Webber’s works throughout the world. The site was a very large project and a number of teams were involved, we were asked to design and provide the templates for all the show themed micro sections for the site. *Please note as of 2011 this site has been re-designed.

We were also asked to design the official Cats the musical website (www.catsthemuisical.com) and the London Theatre website which was an online ticket vendor for all of Really Useful Group’s shows (this site is no longer live but a screenshot can be found on our portfolio page).

This year saw us commissioned to design and build the official Wizard of Oz the musical website (www.wizardofozthemusical.com). This was a great achievement for us as we were up against some stiff competition. It wasn’t an easy project as we were short on artwork (due to their not actually being any before the show had started) so the design was built entirely around the existing promotional poster. Again this site is built in WordPress. We also designed and built the official Danielle Hope website who was playing the lead part of Dorothy in the show and winner of the BBC’s Over The Rainbow (www.daniellehope.co.uk).

Other smaller projects this year included the website for White Smile Studios (www.whitesmilestudios.com) which operates teeth whitening services (this design was based on a pre-purchased template), a small animation for Clixal, promotional artwork folders for VC-NET (a global visual communications company) which can be seen in the portfolio page and finally a small website for theatre production of Cinderella based in Los Angeles for parent company Magic Pictures International.  We also built Northaw and Cuffley Lawn Tennis Club’s website using a pre-purchased template (www.northaw-cuffleytennisclub.co.uk).

We also brought the offical Cats the Musical website (www.catsthemusical.com) into a WordPress theme.

2011 was an exciting year for darrenodam.com. Our largest and most exciting project so far was the re-design of The official Really Useful Group Website (www.reallyuseful.com). With offices in London and Sydney, The Really Useful Group is the corporate arm  that produces and co-ordinates Andrew Lloyd Webber’s works throughout the world. This site was built in WordPress but needed to use a heavily modified bespoke theme to bring all the different areas of the company together. We also designed all the show themed sections of the site as before.

Another very exciting project for us was the design and rebrand of the official James Allen on F1 website (www.jamesallenonf1.com). James Allen is one of the most experienced and insightful broadcasters and journalists working in Formula 1 today, and with a great interest in F1 this was a project that really got the juices flowing. The original site design was put together by a very talented freelance designer Ali Peate (www.peate.co.uk) and then it was our responsibility to bring the original concepts into a WordPress theme, using all the relevant functionality from the previous site and new functionality devised in the new concepts. This site is very exciting as an on-going project – future work includes the designing and building of a Red Bull and Mclaren themed section of the site (Ferrari and Caterham F1 exist already) plus many other projects such as a Race Sim and UBS Strategy page that will be coming in 2012.

This year saw us re design the Rooprai Spinal Trust website which is dedicated to helping those affected by spinal injury, inspired by Marrianne Rooprai – herself the victim of a spinal injury. We also brought the site into WordPress to give the trust the ability to maintain and update the website themselves (www.rstrust.com).

We also designed and built the website for Magic Pictures International (www.mpient.com) which is a leading producer and creator of global television and theatre formats based in Los Angeles and run by Nigel (Pop Idol, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance)and Kris Lythgoe. We designed and build the website in WordPress.

As well as building the Really useful Group website we also designed and built the official show licensing site for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals, Stage a Musical (www.stageamusical.com). Again this site was a WordPress themed website.

As well as these exciting projects we were commissioned to bring the original Sound of Music the Musical and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat websites into a WordPress theme format (www.josephthemusical.com, www.thesoundofmusiclondon.com). The designs remained the same as the previous versions.

Other smaller projects saw us create a mobile and Ipad version of the Wizard of Oz and Cats the musical websites.

2012 has seen a busy start to the year for darrenodam.com with the designing and building of the official Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Starlight Express’ (www.starlightexpressthemusical.com) and ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ websites (www.jesuschristsuperstar.com). Jesus Christ Superstar is running on Broadway and Starlight Express will be commencing a UK tour in 2012. www.jesuschristsuperstar.com is also the sister site to ITV’s Superstar and the site was re-designed to match the new branding. Again these sites were built in WordPress and follow the usual WordPress theme that has been incorporated on the other show sites.

The beginning of the year also saw us design and build the official ‘Love Never Dies’ cinema and DVD release website (not to be confused with the official Love Never Dies website). Again this was built with a custom WordPress theme (www.loveneverdies.com).

Other works included the building of the James Allen on F1 Innovation page theme www.jamesallenonf1.com/innovation.

There are a few other exciting jobs in the pipeline so watch this space.