codegent

A London digital studio, 2004 to 2021. We made beautifully crafted digital products for our clients and customers that promoted, educated and delighted.

  • ScreenCloud. Born in Codegent Labs in 2014, and spun out as its own company in 2015.
  • 20 million+. Over 20 million downloads of our own apps.

Founded in London, 2004

It started with three.

  • Mark McDermott.

    Co-founder, creative director

  • David Hart.

    Co-founder, managing director

  • Luke Hubbard.

    Co-founder, technical director

Codegent was incorporated on 1 May 2004. The three had met at Reading Room, and began in a borrowed room at the top of Mark’s parents’ office.

Five of the team laughing at the yellow kitchen counter, with the big C on a screen behind them
The kitchen at Old Street, September 2013.

30 staff

“A made up name that is now a company of 30 people.” Mark, looking back on ten years, in November 2013.

  • 3 Directors
  • 10 Developers
  • 7 Designers
  • 5 Project managers
  • 2 Marketing
  • 3 Admin
  • 82. London and Bangkok, 2004 to 2014.
London, against the frosted glass at Old Street, 29 May 2013. Bangkok, on our own Webcam Snapper in December 2010, and Neng at Old Trafford that September.

The team, past and present, as thanked on our tenth birthday in 2014.

London 56

  • Samantha Redhead
  • Kate Twiss
  • Sarah Evison
  • Steve McKeogh
  • Josh van der Broek
  • Al Mills
  • Anna Haigh
  • Joseph Green
  • Lucy Bannatyne
  • Lauren Philips
  • Gloria Lindh
  • Nick Woodbine
  • Barry Frost
  • Alfonso Encisco
  • Stephen Adams
  • Aidan Kane
  • Matt Jukes
  • Lauren Macnab
  • Jenny Carpenter
  • Julie Coassin
  • Bruna Magor
  • Nicolas Du Mortier
  • Phil Yates
  • Agnieszka Oslak
  • Michael Kane
  • Michael Wells
  • Rachel Wilde
  • Karine Tonson la Tour
  • Mel Thompson
  • Lisa-Marie Leitner
  • David Harrison
  • Bjorn Jansen
  • Nicola Copsey
  • Kevin Danaher
  • Nick Peasant
  • Geoff Noel
  • Kelvin Leung
  • Umut Ahmet
  • Massimo Martinetti
  • Merv Booth
  • Erwin Bayani
  • Antony Whenman
  • Enrica Ciarniello
  • Hannah Flores
  • Yannick Chenot
  • Siebe van Dijck
  • Tristan Pretty
  • Joe Savage
  • Bridget O’Connor-Read
  • Jane Hart
  • Seth Armstrong-Twigg
  • Mac Fraj
  • Beth Gladstone
  • Josh McMillan
  • Sarah Wright
  • Lauren Smith

Bangkok 26

  • Khum Hubbard
  • Jirasak Saebang
  • Tanisorn Karnchanahattakij
  • Akapong Soontorngitwarakul
  • Nattapong Kongmun
  • Chaiwut Witoogit
  • Tongnueng Sermsutcharitgul
  • Nattpapat Pinyopusarerk
  • Manaspon Siripak
  • Jirapat Tangnoi
  • Watcharakorn Kotawan
  • Surasit Liangpornrattana
  • Panu Aussawaserelert
  • Nakorn Suttigultorn
  • Warachet Samtalee
  • Sillapanon Hattachanchai
  • Watchara Nilsonti
  • Prem Sitchanugrit
  • Watchara Thongkam
  • Jiraporn Uttaruk
  • Anurak Eiampoklarb
  • Maxime Boulin
  • Muriel Bowie
  • Manapan Pattanathong
  • Kiattikun Chaimoon
  • Xingmin

The agency

The work.

What the team made for Radioplayer, British Airways, Microsoft, Square Mile, Nestlé’s Jenny Craig, Time Out, the BBC, Channel 4 and The Hoxton.

Radioplayer iPad designs laid out side by side in orange columns

Radioplayer.

  • Mobile
  • APP
  • UX

The UK’s radio app, for the BBC, Guardian Media Group, Absolute Radio and RadioCentre

50% more stations a week, on average, than traditional radio listeners.

Live radio on the iPad, iPhone and Android, designed from wireframes to clickable prototypes and tested with listeners. At launch the iPad app ranked higher than any other radio app in the UK.

The Radioplayer iPad app: Trending, Location and Catchup columns of stations
A British Airways iPad app for crew: a dark blue dashboard of flight performance dials and charts

British Airways.

  • Mobile
  • APP
  • UX

Apps for pilots and cabin crew. We met the crews and spent time at Heathrow, then replaced reams of pre-flight paper with an iPad app that reads under cabin and flight-deck lighting, day and night.

The Bing UK home page, a green chameleon beside the line A new search experience

Microsoft.

  • Web
  • Mobile
  • APP

Bing and MSN. The site, the advertising and an MSN homepage takeover that drew almost 90,000 click-throughs in a few days, with video plays 460% above target. Then the Bing campaign for the British & Irish Lions tour, with Qantas, in 2013.

Three pages of the Square Mile iPad magazine: the Private Members’ Clubs cover, the contents page and the LUXX nightclub

Square Mile.

  • APP
  • UX

The iPad magazine. The City of London’s luxury magazine on the iPad, with features, a directory of the capital’s private members’ clubs and a map to find them.

The Jenny Craig home page: a smiling consultant on a headset beside the line A partnership for success

Jenny Craig.

Nestlé. A redesigned and rebuilt site for the weight-loss brand, with a menu generator, a members’ area, e-commerce and a mobile version.

The City of London skyline, the Gherkin and the Thames, built as a mosaic of readers’ photos

Time Out.

15,000 photos. Against a target of 2,000. Readers’ pictures of London built into a mosaic of the skyline, which won a Brand Republic Brand Collaboration Award.

The CBeebies home page, with the Playroom panel, green hills, Raa Raa the lion and Lola

CBeebies.

  • Web
  • UX

BBC. The CBeebies home page and Playroom for children, and CBeebies Grown‑ups for their parents.

The 4Music website: a pink-lit petrol station and a vintage car under the 4Music logo

4Music.

Channel 4. The 4Music website, built for desktop, tablet and phone.

The 1Stream app: Radio 1’s live stage, with Now playing underneath

BBC 1Stream.

Radio 1. The live stage and what’s playing now, on the phone.

The Hoxton hotel home page: the revolving door with light trails, and sleep, eat, meet and explore tiles

The Hoxton.

  • Web

The hotel’s site, 2010. A W3 Awards silver, and one of 2010’s ten most inspiring Flash websites.

Also for the V&A, Hamleys, the British Library, the Guardian, Skype, Nickelodeon, Metro, CBS Outdoor, Oxford University Press and Xbox 360. The agency

Standout work

40|30 at the Gherkin.

Searcys ran the restaurant and bar at the top of 30 St Mary Axe, London’s highest venue. We built its website around a full-screen film that took you up there, and showed the place in use in a way a site visit never could.

The film, 2 minutes. Shot inside the Gherkin in 2008, with an original score cut to the final edit.

The brief was to be dreamlike: “a golden memory of your time there rather than a literal depiction”. The film was the site, “more than just a film, it’s an interactive experience”, with a call to action at each chapter: membership, meetings, weddings, private dining and events. Apart from ours, only one film crew had been allowed into the building in two years.

  • Winner. FITC Award for Motion Graphics, Toronto, 2009. Shortlisted alongside Coca-Cola and Warner Brothers.
  • Nominee. The Webby Awards, 2009, chosen from nearly 10,000 entries.
  • Featured. MOLUV Featured Site Award.
  • Two women in evening dresses climbing the spiral stair into the sunlit dome
  • Diners at white tables under the diamond glazing of the dome, the City beyond
  • London at dusk through the Gherkin’s steel frame
Codegent and 40|30 scoop the FITC award

Products

We made our own, too.

We always built things of our own, from Red5 in 2005 to Moovrs in 2015. Our apps had over 20 million downloads between them.

Hands holding an iPhone running a Learn phrasebook app, by an aircraft window

Learn.

  • APP
  • 2011

19 million downloads. Phrasebooks in 20 languages, downloaded over ten years from 2011. Since exited.

Kizzu’s Alphabet Puzzles on a tablet: a whale jigsaw, with a cartoon giraffe and cow peeking in

Kizzu.

  • APP
  • 2012

Over 3 million downloads. Learning apps for young children, sold to a private equity fund.

Twilert’s location search: a map of London with a search radius drawn on it

Twilert.

  • Web
  • 2008

80,000 users. Twitter search alerts made easy, grown by word of mouth with no marketing budget.

Webcam Snapper running inside Airbnb’s profile photo page, a man waving at his webcam

Webcam Snapper.

  • Web
  • 2009

On Airbnb. Our webcam photo tool ran inside Airbnb’s profile photo page.

  1. 2005 Red5.
  2. 2008 Twilert.
  3. 2009 Tepilo.
  4. 2009 Webcam Snapper.
  5. 2011 Learn.
  6. 2011 Schedule.
  7. 2012 Kizzu.
  8. 2013 Flow.
  9. 2014 ScreenCloud.
  10. 2015 Moovrs.

Tepilo was co-founded with Sarah Beeny and exited on its merger with eMoov. All the products

Press and awards

On the record.

  1. 2006

    NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies.

    Listed under Design and Build, with 14 staff in the UK and clients including American Express, the BBC, Gap and Swarovski. It noted that every year Codegent built one website for free, most recently for a Great Ormond Street Hospital charity.

    The NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies 2006 cover, beside the Codegent listing

  2. 2009

    Webby Awards nominee.

    For 40|30 at the Gherkin, which also won the FITC Award for Motion Graphics. The Gherkin

    The Webby Awards letter of 14 April 2009, addressed to Mark at Codegent, 3 The Plough Brewery, 516 Wandsworth Road

  3. 2010

    UKTI Digital Mission to SXSW Interactive.

    Mark was selected to represent UK digital talent in Austin, and went twice.

  4. 2013

    Design Week Top 100.

    Design Week’s annual list of the UK’s top design agencies. July 2013 news

  5. 2015

    Unilever Foundry50, at Cannes.

    ScreenCloud was named in the Foundry50, “Europe’s 50 hottest startups”.

Video newsletters

Third Thursday.

Most months from May 2010 to April 2014, David and Mark sat in front of a framed picture and told everyone the news. 44 videos, usually in one take.

February 2013. The end of the first merged month of Codegent and Thin Martian.

“We don’t rehearse and we rarely start again if one of us messes up.”

David Hart, Third Thursday: is it worth it?, November 2011. He worked out each newsletter cost about £1,200 to make, sent to just under 1,000 people, and asked: “Would we be better off just buying everyone a sandwich?”

Every episode. (hover to play, click to open its post)

  1. May 2010The first one. “Something new (and foolish?)”
  2. Jun 2010The team do some circus skills training
  3. Jul 2010“We will try and get the camera to line up a bit better”
  4. Aug 2010Mark wears a white shirt. “A massive departure”
  5. Sep 2010“Challenged by both space and time”
  6. Oct 2010Full of celebration: Aidan and Sarah’s wedding
  7. Nov 2010Mark is full of snot, so Nick steps up
  8. Jan 2011David, knackered out by baby Max
  9. Feb 2011“3-2-1 go!”
  10. Mar 2011Like “a swan gliding serenely over the water”
  11. Apr 2011“The sun has got his hat on!”
  12. May 2011“I am all alone.” The mobile team work from the garden
  13. Jun 2011Not a Thursday: two launches that day
  14. Jul 2011Mark, from Italy
  15. Aug 2011“We are both in the office!”
  16. Sep 2011The Codegent Curry Club
  17. Oct 2011“You noticed it is in fact Friday”
  18. Nov 2011Mark completes the New York Marathon
  19. Dec 2011The last one of 2011
  20. Jan 2012Rachel shows off her rock
  21. Feb 2012Aidan codes while on a trip to New Zealand
  22. Mar 2012“Actually fourth… oops!”
  23. Apr 2012The office spring clean
  24. May 2012A new brand in the family: Kizzu
  25. Jun 2012“We have a new website!”
  26. Jul 2012“We have a lot to say this month”
  27. Aug 2012Mark is pumping iron in Spain
  28. Sep 2012“We are going all Korean”
  29. Oct 2012A political message from Mr David Hart
  30. Nov 2012All about new client wins
  31. Dec 2012The first one from Old Street
  32. Feb 2013The first merged month with Thin Martian
  33. Mar 2013A video tour of the work for Jenny Craig
  34. Apr 2013Playing with Facebook Home
  35. May 2013New launches and an award nomination
  36. Jun 2013A promo for the Tap & Say app
  37. Jul 2013“A slightly different approach”
  38. Aug 2013Filming in a new part of the office
  39. Nov 2013“Video format again”
  40. Dec 2013The last one of 2013
  41. Jan 2014Mark is “a bit worse for wear”
  42. Feb 2014“Spot the technical fail”
  43. Mar 2014Agency news and a new partnerships process
  44. Apr 2014Tech hacks, focus groups and San Francisco

The offices

London and Bangkok.

Three studios in London, two in Clapham and then Old Street, and three in Bangkok.

The view from the Clapham office at dusk, with Battersea Power Station on the skyline
Clapham, 2006. The top floor of the Plough Brewery, a converted brewery at 516 Wandsworth Road. “High, beamed ceilings and views out towards Battersea Power Station.”
The new Clapham studio: white walls, three tall sash windows, glass desks and one person working at the back
Just moved in. The Plough Brewery, about 2006.
The refitted Clapham office, with a glass meeting room and patterned wallpaper
The makeover, 2009. A glass meeting room, leather sofas and a drinks fridge “for… erm, drinking”.
Two of the team in a flat cap and a top hat in a Clapham doorway, the birch-tree wallpaper behind them
Hats on. Clapham, January 2010.

Bangkok.

The Bangkok office opened in 2009. By that December there were 30 people across London and Bangkok.

The Bangkok team at their computers, one smiling at the camera
The Bangkok team. At their desks.
The Bangkok office at night, lit from inside
2010. A new home for the Bangkok office. Luke moved there for good, and a small team of developers there started building web apps.
The Bangkok team working on laptops on a terrace in Chiang Mai
The floods, 2011. When Bangkok flooded, the team packed the office into a box and decamped to a reserve in the mountains near Chiang Mai. Nor, a designer on the team, drove through the floods in her pickup to get people to the airport. Luke called it “the best office I’ve ever had”.

Old Street.

In 2012 Codegent bought Thin Martian and moved into its office: a converted Victorian warehouse at 32-37 Cowper Street, right beside Silicon Roundabout, with both teams in one open-plan space.

Codegent acquires Thin Martian
The red Thin Martian logo on the green unit sign at the entrance
The Thin Martian sign at the door, January 2013.
The open-plan studio floor in black and white: iron columns, pendant lamps and people at their desks
The studio floor, September 2013.
A panorama of the Old Street studio: people at curved desks under pendant lamps, and two ScreenCloud screens on the far wall
The studio in August 2015, with ScreenCloud on the wall.

Thin Martian

Two agencies, then one.

  1. 1998

    Thin Martian was founded by James Clarke and Bradley Martin. Digital campaigns and interface design for Microsoft, British Airways, Nokia and Oxford University Press, and deep expertise in Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps.

  2. 2012

    Codegent bought Thin Martian. Both teams moved into the Old Street studio on 10 December: around 40 staff and regular contractors, everyone kept, trading under both names but run as one company.

  3. 2016

    The agency and products split. All the client work and its people went into Thin Martian, and Codegent became a digital innovation studio building its own products.

  4. 2017

    Thin Martian was sold to the Konekt Group.

From agency to product company, by David Hart
Cowper Street at low sun, the brick warehouse with the Codegent sign projecting over a wet road
The studio on Cowper Street, Old Street, September 2013.

Thinking

437 posts. 34 bylines.

The blog ran from 2005 to 2017, and the studio wrote it, not just the founders. “We actively encourage everyone in the agency to write,” David wrote in 2011. These are the people who did, and how many times.

Read the blog

Mark McDermott136 David Hart103 Matt Jukes28 Nick Woodbine21 Julie Coassin13 Kevin Danaher13 Mel Thompson12 Jenny Carpenter11 Lisa-Marie Leitner11 Rachel Wilde10 Beth Gladstone10 Luke Hubbard8 Michael Wells7 Nick Peasant7 Lauren Macnab6 Karine Tonson la Tour6 Agnieszka Oslak5 Maxime Boulin4 Seth Armstrong-Twigg4 Lauren Smith4 Hannah Flores3 Enrica Ciarniello3 Jirasak Saebang1 Joseph Hart1 Bjorn Jansen1 Aidan Kane1 Nicola Copsey1 Tristan Pretty1 Erwin Bayani1 Massimo Martinetti1 Michael Kane1 Yannick Chenot1 Josh McMillan1 Chris Bull1

Office banter

“This works because we all genuinely like each other.”

Lauren Smith, on the blog, May 2014.

  • Ten of the team in a human pyramid on gym mats

    Circus skills. June 2010.

  • The London team mid-routine in a dance studio

    Old Skool Hip-Hop. The Christmas party at Pineapple Dance Studios, 2010.

  • A video shoot in the Clapham studio: one of the team in a red guardsman’s jacket and top hat under the lights, Space Invader decals on the wall

    Lights, camera, costume. Clapham, January 2010.

  • 4.

    Rich Tea biscuits. The most anyone fitted in their mouth at once. Matt Jukes, 2008.

  • Four of the team playing table football in the studio after hours

    Table football. After hours, February 2013.

  • Someone serving curry from a foil tray in the office kitchen

    Curry Club. September 2011.

  • A member of the team holding a red teapot and a plate of homemade cakes

    Tea and cake. In the kitchen, February 2013.

  • A homemade iced cake reading Happy Birthday Codegent, with letter candles

    Ten years old. 1 May 2014.

  • A poster on the studio wall with a cartoon face and the line: When you click on it, you get what you click

    On the studio wall. Old Street, August 2013.

  • A close-up of a moustache

    Movember. 2008. “Some were a bit more whispy than others.”

  • Beer Friday.

    A delivery of different London beers every Friday. “Sometimes Beer Friday progresses to the nearest pub.”

  • The team at the round desk with iMacs, Space Invader decals and C-O-D-E letter cards on the glass

    The round desk. May 2013.

  • About a dozen of the team in ski gear with snowboards on an indoor slope

    The Christmas outing. On the snow, December 2011.

  • A golden retriever lying on the studio floor behind a laptop with a codegent sticker

    Best in show. January 2011.

  • Two of the team playing football in a back garden

    The summer barbecue. 2006. “The football was acrobatic to say the least.”

  • Five people round a glass table covered in sticky notes and sketches

    A workshop. In sticky notes, November 2013.

  • Aidan and Sarah on their wedding day, Aidan in a grey top hat

    Aidan and Sarah’s wedding. October 2010. “He was clean shaven 40 minutes before…”

  • Mark wearing a medal and a running vest with McD on it

    Mark ran the New York Marathon. November 2011.

  • A laptop on a decking edge looking out over a garden lawn

    The mobile team. Working from the garden, May 2011.

  • A team member in glasses striking a thoughtful pose at the webcam
  • A team member pulling a face at the webcam
  • A French bulldog on a blue beanbag
  • A tabby kitten filling the frame
The Codegent Crew. Taken with our own Webcam Snapper, December 2010. Pets included.

Codegent Labs

Where ScreenCloud began.

ScreenCloud started as a prototype in Codegent Labs in 2014, became its own company in 2015, and in 2025 Tenzing took a private equity majority stake.

The ScreenCloud test lab: a row of screens showing green test cards, with hand-drawn labels, in front of a glass-block wall
The ScreenCloud test lab, June 2014.
An early ScreenCloud screen: Bangkok weather, 32 degrees, over a purple street scene
One of the first screens. Bangkok weather, July 2014.
A homemade cake iced as the ScreenCloud logo in yellow sweets
The logo, in cake. June 2015.
A large group photo of the Unilever Foundry50 cohort under Unilever branding
Unilever Foundry50. At Cannes, June 2015.
ScreenCloud

Luke was lead developer on Red5, the open source Flash media server that powered Facebook’s self-record video feature, and Labs was where the next ideas were tried.

screencloud.com

“Overall, it’s safe to say that Codegent is a pretty decent place to work!”

Lauren Smith, on the blog, May 2014. A team that plays together, stays together