Blog: June 2006

New Employee, New Services

June 29, 2006

travis and i are pleased to announce today the newest member of hop studios: matt gardner.

matt recently graduated from virginia commonwealth university with a masters in communication arts and design. he has an bachelor’s degree in illustration from rhode island school of design. he’s a great illustrator, a fun guy to work with, and is bringing fresh creativity to the hop studios design approach. matt’s developing a blog based on his thesis, but in the meantime, you can visit his portfolio web site at www.pmgardner.com.

matt will be a senior designer for hop studios. you can expect to work with him on a variety of design-related issues, from illustration to redesigns to animation. his background in print design also means hop studios can now offer a range of print-related services. if you’ve been thinking about printing business cards, brochures, posters, or stationery, give us a call. matt can also help you with branding and identity, and particularly with logos. if you are interested in doing something really different with your next web site, matt would love to help you “break the rules” of web site design.

matt will be working from boston come this august, and is best reached via email: matt at hopstudios.com

we hope you will enjoy working with matt as much as we are!

susie and travis.

Posted by Susannah Gardner at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

CandyBlog Gets Some Tasty Press

June 19, 2006

candyblognationalpost-sm.jpgOur sweetest client, Cybele May of Candy Blog, was written up today in the Canada’s National Post—in print as well as its hard-to-navigate Web site.

In addition to how happy we are for her and her full-color, front section page exclusive article, we’re also pretty happy she chose to mention Hop Studios as being the folks behind her lickable design.  Congrats, Cybele, and thanks!

Posted by Travis Smith at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)

Rejuvenile: Book Blog and Site

June 14, 2006

Rejuvenile logoWhat do you call adults who manage to bring their child-like ability to play, to wonder, to look at things with new eyes, to treat life as a game, who dress and act and talk in ways that “typical” adults find incomprehensible?

If you said “Rejuveniles” then you probably have already heard of our latest client, Christopher Noxon, the author of “Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up.” It’s an analysis, involved but dispassionate, of the social phenomenon of adults who act, not immaturely, but rather like kids in some ways.

We like working on Web sites for authors in general.  But a chance to work on a site for an author with the word “Cupcake” in the title—well, that’s right up our alley.  His Website, which we built from scratch, is a cornerstone of his current publicity campaign, which kicked into gear several weeks ago.

So far, he’s been interviewed by Bill Maher for the Amazon webcast “Fishbowl,” and he’ll be on The Today Show on June 28 and The Colbert Report on June 29.  We’ve made sure we’re ready for any related traffic spike.

For Christopher’s Web site, we gave him a full package of promotional tools: He’s got a blog, mirrored on Amazon.com, which he updates regularly. There’s a mailing list, and a glossary (great for search engine mojo).  He collects profiles from site visitors, which he then features. The blog allows comments for cross-conversation pollination.  And we set up RSS web feeds linked through Feedburner, and stats tracking via Statcounter, so he can see how people are accessing his site.

Oh, and when you use the site’s navigation, the site’s bobblehead, a race car driver, wobbles his helmet.  It’s a cute touch, and I think it’s nice how his book’s topic and Hop Studios’ design style mesh so well.

Posted by Travis Smith at 1:22 AM | Comments (0)

What We Ask New Clients

June 8, 2006

When clients first contact us to ask us to build them a Web site, they come to us with wildly varying levels of detail.  Some have a design and text and a domain name and everything already picked out, and they never change their mind or ask for something impossible or impractical.  We call these clients “perfect but imaginary.”

The rest of the clients come to us with a set of needs, but without a solution to those needs. That’s OK.  That’s what we provide: solutions.  To do so, we ask the client some questions about their situation, and from these questions, we prepare a quote.  So if you’re a new client, we might end up asking you the following questions:

1. Summarize what the Web site should do. What’s its purpose?

2. Now that you’ve identified the basic goals of the site, rank them in order of importance.

3. Pretend it’s six months from now.  How will you know the Web site succeeded?

4. When do you want to see this finished? Are there events upcoming that will influence the production schedule (i.e. a software release, event, etc.)?

5. What is your budget for this project, or an acceptable budget range? You don’t have the answer this one, but it’s like going to buy a car and not telling the salesman if you want a Kia, a Honda or a Lexus.  Telling us your budget helps us to give you an appropriate proposal.

6. Is there any work already done that will simply be reformatted into the new site? Are there existing sites, publications or other graphic work that could serve as a design starting-point for the new site?

7. Are there specific colors or logos that should be used? Are there other Web sites that are examples of what you’re looking for (or wanting to avoid)?

8. What kind of people will be using the site?

9. What do you want people to do after visiting the site?

10. Where will the content come from? How much of the content must be created from scratch? How will that work get done?

11. Can you briefly out spec out the amount of content/number of sections/number of pages, etc.? Tell us anything you can about the organization and content of the site.

12. Do you need training so that the site can be maintained in-house afterward? Would you prefer to set up a standing relationship with Hop Studios to perform updates in the future?

13. What functionality is necessary? (i.e. search, download, password-protected areas, mail forms, animation, etc.)

14. Do you need Web hosting? Do you need to register a domain? If you already have hosting, where or what do you have?

15. What haven’t we asked that we should know?

If you have other questions you think we should ask, suggest them in the comments!

Posted by Travis Smith at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)