Distilled Thoughts
What is Good Design?
A lot of people (clients, employees, partners) still think of website design in mainly an aesthetic paradigm. In reality, that's a small fraction of the equation. Good agencies know how to make a mental (or at least a documented) inventory of every aspect of a system and then bring them together into a cohesive experience.
Full post →Great Custom Homes For Sale
We web designers/developers like to use analogies for our work. We also tend to choose whichever analogy serves us at any given moment.
Full post →Distill is looking for an interactive designer/developer
Distill has an immediate opening for a contract interactive designer and front-end developer. This role could evolve into a full-time opportunity for the right candidate.
Full post →The Client Comes Second
There's an interesting perspective illustrated in Walter Isaacson's new biography of Steve Jobs. In it, the author recalls the story of Jobs selecting famed designer Paul Rand (he made the logos for IBM, ABC and UPS) for the creation of a logo for his post-Apple computer company. Jobs asked Rand to present several options for the new logo, to which Rand replied that he would not create options.
Full post →Agencies Should Stop Designing Websites
Long before I was a web programmer and even longer before I was an agency owner, I entered this industry as a graphic designer. Art is in my blood. In elementary school, my classmates would gather around my desk and watch me draw pictures instead of creating their own. In high school, I didn't even have to complete my assignments -- teachers would ace my work because they assumed I'd made something good. But even after a lifetime of art appreciation, I think the time has come for agencies to stop designing websites from scratch. Let me tell you why.
Full post →Why You Should Pay As Much As Possible For Your Website
Everyone loves a good deal. Groupon, Black Friday, yard sales and a flatlined housing market. But when is a great price not a good deal? When you're paying for a service that has yet to be performed.
Full post →Become the Hottest Agency In Town
What's truly unique about your agency? The services you provide? The creative you produce? The results you achieve? The awards you've won? Nah. Those things can certainly bring attention your way, but all good agencies have similar stories, so yours probably aren't that unusual. The only thing that's truly unique about your agency is its personality. And whether it's hip or not, it's the only thing that you can use to generate huge buzz, immediately.
Full post →Building an Agency is Easy - If You Have a Documented Vision
The most important part of starting an agency is having a good vision. With my first 2 agencies, that vision was lacking, primarily because it's considered inappropriate to communicate a vision that consists primarily of "I want to sell this company for as much money as possible." With Distill, I wanted to do things differently.
Full post →Essential Concepts for Building a Fulfilling Agency
It’s pretty easy to find advice on starting and growing a web development operation these days, but it seems to revolve primarily around a unique kind of agency: one that doesn’t have to worry about launching sites in our lifetime. There are so many complex strategies, formulas, philosophies and Extreme Iterative Agile Spiral Scrums that it would almost seem that being really successful in this business is beyond the reach of most of us.
Full post →Stop Wire Framing and Start Prototyping
Seven years ago, I used my agency's proprietary CMS to establish an efficient process for prototyping all of our projects instead of creating PDF wire frames. Since then, I've fine-tuned this concept to save thousands of dollars on each project, while simultaneously benefiting the delivery of sites in numerous ways. This walk-through demonstrates the basics of the proven methodology.
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