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Ken Shuttleworth bravely called it quits with Foster and Partners at the end of 2003. Since then, he's started his own practice – Make – and swapped designing London landmarks such as Swiss Re and City Hall for buying paperclips and opening a bank account. Here studio manager Andy Sturrock reveals how it's going so far …

Are we architects or sardines?
We're getting increasingly short of desk and storage space. Our numbers keep increasing — eight at the last count, in a space large enough for four, with at least two more due to start in March. It's getting a bit too cosy.

The headed paper fiasco
So far, the only cause of internal strife is the stationery design. My own concerns about the practicalities of the headed paper – there isn't much space for the name and address of the recipient – didn't go down too well. What's more, the paper is red on the back, but on the initial batch, this bled through to the front. I wasn't best pleased at being asked to guillotine the edges, so someone else did it. Whereupon the text no longer lined up with the pre-printed company address. We now have the correct paper, which is working better. And it does look very good!

Make, payable
After producing a huge amount of evidence to persuade the authorities that we're not after all a cunning money-laundering operation, we now have a bank account. We don't have a cheque book and there's no money in the account yet (despite having sent out the first invoices), but it's a start.

How yellow is yellow?
We're sourcing our stationery and apparently the canary-coloured detail paper isn't "canary" enough for most of the architects (although Ken is happy with it), and they don't like the texture. However, I've managed to source some acceptable paper and can now sleep easy.

We’re getting increasingly short of desk and storage space. Our numbers keep increasing. — the latest tally is eight (in a space large enough for four)

HellocanIspeaktodaddy?
On most days a little boy (Jayjay, aged four) rings at 5.30pm to speak to his father James – which is fine when James is here. However, Jayjay is not quite sure what to do when James is out and I answer the phone. There is usually a long silence and then Jayjay's mother comes on.

Mr Kenneth Technodisaster
Ken somehow managed to lose everything on his C drive. Fortunately, we've managed to recover most of it.