Breaking It Down

We had real fears in February and March that we might be looking at a dire situation facing the studio. Once the news broke, and everyone started to realize that this illness was something very different from what we’d seen prior, projects that we were in the process of finalizing started to be put on hold—almost overnight. It was a mildly terrifying reality as we didn’t know just how deep that rabbit hole would go. February and March, as a result, were relatively lean months.

Building it Back Up

Towards the end of March, we started to see things turn around a bit. We’d discussed internally (and hoped) this might be a situation where clients realize (after the initial shock) that they still have this viable resource for marketing their services and products (read websites). Selling web work has always been a process of education—helping a potential client see a web presence differently, viewing their website as a part of their sales team, rather than an essential expense that provided no real long-term value.

It was a mildly terrifying reality as we didn’t know just how deep that rabbit hole would go. February and March, as a result, were relatively lean months.

Once we got into April, things began to pick up, and in May, they continued to pick up more, and in June, they continued to pick up even more. When we started looking into our Q1 and Q2 numbers, we realized that things had not only picked back up but were beginning to look a bit like a meteoric rise in incoming work. We put our heads back down and diligently got back to work so as not to thwart the momentum we had built.

Records Are Meant to Be Broken

Once we came out of Q3, we held our heads up and surveyed the landscape, assessing how things were progressing. To our amazement, we had already hit our pre-pandemic financial goals for the year, and Q4 would continue along the same line to end up with the most significant year our little studio has had to date. In the end, we saw sales in 2020 jump 78.8% over the previous year.

We realize that this is rare and that we are exceptionally fortunate to have seen this kind of growth. We’ve also realized that we are not the only ones seeing this type of change during this challenging year. As blog posts have slowly started to roll out and the discussions we’ve been having amongst others in the digital marketing and design fields, we hear from many of them that 2021 saw an uptick for these creative digital services providers. Perhaps we were right about our initial assessment after all??

Strategic Partnerships: A 2020 Sign of Advancement

There were a lot of things that we did right (and even more that we did wrong) in 2020, but probably the most significant thing was forming some key strategic partnerships with other agencies and lending our skillsets where possible.

Perhaps the two key partnerships we struck in 2020 were with Gravitate Design, RCCO, FPO, and Digital Uprise. Gravitate is a mid-sized digital agency that we have deep interior ties to. Two of our partners cut their teeth, so to speak, as employees of the agency in the past. Because of this, we’ve remained close to their amazingly talented team, providing support where we can. The partnership has become more profound over the years and culminated in 2020 with three high profile jobs that we worked as part of the team—bringing them to life. This strategic partnership will continue throughout 2021, and we’re happy to have it.

We realize that this type of growth is rare and that we are exceptionally fortunate to have seen this kind of increase.

RCCO (and their sub-companies, FPO and Digital Uprise) hail from Texas, and like Gravitate, we have formed deep ties with their exceptional team over the past two years. What started as doing a few small animation projects for their client, Whataburger, morphed into a tag team effort as we’ve taken on other development support roles for larger, global clients. This partnership will also continue into 2021 and beyond, and we’re glad to work with such a great team of creative professionals.

Partnerships are Forward Thinking

It may seem odd to lay out some of the specific details about inter-agency partnerships like this, but we’ve long felt that when agencies align with one another and use each other to leverage or elongate their skill chains, good work results. It also seems to us that as we move forward, the agency partnership model will continue to become a valuable resource for both large and small firms alike.

The Final Tally

So, how did we end the year that wasn’t? Well, here’s a quick breakdown:

Websites worked on: 80+

Websites launched: 13+

Logos and brands identified: 5

Hosting and maintenance clients: +38%

Overall sales: +78%

Lessons Learned

Perhaps the best way to reflect on growth and lessons learned at the end of such a tumultuous year would be to ask the people who made it happen. So, I did. Here’s a quick list of what we’ve gleaned from this pandemic induced suck fest that was 2020.

Erin Lynch, Creative Director

“Perhaps the most important thing I think I learned in the last year was how to wait and the importance of patience. We had no idea how 2020 would unfold once we could not leave our houses anymore. We discovered that we could do a solid job for our clients as a remote team and that business moves forward, even in the face of extreme adversity.”

Brian Ferdinand, Technical Director

“What can I say about 2020 that hasn’t been said so very many times already. It has been a decade crammed into a year that has seen some of the most significant changes, growth, and human resilience that I have witnessed in my lifetime. These challenges have translated across all aspects of life, including personal, business, and the world at large.

It’s hard to take the time to reflect on what has been learned with everything that has happened. It feels more like we are hanging on for dear life, and I think therein lies the lesson for all of us. If we don’t take time out for ourselves and connect with those closest to us, we are doing a massive disservice to our quality of life and possibly our very sanity.”

Jill Lynch, Illustrator

“One of the few good things to come out of 2020 for me on a personal level was learning to make myself dig deeper and grow artistically. There were several months that I felt paralyzed, where even thinking about putting pen to paper felt awful, painful even. I know myself, and when these periods arise, and I have to just ride them out.

2020 felt different. There was a heaviness that had almost taken on a life of its own, and I could feel it firmly rooted in my mind. It was not until well into the year that I felt able to start painting and working again. What I learned is that pain, sadness, and grief need time and space to exist. To be left alone for a while until they dissipate with time. I still feel this way on certain days, but I have been able to branch out, focus on, and make things that are very different from my previous work. It’s always a process, sometimes an uncomfortable one, and occasionally painful. But growth usually is.”

Chloe Anne, Project Manager / Designer

“For myself, a creature of habit, one could imagine the internal turmoil I went through when COVID hit, and suddenly we were working from home full-time. It is safe to say that adaptability was my biggest takeaway, lesson learned, and skill gained in 2020. It was also a trait I witnessed our clients and Shop partners flex as they navigated the unknown areas of state lockdowns and social distancing. Their determination provided a lot of hope during a low time.”

So, there we have it. 2020 was a lot like getting your finger cut off in a table saw and then having the doctor wrap it in a bandage filled with salt and gravel. Yet, here we are…still moving forward. We’re thankful for all the opportunities we’ve had to work this year, and with a bit of foresight, hopefully, we’ll endure for many years to come.

The post 2020 in Review: Working by the Numbers appeared first on shop.

TAG, We’re It

As a collaborative group of hungry creative agencies pushing to get Vancouver, WA (a small town in the big shadow of Portland, OR) on the creative map, we need to have a certain amount of drive. Most of what we do is taken with a shotgun approach in order to move with a certain amount of flexibility and dynamism so we don’t get weighed down in the details of our initiatives.

TAG, at its most basic, is a partnership between local creative agencies and studios. Each member of the group has access to the collective’s knowledge base, sharing information freely back and forth. We are also able to leverage one another’s workforces, pulling in members with specific skill sets to help us run successful client projects. It’s this elucidating quality that lets each agency operate from a space larger than their individual size and skill depth.

Doing What We Do

We were starting to plan the first Rise Up conference, a one day virtual (Zoom-based) event geared to help businesses cope with periods of great disruption. The pandemic of 2020 has wreaked havoc on businesses worldwide—many of them not knowing how to navigate these muddy waters. Our goal was to help.

Most of what we do is taken with a shotgun approach in order to move with a certain amount of flexibility and dynamism so we don’t get weighed down in the details of our initiatives.

The topic of the overall conference was heady and layered-making the three week time period seem even more unrealistic, but we marched on undeterred. What we achieved was, in my opinion, truly impressive.

In the span of those few short weeks we managed to plan, organize, and execute a full scale conference featuring three speakers and three panel discussions (totaling 24 speakers) and raising nearly $10,000 for local charities. We additionally, and most importantly, imparted information & advice on how to approach disruptions in our work lives, develop realistic expectations for change, and we explored ways to locate new opportunities and put a plan of action in place around them.

The Warm Fuzzies

The takeaways on a personal level, and for the studio, were numerous and eye opening—too many to list here. But here are a few of the most notable bits that Brian and I ended up walking away with:

• The power of camaraderie: A collaborative group is essentially about working together towards a united goal. We experience this every time we take on a TAG project. Seeing this in action for a purely altruistic cause drove home the importance of working collaboratively with others.
• The benefits of resource sharing: The creative professions are very tight lipped about things like processes, clients, and money. TAG has broken down those walls, and with good reason. We want to further the practice of other members. You can’t do that when you won’t have honest conversations.
• Design for good: I’ve had the opportunity to work with a variety of organizations doing work as a philanthropic work. I’ve never worked so seamlessly with a group doing it, however. Rise Up saw every one of these creative forces set aside their egos, take direction, take the lead, step up, and get it done. It was a joy to watch this unfold.
• Presence of mind: When you’re pulling an event together with so many diverse voices you never quite know how it will all come together. We were quite surprised at the unity and tone of voice that permeated the event. While we all come from different backgrounds and our experiences over the last few months have varied, we were nearly synonymous in our viewpoints and discussions.
• Affinity for action: 27 strong voices can lead to an awful lot of confusion and circuitous, confusing, or even wishy washy ideas. Yet, over the course of the three panels it became very clear that we were not there to bemoan the state of affairs. We were there to learn, share our thoughts with one another, discuss our methods of dealing with disruption and get stuff done.

The Rosey in Full Effect

I know I’m painting a rather creative, utopian picture. And you’d be right to call me out on it. Did the event run perfect? Not by a long shot.

At the end of the day, there were things that could have been improved or simply been done better at the event (a process we are working through as a group right now as we look at doing the event again in the months to come). Yet, given the crazy self-imposed deadline that we thrust upon ourselves; we put our heads down, acted as a united resource and pulled off a complex event that provided real value to an entire community. In the end, this is what I became a designer for.

The post Learning to Rise Up appeared first on shop.

The communication from our initial batch of developers has been interesting. Members often post new and exciting changes happening within the web industry or offer advice when group members are struggling with troubleshooting a project. They also have a need to get together quarterly to meet face-to-face, often over a few beers and spending time chatting about recent projects and the latest innovations. We hope to continue fostering this type of communication while we move the community forward and determine how we can be of the most use in supporting local developers.

Push for Engagement

Creating a single page support website for our group was top of the list. Having a public presence would allow us to have a stronger reach solidifying our outward appearance to prospective new members in the area. As a small and fast-growing group, it was important to identify the mission and get that out into the public to better showcase what this group has to offer their local community. It was vital that the website be both informative and engaging, but it also needed to push the box a bit in its development to help show the validity of the group and the members that support it.

Striking the Balance

One of the biggest challenges during the VanDevs project was creating an inclusive design aesthetic. We want this community to speak for everyone regardless of race and gender. All too often web development groups/community websites are visually geared toward male developers. The use of dark colors pops of blue or orange, and strong capitating industry related graphics. Our newest addition to the team, Chloe Anne, knows first hand what it is like to try to navigate in a “male-dominated industry”. As she set into designing the site, she was very clear about the need to keep the aesthetic and feel of the site gender neutral to avoid excluding anyone. Our team agreed and felt it was pertinent that the visuals used this group not induce any perceived gender bias. Chloe worked to bring in playful pastels that were high in contrast and imagery that spoke to a wide, diverse audience.

The Brass Tacks

She worked to create bold graphics and copy that summarized the different topics on the page and the group’s mission in a simple, transparent way. Using rounded strokes and thick lines— she balanced modernity and freshness while giving the site a sense of openness and security.

Google’s open-sourced font, Oswald, was chosen for these same reasons as it featured a similar stroke weight in its headings and larger counters, allowing it to feel airy and easy to visually digest.

This being one of Chloe’s first web development projects from start to finish there were a lot of learning curves. One of the most notable being the utilization of CSS to achieve the diagonal lines within each page section, but she got very adept at using pseudo classes and rotation to get the angles just right.

Utilizing divs to create an icon-based graphic was another curve Chloe faced in the development of the site. However, creating the “browser window” within a series of overlapping divs allowed the graphic to be fully responsive accommodating for the text wrap at different browser widths.

Since the launch of the site, there has been a consistent increase in the number of local developers looking to join, and excitement among members to reach out to their existing network and bring them into the group.

If you know a Vancouver, WA-based developer feel free to pass them along to the site. We’d be more than happy to have them as a part of this new slice of community.

This article has been cross-posted on Medium

The post Supporting Community & The Growth of The Vancouver Developers Group appeared first on shop.

What is HTTP?

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. It’s a nice way of telling your browser how to handle the URL/site you are requesting. Your browser can handle quite a few different protocols, including, but not limited to; “HTTP”, “HTTPS”, “FTP”, and more.

What’s so special about a letter?

What is amazing, is the power that one letter has over how the world will view your website. The difference between “http://” and “https://” is that the “s” stands for secure. By secure we mean that any information that is passed between the browser and that website is encrypted, ensuring others cannot intercept that data as it’s being transmitted. This is great because if you are collecting any information from a user on your website, providing a layer of security makes them feel more secure about sending that information out through a form and out over the web. Without the “s”, your users are sending their information out into the world without any sort of protection or encryption. This all begs the question, “Who’s looking at your user’s info”?

Adding to Your Vocabulary

Getting the “s” requires purchasing what is called an “SSL” certificate, which stands for Secure Socket Layer. This certificate allows your browser and the server you are connected to to create a secure encrypted connection, allowing data to safely and securely pass back and forth. You may be asking how one gets one of those fancy “SSL” certificates. The answer, as with much on the web, is multi-faceted. There are a few web hosting providers out there that have been given the authority to “vouch” on your site’s behalf and say that your site is safe to create a secure connection with. So, getting an SSL certificate with them is just a matter of having monthly hosting services with that provider. Once installed, it will allow browsers to make that secure connection, and off you go, feeling more secure about everything web-related. If your hosting company does not provide the service then you have to go to a company that can issue the certificates and have a web designer or someone who understands the process setup the SSL certificate.

So, at this point you may be thinking, “I don’t collect any sensitive information, so I shouldn’t need one of those certificates, right?”. Well, in the past; yes, that would be true; however with the new changes that Google is implementing, the internet giant has started “shaming” non-secure sites by placing a “not secure” message next to the site address in the URL bar.

Then, in the future—Google is not saying exactly when yet—Chrome will flag all sites that don’t use TLS encryption as “Not secure” and also display a red triangle indicator, which Chrome already uses when users go to a dangerous website.

What Google is essentially saying is this: “Even though you aren’t collecting any information, your site should be secure, and if it isn’t secure we’re going to let everybody know that”. As if telling the world that your website isn’t secure wasn’t enough, Google is taking things one step further and listing HTTPS as a ranking factor for organic SEO.

Getting Your “S”

So, you’re starting to understand what SSL means and have decided that you need the power of the “s” for yourself. First off, good choice. Second now you have to figure out, “How do I get an S”?

There are a few ways to achieve this. The easiest is usually to contact your web host and have one created for you and installed on your site (beware as there is varying cost associated). Some providers even work with Let’s Encrypt, an SSL service which allows you to get a free certificate for your personal use. That tend to be the easy part.

Once you have an SSL Certificate, do you go to your site using the “HTTPS” and see the green lock? No, unfortunately just having the certificate is not enough to make a site secure. Some of the steps still required after getting your Certificate installed will be:

• Updating all links on your site to point to the “https://” version of each page ( your site isn’t secure unless all assets, images, files and scripts it uses are also utilizing the “HTTPS”. )
• Changing your site to force the “https://” protocol to load so it doesn’t still go to the “http://” version of the site
• Add any necessary redirects to go to the new secure URLs
• Update your domain in Google’s search console and resubmit your sitemap ( this will help greatly with SEO and maintaining your current traffic )

As you can see, there is quite a bit to do to update to the power of an “S”. However, it’s a process that should only need to be done once and then you are secure in the knowledge that your visitors are safe and will (metaphorically) thank you for having their security in mind.

The post The Power of an “S” — Exploring HTTPS and SSL appeared first on shop.

Since the beginning of the year we’ve spent quite a bit of time in the studio discussing 2017 and what we really want to accomplish over the next twelve months. The resulting list is, of course, long but that’s to be expected from a growing company. Some of the items on our hit list are obviously more important than others, which can be frustrating when everything on the list is something you really want to tackle. Yet, that’s part of running a studio (or a business for that matter)—there’s always a list as long as your arm, but never quite enough time to hit everything you want to. With that said, here’s a short list of the items that top our list for 2018:

Our Focus for the Year

To Speed Up Time

One of the things that we feel consistently plagues us is how we use passing time and how that translates to scheduling projects. With a lot of work rolling through the door, and only a few of us in the studio to handle it all, there can be problems at times getting all the work done in as timely a fashion as we might like. This all culminates in a few too many tight timelines, which we hate. So, our goal this year is to completely fine tune our studio processes to get better managing those project timelines.

The organization of work flows, processes, and systems are at the heart of design studio ownership. It’s a challenge that every studio and their teams must undertake. Over time, as those processes are refined and perfected, the team becomes stronger at managing their time and their projects. Growth takes time. The important thing we realize is you have to keep hammering at it.

To Get Vocal

We understand the need to be vocal in this ever changing profession. The need for strong, knowledgeable, and outspoken voices is at the core of what it means to be a designer or developer today. There are some great people out there consistently adding to the conversation on a regular basis. Sadly, though, there are not enough taking on that mantle, which leads to my very real fear that we’re missing out on some amazing experiences that could go a long way toward advancing the field. Being the completest that I am, I struggle with this. Of course, writing is not for everyone. I accept that too.

When I started Shop, I knew I wanted content to be a cornerstone of our practice. I believe exploration and design thinking should be an important component of the studio environment. And as we’ve grown, self expression remains an important goal aligned closely to our core values (yes, we have some of those too). Sadly, however, if you own your own studio or freelance practice then you know, as we do, that many times we are our own worst clients. Yes, often, what we hold up as the important work we need to integrate into our practice end up being the hardest things to actually get to.

We’ve never been short on writing opportunities for external publications. We’ve consistently provided editorial content for several design publications over the past few years and already have several pieces slated for this coming year. When it comes to our internal writing endeavors, however, those seem to dwell somewhere towards the bottom of the pile. That, however, will be coming to an end in 2018. We’re looking forward to exploring several editorial directions on our own personal blogs, as well as the studio .

To Gather Community

Supporting the design community is also a large part of what we do. Our work with The Portland Egotist and AIGA is about building communities through sharing content designed to highlight the amazing design community here in the northwest. 2018 will see us move further in this direction as we work on two additional community platforms built to explore design, its thinking, and practice with some amazing folks. I can’t get too much into these endeavors at this time, but more will be coming shortly about each of those.

To Be Growth

This goal is more of continuing on the same path we have been more than anything else. We’ve been fortunate to have consistent work with some great clients over the past few years. Even though we have been moving in a positive direction, we’ve also butted up against a bit of a glass ceiling from time to time. This year we’ll be taking turns swinging at that ceiling to see if we can break through it and prepare ourselves for the next evolutionary stage of our small little endeavor. Here’s to glass shards raining down on our heads.

To Inherit Value

We’ve really worked hard at trying to provide value in everything we do. We understand that we represent a service that comes with a lot of gray, shadowy areas that sometimes are not as clear to clients as they could be. That is why we pour our time and efforts into trying to demystify complexities and being as transparent as we can when we’re working with our clients. We are like any other design studio in the sense that we realize that we cannot make everybody happy all of the time, and we’ve had our share of client experiences that could have gone better, but we’ve made it a point to really (and we mean really) learn from our experiences (positive and negative). Our goal is to partner with our clients—providing them with the same services we do for ourselves. We will continue to refine the ways we provide value to our current and future clients as we continue to grow our little workshop into something bigger.

So there you have it. A list containing a few of the things that are topping our list for 2018. We’ve had some great times over the past couple years and are invested in seeing that continue long into the future.

Note: We’d like to offer a special thanks to designer, Paul Jarvis, for inspiring us with his weekly dispatches and giving us a model to follow for writing this piece.

The post A State of the Union: 2018 appeared first on shop.

We recently finished a small spot illustration for the new Noam Almosnino article, And the Winner Is. Our founder, Erin Lynch, has been providing editorial content for the conference series, WebVisions, over the past year which has been a huge opportunity for exploration.

One opportunity has been the ability to construct small editorial illustrations for several of the articles on the WebVisions blog. This small piece was meant to illustrate the process of rapid change in the field of technology. Noam’s article discusses the idea of rapid change, and how despite the speed at which things are moving, the one constant we have amidst this change are the users.

The post Illustration for Noam Almosnino Article, “And the Winner Is” appeared first on shop.

A favorite aspect of our daily work is our opportunity to write. Through our ongoing series’ of essays and articles we strive to explore the fields of design, its practitioners, and the impact of design on (and its place in) history. Writing is something that we feel strongly about—an unenforced obligation as contributing members of this profession. Not all designers feel that pull—the need for written expression and exploration, and that’s all right. For us, though, it’s vital to practice.

Through our ongoing series’ of essays and articles we strive to explore the fields of design, its practitioners, and the impact of design on (and its place in) history.

We’ve been fortunate to team up with some amazing organizations over the past few years, producing some great content and having some amazing conversations with those on the bleeding edge of technology and design. Our most recent article for the conference series, WebVisions, is a short interview with NYC-based design anthropologist Amélie Lamont. The piece, Examining Cultural Need: Discussing Design Anthropology with Amélie Lamont, is now up on the WebVisions blog and their orbital publication on Medium.

The post Our Interview with Design Anthropologist, Amélie Lamont Goes Live appeared first on shop.

At the time of the first incarnation of the site gradients and heavy textures were in. It was considered good practice to utilize interface elements that mimicked the tactile nature of the real world and everyone was immersed in folding edges, digitally replicated tape, ribbons, and other practices that are now surely considered nefarious practice–or at the very least, good ol’ fashioned skullduggery.

Being designers, fine artists and writers, we embraced this ideal at the time with all the un-abashed love we could muster. It was a texture fest revealing the intersection of handmade and technical work that we were are interested in doing. Our architecture at the time was crude by what I perceive our standards to be now, but again, it was modeled according to the times. It was our first site, and we loved it dearly–warts and all.

What I’ve learned during the process of crafting two versions of our studio’s site is that designing for ourselves is hard. Much of the determination, clear thinking and solid strategy that we employ in all of our client work comes much harder when we are the focus of the project. But it stands to reason. We all tend to raise the scrutiny level when we place ourselves under the microscope. We want the best, but it seems we have to drag ourselves to it kicking and screaming.

Designing for the web is hard. I’m the first to admit it. To practice as an interactive designer during this time is both exciting and rewarding. It is also confusing and divergent. The amount of technology and technique that we are required to understand and keep up on is tremendous. It’s also growing daily. And that creates a self-imposed level of pressure to reflect the bleeding edge of modern practice in the site that represents the work we do. Drawing that line in the sand proved to be one of our major sticking points. In the end it required us to change the way we think about website design.

Designing for the web is hard. I’m the first to admit it.

We’ve tried to embrace the idea of a truly fluid web and have adopted an iterative, evolutionary approach with this site. We have come to view this site as an ongoing project. We launched with our minimally viable project (to put it in agile terms), and we are building on to it brick by brick. Once we finish, we will re-assess and begin to set in on a series of constant changes allowing the site to evolve. We view this collection of code, pages, images and content as a member of our team, and as such, it needs to experience consistent change just as we do in order to reach its our full potential.

The post Up and Running appeared first on shop.