Continuing from the last article, let’s dive into the research and planning phase of the rebranding process and go over how we came about our new positioning and strategy for the future.

Past

The first couple of years have been quite the learning experience, so we began the process by analyzing what has and hasn’t worked for us.

What’s Worked

Working with Passionate People Who Love What They Do
The experience of working with people who truly believe in their company and purpose is amazing and provides a lot of benefits that mean more than just another paycheck. They inspire us to do better and better work, and we get referred to more like-minded clients that help us grow as a company.

Product & Service Company
There’s companies that follow marketing reports and focus groups and there are those that learn by creating. I’d like to think we’re the latter. The things we learn by creating our own products has translated to better client interactions because we can truly understand where they’re coming from and the motivations behind their actions. It’s a perspective you can’t fake, and it’s something that differentiates us from a lot of other web design firms.

What Hasn’t

Ignoring Red Flags
Usually, your gut response is the one to go with. We’ve worked with a lot of amazing people in the past and we’ve also had our fair share of non-ideal relationships. The big thing moving forward will be to really feel out future client relationships in the beginning. We never want to work with just anyone. We want to work with people that will ensure great work and business for the future for all parties involved.

Outsourcing not Partnering
There’s a difference between establishing a great working relationship with a trusted freelancer and just seeking out the lowest price. You always get what you pay for and I learned that the hard way. There’s always a price to pay and it’s always better to pay in dollars then stress and frustration. While we don’t like to outsource a lot, the need comes from time to time. It’s great to know that we have established a trusted network of amazing people to help scale and grow to meet any client’s demands.

Present

In this stage we analyze the current misconceptions about T&T and it’s messaging and isolate what makes us different than other companies in the same field.

Current Misconceptions

We’re Only Designers
While we believe that being a designer is more than just aesthetics, we also realize that the general publics’ perceptions of the term designer is quite limited. Our services have grown and while we had a positive reputation as designers, people didn’t quite understand that we could also build apps.

We Only Create Custom Applications
We understand the need for businesses and clients to leverage open-source CMS’s and platforms to get them where they need to be. Not everyone needs a custom, hand-built site and we have enough experience running a business to know what route is best based on the company and it’s goals and budget. There’s pros and cons to each approach and we’re comfortable in going with the best tool for the job.

What Makes Us Different

True Design and Development
When working with most web companies, you have to choose between a company that is technically proficient or one that can art direct and properly convey the brand’s message through the website and interface. We love code just as much as we love design and very few companies can match that level of quality we can provide on both fronts.

Small, Strong Focused Team
We’re a small group of passionate designers and developers that pride ourselves on our direct connection with the client and our ability to concentrate on getting the job done quickly and efficiently. We never use middle-men to hide behind and rack up the bill. The money and time are put to use where it matters most, the actual project.

Future

What we’re doing now is working just fine, but how do we grow and continue to generate more opportunities. We finish the research phase by taking some time to think about what type of work we want and who we want to be as a company.

Types of Projects We’re Seeking Out
Part of the learning process of running a company is realizing you can’t be everything. You have strengths and weaknesses and you have ideal clients that fit into those traits. You have to know who you want to work with and in what markets you can provide the most value in. We currently love working in a more tech oriented field but also have found more opportunities bringing that experience to other markets like non-profits, entertainment and other fields. We know the clients we want to pursue, and that helps shape how we present ourselves as well as our new business processes.

Services We Want to Offer
At first, we concentrated on providing design services to startups and developers. It was our niche and we did really well. But as time passed, we realized that we could provide more than just design. We made a couple switch-ups and started adding services as we gained more and more experience. Consulting, Branding/Identity and Application Development became areas that we could confidently offer to our clients.

Who We Want to Be
I want to look back at this company and know that we helped our clients reach their goals by becoming an important part of their team. I want our client list to read like an Inc. Magazine table of contents and would love to know that we were a big reason why they found their success.

I also want to know that we’ve participated in the conversation in our field by creating and developing interesting projects that do well financially as well as inspire people to create something themselves. If that’s not happening, then we must be doing something wrong and need to adjust somewhere along the way.

These are pretty lofty goals, but we wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s going to take a lot of hard work to get there, but we’re prepared to do what it takes and are taking the necessary steps to move in that direction.

On to the Design

So now that we’ve thought about and reviewed the context that the new brand will live in, we can start applying that strategy and research towards the design exploration stage.

Our current brand and business strategy has served us well but more and more it isn’t quite matching up with the direction we want our company to move in. So to signify a new chapter for T&T we decided to rethink our brand and our overall strategy as a business.

The Process

The branding process differs from company to company, but one thing we believe in is that has to be married to a strategy or it just becomes a design exercise. The system should accurately translate your abstract thoughts and plans into a strong visual system that communicates your values in a distinctive visual voice.The first step in this process is to start analyzing some key fundamentals about our business by exploring our past, present and future.

This is the first part of a three part series, next we’ll dive into the strategy and branding process and we’ll walk you through the long painful journey of designing for the hardest client in the world, yourself.

Soundtrack for this first step:
Kid Cudi – My World
Download audio file (06-My-World.mp3)

For the last few months we’ve been using 37 Signal’s Backpack product purely for it’s journal feature. If you’re unfamiliar with it, think of it like a journal of not only what you’ve done, but what you are doing right now. It’s really a nice way to keep Dennis and I in the loop about what we’re working on.

Well, like most new process’, it’s easy to fall off track keeping it up to date and driving it into a daily routine. So in an effort to make it as easy as possible, i did some research and found a cool little menubar app called Logbook.

Logbook does everything I need, giving me a sexy interface within a keyboard shortcut (command + shift + l). It also reminds me every 15 minutes to update it between the hours of 9AM and 6:30PM. How cool is that?

If you’re using Backpack like we are, i totally suggest you check it out.

Cliqset

We’ve been working on some amazing projects with a local Jacksonville startup called Cliqset. They help you share, discover and discuss things across all your social identities. They’ve been really great to work with and they’ve given us the opportunity to create some great apps over a lot of different platforms. Look out for these apps in the next month or so.

T&T Rebrand

After two years of solid growth in this hectic economy, we’ve managed to come a long way. While I’m ecstatic about our current state, we have plans for much more in the future. This includes a change-up of our positioning and how our current brand is perceived by our clients and the public. So besides a big overhaul of our business model and processes, we’re looking to introduce a new identity to match our new strategy.

We’re about a month out from releasing our new website, logo, business system, etc and I can’t wait to show you guys the progress so far.

T&T Projects

We’ve been working feverishly on some new internal projects as well. One is to help non-web savvy site owners with simple ad management and another is actually under wraps for a bit (it involves beer, that’s all we can say). I’m super stoked on the progress of these applications and can’t wait to release them. Both should be released and ready to go by the end of September.

But Wait There’s More…

While it sounds like a lot, this is only half of what’s really going on with T&T lately. We’ve been blessed with the amazing people we’ve met and worked with over the years and cannot wait to see what the future holds for us. Thanks to everyone who’s been involved, worked with us or just supported us from the beginning.

We just finished putting the final touches on our newest project for the Kanye West Foundation. We started with a simple setup using Expression Engine focusing mostly on creating a great site foundation for expansion and rolling out the new branding. Thanks to everyone who helped out with the project and keep checking back for updates coming soon.

Kanye West Foundation

Had some mindless fun for once and put together this summer mixtape for Urban Jacksonville. We’re throwing a mini-summer-mixtape party this Friday at the Buritto Gallery if anyone in Jax is interested in hearing some good summer music and hanging out. .Also, make sure to check out Jason’s 24-hour movie marathon this Friday for hours of cinematic adventures.

Here’s the tracklist:

• Bulletproof (UJ) – La Roux
• Make This Work (TT) – Magistrates
• Julia – Cocaine (The Knocks Remix) (UJ)- Andrew W.K. and DJ B-Roc
• Deli (UJ) – Delorean
• I’m The Shit (TT) – DJ Class Feat. Kanye West & Estelle
• Red Dress Turnin Me On (TT) – The Hood Internet (Keri Hilson vs The Glitch Mob vs TVOTR)
• Help Im Alive (The Twelves Remix) (UJ) – Metric
• Warm Heart Of Africa feat Ezra Koenig (UJ) – The Very Best (Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit)
• I’m Good f/ Pharrell (Produced by The Neptunes) (TT) – CLIPSE
• Get it right now! (UJ) – Del The Funky Homosapien
• Colours (UJ) – DJ Sega (The Brick Bandits)
• The Reeling (TT) – Passion Pit

Download the Mixtape

Off to Chicago to check out the concert on Thursday. If you’re in the Chicago area, be sure to buy your tickets for a great benefit concert.

Myspace Page
Facebook Page

So good I actually made a blog post about it instead of posting to twitter. Made by Pete Candeland and Passion Pictures.

After about 3 – 4 weeks of hard work, we’ve released a fully-redesigned version of TheCommon.org. We’re really pleased with the results and even more pleased with the response from users.

Big thanks goes out to all people involved. And like always, look out for updates in the near future.

Visit TheCommon.org

Update: The video was made by Andy Anderson at Paradox Media Group.

If you’ve ever watched MTV or any of its properties over the past few years then you’ll recognize the work of Dan and Andre from Dress Code NY. They’ve just released a new book called “Never Sleep” focusing on a designer’s transition from art school student to working professional. We sit down and chat with them about the book, Dan’s virginity and various aspects of life as a designer.

Read the article