Our new HQ is spacious, clean and really classy.

It became pretty clear over the last few months that Tectonica required a larger office space than what we started with eight months ago.Taking a big step beyond the ¨garage¨ stage of our little design start-up was a bit intimidating. Truly important to us is to have a space that is conducive to inspired work, good relationships, and aesthetically reflective of the quality of design which we value and create. Basically we required space that was a real version akin to the virtual spaces that we build. We also wanted something that  would feel like  home, and would be  large enough to allow us to grow when needed.

The front of our new offices. The third story will host your favorite web design studio.

It actually didn´t take long. We fell in love almost immediately with one of the first offices we came across. In fact, we  were probably  in love even before we entered the building. Across from the building there  is a vegetarian buffet, a day spa, and a bookstore where the literary genius (and Ned´s hero) Jorge Luis Borges spoke on his final afternoon in the country before going to Europe to die. The street in front of the building( a shared bike lane and pedestrian street) is lined with classical, european-like late 19th Century buildings. People often remark that these buildings in Buenos Aires remind them of old Paris. There is some good reason to this as Argentina actually utilized those same architects in the late 19th and early 20th century during the city´s building boom.

The building in which our office sits is in fact, historic; designed by one of the greatest architectural minds of Argentina - Alejandro Christophersen (1866 – 1946). Christophersen, of Norwegian descent, was born in Spain, studied in Belgium and moved to Argentina at the age of 22. Soon afterward he became richly involved in the design, planning and building of great works in the city. These famous works include the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, Anchorena Palace, the Russian Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity, Cafe Tortoni, and the Astoria Hotel.

Christophersen and some some of his works in Buenos Aires: The Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Santa Rosa Basilica, The Russian Orthodox Church at San Telmo, and the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange Building.

We´re also pretty excited about the location. This five room office is located just around the corner from the famous Obelisco of Buenos Aires, Teatro Colon and the famous Avenida 9 de Julio. It is also the very center of all transit in Buenos Aires – only a block and a half from where the subway lines  all converge.

Our view from the balcony (South direction)

We are so grateful to all our amazing clients and to the hard work of our dedicated team that has made this move to this next step possible.  We’ll be sure to post more pictures of the office and our daily activities in it once we get a little more settled in.

A few days ago we lost Oscar Niemeyer, the Brazilian architect renowned for -among other things- his amazing, groundbreaking work creating a monumental identity for the buildings of his country’s capital city, Brasilia. In association with urban planner Lucio Costa, he was co-responsible for one of the most complex and daring urban enterprises in the human history, comparable only to the construction of the city of Saint Petersburg in the 19th Century. The building of a modern capital from scratch in the middle of the rainforest, in the context of an underdeveloped country was, under any parameters, a risky undertaking. However, the results of this experiment, beyond its obvious limitations, were not only a success but served as an inspirational source for any number of modern, large-scale architectural projects in the world.

I must confess: until a couple of years ago, I even ignored Niemeyer was still alive, until I heard of a project he was working on to build a large complex named City of the Music in the harbour of Rosario (an Argentine city about 200 miles to the north of Buenos Aires). It was a rather ambitious project. As well, it wasn’t the only one: several other ones from London to Curitiba to Spain were developed or planned in the last few years. Unbelievable Niemeyer was quite active even beyond his 100th birthday.

He was, in some aspects, the last of his kind. The 20th Century was a great time for architects that were also artists in their own right; men and women capable of introducing a radical shift in our notion of spaces for living and spaces for recreation, spaces of contemplation and even spaces of worship. Also, men that embraced very openly a modern way to explore the new languages that the recently discovered possibilities in terms of engineering and materials would bring to their art. Le Corbusier, Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, the people behind the Bauhaus, are only a few highlights of a list that includes many others.

Modern architecture was maybe one of the most influential beacons for the design industry of the last few decades, and much of the current design philosophy that stands for function, simplification of the forms and a honest approach to what a user expects from a certain object, a graphic piece or even a visual interface, owes a lot to the work of people like Niemeyer. Websites have in their own right spatiality, albeit virtual.

The memory of Niemeyer, serves as a reminder that we are standing on the shoulders of giants that once dared to build a bird in the middle of the jungle.

Brasilia plan by Lucio Costa

Had the site been one where I was only mildly interested in the topic, I am sure I would have just closed the tab and moved on with my day. However, that wasn´t the case. The topic of the website was one that interested me greatly. That only added further to my frustration. The site was for an organization that is preserving the tradition of tango music through teaching, converting audio recordings to digital and collecting sheet music – some of which is from famous tango musicians.

Having spent a great deal of my free time learning to play the famously difficult bandoneon, the accordion-like instrument of the tango orchestra, I have a great passion for tango music and culture.

(Of note, our designer Mar´s father also played the bandoneon and listened to him practice all the years he was growing up – which is probably why he chose an accordion instead for the main image of this post).

So I was quite excited to find this amazing organization´s endeavor. The site itself had decent graphic elements in its design despite being built using Flash (see why we hate flash so much here).
The education section of the website talked about their programs, but didn´t have a link to the schools location, lacked a description of the courses nor did it contain a calendar of upcoming master classes or talks. The section on music, spoke about the recordings they have preserved and recommended specific CD’s but had no music samples and provided no links as to where to buy the (somewhat rare) CD’s they recommended. The section on the collection of sheet music told me they had original scores with notation by tango greats, but nowhere could I see the actual handwritten notations of Osvaldo Pugliese  that I so wanted to view. The concerts and events section talked about past events but provided no information about future that I could attend.Unfortunately, the only way to interact with the site was to make a donation or e-mail the site administrator. Quite frankly, I want more – I demand more!

Finally, crime of all crimes, there was no newsletter sign up available to receive passive updates on the project and its activities. It left me with the feeling that there was nothing for me to do but shrug my shoulders having learned just a little about a great project that exists but that I will soon forget about.

The point is, I don´t want to simply read about what someone is doing on the web. Like all users these days, I want to participate. Our virtual world is not for voyeurs. That was the generation of the television or the book. Much like I felt this morning when finding such an interesting site with only roadblocks to involvement, users get quite frustrated when they can´t virtually engage.

A website is to an opportunity to invite people into your community, to activate them, to inspire them to share a little part of a virtual or real world with you. Whether it is about purchasing a product, learning or improving a skillset or just supporting a cause…a website needs to have a goal to promote actions from its users.

That is why it is so essential when planning your website the first thing to think about is what your user should be doing on your site. Presenting what your company or organization does comes further down on the list. Think about the user first! What will they do on your site? What do they want to do on your site? What do you want them to do on your site? The site is a success when these three questions have the same answer. But this often takes some strategic and creative thinking.

Are you unsure as to how to turn your site into a change agent for your user or how to get them involved? If so, please feel free to consult with us on the best strategy for activating your user. We will look at which methods are best to promote the online actions that will help your site serve your overall organizational goals. We will design the User Interface of your site to promote these goals and to engage your site visitor.

Here are some suggested tried-and-true methods which we recommend:

1. A Newsletter: which is easy to subscribe to (we love mailchimp).

2. Blog! Keep content fresh and interesting and you will find other online sites will link to you, increasing your website traffic and additionally users will return to your site to read more.

3. Social Media feed and connect: Both allow your user to see on your site your most recent tweets and Facebook posts, and provide links to go directly to your pages through features such as ¨like¨, ¨friend¨, and ¨follow¨ you.

4. Give them free stuff: Seriously. They either find it on your site or will find it on others. Whether it is advice, media samples, or actual samples of the product that you will send them. Turn them from a passing site visitor into a consumer by your taking the first action in the form of providing a “freebie”.

5. Use a Contact Form: The use of a simple and clear contact form is great. Don´t just list contact information. This requires several extra steps from a user and will discourage contact.

6. Strong Calls to Action: Having buttons that are easy to find that promote your main method of interaction – whether it be signing up for a service, making a donation, or getting in touch are critical – especially for sites that are seeking to convert site visitors into customers.

7. Calendar: Use custom post types or a calendar to list upcoming events which site visitors can attend.

Want to step it up a level further? One way to truly engage your users and turn them into active fans is to build your site on a NationBuilder platform. With NationBuilder you get a whole set of built in tools to manage your fans. They literally become members of your site – or, in this case ¨Nation¨. They sign up easily through their Facebook or Twitter accounts and are suddenly active participants in something more than just a static site – a truly dynamic experience including out-of-the-box idea crowd sourcing and gamification. NationBuilder is now being used by a broad range of people from political candidates, to community organizations and small businesses. Tectonica is one of a handful of certified NationBuilder architects. This past week they even launched an official theme we designed for all of their clients to use as a template. Feel free to contact us to consult on ways that we can build a NationBuilder site that will interact in a genuinely engaging way with your community of fans. Or follow the link for more on our NationBuilder services.

The Internet Age is the Age of Interaction

 

Right now in the US there is a major debate among politicians over the role that society plays in supporting and helping entrepreneurs achieve their accomplishments. At Tectonica we are acutely aware of the support, mentorship, and training that has helped us launch our business. We have gotten where we are today not only on our talents and work but on the opportunities provided to us and help given to us along the way by others.

Since our foundation, the Tectonica founders have looked for ways to give back to and grow the local community. One of these ways is to offer discounted and pro-bono work to local cultural and environmental efforts. We will be announcing more about the results of this program in the coming months.

For our first internship we were quite happy to find a young, talented, and driven individual, Matias Guillermo, who is quite eager to learn web development, but without solid experience, practice and mentorship, would not be able to enter the professional world. We have structured a three month training internship for Matias to learn the basics of photoshop, HTML, CSS, and WordPress.

Matias is 23 and grew up in San Martin, Argentina, a city not too far from Buenos Aires. He moved to the capital three years ago where he has worked in various roles from customer service specialist to waiter. He recently studied web development in a course at the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional.

Matias certainly is one of many future interns that we hope to train. Buenos Aires, while often considered peripheral to the activities of the tech and design world, is swarming with incredible talent. We consider ourselves enormously lucky to partner with individuals to grow their knowledge, our local community, and our own company.

Martin, Ned, and our super-talented web developers Victor and Martin give a warm welcome to Matias.

Matias Guillermo: Tectonica’s First Intern!

(Read more about one of Tectonica´s first responsive sites here: Future 500 or see the site live: http://www.future500.org/)

Perhaps you’ve heard of responsive design or perhaps you haven’t.  In reality, responsive design is a terrific solution websites to display across multiple screen sizes, including the largest computer screens and the smaller mobile devices – phones, tablets, etc. While not without limitations, responsive design projects require revamping the design process to integrate more closely the design with the coding. While it has some limitations, responsive design is a great way to ensure usability across platforms at far less cost than building fixed mobile sites.

A responsive package from Tectonica will add about 40% to the cost of the desktop project total whereas a fixed site design for mobile can cost double that of the original project cost.

What is Responsive Design?

Responsive is a fairly new design practice first identified by Ethan Marcotte in an article in “A List Apart”.

The growing popularity of many mobile devices with  a variety of small screen sizes, coupled with the growing popularity of larger computer screens has added a significant size spread for website viewing and additional platforms that web developers are being asked to create stable sites for. One great solution: Responsive Design.

Responsive Design uses two coding techniques – fluid grids and media queries.  Don’t be too concerned if you don’t understand what that is.  Basically, “media queries” is a mechanism that allows the website to know the size of the browser view in which you are seeing the site. “Fluid Grids” allow elements on a site to move around.

The basic concept is that page elements change their location(and possibly their size) in relationship to each other  depending on the size of the browser view of the site. how large the browser size is. At specific  ‘breakpoints’,  reflecting the main screen sizes – such as large screen desktop, iPad, iPhone, smaller phones, tablets, etc – the page elements will rearrange themselves, change size, or disappear (if less relevant) to adjust to fit the size of the browser or screen.

Want to see it in action?  I’m sure it will make more sense.

Choose one of these sites:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/

http://www.fork-cms.com/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

Now open your browser to its largest size, grab the lower right-hand corner and resize the browser slowly smaller and smaller.  Watch the page elements adjust to the size change.  If you open the site on a mobile device with a small browser it will look just like that smaller one.

Another great visual demonstration of this can be found here:

http://finecitizens.com/defineResponsive/

Here is a page where you can view several of these responsive site layouts:

http://mediaqueri.es/

Responsive vs. Fixed Mobile Design

If you are new to mobile design, you might be wondering how this differs from the traditional way that mobile sites were set up.  The fixed mobile design requires creating a design for each mobile screen.  The homepage, for example,  would require one design done in photoshop for the desktop design, and perhaps between an additional four to six more designs done in photoshop for the major mobile screens – iPad vertical, iPad horizontal, etc. Following that each of these designs are coded separately.  You can easily understand where the workload (and cost) can really add up. As well, this would never totally account for all the potential devices that could be used.

(As an aside, one case where it might be advantageous to design for fixed mobile screens is if there is a specific  need for people to view the site on a mobile device.  Fixed mobile design provides for more specialization of functionality for the mobile site.  Therefore, for example, if you require a site for an event, and you expect most people to be utilizing the site at the event on mobile devices and performing different activities on those mobile devices, then you probably want to consider utilizing a fixed mobile design.)

How the Responsive Design Process is Different

With responsive, the process is a bit different. Instead of designing each template multiple times for each screen, designers and code developers work closely together in an integrated process. First a wireframe for a homepage is designed and reviewed by developers for its ability to adapt to other screens.  After client approval of the wireframe, developers jump right into coding to create prototypes that adapt the elements for main ‘breakpoints’.  Afterwards it pass back to designers for input and full design completion, and then finally back to developers for code completion.

Responsive design requires the developers to also have a role in making design decisions, as they are making recommendations as to where items will go in the various versions when they develop the prototypes.  Luckily, here at Tectonica,  our developers are formally trained and have experience in design.

The whole process saves large amounts of time and money from a fixed mobile design because the designer does not need to create six to eight designs for every template.  Only the coding time is extended.

Because responsive design is based on breakpoints and works with a fluid gird, the designs work on a large set of devices because it accommodates any number of screens between specific sizes instead of a set of fixed sizes.

General Mobile Limitations

It is important to remember that responsive sites are built to work not only on different screen sizes but different devices.  Since there are any number of mobile devicess the responsive design alternative is great as it incorporates the possibilities for many different screen sizes.

This, however, does not mean that every functionality is going to work on every device.  For a responsive site, or any mobile device for that matter, the choices of functionalities are limited. Specifically some Javascripts and other major coding tools we use to build some special functionalities will work on some mobile devices but not others.

The truth is that people engage the internet for different reasons on mobile devices than they do on their desktops.  Additionally, mobile platforms have certain limitations.  Think of this analogy; you wouldn’t text someone the same exact thing you would tell them over the phone.  Why?  Because the limits imposed by texting make it useful for different purposesbut there are still limitations! With all mobile designs – responsive or not – this must be considered.

At Tectonica, the responsive design package includes testing on three major mobile platforms: iPhone, iPad, and an Android Device.

Limitations of Building a Responsive Website

1.  An existing desktop site cannot be made responsive.  A responsive site requires a specific integrated process requiring the smaller and full screen versions be built together at the same time. We cannot go in afterwards and change a site to be responsive.
2. There are certain design limitations.  Responsive design takes advantage of a set of patterns of moving items.  Thus, responsive designs are a bit more basic in their structure and tend to be a little more boxy and they rely heavily upon a set number of columns.  Simply put, not everything can be accommodated in a responsive site.
3.  Functionalities are more limited on any site with mobile.  Mobile devices have browsers with limitations.  Also, pointing and clicking with a mouse is a very different thing than touching with your fingers.  Workarounds can be made for this by sometimes selecting a more simple functionality to appear when viewed on mobile devices or simply to omit the functionality altogether.  However, if it is a key feature of the site, this can be problematic.
4. We need to know very specifically about the user interface objectives for the site’s mobile users.  It is important to consider any ways that mobile site users might be approaching the site differently as we decide where elements are to be placed.
5. Every site that goes responsive must include a wireframe stage for any key pages.
6.  Responsive sites will have some pages built out directly in WordPress installation.  This is usually isn’t a problem, unless for some reason you later wanted to switch Content Management Systems (CMS) or have a programmer build out a back-end specific to your site.
7. The way content works in responsive design is a bit incredible.  With parts changing shape and moving around, there are more limitations on the size of content.  For example, what would fit nicely on a menu tab on a desktop device won’t work at all on a mobile device. For this reason, it is important that we get content for the site’s main pages from a client early in the process. Usually we will request real content to be developed immediately following the wireframe stage in order that we can use and test the content during the prototyping stage.
8. There are an endless number of devices out there. Unless otherwise requested Tectonica will test the site on iPad, iPhone and Android phone devices.

One July 26th 2012, Tectonica had a planning retreat to prepare itself for offering responsive design as a service to its clients. To see some photos of us planning check out our flickr stream.

One of the most difficult things for a client is trying to figure out what to leave out. This is where we also provide an advantage beyond that of just design knowledge. We’re a little more objective and further removed from your product, which makes us better able to visualize what will be important to your site visitor.

In some ways we are in a better position to do this than the people working at the business. Often being so close to the product makes all things equal – all things important.  However, we can look at your overall objective, the order of things, and see the site through the eyes of the user to help us make decisions about what has greater value.

But it takes a little trust to release those things that you are attached to, not spell everything out, and let the design speak for itself. Indeed Dieter Rams highlighted clean design in his ten principles of design by stating, “good design is as little design as possible”.

Watch this humorous video, that highlights the difference between the excellent clean design packaging of the Apple product vs. the overly complex design of Microsoft packaging standards:

See where busy design with too much information can make things a bit obfuscate? It is true that the iPod package might not display every bit of information about the product.  I am sure that there is someone at Apple who worked on the iPod that was furious that the component they worked so hard on developing, and wanted consumers to know about, was not on the packaging.

I’m also pretty sure it didn’t hurt sales of the iPod:

In fact, I’m pretty sure that the simplicity of use, and quality of product design, was much better illustrated through the clean iPod packaging than by ”bulleting” every product function on the product box.

See some examples of the clean designs we have created here on our Portfolio Page.

We’re not overly aggressive types here, so if we disagree with one of your design requests or revisions, we’ll usually give you a soft ‘no’, such as “we don’t recommend this” and an explanation as to why that is the case. Still, we’ve had customers surprised that we are reluctant to immediately implement their requests submitted when they counter our judgment . Although some believe the old adage “the customer is always right”, in web design work this is not always the case.

Interestingly, those who have been involved with design work most easily understand this concept and expect us to “pushback”.  We were hired for our expertise and it’s why we are being paid. Although it is true that we won’t always get everything 100% perfect the first time, all of the time, we truly know what we are doing in terms of design and User Interface. We’ve had enough experience to know what works, and to be honest, we’ve made  enough mistakes to know what doesn’t. Usually, if we miss something it is caused by something unique about your product or company that we didn’t fully understand.  Perhaps it is the value you place on one item over another, or a particular way that clients feel about the your product.  We certainly welcome any and all input that can help us get your design just right.

It should be noted that good website design is not just about making things pretty in a browser. We serve a specific goal with relation to the information about the products or services we represent on sites. The interpretation between the end user and your product is at the heart of our design process.

We feel our goal is first and foremost to the larger objective of the site. If your site is geared toward sales, and you are asking us to do something in the design that is going to discourage the user from easily buying the product on the site, we are going to tell you that. We’d much rather debate over the details of the site design during the collaboration phase than have the site not achieve the sales objective once the site goes live.

We believe that providing alternatives to our client’s own design ideas actually allows the client to feel more comfortable to make suggestions. When clients know that we will be honest with them regarding the relative merits and drawbacks of their own ideas in relationship to the design they will be freer to make recommendations knowing that we’ll be there to prevent them from making mistakes.

Finally, we feel our ability to provide “pushback” is important for one further reason. We are passionate about our work and driven by our mission to improve the internet and the real world applications through the virtual spaces we create together. Our motivations are as much about making the lives of web users easier and achieving the goals of our clients as they are about pleasing individual clients.  This is what we love to do and what we do every day.

The customer is always right, no? I think not.

NationBuilder is a community organizing system which is both a Content Management System (CMS) and a people management system (CRM).  What is more is that the two systems are built together and integrated fully with social networking systems like Facebook and Twitter.  So the same easy-to-use backend manages the content of your website, all the people following you on Twitter or Facebook, your volunteers, your supporters activities, who is giving and how money is being donated.  You can even reward the activist that helps the movement with “political capital” – a point system they can cash in for rewards.  Pretty cool, isn’t it?

With this partnership we will also be working closely with their team, to help support us with their product and ensure the sites we do are fully integrated and beautifully functional.

We love our new partnership with NationBuilder.  For us, they are encapsulating so much of the vision of what we want to achieve with our design efforts – use the power of the internet for positive change and better virtual and real worlds.  It is a platform which gives us powerful tools to help the non-profits we work with to build their base, support and promote ideas, and garner donations.

We also are looking forward to the opportunity to work on political campaigns. The ease of use of the program, and affordability, really allow small grassroots movements the ability to organize and build a groundswell.  From major politicians to homegrown community efforts, NationBuilder is about promoting ideas and harnessing the power of people’s will. It’s truly democratic. We are excited to add our design passion to help communicate and augment those efforts.

NationBuilder is about promoting ideas and harnessing the power of people’s will.

Others have asked us, “ how did you develop a name that matches your corporate identity so well” ?  To answer this question I decided to write a blog entry to give a little insight into our name and its development. (On a side note, we do offer corporate identity services, if you are interested).

We chose ‘Tectonica’ after a great deal of company strategic planning and identity work.  We sought to have a name that reflected that which was unique about our company.  For us, this was first and foremost, stellar modern design.  So the name needed to have a certain edge to it.  Nothing stodgy or antiquated would be appropriate.  Secondly, we bring into this work our passion and our personalities.  So we needed a name that would reflect that as well.  Maybe even provide a little hint of “nerdiness”.  Finally, we wanted our name to reflect the fact that we are doing more than just design; we are constructing websites.

What we provide is less like print design and more like architecture.  We have extensive processes developed to build virtual spaces that are used and experienced spatially and temporally.  This is where we began our search for our company name.

After  tossing around many images, ideas, neologisms and themes we started hovering around the word “architectonic”.  For those new to the word, here is what it means:

Architectonic - 

1. Of or relating to architecture or design.

2. Having qualities, such as design and structure, that are characteristic of architecture: a work of art forming an architectonic whole.

3. Philosophy - Of or relating to the scientific systematization of knowledge.

We felt pretty good on all three definitions. In fact, while #3 was a surprise to us, we were delighted. The organizing of and systematizing of knowledge is exactly what we are doing with our design work. Extra bonus score! Semantic nerds unite!

Of course, it’s more than just picking a word. It’s about developing a name. For starters, we needed to find something more unique, that has easy recognition, and perhaps most importantly, an available URL for purchase.

We decided to drop the Archi- prefix and play just with ‘tectonic’ part.  It made it less of a mouthful, and we were quite attracted to the other implications of the word;  ‘Tectonic’ of course having to do with the movements of the earth’s plates and mantel structure.

Tectonic –

(Earth Sciences / Geological Science) Geology – pertaining to the structure or movement of the earth’s crust;

a.  (of landforms, rock masses, etc.) resulting from distortion of the earth’s crust due to forces within it

b.  (of processes, movements, etc.) occurring within the earth’s crust and causing structural deformation

The science-iness of the implications appealed to our nerd needs, and Mar, our chief designer, was already starting to dream of imagery and graphics to match.  We also like the admittedly grandiose implication that we are somehow participating in the movement of the world.

Finally, we decided to add a nice “a” at the end. This gave it a little modern world European feel and a tip of the hat to our Spanish-language Buenos Aires base. Not to mention it just seemed funkier.  If there is anything we are, it’s funky.

Is your company or project looking for a name and identity? Trying to represent yourself concisely in a name logo can be one of the most challenging or important activities you can undertake. Feel free to consult with us and see if we can help.  Get in touch here.

Finding a name that concisely reflects your business is key.

It’s not just about breaking a designer’s heart.  Great design quality cannot provide a professional appearance when it uses poor photos.  It’s truly a pity to have high quality design work destroyed.

So how do you ensure the photographic media will add to your sites design?  There are several keys to this.

1. Give Us What You Got (in advance)

If you already have images that you’ve chosen for your site, it’s best to send them to us before we create the design.  That way we have the material to work with, can adjust the images as needed, and work the site design around the media content. Usually the more we have to choose from, the better.

2. Pay Attention to What Works

If you don’t elect to provide photo work prior it is essential that you pay careful attention what you select later.

3. Selection Services

Many clients have returned to us to help select and rework photos for their site.  If you have a large number of posts that you need photos for, it is fairly key that a tuned eyed work to match the photos to the design.  We have packages available which can work with you to select and retouch stock photos to match your content for a budget.

3. Upgrade the Stock Photos

Our basic design service includes up to a certain price for stock photos.  However, if you feel the need for more advanced level of work, or your site has a lot of photo requirements you might consider the option to expand the budget for stock photos.  This expands our options for available photo work.

4. Custom Illustrations

One option beyond photography is custom illustrations. This is particularly a great option if there is something particular you would like to relay on your site. We have several artists we work with if you are interested in a personalized feel to your site’s graphic work.

5. Professional Photography

Probably one of the best investments you can make, beyond having your site done by a great designer, is hiring a professional photographer.

Professional photography is exactly what we chose for our own site.  We feel the decision to do so has really paid off.

When planning our site we decided one of the most important elements was letting people know who we are – our passion for our work, our personalities, and that we’re a couple of guys you can trust (which is true).  This was especially important to us as being physically located down here in Argentina makes some folks somewhat nervous about working with us – as though distance somehow determines trustworthiness. We felt that including professional quality photos in our website, that matched the quality level of our website design, was well worth the investment.

We are constantly told by our web site visitors that this is exactly what they find on our site.  We consider ourselves lucky to have achieved this by identifying an amazing photographer – César Mansilla Sialer, who demonstrated the key qualities you should be looking for when hiring for photographic service: responsiveness, professionalism, an understanding of your project objectives, a passion for the work, and above all, an amazing portfolio. César also is one of those talented individuals who can keep the costs reasonable by being talented in every area from the day of the shoot to post-production.

You can see the results of the photo shoot on our studio page or our flickr account.

Let us know if you are interested in custom professional photography.  César is available for variety of photographic work of people or products crafted to your site’s needs.

If you are not sure what type of service is most appropriate for your site or budget, just let us know.  We’d be happy to work with you to ensure you have exactly what is best to make your site shine.