How We Work Together

We know that working with an organization such as ours for the first time often prompts a few questions. How successful will we be in interpreting your needs? How can we do it most effectively …most efficiently? How much will it cost?

Laying The Foundation

The first thing we do after being assigned a project is schedule information-gathering meetings between our creative team and your key staff. We are interested not only in scheduling, budget and job specifications, but also in your preferences, target audience, and objectives. Although this process can be somewhat time-consuming, it is also crucial. It will help you sharpen your focus and objectives, and it will help us ensure that what we produce is not only creatively excellent, but strategically targeted.

Developing The Right Ideas

Despite popular misconceptions, good creative work doesn’t often come in a flash of inspiration; usually it comes from directed trial and error. This is why we also need to take the time to consider several concepts, work them through, try them out. Then revise them. In addition, there are usually some practical and functional ends we need to tie up before submitting our ideas — sub-contractor availability, printing estimates, scheduling requirements, etc.

All this, plus the need to schedule our workflow in a businesslike fashion, means that we normally ask for up to two weeks, depending on the job’s complexity, before we submit our rough concepts for your review. Of course, if you have a rush project or deadline pressure we can adjust our workflow and timing accordingly.

It is our experience that it is best if we first present our rough concepts to your project manager and just one or two others. This ensures that we all stay focused on the problem and are not distracted by too many personal opinions.

After presenting, we’ll ask for comments from the decision makers. The more objective and specific you can be, the better we will be able to respond. Comments are our input for revising the rough concepts into a finished one. Revision normally takes us about a week, and we schedule a second presentation shortly thereafter.

From the input at this second presentation meeting further minor refinements are made as necessary. We also finalize the production timetable, and the scheduling of additional services such as photography or illustration.

Ensuring Your Satisfaction

We recommend the finished layout be routed to the appropriate decision makers for fact and detail checking only, reserving stylistic and subjective decisions to your project manager. To avoid confusion, it is also important that all communication with us come from the project manager.

During the course of the project, we keep your project manager informed of our progress. Activities that will affect the schedule or budget are identified in writing. Our goal is to keep your project moving ahead quickly, smoothly, and cost-effectively; to make sure that we’ll produce even better results than you hired us for.

Over the past three decades, we have helped clients by developing innovative solutions to a wide range of design, marketing and communications challenges.

Our clients represent a variety of industries, including:

• Advertising Agencies
• Architectural Firms
• Business Consultants
• Colleges & Universities
• Construction Companies
• Country Clubs
• Doctor Practices
• Engineering Firms
• Financial Institutions
• Hospitality Properties
• Hospitals & Medical Facilities
• Illustrators
• Interior Design Firms
• Law Firms
• Magazine Publishers
• Manufacturers
• Ministry Organizations
• Musicians
• National Restaurant Chains
• Non-Profit Organizations
• Photographers
• Political Campaigns
• Printing Companies
• Publishers
• Real Estate Companies
• Recruiting Companies
• Restaurants
• Tourism Organizations