Gone. Gone are the days that our teeny tiny one-page website will suffice. Suffice to say whatever it is that needs to be said to satisfy you, O insatiable crowds. O craven reader. We shed Dragon's Tears. We are dragons, and we are crying. An era has ended: we now have a five-page website.
About that. We have always worked very hard—striven, really—to (a) let you know exactly who we are and (b) exactly who we work with. That—historically—has been enough to get you to pick up the phone and have a chat with us. It's worked. But! We've come to the realization that maybe we can do you one better. Maybe. Probably.
And, in-so-doing, we could hope to complete some sort of mystical pyramid; some scalene altar upon which you could spell out your hopes; your dreams—Your Project—in perfumed and glittering tones and know that we of this mysterious isosceles cult are here for you. You know who we are. You know who we've helped before you. You dazzle—or are at least interested in—the fruits of our belabored past.
Yes. We can see it now. You deserve this information. It is our duty to show you the wonders we've weaved (weird); the teams we've been a part of; The Projects We've Completed.
And so—you know—we figured we'd update our portfolio. It might not be comprehensive or all-the-way current all-the-time, but it's certainly more than what we used to have.
About that. We have always worked very hard—striven, really—to (a) let you know exactly who we are and (b) exactly who we work with. That—historically—has been enough to get you to pick up the phone and have a chat with us. It's worked. But! We've come to the realization that maybe we can do you one better. Maybe. Probably.
And, in-so-doing, we could hope to complete some sort of mystical pyramid; some scalene altar upon which you could spell out your hopes; your dreams—Your Project—in perfumed and glittering tones and know that we of this mysterious isosceles cult are here for you. You know who we are. You know who we've helped before you. You dazzle—or are at least interested in—the fruits of our belabored past.
Yes. We can see it now. You deserve this information. It is our duty to show you the wonders we've weaved (weird); the teams we've been a part of; The Projects We've Completed.
And so—you know—we figured we'd update our portfolio. It might not be comprehensive or all-the-way current all-the-time, but it's certainly more than what we used to have.
The short version? We build web apps. Flash microsites. Kiosks and installations. Online annual and CSR reports. Work with agencies to realize interactive portfolios. Design workflows. Consult on UI/UX. Team up with talented and exciting artists to build their web presences. Their online stores. Blogs. We do a lot of blogs. A lot of talking. A lot of ideas. A lot of knowing the baggage that comes with a huge website. A lot of data-entry knowhow.
Ultimately, it all starts with lot of listening. To you. To people like you. Give us a call (or write) if you like (or hate) what you see. Or hear. We promise to only briefly talk about triangles.
Mug Shot!
Uploaded on Wed Feb 22
The Armoury
We could not be more proud of this website. When Kevin came to us with the project, we collectively decided that we would develop the main company website for The Armoury while other offshore developers worked on the store portion. What a blessing it was to JUST focus on the aesthetics of this fantastic shop; from the lookbooks to the blog, we had a blast. She's multilingual, too.w/ Kevin Roberson Design
SourceEnergy
Every character of text on the SourceEnergy website is driven dynamically from a CMS built specifically to the site's rather unique structure. Oh, and it also comes in Arabic. Driven from the database. Served correctly as RTL text and pages in Arabic fashion through a clever system of templates of our own devising. This site is a sleeper.w/ Tolleson DesignNike World Basketball Festival
We worked hand-in-hand with Hybrid to develop this Flash microsite and its mobile counterpart, as well as perform dozens of live-updates to it's constantly growing content over a roughly 3-month feature window.w/ Hybrid Design
Skinner
Is your life about to change? Is this the first time you've heard of Skinner, the awesomely amazing, profoundly prolific, seriously Sacramentoan Skinner? If it is, get ready for a treat. Working with the artist to design and build a brand new site from the ground up was a hugely fun enterprise....the verve with which he populated the portfolio with tons of incredible artwork was the gleaming cherry on top. Very proud of this site...and of Skinner. World get ready.The Cotton Candy Machine
When Tara McPherson, intrepid art darling, told us she was planning on opening a real-life art boutique—The Cotton Candy Machine—and o-by-the-way, would we build the website?, we tried to talk her out of using us. We wanted her to use more established software. She declined our attempted decline, and, well, we're grateful: We really like this site. Pretty fond of her, too.w/ Tara McPhersonOffice: Jason Schulte Design
We were elated to work with the Office folks on their new website. We had developed a flash-based site for them in the Summer of 2005 that I think both parties wish did 'more', and so the chance at vindication was quite juicy. For their part, the Office staff recentered our definition of 'savvy design professional'. The process was like hiking: difficult, but in an expectedly refreshing way.w/ Office: Jason Schulte DesignGreenscreen Animals
Greenscreen Animals is awesome: they specialize in filming and distributing stock footage of exotic animals. Awesome. When Atwood brought us the project, the keyphrase was 'like Getty, but on a budget.' So that's what we made. We've since stayed close with GSA, making several post-launch adds and enhancements: calculators, footage previews, and an ehanced group search.w/ Atwood Design StudiosImaginary Foundation
Imaginary Foundation is one of our oldest clients. Period. When we hooked up with The Director, we were still figuring a few things out. We ended up taking an online-only business that operated from a few static templates and creating a slim, trim, agile site that has processed over 50,000 retail orders to date. Countless backend tools, wholesale solutions, a custom blog, and an in-development enterprise-level overhaul later, and we're still happily pattern seeking.Juniper
The effort that was (and is) put into the Juniper website is nothing short of herculean. Team Juniper is hands-on at every step of the way, from detailing how they would like to manage their content, to fine-point pixelgrabbing: they're involved. KRD and RS worked as a tightly-knit unit to execute this fantastic platform for this fantastic message beaming out of these fantastic people.w/ Kevin Roberson DesignNike French Football League
We get it. Soccer is a really big deal. But! What do you get when you round up a bunch of the world's hottest soccer players, Nike, and Mr. The Karl Lagerfeld? You get this beautiful asset microsite for the FFF launch designed by Hybrid that we were lucky enough to help put together. Oh, and: multilingual, too.w/ Hybrid DesignFlying Coffin
One of the neatest things about what we do is working with like-minded folks that are making a product that we are already excited about. In the case of Flying Coffin, a one-man clothing company based in Seattle, we were fans. We were already customers. When the talk of websites came up, well, it just seemed like a match made in heaven. Support Small (Rad) Business. ♥w/ Four Color CreativeAtomic Attack!
There is—quite often—a huge (postiive) reaction from folks when this website comes up. When we show it to them as a part of our portfolio. And it took a few times for us to realize that, sadly (but still radly), that reaction had absolutely nothing to do with us. The Artwork speaks for itself. Calvin at Atomic Attack! is a master of his own domain, and we count ourselves lucky to have been involved with the creation of this beautiful portfolio site.Power Fury
Power Fury is (one of) the portfolio site(s) for the super talented, incredibly down to earth Mark Todd. We and he met at San Diego Comicon one year (we were already customers of his) and politely mentioned to each other how cool it would be to make a site that showcased his comic-themed artwork. Boom. It's here.Mondo Archive
If you haven't heard of Mondo, that doesn't mean that you're unaware of their work. It's very possible that you've heard of their sister-entity: The Alamo Draft-house. Still, heard of 'em already or not, get ready to hear about Mondo. A lot. Constantly. We teamed up with the sage and well-named Justin to create a vast archive site to chronicle the comings and goings of their hugely prolific output. Even if you're not buying posters, you can go to the archive and behold the beauty.'Lette Macarons
What could be sweeter than selling sweet little cookies in sweet little boxes to sweet little people giving sweet little gifts to their sweet little sweeties? Nothing. Nothing can be sweeter than that. We worked closely with UNO to bring their vision of what an online macaron store should be, and several thousand orders later, I think it's safe to say that we succeeded. Plus: we get free cookies sometimes.w/ UNO LA
Tara McPherson
What is the best word to use when referring to Tara McPherson and her rise to power? Meteoric? Mercurial? Bone-crushing? Whatever it is Tara is one of the most talented, business-savviest, and downright nicest folks in the art game, and we are pleased as punch to have built no less than 2 versions of her awesomely deep and fearlessly honest portfolio website.Bob Dinetz Design
We've been working with Bob since somewhere near the beginning of the 2001 Annual Report season. We've worked together on all kinds of projects, and we can honestly say that we'd work with him on anything. Anything. So of course, when it came time to develop version two of his own website, we jumped at the chance. As we see it, he took his portfolio to that new-web 'meta' place about 2 years before anybody else. Which of course, is an eternity.Nike Global Comms
Over a 2-year stint, we partnered with Hybrid to build several clever workflows and apps for the Global Comms group at Nike: an online 'Coverage Builder' that's used to create presentation PDFs; an omnibus 'Story Calendar' that's used for resource planning, and a backoffice workflow that allows staffers to generate emailable dispatches using just about the least applicable tools imaginable.w/ Hybrid DesignMishka NYC
Our working relationship with the fine folks at Mishka is not your typical one. For starters, one of us blogs about toys and stuff over at the fantastic Bloglin from time to time. But it's more than that: we had opportunity to help out with some pretty serious scoping concerns during a webstore redevelopment, and we (and they) feel like value was added. And so now we get to put them on our website. Super neat.James Jean
James Jean is the real thing. He's made the jump. What started as very painterly illustrations has absolutely become a steadily shining star in the night sky of fine art. We are so proud to have been involved with this amazing artist during this transition. In 2005, we helped James redevelop his blog site, Process Recess, with his main portfolio staying separate. In 2009, however, we combined the two, to much aplomb and delight. James Jean. Remember that name.Hines
Hines is a big deal. We were surprised when our friends at L recommended us to work on a project for Hines' Sacramento property listings...but not as surprised when, the following year, they recommended us AGAIN to build a site for the greater Northern California region. w/ L StudioMicrosoft KIN Photobooth
Greg from WB called us. Panic. Coachella: soon. What did we know about mutitouch? We hit the books and launched a Flickr-Facebook-Tweet-ized kiosk experience that was installed at the festival and then used again at Nylon's 'Young Hollywood' party. Neat.w/ Workbench Creative
Nike US Open of Surfing
Did you know that they had a US Open of Surfing? It's a big deal!: Nike's got no less than three of their brands tied in with promoting the thing. We developed this slick little microsite to help get the word (and assets, of course) out to all the proper media outlets in time for the big event(s). We helped Nike run content, as well as make midnight posts for things like video footage and highlight reels.w/ Hybrid DesignOVM
OVM is, in a word, mysterious. No one really knows exactly what the deal is. The person with the most details about the shadowy company, however, is one Mr. James Jean, and he asked us to collaborate with him on constructing a microsite to sell some fine limited-edition wares. Who were we to decline?w/ James JeanMaiden Noir
Beautiful clothes. Beautiful design. Beautiful photography. This site has it all, and our friends at Maiden Noir are completely to blame. These folks continue to pump out the finest quality garments they can, and they were kind enough to ask us to be a part of their...thing. Hundreds of online orders later, we assume that we did something right, and we look forward to seeing whatever it is this awesome company comes up with next.Suitor
We're trying really hard right now, but we just cannot seem to recall how we met Jessica from Suitor. She very likely found us. Because she is resourceful like that. When she did finally find us, she had a hugely grandiose plan involving selling custom letterpress stationery online and managing the entire process in-browser. On a budget. After telling her it couldn't be done, we did it for her, and then she helped one of us announce our child's birth, so we guess it went pretty well.Ventura County Behavioral Health
The star of the show at the Ventura County Behaviorial Health website is the sheer amount of voluminous and billowing data. RS worked with IDEA designers to come up with a simple way for Ventura staffers to update their vast database with papers, time-sensitive postings and other resources directed at other agencies in the region. We (and they) feel that success was had.w/ IDEA EngineeringTolleson Design
We have worked—proudly—with Tolleson Design since early 2004. During that loooong time, we have worked closely with them to develop two entirely different versions of their website, with a third on the way. Each has brought a new twist to how we think about data, how we think about thinking about data, and, of course, set a new standard in how we approach 'presentation'.w/ Tolleson DesignGary Baseman
We did not develop, design, or work on Gary Baseman's portfolio website. BUT! We DID work with him and his studio staff to build a custom workflow for his mailing list subscription process, newsletter distribution, and contact list management. He is a world traveller. You should follow him on Twitter.Super7 Star Wars
When Brian came to us with the idea for a microsite that would showcase his magnum opus—a 2-foot tall Jumbo Machinder-style OG Stormtrooper—we sort of chuckled at the joke we thought he was making. He was serious. Countless DVD rewinds of the Death Star scene later, we got it just right, and the site went on to help the thing sell out. It was one in a million.w/ Super7Microsoft Genius Parents
Microsoft is a pretty huge company. We've worked with them—the company—on several momentous occassions and it always seems like we're working with someone different. Luckily, on this one, we got to team up with our old friends at Workbench and Wexley...made it fun, quick, and (relatively) easy to push this cute little Genius Parents microsite out into the wide world.w/ Wexley School for GirlsBasic Training
We count ourselves pretty lucky that we don't live in the same town as the Basic Training crew. Were that the case, we'd be compelled to take payment for services rendered in the form of sweaty, gritty, dog-tired trade. Jenn and the gang are surely doing something right, and if we didn't feel so good about the site we made them, we'd be feeling lousy about all the running we're not doing.w/ Bob Dinetz DesignNike Free
The fine folks at Nike were so impressed with the site that we developed with Hybrid for the World Basketball Festival that they hired us to perform a reskin of the system to house the data for their huge Nike FREE initiative. We worked closely with the client to implement everything just-so, as well as incorporate their content as it was released across several weeks.w/ Hybrid DesignBuff Monster
We suppose it's very possible that you've never heard of Buff Monster. BUT! We're willing to bet you may have seen his artwork. Around. Here and/or there. His signature characters sparkling in his signature pink and silver colorscheme have done thier job of wooing the art world and turning Buff into somewhat of an art celebrity. The only thing we like more than his art and his site is him...we've become pretty good friends over the years.Nike Kobe Zoom
We suppose that, were we basketball enthusiasts—or maybe even basketball shoe enthusiasts—nothing would tickle us more than having two entire sites dedicated to the design and mechanics of the cutting edge Kobe Zoom line of shoes from Nike. w/ Hybrid DesignComet Debris
What a blast. Koji Harmon—also known as Cometdebris—is a totally quiet, totally down to earth, totally awesome guy. We met him at San Diego Comicon at his associates' booth (Gargamel) and hit it off pretty swell. It was pretty easy—from there—to decide to do a site together. One of us is such a HUGE Tokoji Seijin (CD's flagship toy character) fan, we made a little movie about him. Just for fun.Tripit
Our time with Tripit was spent standing at a whiteboard. And eating pizza. We—over the course of a few short hours—worked alongside the founders to create the initial workflow and user studies for The Itinerator...what was to become the core of their award-winning website. We then went on to flesh out a static prototype that served as a scripted clickthrough for their initial development phase. Wow.Burkman Bros.
It was fun to team up with our friends at Groundwave to build this little lookbook site for Burkman Bros. We would have done it for shirts, but alas, we're too big (all the sitting we do?) and so we had to charge real money.w/ Groundwave Design Corp.Arik Roper
It's not every day that you get to work with the legendary spawn of Vaughn Bode and Frank Frazetta. Arik Roper is his name, and he is The Master of the watercolor. We had been fans for some time: his work for bands like High on Fire is absolutely seminal, and he also has the rare gift of being able to translate his beautiful fades into actual, real-working print separations. On top of all that, he's, like, the nicest. One of us has a print of his hanging in a very special spot.The Bird Machine
NOT a mechanical apparatus designed to produce winged beasts. Not an ornithology-themed hulk of unknowable repute. Not even a poster company that tends to make bird-themed posters. Sure, there are SOME birds, but we're pretty sure that happens organically. Jay and crew are some of the nicest and most talented designers/ printers around, and we could not be happier to be on their team of helpers. We'd mop the floor in his shop...all he has to do is ask.Corcoran/Halstead
We're pretty sure that putting these two companies in the same tile is sort of like saying GI Joe/Cobra, but, oh well. We made a couple online 'brochures' for the type of superposh New York buildings that you only really see in TV. They came out pretty classy. w/ And PartnersAir Jordan 2011 Lookbook
The man. The myth. The Legend. The Air. We were lucky enough to work on this small interactive media kit for one of the Icons of modern pop culture. And it was fun. One of us had a baby haflway through. That was also fun.w/ Hybrid DesignVMWare/VMWorld
We were asked by longtime client Cahan to help them make an unforgettable entry sequence for the VMWorld conference. We created a looping screensaver, title cards, banners...it was rad. w/ Cahan & AssociatesPicturehouse NYC
Our basic rule of thumb is that when you know the content of a website is going to be totally aewsome—as is the case with Picturehouse, a NY-based photographer agency—you can sort of let the design of the site itself be a bit plainer...sink back into the background. Not the case with this one, as Groundwave really pushed us to make everything extra amazing. And it is.w/ Groundwave Design Corp.California Casualty Insurance
Certainly one of our largest projects to date. When Hybrid mentioned that they might need some help 'skinning' a project they were working on, we said sure. We'd do whatever! Of course, 'skinning' turned into deep development with an emerging system we were new to. We helped with front- and backend mechanics, as well as customer pages and sensitive data handling.w/ Hybrid Design
The Today Show/Follow Matt Lauer
We're sure you can imagine the surreality of working on a microsite for not just The Today Show, but—specifically—a microsite that is designed to engage the user in following the host, Matt Lauer, on his travels around the world. Once the shock wore off, we dove in with the help of Neverstop and built a really slick little interface for looking at video clips. [Usage Note: Link is a backup; sans video content]w/ Neverstop & Four Color CreativeJamie Calderon
Jamie is one of those guys—one of those designer guys—that you THINK only exists on TV. And then you meet him—Jamie—and you realize he's the real deal. Living the dream. The smiling, surfing, arting, crafting, designing dream. We count ourselves the sort of epic lucky you only dream about (think lottery, not bingo) to have worked with him on his portfolio site...it came out super awesome.Brian Ewing
We've been working with one Mr. Brian Ewing since the long lonely summer of 2003. We count our relationship with him as a testament to one of our biggest strengths: that we are human. We bought a poster from him and decided to make a comment via Paypal about websites. And boom. We have a great client, a better friend, and close to a decade's experience shadowing a technical giant on his travels through the art-o-sphere. Outsiders as insiders. Thanks paypal.Milking the Rhino
This site—a promotional microsite for a fantastic documentary film about Kenya—represents a rather unique situation for us: we hired out for the design. Typically, when working with a designer on a project, it is we who have been hired to come in for execution. For this one, it worked in reverse. And it worked quite well: Jessica at GW really knocked the look and feel right out of the park.w/ GroundwaveZenvironments/Zach Jonhsen
Zach is one of those prolific, varied, and—of course—supremely talented artists that make it hard for us to ever think we could come even remotely close to any sort of artistry. Ever. With dudes like him out there, quietly doing their thing, over and over; better and better, it just seems like there's no room left. The world's got enough good art...no need for more bad. We teamed with him for his personal portfolio and his brand portal...we were awed the whole time.Genworth
Charts and graphs. Graphs and charts. We worked with Hybrid to help Genworth, a financial advisory service, illustrate—illustratively—it's investment portfolio strategy to it's advisors. It was a fun project, and it absolutely taught us a lot about creating dynamically-driven, live-data charts from internal and external feeds from within a web- and desktop-based flex application.w/ Hybrid Design
Cisco Annual Report
Longtime client Tolleson Design brought us in to do some motion design and Flash development to bring the chapter heads for the 2007 and 2008 Cisco Annual Reports.w/ Tolleson Design
Cisco Corporate Responsibility
We're still pretty astonished at the sheer quantity (and richness) of data we were able to squeeze into a relatively compact Flash framework for Cisco's interactive map feature of their annual CSR. w/ Tolleson DesignAsian Art Museum
We partnered with long-time associate Bob Dinetz to craft some simple and elegant promotional banner campaigns for San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. w/ Bob Dinetz DesignTrend Micro
When Philip Johnson Agency approached us in 2009 to work with them on a banner campaign for Trend Micro, we're not sure that we knew what we were getting into. What started with a quick-fill firedrill turned into The Summer of Banners. We produced over 50 banner assets over the course of about 12 weeks to much Yahoo and Hotmail users' delight.w/ Philip Johnson AgencyPake Bikes
Pake approached us with one primary concern: they wanted to look cooler. We worked closely with them to construct a visual language that was slightly younger and less 'parts catalog' than what they had previously, all while urging them to focus more attention toward what we thought would help them sell the most bikes: photos of bikes.Coalesse
We worked on several key components to the Coalesse (a rebranding of several Steelcase subsidies) brand launch, refresh, and subsequent website rollout phases. Brain Teaser: think about the math involved with making a lava lamp look like a lava lamp. w/ Tolleson DesignDel Monte
While it is certainly safe to say that the full-featured online Annual Report has fallen slightly out of vogue, Del Monte remains committed to presenting their facts and financials in a way that is both informative and visually stunning. We got to help with that (again), which was nice. w/ Tolleson DesignSanta Clara County Water Dist.
The Hive approached us to help redesign the SCVW 'Save 20 Gallons' campaign website. In addition to helping with the buildout of the site pages and ad portfolio, we developed an 'Interactive House' microsite which stands to provide helpful tips about how to save water around the house.w/ The Hive AdvertisingYahoo! WidgetBar
An age before The iDevice. We teamed up with Jamie Barlow to develop a touchsreen kiosk that would demo the then-bleeding edge Yahoo! Go 3.0 OS. Apps. On a phone. Crazy. Users could play with a simulated phone and submit for updates. Doesn't feel like much now...but it was AMAZING in late 2008.[Click in-canvas and TAB for cursors.]
w/ Jamie Barlow