1. Client Updates
2. Welcome, Jonathan!
3. Ciao, Josh
4. Recent Bloggings
5. Get a Job

Client Updates

CyberRead Redesign

We helped CyberRead integrate a new look and feel while ironing out the architecture and spearheading the addition of new site features like reviews and recommendations.
http://www.cyberread.com

TinyPic Adds Categories

Categories will be a nice addition to searching for images and videos on TinyPic, providing better SEO and showing the wide variety of content TinyPic has to offer. What's really cool is the way we implemented the featured image for each category. Read more about how we designed it.

Playlist.com Search Beta

What do we do when we help a team get their hands on the core feature of their music search engine and playlist builder? We make it better than it was before. Better, easier, faster.

Go ahead, compare:
The current Playlist search
The new and improved search

Welcome, Jonathan!

We're always on the lookout for top notch talent (see the job openings below) and this month we found another talented designer to add to the team. Jonathan Smiley will be joining us from way out in Alabama. Capable of busting out a loose sketch as well as putting spit and shine on a finished product, he brings more interface and interaction chops to the team.

Hey Jonathan, FYI: you're cot and pillow just arrived from IKEA. You'll need to assemble those when you get here.

Ciao, Josh

Not everyone may know this, but we've had an intern Josh Carver (or "The Noob") working with us over the summer. He's helped engineer a bunch of cool internal tools to help us manage our days and present out work. He's back to school in SoCal for the fall. Hopefully once he gets this whole school degree thing out of his system we'll here from him again. Josh, don't be a stranger now, ya' hear?

Design for People

There's a phrase on our website, "Design for people." We like how that describes what we do. It's upbeat and simple. It focuses on the human element. It's a feel good slogan, but what's it mean?

To design for people you have to want to influence people. In order to do that effectively you have to be very good at anticipating what they need and then pushing them to do things better. For customers, this means providing a solution that helps them do something they actually want. For businesses, this means launching a solution that's viable and something they believe in enough to support and sell.

1. Design solves real customer problems. Remember, there are people on the other end. You're serving them. Don't assume too much--get to know them and take their approach and their desires seriously. As a customer I'm not just a click or a page view and I don't always care about your pixel perfect design. Help me tell my own story by guiding my experience through your service or product.

2. Designing for people is about selling. Influencing people means selling ideas within your own team. Take their goals and their desires seriously when presenting your work. Get to know them too. Win them over so that together, you can win over your customers. An overlooked aspect of design is internal salesmanship in a company or team. It's about turning "it can't be done" into "that's a good solution." Don't skip this aspect and assume your work will speak for itself.

3. Solving "people" problems requires different methods. Design is not as simple as choosing shapes, colors and fonts. Design is about problem solving. And good design requires a broad knowledge of what makes people tick. Design ethnography, analytics, usability tests, surveys and focus groups are all tools used in a designers tool chest to help solve people problems. Together they help make your design solution efficient and effective.

Recent Bloggings

The Perfect Unsubscribe for Email Newsletters Aug 28 by Mark
Email newsletters are a great way to stay in contact with your users and audience, but the experiences most people have are usually hit or miss. See what people what and who's really nailed this experience.

(Re)blasting the Myth of the Fold Aug 28 by Ryan
I've been on a roll with lists, so I'll continue this blog post with the same format. The experience of 75 start-ups has taught me a few lessons about starting great companies. The internet provides an awesome opportunity to create businesses, but it's also a trap for eager entrepreneurs that try to build the next *big* thing.

Can Interactive Art Inspire Better Design? Aug 6 by Jeremy
What if you take design practices and a desire to wow 'em and apply it, not to solve a problem, but to ask a question? That's what interactive artist Jonathan Harris has been doing for almost five years now. Check this out.

Essential Resources for Designers and Developers Aug 4 by Mark
A list of some of our favorite and most tried-and-true web resources for doing design and working on development.

Get a Job

Junior Designer
A strong visual designer with XHTML/CSS chops. Should show a passion for interaction design.
http://www.zurb.com/talent/junior-designer

Senior Designer
Someone with proven leadership who can work directly with our clients. Needs to be confident with their work and capable of selling ideas.
http://www.zurb.com/talent/senior-designer

Web Developer
A Rails developer who is happy to brainstorm in a team environment. Iterate quickly on prototypes and build a product out in the wild with customers.
http://www.zurb.com/talent/web-developer

We might be small, but we offer cool benefits that big companies can't provide. We're a hard working group that makes a big impact for every company we work with. Visit our talent section to learn more about the jobs and gigs we have available:
http://www.zurb.com/talent