services
We are technical specialists. We work with our partners from the first ideas of a project through the tail end, to craft a system that is well designed from the inside out. This includes not only coding, database design and technology, but ideation, prototyping, budgeting and planning as well.
Are We A Fit?
We've built our business around long-term partnerships which requires consistently delivering on our promises. We will never tell you that "we'll do any project" because, like any other human organization, we have our strengths and weaknesses. Instead of masking these, we try to be as transparent as possible so that you can see where we shine. We can also help refer projects to others when it's a not a fit for us or if we have too much work to take on a new project.
Ideation
If every project had an unlimited budget it would make everyone's lives easier. Maybe. There is a saying that "Creativity loves constraints" and we have found this to be true. We start each project with a rough scope of work and a budget that forces us and our partners to conceive of the most vital parts of a project and design from that. By embracing constraints we re-shape the problem several times in various ways and so are able to come up with a solution that achieves a client's goal in a way that accomplishes the most for the smallest effort. Some ideation usually happens before we even have a signed proposal in an effort to put our best foot forward to a prospective client.
Proposals
Expectations cannot be exceeded if they are not set. A project proposal is not only our scope of work, but also the core of every successful development project we do. "Success", after all is as much about exceeding expectations as it is about code. For this reason, we not only invite our partners to ask for our input during the proposal phase, we strongly recommend it. We, of course, want you to win the project. Our interests are aligned.
Prototyping
When a project is beyond a certain level of complexity we typically break it into multiple phases. A prototyping phase is essential to exploring different design ideas and solutions – especially working with open source software. Working interfaces and experimentation answer questions very quickly.
Design Review
We understand that extraordinary design, by definition, is design that is outside of the ordinary. Because of this, we will frequently review design ideas and comps before they are sent to clients to ensure what is possible within a given budget. It is suprisingly easy to throw in subtle animations and interactive detail to make a project shine.
Front-End
We love pushing the envelope of what is possible design-wise. Interactive UIs, responsive designs (that look good on any device), elegant animations, and small design surprises can make a user interface come to life. If you've come this far down this page and are dissapointed that you haven't found any acronyms, then get ready. Some of the front-end technologies we work with include: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Jquery, AngularJS, Velocity.js, NodeJS, Canvas, SVG, Flash, Grunt, Bower, SASS, Jade, SCSS, Stylus
Back-End
With the amount of excellent open source software available now, our philosophy towards building software is to stand on the shoulders of giants where possible and not re-invent the wheel (unless we have to). For this reason, we frequently will recommend a system (such as Drupal or Wordpress) that have large repositories of pre-written modules.
If a project requires a solution that is completely outside the box of a pre-built system, we are happy to talk about this as well. We have written systems in PHP, MySQL, NodeJS, Express, MongoDB, Redis and Python. Our custom solutions lean towards PHP and MySQL since the majoriy of systems we support use this architecture.
To compliment the acronym-soup listed in the Front-End section above, here are some of the back-end technologies we work with: Drupal, Wordpress, PHP, NodeJS, Express, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, Solr, Ubuntu and Vagrant. All of our projects are managed using git to ensure our (and your) work is safe, backed up and will never be overwritten.
Training
Our developers work hand in hand with our clients and partners to train them to get the most out of the system we've built for them.
As we work together over a series of projects, our partners accumulate technical knowledge that makes all subsequent projects go more smoothly.
Project Management
While our partners often manage their own projects from end-to-end with their clients, we frequently take over project management after the design phase is done. For more technically complex projects, we will often work directly with the client.
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