Now that you’ve shopped around and completed the on-boarding process it’s time to get elbow deep in the fun part. You know the whole reason why you hired us– the actual design process. Woot! It’s our favorite part too.

Prior to the design phase, you have quite a bit of homework: answering creative questionnaires, gathering content, partaking in brainstorming sessions. In fact, it may feel like you are doing all the heavy lifting while we sit back and relax with our umbrella drinks. Ahh wouldn’t that be nice. We do ask a lot of you in the beginning, but that’s only because once we transition into design mode we want to make sure we have all the ideas, photos and information at our fingertips.

After you’ve done all your homework, we roll up our sleeves and get to work. Depending on your project, the design phase can take three weeks to four months. You’re probably thinking wow, that’s a pretty substantial range, but let me explain myself, or better yet, let me explain what steps we take to provide you with a beautiful design.

Creative Concepting

All of our projects, from branding to website design allot for two weeks of creative concepting and initial design. During these two weeks, our team of designers sketch, dissect, sketch, adjust, sketch some more, refine and perfect until there are two design directions that best represent the results of your homework and our research.

Revisions

Like creative concepting, all of our projects include revisions. Why is that? Because as much as we’d like you to fall in love with the first design we show you, we know that there’s always something that can change to make the design even more perfect for your company and your brand. We also understand that sometimes we miss the mark (a rare occurrence, but it does happen) so we try to account for minor or major revisions. This way we ensure you fall in design love – at first or third sight.

Art Direction/Design

Initial design and revisions help nail down an aesthetic but, there’s a lot more art direction that occurs along the way. For example, website projects require site plan development, wireframing and a plethora of pages and graphics. The initial two weeks of creative concepting and revisions, only sweep the surface of design. Additional time is used to build out a robust design such as a website or a brochure.

Project Management

No, project management isn’t exactly design, but it is an art form. Managing expectations, reviewing designs, requesting revisions, calling, emailing, Skyping and writing all go into the design process, they’re just the less glamorous aspects.

Development (digital projects)

Programming is a huge part of website projects and can be quite time intensive depending on the functionality of the site. Not to mention, beyond coding there’s testing, content population, installation, set up and configuration and training. When we develop a site, we work to ensure the back-end is as user-friendly as the front-end.

Final Delivery

For digital projects there’s a launch for print projects there are files that must be created for use by printers or compressed for online sharing. Either way, we don’t give our seal of approval until every file is triple-checked and every performance test is conducted. Then and only then do we wrap up your designs and send them off.

Average Timeline

Now that you know what goes into our design process, here is a look at the average length of time you have to enjoy the fun part with us!

• Branding: 3-4 Weeks
• Websites: 3-4 Months
• Print: 3 weeks – 2 Months
• Social Media: 2-3 weeks
• Animation: 1-2 Months

Don’t worry, whether your design takes four weeks or four months, the end result is always worth the wait.