In this edition of In The Spotlight, we speak to Will Gilgrass, Managing Director of Format, about how the business is transforming content creation through code-driven design and automation. We explore how Format helps teams produce on-brand graphics and video in minutes rather than hours, the technology behind its approach, and its ambitions to grow within Greater Manchester's tech ecosystem.
Format grew out of Platform Media. Could you start by introducing who you are, your roles, and the story behind starting Format?
I'm Will Gilgrass, Managing Director of Format. I look after sales, partnerships and the commercial side of the business. Before Format I spent over a decade leading social and content teams at places like Red Bull and the BBC, so I've seen content production up close.
Format started when founder, Matt Sayward, was Chief Strategy Officer at Platform Media, he kept seeing the same bottlenecks in his podcast production teams. People who were great at their jobs were getting stuck on fairly simple templated content, because making it meant using fiddly design programmes built for specialists. Once a design exists, adding content to it shouldn't be complicated. That's where the idea for Format came from.
We launched in October 2024. Since then Format has been used at World Cups and the Olympics, and by always-on media brands in the UK and US. Anthony Lock, our Head of Engineering, leads the build from Manchester.
Creating on-brand content at scale often creates bottleneck issues for non-designers. How does Format empower teams to produce consistent, automated video and graphics easily?
I’ve been there and suffered. Having to create an asset - a static graphic or video - where every second of delay makes it less relevant, using complex programs and nothing really to catch mistakes. Even with a template, one asset can take around 30 minutes to build properly. Multiply that across several platforms, several times a day, and the design hours add up to most of a working week. That's before anything unplanned happens.
Format fixes this without taking people out of the process. Designers build the template once and pass it to us. We then convert the Photoshop file, Figma, Canva etc… into JSX, CSS and JavaScript to lock in the brand guardrails: fonts, colours, logos and layout. After that, anyone on the team can create pixel-perfect, on-brand video and graphics using Format by filling in a few fields. They don't need design skills, specialist software or training.
Because the guardrails are built in, there's nothing for an approval chain to catch. Non-designers can create with confidence, knowing they can't get it wrong. Designers get their time back for the creative work that needs them. And teams can react to what's happening now, not what was planned three weeks ago. Most of our clients produce assets in less than a minute, which regularly cuts production time by up to 90%.
With modern content demands accelerating rapidly, what are the biggest creative bottlenecks you see teams struggling with today, and how are evolving workflows redefining creative operations?
The two biggest bottlenecks we see are volume and approvals.
Firstly, volume. Teams are expected to post across more platforms, in more formats, more often than ever. Every asset needs rebuilding for different aspect ratios, and every reactive moment needs something ready in minutes. The number of assets has grown far faster than the number of designers. The result is small teams doing a lot of repetitive production work that eats the time they'd rather spend on creative thinking.
Then every one of those assets then has to pass through layers of approvals before it can be published. There are brand checks, design checks and stakeholder checks. Each layer exists for a good reason, because nobody wants an off-brand post going out. But together they slow everything down. By the time something is approved, the moment has often passed.
Format tackles both problems and ends the need to enforce your brand, because we encode it.
We insert the brand rules into the code, so an off-brand asset simply can't be produced. That removes the reason for most approval layers. Quality control moves upstream to the moment the Format is built, rather than being checked asset by asset afterwards. Content can go straight from creation to publication.
Meaning volume stops being a design problem as a single Format outputs every aspect ratio - and anyone on the team can use it, not just designers.
It can also be connected to data, such as a spreadsheet, an API or a live feed. So you can generate hundreds of assets in one go, or produce whole categories of content automatically.
It’s a similar shift as to what happened in web development years ago. Websites stopped being hand-built pages and became systems: components, design tokens and content management.
Creative ops is going the same way. Brand assets are becoming a system rather than a pile of files, with designers becoming the system builders, so everyone else can move at the speed the moment demands.
The point isn't more technology. It's less friction.
From dynamic smart-layout engines to deep integrations with CricViz and digital asset management tools, what key technical innovations drive Format behind the scenes?
The core innovation is that Format isn't a design tool with templates bolted on. It's a web-native design engine. Every Format is a React component, which means design follows the same rules as modern software rather than a static file.
When we rebuild a designer's file, we split it into two layers. Anything fixed, like brand elements, grid and typography, is written into the component and can't be changed. Anything that should change becomes a defined input: text, image, video, a data point or a toggle. These inputs are what users see as simple form fields.
Layout is handled by the same responsive CSS logic that lets a website adapt to any screen. On top of that we add conditional logic, so a Format can react to its content. For example, it can switch layout for a win or a loss, drop a sponsor slot when it isn't needed, or restyle when a headline runs long.
This means each template or Format is code and behaves like software:
It makes design decisions automatically - text rebalances across lines, and images and video fill their space, in real time. It has the accuracy of an expert designer, whatever content goes in.
One build covers every aspect ratio - the same component responds to different dimensions, so square, portrait and landscape come from one Format, not three files.
Themes are just variables - colours, sponsors or competition branding can be swapped instantly without touching the layout.
Structured inputs mean automation - because every editable field is defined, you can fill it from a CSV, an API or a live data feed. That's how batch creation generates hundreds of assets in one click and how CricViz data flows straight into on-brand graphics.
Consistency is guaranteed, not checked - the same inputs always produce the same output. Brand rules live in the code, so they can't drift.
Anthony is based in Manchester and you are actively looking to build a local talent pipeline here. What excites you most about expanding within the Greater Manchester tech community and joining Manchester Digital?
It’s a pleasure to work with Anthony every day and he’s exceptional - so if he’s based in Manchester and the city has helped shape him there must be something good in the water!
Manchester has a brilliant mix of engineering and creative talent and Format sits right at that intersection. With Anthony leading engineering here, it's already a natural home for the build side of the business. Joining Manchester Digital was an obvious opportunity for us to grow our awareness and make important contacts..
For engineers, Format offers an unusual set of problems. There's front-end work, a layout engine, a rendering pipeline that scales under live-event pressure and data integrations that feed real-time sports and media content. It's web development applied to a problem most developers haven't worked on before.
What excites us most is building a local pipeline of people who want to work on that as well as others who want to use it. That covers React and TypeScript developers, creative technologists and graduates who want to see their code used at the Olympics or a World Cup; across leading media brands and more we haven’t been in touch with yet.
How can Manchester Digital members best get involved or collaborate with you?
We'd love to hear from any member who finds this interesting and would like to know more. In particular:
- Talent. If you're a front-end, full-stack or creative-tech developer, especially with React, TypeScript or Go experience, get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.
- Integration partners. If you run a data platform, API, asset library or DAM that could plug into Format, let's explore connecting it.
- Teams with a content bottleneck. If your marketing or content team is producing a lot of assets and feeling the strain, we'd be happy to show you how Format could free up your time.
- Knowledge-sharing. We're always up for talks, meetups and workshops on code-driven design, automated content pipelines and building products for media teams.
If any of this sounds like you, we should chat.
Thanks Will!
To find out more about Format, click here.
