Studio update: What we’ve been up to July – September 2026

It’s been a busy summer here at The Idea Bureau! ☀️

We’ve spent the last few months working away on some exciting projects – from new discovery workshops and wireframes to designing and building a brand-new mobile app. But, in the spirit of practising what we preach when it comes to a good work/life balance, we’ve also made sure to take some time away from our screens and enjoy the summer.

Now that autumn is officially here, it feels like a good time to look back at what we’ve been up to over the last few months.

Our latest projects

We’ve had a good mix of new and ongoing projects keeping us busy over the summer, including starting another project with a familiar client and venturing further into the world of mobile apps.

Starting a new project with IAPB

After launching IAPB’s Global Summit website earlier this year, we’ve started working with the team on another new digital project.

We kicked things off with a discovery workshop, bringing the team together to dig into what they need from the new platform, who will be using it and what those users need to be able to achieve.

Once the workshop was complete, we brought all of the findings together and shared the outcomes with the IAPB team, giving us a clear direction to move forward with.

We’re now in the wireframing stage, where we’re starting to turn those ideas and requirements into something more tangible. Once the user journeys and structure are in place, we’ll be moving into design – so there’ll be plenty more to share on this one over the next few months!

Designing and building a mobile app for The Complete Works

We’ve also been busy working on something a little different for one of our long-term clients, The Complete Works – a brand-new mobile app.

We’ve been working across both the design and build of the app over the summer, taking it from an initial idea through to a fully-fledged digital product.

It’s always exciting for us to work with existing clients on new ideas and explore different ways technology can support their organisation. The app is due to launch in October, so we’re looking forward to sharing more about what we’ve created very soon.

Two new case studies

We’ve also published two new case studies over the summer, taking a closer look at some of the projects we’ve loved working on.

IAPB Vision Atlas

We’ve shared the story behind our work with IAPB on the Vision Atlas, a data-rich platform that makes global eye health information easier to explore and understand through interactive maps and visualisations.

Alitex Nurture

Our second new case study looks at Nurture, a bespoke learning and development platform we designed and built for Alitex to support employee development and track learning across their team.

In other news…

There’s been plenty happening outside our main project work too.

Planning for the rest of 2026

After we’d both had some well-earned time off over the summer, we got back together for an in-person planning session to take stock and look ahead to the rest of the year.

Working remotely gives us plenty of flexibility, but there’s something particularly useful about getting in the same room, stepping away from the day-to-day project work and giving ourselves some proper time to think about The Idea Bureau. It turned into a really productive session, giving us the chance to reflect on where we are, talk through our priorities and map out what we want to focus on over the final few months of 2026.

We came away with plenty of ideas and a clear plan for what’s next – some of which you’ll hopefully start seeing over the coming months!

We held our first free client workshop

Over the summer, we decided to offer a variety of our existing clients the opportunity to book a free workshop with us – giving them some dedicated time to step away from the day-to-day and explore a challenge, idea or opportunity with our team.

Our first workshop was with long-term client Open Contracting Partnership (OCP), where we focused on their core service offerings and the different journeys governments might take when looking for support with procurement challenges.

Rather than jumping straight into designing those journeys, the sessions were all about gathering the right information first: understanding the problems their audiences are facing, what a successful outcome looks like, how OCP can help and the evidence they have to support it.

We ran two sessions across different time zones and came away with lots of useful insights that we can now use to start shaping clearer user journeys through their website.

We launched Behind the Build 👀

We spend a lot of time sharing our finished work, but there’s usually a lot that happens before a project reaches that point.

So, we decided it was time to show a little more of it!

We’ve launched Behind the Build, a new space on our website where we’ll be sharing snapshots of what we’re working on – from early ideas and discovery workshops to wireframes, designs and work in progress.

It’s a less polished look at what goes into the projects we create and a chance to share more of the process, rather than only showing you the finished product.

Bureau for Good is back! 💌

After a short hiatus, our Bureau for Good newsletter landed back in inboxes this summer.

We’ve made a few changes to the format, but the idea behind it remains the same: bringing together useful news, resources and ideas from across the charity, non-profit and digital sectors without giving you another overwhelmingly long newsletter to get through.

Our next edition will be landing in October, so if you work for a charity or non-profit and fancy having some useful digital goodness delivered straight to your inbox, now’s a good time to sign up.

Our latest resources

We’ve also added two new resources to the website over the last few months, both created to give charity and non-profit teams some practical advice they can actually put to use.

What’s coming up for us next…

We’ve got plenty to keep us busy as we head into the final few months of 2026.

• The Complete Works mobile app will be launching in October, which we’re really excited to finally get out into the world.
• We’ll also be moving our latest IAPB project from wireframes into the design stage, where we can start bringing the new platform to life visually.
• And, of course, another edition of Bureau for Good will be landing in inboxes very soon. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can join our mailing list to get the next edition.
• As always, we’ll be sharing more of what we’re working on through Behind the Build, our blog and LinkedIn over the next few months.

If you’d like to find out more about anything we’ve shared here – or you have a digital project, challenge or idea you’d like to chat through with us – feel free to drop us a message. We’d love to hear from you 💬✉️