This is the magic.
All great endeavors are a cosmic dance of inspiration and ability, vision and execution.
Timmy and I approach projects with shared goals and very different perspectives. He is a scientist at heart, thorough in his dealings, rational in his processes, organized and methodical. I am a dreamer, taken by stories, lifted by emotion, heartfelt and open.
Together, we complete the circle. And in less philosophical terms, we can understand your vision and translate it into something for the web that is as beautiful as it is practical. We specialize in sites that capture the energy and spirit of the thing they represent, while being easy to use, simple to manage, and secure.
What we can do for you
Grunt work
- Fix this page
- Design this thing
- Move this button
- Make this work
Design/Dev work
- Design this website
- Build this app
- Create this tool
- Make this logo
Strategy work
- Fix this problem
- Craft this strategy
- Conceptualize this brand
- Communicate this idea
As a team, we are well-suited to work with:
Companies, agencies, and organizations who want to use the web to promote themselves, sell a product, or share a message in an inventive and unique way.
Creative agencies looking for a digital production house to develop and refine their client design work with a small team that understands the creative potential and best practices of the modern web.
Startups and other companies wanting to develop tools or tests of concept that go beyond the capacity or focus of their internal development teams.
These are the three actual things we physically do and charge money for, in order.
Digital Creative Strategy: Figuring out what technical and creative path is best for your business, culture, and goals
Creative: web design (UI/UX), branding, marketing materials, presentations, animation, illustration, copywriting, style guides
Full stack web-development: marketing sites, ecommerce stores, landing pages, apps, tools, and prototypes
A typical project chronology
Notes:
On pricing: Due to the complex nature of web development, and the fact that so many projects are delivered over time and over budget, we are adamant that schedules and pricing be provided only after the requirements documentation is complete. We have a lengthy explanation for why we do this, but the bottom line is simple: without a thorough effort from all sides up front, assumptions are inevitably made and details are missed.
On QA: We are proud of the work we do and stand behind it. That said, we respect quality assurance as its own wiley beast. While other arrangements are possible, our expectation is that your internal teams will adequately test our work to your satisfaction and report back any issues. We develop for modern browsers and devices only.
On Security: Similar to QA, security is its own discipline. While we follow common best practices in all of our work, our inclusion of something like ”HTTPS encryption“ is not a guarantee or assumption that a site is ”bomb proof“. We encourage all of our clients to consult with web security professionals when necessary.
Working with teams
It’s critical to know what you are building, and why. There are, however, many ways of knowing.
How the businessman sees the project is different than the artist and the artist’s picture is different still from the engineer’s. Every discipline brings with it a unique set of concerns, values, and contexts.
We appreciate diverse perspectives and do our best to weave them into an integrated whole. This empathetic spirit allows us to work with your teams and within an often complex and competing network of objetives and outcomes.
The Boring Stuff: How we plan projects with evolving requirements
We encourage an unflinching focus on an MVP, or minimum viable product, the simplest version of something, that is supported by a business need, tested, and validated by users.
We structure our work around releases. We put work in front of you in small bits, usually every week or so for you to play around with, show to others, and give feedback on. At the end of that week, we reevaluate and organize the following week’s work.
Most apps and websites are living organisms. No one can predict or plan a project in its entirety from the beginning. You just start building and adjust as you go along.
Building apps and websites in this way can seem a bit counterintuitive at first. It goes against our instincts to plan everything. Once you get used to it though, it makes a lot of sense.
If you need to throw out an unnecessary feature, the cost is low. And the project remains flexible enough to incorporate new insights and ideas.
Our value, according to the people we’ve worked for
“Understands the big picture. They work effectively w/ minimal oversight”
“Reads my mind and picks good restaurants”
“Worked with a client’s finance team and didn’t even seem mad about it.”
If you would like to read more in-depth explorations of some of the themes above, head over to our blog. We serve up something fresh every couple of weeks.
The latest...
A Journey into Animated Loaders with GSAP - Part 2
It's been a minute! Join me once more on a GSAP tutorial so epic it took a year to write.
Read on
