Positive Growth

Introduce yourself and your site project.
My name is Drew Ungvarsky, and Iʼm the owner and Creative Director of Grow. We are an interactive studio whose work combines the highest levels of design, development, and animation—all with the goal of measurable results. Three years after we put up a quick-and-dirty site with a “coming soon” message, we finally made the time to create a real website for ourselves. Check the site out here: GROW

What were the goals for the new site?
We needed a site that shared in detail our work and our capabilities, and it had to do it with the personality and attention to detail our clients have come to love us for. The site also had to be easily updateable and deep-linkable for usability and search indexing. The site is entirely content-managed, so each of these goals is met, and the site can easily grow with us in the future. Sorry, that pun is hard to avoid.

Where did you guys get your inspiration for the new site?
Our temporary site actually gave us great insight into how we wanted to approach our full site. The temporary site reminded us fairly regularly of its shortcomings—namely how insufficiently it showed off what we were capable of. And while we wanted more of a polished look, we still wanted the little details that made the site fun to explore. (If you havenʼt figured it out already, the animals love to play.)

What story were you trying to tell with the new website?
That we have a great body of work for a wide range of clients, and that weʼre constantly moving forward.

What technical, logistical or budgetary challenges were presented during the project?
Without a doubt, making the time for the project was the biggest challenge. And like any internal project, we knew weʼd be our own worst critics, but we tried not to get too caught up with that and ran with what we liked.

How valuable is the new site to the agency? Is it your main form of external communication?
Our work has to speak for itself, but weʼve now got a site that does that work justice. The site is RSS enabled and iPhone friendly, too… so all you producers out there can keep up on the fly!