They are scheduled to release an album in 2009 called When Fish Ride Bicycles and are said to be working with Don Cannon on this album as well. We’ll be waiting impatiently for the new album to drop, hopefully later this year. Any Cool Kids fans out there? Let us know in the comments!

We’re not sure if it’s the feeling of our new site design or our increased presence on Twitter, but we seem to have more and more people contacting us with questions than ever before. The questions cover everything from design and development to client management and business ownership. Although we’re extremely busy and it’s hard to give every question the lengthy response it deserves, during a brainstorm session the other day we decided that some questions warranted a more in depth response. Thus, the Ask45 series was born!

Once a month we’ll take a look at all the questions we’ve received and then select a few to answer here on the site. Our hope is that we’ll be able to not only give our opinion on the topic at hand, but also open up the questions to the web community for additional perspective. Every person, firm, client, and project is different. As a result, it’s impossible for us to say what will always work best for you and your situation. We make no claims about having the “right” answers, we’re still learning and growing too, but discussion is always healthy!

Question #1: “How many rounds of design revisions do you typically account for in a proposal?”

There are a couple ways to address this issue in your proposals. One option is to explicitly call out the number of revisions you’ll give the client. After working on several projects, you’ll be able to look at your data to see how many revisions you typically do per comp. If that number averages to say, three rounds per project, you should use that as a starting point in your proposals. Probably the biggest challenge with this approach is figuring out what constitutes a round of revisions, as you and your client might have differing opinions about what constitutes a “round”.

Here’s an example: Your client asks you to change the design from a two column layout to a three column layout. Most people would consider that a round of changes, especially since there would be large layout implications to contend with. Now let’s say a few days later, after delivering the new three column layout, the client wants you to rearrange the sidebar items on that same page? The change might be quick, but since it wasn’t requested with the initial list of changes, is it still considered a round of revisions? If your limit was three rounds and you’ve already used them up, do you veto the sidebar change or request more time be added to the budget? Neither of those scenarios are likely going to make your client happy. So if you’re going to take this approach, be sure that you can effectively communicate to your client what your revision process entails. If there are any questions, address them before you enter into an agreement and start your project. That way you can refer back to that discussion if questions come up after you’ve started.

Over the years, we’ve found that instead of calling out a set number of rounds, it’s better to estimate the number of hours a comp will take to complete, including revisions.

Over the years, we’ve found that instead of calling out a set number of rounds, it’s better to estimate the number of hours a comp will take to complete, including revisions. With this approach, if you estimate that an initial comp will take you 6 hours and revisions will take you roughly 4 hours, you’d indicate that the comp will take you 10 hours from start to finish. In a sense, the total hour count here works in the same way that the number of rounds does in the first approach we discussed. It gives you and the client a cap to work towards, but the advantage is that you don’t have to explain what type of changes make up a round. However, while we do prefer this approach, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to set expectations with your client. You still need to set expectations and do your best to keep revisions to a minimum. It really comes down to effective communication between you and your client and it’s up to you to keep them advised of the current hour count and educate them on what revisions make the most sense.

The bottom line is if you’re having to do round after round of revisions, something is probably wrong.  Either you don’t have a firm grasp of what your client is looking for, they’re not communicating requirements properly or are just being extremely picky! At that point you need to isolate the underlying issue and bring it to the client’s attention as soon as possible so that the situation can be resolved before losing the client or your reputation.

Question #2: “When doing a quote for a client, do you disclose your hourly rate?”

We typically base most of our proposals on our hourly rate, even if we’re submitting a proposed budget for an entire project. I wouldn’t say we do many flat fee projects, but whatever price we come up with, it’s always based on how many man hours we estimate the work is going to take us. This allows us to not only come up with a price, but also estimate the project schedule; which is critical when you’re working on multiple projects at once.

When we prepare our proposals, we don’t always disclose the hourly rate up front, but we do show the estimated number of hours per task and the proposed project budget. So even if we don’t have our hourly rate on the proposal, the client can do the math. Of course, we always disclose our hourly rate for consulting projects because that’s typically work done by the hour and the payment rate should be established in the agreement before you start.

This kind of ties back into the first question above, but whether or not you decide to disclose your hourly rate, we feel that it’s a good idea to disclose the number of hours per deliverable in your estimates. That will let the client get a sense for how much work is actually involved, plus it gives you a number to reference when they start requesting more and more deliverables that could potentially push you over budget.

Send us your questions

We hope that this article answered some of the questions you sent us and we’re looking forward to answering more of them in the future. We’re really excited about the new Ask45 series and we hope to receive more of your questions in the coming weeks. Feel free to send us your questions via our contact form, email us directly at info@45royale.com, or send your questions to @45royale on Twitter. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the questions presented today too, so please don’t hesitate to join the conversation!

In the past, we’ve tried a number of branding initiatives, with nothing really sticking around for more than a year or so. However, after setting a few goals for ourselves this year and moving in to a new office space, we’ve finally figured out what we we’ve been looking for in a brand and created something that we’re really happy with. So without further ado, we’d like to officially introduce you to the new 45royale identity.

New 45royale Identity

A long, but insightful road

It took a while to get there, but we are extremely happy with the result. We took several cues from our previous identity (seen below) including the shape and color palette, crafting something that we felt was just as bold and recognizable. We also added the first three characters of our name to the logo to create an instant association between the mark and our company.

Old vs. New

From vision to reality

Of course, one of the underlying reasons for our identity refresh was the move to the new office space. Before, we were both huddled up inside our home office caves with little to no interaction with the outside world. Now that we’re out among the living, it’s important that we have a brand that creates awareness in the community. Business cards and letterhead were first on the list and we teamed up with our friends at Doss Printing in Downtown Canton to get those printed and distributed. The cards ended up looking great and we were really happy with the results.

45royale business card — Front

45royale business card — Back

Now it’s your turn

So that’s a brief summary of the new 45royale logo mark and how it came to fruition. We hope after reading this article that we have inspired you to take ownership of your own brand. Whether it’s business or personal, branding and legacy on the web is more important now than ever. We’d love to hear your thoughts on our rebranding as well as what you’re doing right now to promote awareness of your own brand.

After many years of running 45royale from top-secret, undisclosed remote locations, we decided to finally bite the bullet and get ourselves our own office space! It took us a few months of looking around, but we’ve set up shop on the top floor of an old building in beautiful downtown Canton, GA. Our office sits perched upon the top floor of the same building that houses The Downtown Kitchen, a local Canton restaurant/bar/landmark. The easiest way to get to our “penthouse” space is via the street entrance, which leads to a not-so-quick elevator ride up to the third floor. We have plenty of space, beautiful 100 year old brick walls, and 12 foot ceilings that really fit the aesthetic we were looking for. But I know what you’re thinking: “This all sounds great, but do you really need the overhead that comes along with having an office?”. We hear you, dear reader. We’ll try to make sense of it as the story unfolds.

In the beginning…

When we first formed 45royale, we both felt lucky to be able to work for ourselves from the comfort of our own homes. After years of working for “the man” and sitting in some of the nation’s worst traffic, it felt great to roll out of bed and get to work without all the rigamarole. Early on, the only things we needed to run 45 smoothly were our phones, computers and caffeine. We were living the dream! No commute, no pointless conversations with that guy from Accounting that always talked sports in the elevator, no germ infestations from the people at work whose kid’s brought home the swine flu—none of that. Since most of our clients were in other states, it didn’t matter that we didn’t have an actual office. We could be just as productive as other firms with occasional visits to each other’s homes and screen-sharing via iChat. Things were great. Or so they seemed.

Needing to try something new

Although working from home was fantastic, we noticed a few drawbacks beginning to surface after our second full year at home. Probably the biggest issue that we both faced was that there was little separation between work life and home life. It seemed like we were constantly “on”. We’re not the type of people that ever truly shut off, but over time, we noticed our personal batteries slowly losing their charge. We also found that it was becoming harder and harder to find daily inspiration since we never left our homes. It’s seems strange, but after a few years working from home you forget how much you miss simple day-to-day human interaction. Although we talked to each other and clients all day via phone, email, and IM, it just wasn’t the same as being able to share a laugh or collaborate on something in person. But even with all of these drawbacks, it was still really hard to justify the added expense an office would bring. We debated on the topic for many months, but after crunching all the numbers and discussing all the intangibles, it was clear that the timing was right and we were ready for a change.

Our goals for the office

Over the past three years we’ve been fortunate to work with some great companies from all over the world. We wouldn’t trade our clients or the experience for anything. However, with the exception of a client or two, we really haven’t done that much work with local companies. Most people think this is strange, and believe us, we know—it’s just the way things worked out. Since one of our goals for 2009 was to get more involved with the web community (and local community as well), we’re really looking forward to the opportunity of forming relationships with a more local client base. This is probably the most significant factor in our decision to get an office in Downtown Canton. Having a home base of operations gives us a chance to get involved with locally, host open houses with business owners or setup meet-ups with other Atlanta-based designers and developers. After it’s all said and done, that’s the really exciting part of all this and we’re looking forward to seeing what comes from this new community focus. It’s more than just new business leads for us, it’s about giving back and trying to spread the word about web standards, good design, and great customer service.

Excited for the future

We’re extremely glad we made the move and can’t wait to see how everything plays out around us. We’re still getting used to the routine and new location, but we’ve been lucky to have fantastic families, friends and clients that have shown great patience and excitement for us during this transition. In the long run, we’re hopeful that this new space will breed new opportunities, not only for 45royale, but for the local business and web communities around us. Since moving in to the new office space we’ve already been welcomed by our neighbors and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for 45. If you’re ever in the area, please feel free to stop by and say hello. We promise we won’t bite, and neither will our newest team member (she’s a big softy).

P.S. We’re working on a short office video too and we hope to have that up soon. We’ll keep you posted!

If you aren’t familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, this video is a great place to start because you can really get a true sense of Gary’s passion and his perspective on business. If you’d like to learn more and you have some time to kill, Gary also gave a great talk at SXSW last month. The video quality isn’t the greatest, but you don’t even notice after first new minutes. Enjoy!

If you’re interested in hearing the entire mixtape, you can check out more tracks here and then download the entire thing for free! Also, check out a full review of the mixtape from the Hip Hop Ruckus site where they give the effort a 9 out of 10 rating.

I think GOOD Music is pumping out some, well, good music lately and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the song and mixtape. Please feel free to leave a comment below!

The home, nestled upon 80 acres of fertile California farmland, is up for sale at a cool $2.7 million. Although after looking at these updated pictures, it’s hard to argue with the listing agent on the price. The house is a marvel and the story behind the family it was built for is just as fascinating. You can see some of the updated pictures below as well as read about the history of the house and occupants on the home’s site.

Wireframing plays an important role in Information Architecture

Certain requirements and concepts can seem like great ideas during initial project calls, but things can quickly fall apart when you start laying them out on paper. Since wireframes take considerably less time to generate than full color comps, you can spend time early on using them to map out all of the pages for a particular site. Even at this early stage you can get a sense of the user experience and therefore spot potential usability problems with your design. Plus, the issues that you uncover could drastically change your approach to the project as a whole. It’s much easier to make adjustments early than it is to have an “oh shit” moment when it’s crunch time.

Helping the client to focus

To put it simply, using gray box models eliminates the distraction of an element’s visual treatment. When reviewing a page layout for the first time in color, it’s very easy for the client’s opinion of the page to be influenced by the graphical design. If you happen to select an overall green color scheme for the page and your client happens to hate the color green, then they’re likely to have a strong emotional response to the color that will make it harder for them to focus on the “bones” of the page. Their feedback may be, “You need to completely start over” when in actuality, the layout works fine and the color was the only thing throwing them off. A stripped down wireframe will let you get important feedback on sizing, layout and placement without your client getting hung up on the presentation.

Wireframes teach you about your client

By sticking to gray box models and removing the visual distractions, you can begin to get a true sense of your client by listening to their feedback. Their responses and your interaction with them will give you a better sense of what to expect during future phases of the project. Initially when you’re laying out a rough structure for a page, the client could comment on the size of a particular button, for example. As you’re working through the process of wireframing you may notice that the client is consistently commenting about the large size of that button and other elements that you’re putting into the page. You can then begin to watch for feedback patterns and learn, “Hey, this client doesn’t like large bulky things and prefers smaller, more low profile elements”. Having that knowledge could save you A TON of time on revisions when you get to the full color comp because you already know their preferences going in.

Also, and maybe more importantly, wireframing can give you insight into how the client communicates. Do they give you more constructive feedback on a comp over the phone or do they do a more thorough job once they’ve had some time to think and type up an official response? By knowing how your client communicates, regardless of whether they are aware of it themselves, you can apply that knowledge to future aspects of your project which will increase your speed and give you a better chance at success.

Wireframes can save you time

If you’re operating on a tight timeline, it may seem like a waste to do a gray box version of a page before moving to a full color comp. You might think, “I don’t have a ton of hours to work with here, so I better just jump right into in”. We made that same mistake in the beginning, but almost no matter what you do, your client is going to have revisions. Doing a wireframe first allows you to spot potential problems early and make adjustments to the layout in the gray box stage vs. making changes in full color where there can be many detailed elements. As a result, we’ve incorporated a gray box wireframe as the initial stage of our full color comp process. We use the wireframe to layout the actual dimensions of the page, so that once the client approves the final wireframe, it’s really just a matter of skinning the page with a graphical treatment. If the wireframing process is productive, then you won’t receive a bunch of requests for revisions to the layout and you and your client can focus strictly on refining the visual treatments.

Other resources

Whether you use actual sketches or build gray box models in Photoshop or Illustrator, the important thing is that you’re taking the time to plan things out at the beginning. Even if you’re not a graphic designer, there is software available that can help you produce a wireframe that you can review with your client and then pass off to other team members on the project. Most of the time we stick to gray box wireframes in Photoshop, however we’ve used these applications below at one point or another with success:

• OmnfiGraffle

  Is a Microsoft Visio-like program for the Mac that has some great wireframe stencils built into it. It has a ton of features, but it could be overkill if you just want to do a basic wireframe.

• Lovely Charts

  If you’re just toying with the idea of wireframing for the first time, I’d definitely recommend giving Lovely Charts a try. The interface is pretty straightforward and the best part about it is, it’s FREE!

• Balsamiq

  If you’re looking for a quick way to communicate a concept to a client, I’d recommend using Balsamiq. They have a free demo that you can try that still allows you to save out the final product. The basic elements are all covered and the hand-drawn look helps your client to focus on the structure without getting hung up on the visual treatments.

What do you think?

Every situation and every project is different, but taking the time to do the legwork up front will almost certainly pay dividends down the road. Your client will appreciate your attention to detail and they’ll definitely appreciate the money that saves them since you’ll have less full color revisions.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about the importance of wireframing. Please feel free to share any techniques you use with clients or if you have a particular wireframing method of choice, let us know in the comments!


]]> http://www.45royale.com/blog/articles/the-importance-of-wireframing/feed/ 38 http://www.45royale.com/blog/articles/the-importance-of-wireframing/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/45royale/idjP/~3/o4oWP61g_1M/ http://www.45royale.com/blog/articles/vote-earth/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:59:08 +0000 Matt Downey http://www.45royale.com/?p=1665 We web professionals can use up our fair share of electricity. Being constantly "on", it's easy to take a lot of the energy we use for granted.
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Between laptops, desktops, monitors, hard drives and phones, we web professionals can use up our fair share of electricity. Being constantly “on”, it’s easy to take a lot of the energy we use for granted. We consume and consume, but rarely think about giving it back. Well now’s the time for redemption! Join the world for Earth Hour this year and Vote Earth!

On Saturday, March 28th at 8:30pm, you can do your part to reduce global warming by turning your lights off for one hour. That’s all you have to do to be part of a global movement that includes the likes of Paris, Toronto and even Las Vegas. Below is a bit more information from their site:

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.

If you’re feeling inspired, you can sign up and make an official statement at the Earth Hour website and have your vote counted.


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