http://www.gridworkdesign.com/ We create and manage web sites for small, mission-driven organizations. By combining smart planning, best-of-breed software and beautiful design, we will maximize every penny of your budget. At Gridwork Design, financial stability, artistic integrity and a social conscience aren't competing goals. en Copyright 2010 2010-02-01T09:11:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/68/how_writing_saved_gridwork_from_an_early_demise/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/68/how_writing_saved_gridwork_from_an_early_demise/#When:08:11:00Z Among the many unrealistic New Year’s resolutions I make every year, this may be the king of the hill. Project 52 is a petition to write a blog post a week for the whole year. Given that the last 5 years of running this site I’ve averaged about 4 posts a year, and I’m already a month behind, this seems like an impossible challenge. But the point is to dedicate more time to writing and reflecting, so I’m gonna post as much as I can, even if I don’t hit the magic number. Writing didn’t seem like it would be a very important part of running a web design company at first. It’s about your style and the quality of your code, right? Wrong. So foolishly wrong. The initial exchange of emails and proposals with a client is almost as important as the final deliverable. It establishes the tone of our relationship, determines my capacity to meet expectations and clarifies the steps required to make something wonderful. Regardless of whether Gridwork is hired for design, development or strategic planning, words play a critical role. On design jobs, it’s the sample content used in initial compositions, the labels on form fields, text in navigation, among dozens of other items that may never even get discussed, but require attention to language. In development, it’s the documentation, training materials, even the way variables are named. Using plain English as much as possible is considerate of the other people who might work on that code in the future. 2010-02-01T08:11:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/65/expressionengine_is_for_lovers/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/65/expressionengine_is_for_lovers/#When:04:37:53Z After over six months of not posting to the blog, I’ll admit that this comes a day late and a dollar short. Lots of stuff has happened since I launched the redesign and a couple posts in the SXSW whirlwind: new clients, new sites, new office, new dreams … but those are posts for another time. Tonight, I’m squarely focused on one of the most crucial components of our site design process, the content management system. ExpressionEngine powers nearly every site I’ve ever designed and developed. From little brochure style sites promoting a friend’s upstart consulting business to big university departments and publishing institutions, it bends and flexes to serve readers, students, users and administrators. We don’t waste budgets fiddling with obtuse methods of “skinning” a overly engineered backend, nor do we bill clients for routine changes they should be able to do on their own. EE shields us as web designers from the most technical parts of development, and in turn we are able to shield clients from the most technical parts of EE. It’s a huge part of how Gridwork has grown and stayed viable even as the economy has tightened. 2009-10-02T04:37:53+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/70/student_field_science/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/70/student_field_science/#When:18:07:08Z We redesigned EPI's website from top to bottom, working closely with on-site staff and contracted editors to deliver a lively, bilingual, user-friendly web experience. Carefully constructed forms guide new travelers from submitting their enrollment application through to planning fundraisers and sharing flight information. For outbound communication, we built tools for managing blogs, events, testimonials and press releases. 2009-09-16T18:07:08+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/53/crafting_every_square_inch/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/53/crafting_every_square_inch/#When:05:38:02Z Last week, thanks to some friends who are always up for an adventure, I visited the factory of Tiny Texas Houses about an hour south of Austin, TX. Part of a growing movement towards beautiful prefabricated housing, they are small, environmentally-friendly and utterly charming. The special sauce for Tiny Texas Houses is their raw materials — outside of insulation, electrical and plumbing, nearly every component is salvaged from tear downs and junkyards. Their partner organization, Discovery Architectural Antiques, collects vintage windows, beautifully weathered lumber, ornate doorknobs, among countless other vestiges of craftsmanship that find their way into each home. Touring the little houses, I was struck by how much thought and care clearly goes into designing these 150-350 sq. ft. residences. Each square inch felt contemplated, from the lofted sleeping areas to the miniature bathrooms and kitchens. And even though these were essentially new houses — built to last 100 years — because of the materials, they smell like a well-loved home. Here are a few random video clips from our walk around the operation: Of course, actually living in one of these houses full-time would require a major lifestyle adjustment, particularly for two people. It would take the right climate so you could create lots of usable outdoor space, a separate work/studio space, and much less crap overall to make it work. But the benefits of low energy use, easy maintenance and affordable craftsmanship might easily outweigh any downsides. So what does this have to do with Gridwork? More than you might think. The lesson I’m taking away is that in eventually in any design process — whether its housing, or lifestyle, or web design, or writing — you benefit from stepping back, identifying what is truly necessary and eliminating everything else. And once you’ve identified your absolute minimum needs, obsess over them until they are perfect. The lifespan of a website is probably going to be less than 100 years, but we can take care to build things to last, reduce (information) pollution, and feel instantly comfortable. 2009-03-26T05:38:02+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/52/sxsw_interactive_wrap_up/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/52/sxsw_interactive_wrap_up/#When:03:14:00Z After nine thrilling days in Austin, Texas, I’m back home beginning to sort through the mass of information, people and activities still swirling in my head. This year marked the first time Gridwork was able to partially fund attendance for three people. As a very small company, this was a pretty big deal, so we were there to make the most of it and hopefully inject some new energy into becoming better at what we do. Without a doubt, the single most important reason I went to the conference was to preview the upcoming major upgrade of our favorite content management system, ExpressionEngine. A huge part of our business relies on being experts at this system, so I wanted to educate myself as much as possible before the official release. So in addition to attending EE-centric parties and chatting up some of the best and brightest developers, I also forced myself to get up early for a breakfast demonstration with the people behind the code, EllisLab. I was surprised at how radically improved the new system is for end users while still acting like an iterative release for developers (no major changes to the coding methodology). There are certainly some lovely new additions (better file uploading, picture editor, whizzy forms), but most of the changes will help us work faster and more efficiently. For instance, we often obscure the control panel completely for content management, especially for group blogs or clients with low tolerance for technological learning curves. This gives them a seamless transition from navigating their site to publishing or editing content. The problem with this solution in EE 1.x is that we end up replicating dozens of forms and bits of functionality which is time consuming and difficult to upgrade. EE 2.0 will allow us to make radical alterations to the design of the control panel so we can essentially rebrand the administration functionality for each individual client, omitting unused features and streamlining tasks into fewer and fewer pages. And this is the tip of the iceberg. There so much attention to detail, you can understand why it took so long and why the wait is worth it. Of course, the conference was about much more than software and talking shop, it was about getting out from under our antisocial rocks and meeting people. And the one overarching value that I keep thinking about is how important it is to participate in dialogue. Everyone is obsessed with their blog and Twitter and Facebook and iPhones because they are great tools to foster that dialogue. It’s so easy to hate on whatever is trendy, to opt out because you’ve seen some shallowness, or because you’re self-conscious, or unknown, or intimidated. I know I’m in some of those groups, lurking on the EE forums and posting twice yearly blog entries. For all the talk about the artificiality of social networking, it only takes one offline interaction with a formerly online-only connection to realize the value of chiming in and participating, regardless of which medium you want to use. 2009-03-20T03:14:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/47/redesigned_site_for_sxsw/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/47/redesigned_site_for_sxsw/#When:15:00:00Z About a year ago, I started redesigning this site with lofty goals and no deadline, so as you might imagine, I’m very relieved to be writing this post. The first version of gridworkdesign.com was conceived while it was still just me working out of my mom’s guest house. It worked well enough, but didn’t reflect the current state of the company, nor did it go any deeper than a few samples from our portfolio and a brief creative process. What I wanted was more than just a marketing tool, I wanted a site that we could track staff hours and client projects from start to finish. Something bold and different, where I could obsess over our grid and typography just as much as I do on paid projects. So what you see here is the beginning of our integrated portfolio, project management, staff management tool. Using ExpressionEngine, we can weave clients, projects, task, deliverables and static content together seamlessly, floating our favorite content to the public site as “portfolio” entries and hiding everything else behind password protected pages. It’s taken several late nights to meet the self-imposed deadline of South by Southwest — where Erik, Mary and myself are sitting this very moment — so there are some missing pieces and unfinished sections. But it’s good enough and something I’m actually excited to show people we might meet here in Austin. 2009-03-13T15:00:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/18/online_video_network/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/18/online_video_network/#When:18:32:00Z Small Screen Network creates high-quality videos specializing on the "liquid culture" of cocktails and beer. The site we created highlights the interactive flash videos and provides a platform form blogging, podcasting, and sharing content. 2009-02-09T18:32:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/50/product_promotion/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/50/product_promotion/#When:20:18:00Z To help the proprietors of this unique product fulfill their vision, we developed a flexible content management setup so that they could expand their product line down the road without starting from scratch. 2009-01-01T20:18:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/41/coworking_website/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/41/coworking_website/#When:15:55:00Z Suite133 is a shared office for telecommuters, start-up entrepreneurs, creative professionals, and anyone craving the creative energy that comes from working alongside other people. We developed a platform to promote and manage the business that work out of the space. 2008-12-15T15:55:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/21/outdoor_education/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/21/outdoor_education/#When:05:00:00Z Global Explorers specializes in sustainable tourism for students, giving them unique experiences that will help shape global citizens. We created a fully interactive and customizable site, students and faculty can connect online, raise money for their trip, and prepare for the adventure ahead. 2008-10-21T05:00:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/20/news_magazine_website/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/20/news_magazine_website/#When:04:45:28Z This flagship site for a leading progressive news publication required coordinating the input and talents of half a dozen editors, designers and coders over the course of a full year. 2008-10-02T04:45:28+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/11/making_widgets_vs_selling_originality/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/11/making_widgets_vs_selling_originality/#When:16:04:00Z This is a design company. Or at least I thought it was. As I look at our summer calendar and recent project launches, I’m starting to notice development work and maintenance arrangements becoming larger parts of the business. I can think of a few reasons to explain how this came to be. One reason may be an influx of designers being asked to reach beyond their comfort zone as more complex web technologies become commonplace. It could be that our clients are starting to ask for the same complicated things, so we’re spending more time adapting an existing design into ever more interactive experiences. It could also be that the particular software we specialize in, ExpressionEngine, is gaining a wider following and more clients in need of advanced features and consistent maintenance work. Early on when Gridwork first started and there wasn’t enough client work to fill all my time, I wasted money and carbon aimlessly driving around listening to business-y audiobooks, the first of which was The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. I don’t remember much from this book, but one thing has always nagged me. He says something like your business must be something that you can repeat by automating and essentially franchising. Even though I never intend to franchise what Gridwork is doing, I’m strongly drawn to the idea of automating and standardizing as much of what we do as possible. The tension between selling creativity and simply executing functionality requests still exists, but the more we know about the best way to do one thing or another the more brain energy we can devote to the broader design and strategy. Creativity will always drive the spirit of this company, but standards and automation will finance our dreams of awesome health care and long forgotten credit card companies. It is with this insight that we’re entering into our first real growth period. This spring, I began transitioning from full-time developer and designer to focusing a greater portion of my time on recruiting new clients, managing long-term relationships and training new associates to take on the added workload. Joining Mary (print design) and Brooks (development) is Erik Hanberg, currently implementing new client projects and bringing proven writing experience and project management to our talented roster. In the coming months, look for a redesign of this site in the spirit of automation and improved communication. New client login tools will include dashboards for reviewing timesheets, assigning new tasks, self-administering their sites, monitoring project progress and storing brand / tech assets. 2008-06-07T16:04:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/22/magazine_site/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/22/magazine_site/#When:05:05:32Z Shelterforce is published by the National Housing Institute, an independent nonprofit organization that examines the issues causing the crisis in housing and community in America. 2008-06-02T05:05:32+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/48/support_and_development/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/48/support_and_development/#When:21:24:00Z We came on shortly after mStoner redesigned and relaunched this huge, fascinating site. Using our experiences with managing large, content-heavy sites in ExpressionEngine, we continue to provide technical support on their code and incremental feature upgrades as they come up with new projects and information sources. 2008-06-01T21:24:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/43/magazine_site_coding/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/43/magazine_site_coding/#When:17:12:00Z We partnered with designers at Livingston & Partners to develop around their amazing layout for the Word Among Us magazine. With over 100,000 print subscribers to sync with their membership database and thousands of articles to manage, this job pushed the limits of our tools and expertise. 2008-05-15T17:12:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/29/coffee_shop_site/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/29/coffee_shop_site/#When:20:29:00Z Before we expanded beyond one person and moved to a co-working space, Gridwork's de facto offices were at Black Water. The quiet subdued aesthetic of their coffee shop carried over to the site with stripped down, elemental look and feel. 2008-04-01T20:29:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/32/group_blog/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/32/group_blog/#When:08:01:00Z To accommodate dozens of contributors at varying levels of technical proficiency, we created a "zero-learning curve" administration system for posting, editing and managing content. Even though there's a fairly complex system behind the scenes, new authors can publish their posts without an instruction manual in a matter of minutes. And it shows: the National Housing Institute publishes timely, thoughtful analysis of housing issues on Rooflines with a shoestring budget to a growing audience. We're proud to have them on our client list and in our RSS reader. 2008-03-02T08:01:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/10/regular_hours_lunch_and_co_workers/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/10/regular_hours_lunch_and_co_workers/#When:15:56:00Z As of early September, Gridwork is no longer being operated from my living room. Goodbye to the endless distractions and errand running that slowly seemed to take over all my free time. At first, working from home was tremendously liberating. I found myself spending many more hours on being creative and less in meetings or on busywork. However, over time I completely merged personal time with work time, which usually meant working off and on from early in the morning until late at night. To regulate this social life killing regimen, I began spending more and more time at a nearby café. Now, I love coffee as much as any native northwesterner, but there are severe consequences for consuming vast quantities of caffeine. Fortunately, we’ve had an opportunity to partner with some friends from Exit133 on a new coworking space, Suite133. The coworking business model attempts to create a middle ground between a coffee shop and a typical office. Probably the most obvious difference is that most of the people in the space are either freelancers or small 2-5 person companies. Rather than fixed workstations, we’ve got a bunch of desks lined up that stay perfectly clean until someone needs to work. The timing for this change couldn’t be better as work continues to flow in. To expand this workload, I’ve begun working more regularly with two talented freelancers, Brooks Seymore and Mary Holste. Their enthusiasm for building websites and designing materials is invigorating and will hopefully lead toward many good things to come. 2007-10-23T15:56:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/15/student_website/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/15/student_website/#When:06:31:00Z To help guide Chicago Public Schools' students through their post-graduation plans, we worked closely with administrators to design and built a new site called Choose Your Future. This project followed our work in developing a branded poster series. 2007-10-02T06:31:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/51/news_aggregator/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/51/news_aggregator/#When:06:30:00Z Automated content migration and typography for large catalog of print, and radio news. 2007-08-16T06:30:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/28/poster_series/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/28/poster_series/#When:20:12:00Z The poster series for Chicago Public Schools involved a coordinated look and feel with the web project. Working with an illustrator, we created a vibrant interesting campaign for the halls of Chicago high school. 2007-08-01T20:12:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/9/seasonal_content_independent_publishing/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/9/seasonal_content_independent_publishing/#When:15:54:00Z Clearly, I am not a natural blogger. Four posts a year does not a blog make. I’ve always had a thing for marking seasonal changes, and it looks like blogging will inherit those impulses. As a child, I would rearrange all the furniture in my room whenever the temperature hit an arbitrary number of my choosing (e.g. the dresser moves to the north wall when the overnight low hits 20°F). For ongoing design projects, I tend to roll out larger changes and pages every three months or so. And when I can resist summer fruit from Chile, my body appreciates food appropriate to the current season. Nevertheless, one of the biggest surprises I’ve learned about building a small business is how vital it is to write well and often. If it’s not new client proposals, it’s maintaining existing relationships. There’s so much jargon and assumed knowledge with design and the internet that “writing clearly” is almost oxymoronic. So heading into year three of sole propriety, I’m setting a goal to increase the amount of content on this site, hopefully in more ways than lame seasonal posts. Anyhow, with spring emerging my focus has turned back towards independent publishing. A new client, Shelterforce magazine, will require a satisfying mix of print and web design. The past few weeks have involved becoming familiar with the latest iteration of InDesign and lusting after all the typefaces I’ve missed from the pre-web design days. (Note to self: Look into flash type replacement.) The Media Consortium (long-time client In These Times is a member) has also begun to show its prowess. They have begun building out their member tools with GoLightly and convened one (of two) technology sharing meetings. I attended the first one in New York and finally felt the benefits of collaborating face-to-face. Tech people like to use space-age communication tools, but there isn’t a technology that can foster the type of relationships that physical proximity can. You can’t react to someone’s facial expression or body language in a conference call, and forget about sarcasm over instant messenger. 2007-03-09T15:54:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/8/commence_rainy_season/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/8/commence_rainy_season/#When:15:50:00Z Autumn has turned from a shockingly bright, crisp, leafy delight into a bluish-gray, waterlogged, baked potato gloomfest. Growing up in the NW, I learned to force myself to like this time of year. Attentions turn towards staying home and assembling puzzles, reading anything within reach, and trying to do all the things I said would get done when the rain finally came. Fortunately for business, without sunny distractions, its easier to find the diligence required of a more ambitious workload. For a change, I am looking closer to home for new projects. The past 18 months of building Gridwork involved working primarily with clients scattered across the country. Meetings are always conference calls, collaborations always online. Normal human contact comes from working at a coffeeshop or cruising Fred Meyer (although Halloween provided an adorable respite). Fortunately, a couple small local projects are currently underway that involve real people within driving distance. One is still in the design phase so there’s no link to share, with a prototype in development. The other venture is also, still early in development, but I have high hopes. The name is still unofficial, but the Tacoma Independent could possibly be a forthcoming progressive news and community site. The group behind the concept is in the planning stages of looking at what it would take to form an organization devoted to publishing a variety of media in Pierce County (including radio, public access TV, and a newspaper) with a left-of-center point-of-view. The prototype site currently includes a functional calendar/meeting planner, discussion forum, and membership features. Elsewhere on our map, we’ve recently rolled out tagging features and a new link directory over at In These Times. And while there isn’t a public link or demo, rolling out a group communication system for Global Explorers was a tremendous learning opportunity. Their internal system allows dynamic groups of students and teachers to share educational materials, photos, fundraising ideas, and begin to form a social group months before they embark on an international, traveling workshop. 2006-11-03T15:50:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/46/nonprofit_redesign/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/46/nonprofit_redesign/#When:18:30:00Z The dearly departed Independent Press Association contracted with us to develop a new look and feel for their website. Although our work didn't move beyond the design phase, it was an honor to work with such an important nonprofit advocating for socially conscious journalism. 2006-09-01T18:30:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/7/when_it_rains_it_pours/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/blog/7/when_it_rains_it_pours/#When:15:38:01Z Spring has come and gone. The northwest spent several weeks under drizzly, cooler than normal weather, and suddenly summer has arrived. And with it, a new city, new projects, a new office/home. In fact, almost everyday brings entirely new ups and downs. Without the familiarity of work to stay rooted in, I’d probably be drowning under the weight of it all. Since my first year in college, life seems to oscillate between long bouts of nose-grinding routine and short bursts of everything changing all at once — it is both terrifying and liberating. The new city: Tacoma, WA, about halfway between Highway 16 and Pt. Defiance Park. It’s a big, but secondary city about 30 minutes south of Seattle. So far, I’ve spent very few days actually getting out and exploring, although I’ve managed to get lost driving around several times, which is one of my favorite ways of discovering new places. And there are several fantastic grocery stores and farmers markets scattered throughout almost every neighborhood. Several projects at Gridwork are currently either nearing completion or just taking off. For Global Explorers, we created a travel journal for a group of blind and sighted high-school students who hiked through Peru to the lost city of Macchu Pichu. Before that, we had the wonderful opportunity to work with the Center for Social Media, creating an entirely new online presence, and implementing some of the latest exciting web technologies along the way. And just today, we launched an interactive Flash-based map of the progressive media for In These Times. Looking forward, we’re thrilled to be developing a new site with the Independent Press Association, which is currently in heavy development. We’re also working with a new group, The Media Consortium, on rolling out a centralized content management system and web application for content editors across the media landscape. They’ve developed a gorgeous, prototype site to skin the prototype application we demoed earlier this past Spring. So while business is looking up and moving forward, it leaves less time to calm the chaos outside of work. It takes more effort than it should to carve personal time out for cooking or tennis or taking pictures, or anything truly relaxing. I’d like this summer to be about striving for that balance, and hopefully finding some peace. 2006-06-26T15:38:01+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/31/university_department/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/31/university_department/#When:19:34:01Z The Center for Social Media needed a website with a variety of features including calendars, blogging, video, and targeted content for registered users. Helping them achieve their website needs will help them continue to lead the charge on fair use, copyright, and media literacy. 2006-05-01T19:34:01+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/42/site_design_and_branding/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/42/site_design_and_branding/#When:16:04:01Z For this small, herbal foot soak company we launched a simple template, navigation structure and content management system that would scale with the owner's ambitions. We also developed an updated identity on the site that could be carried over to packaging and print materials as the company grows. 2005-07-13T16:04:01+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/36/community_meeting_ads/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/36/community_meeting_ads/#When:00:14:00Z We provided a free advertising campaign to promote these community dialogues. 2004-03-13T00:14:00+00:00 http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/27/fire_on_the_prairie/ http://www.gridworkdesign.com/portfolio/27/fire_on_the_prairie/#When:18:55:01Z Gridwork developed a site and identity for Fire on the Prairie just as podcasting emerged as a new distribution platform. As a side project of long-time client In These Times magazine, the "radio forum" thrived for three years while two young, talented staffers emerged as fresh voices in Chicago journalism. Given this tremendous opportunity to capture the attention of our audience, the site aimed to make discovering and listening to the show as convenient as possible. 2004-02-01T18:55:01+00:00