Until 2016, there was no handbook. Just a bunch of ideas in several people's heads. When someone new came to work with us, it was confusing as they had to work things out on their own and absorb a culture and ways of working that are often unfamiliar if you've worked in a regular corporate job; even one in the design industry. Oral history is great, but it's for telling stories, not for onboarding new people.
This is our living guide to working at acidlabs. In here, you'll find information about who we are, the way we work, the why of the things we do. There's also a decent serving of our history if you read between the lines.
This handbook gives us an opportunity to state who we are as a company. What do we stand for? How should we work? Writing these things down into this handbook makes them tangible and, most importantly, editable. Ensuring acidlabs itself is our best product is a guiding principle, but we can’t make better what we haven’t described. Whatever version of this handbook you’re reading, it’s definitely not the last. Please help keep it up to date! Fix the obvious errors, but also point out the things that need saying, changing, or clarifying.
Take advantage of being a newbie (if you are) and point out anything that's odd, isn't working, or broken. The people who have been here a while may not have noticed.
There's a notional reading order you can follow, though it's not critical.