Welikesmall.com Case Study

Introduce yourself and your site project.
Hello, we are welikesmall, and our site may be found at welikesmall.com, naturally. Our blog can be found at welikebig.com, so we are an equal opportunity employer. Welikesmall was founded on the premise that we stick up for the little things. Things like small egos, small solutions to giant problems, and small movements for great change. We’re about fewer, shorter, better meetings. No more corpo bullshit.

We love what we do and strive to have a shop that is the best mix of technical and design, we find that our favorite projects are those that are outside of our comfort zone. You know, the ones where you aren't even sure if it is possible. If you have an environmental interactive project or something using RFID let us know... just thought we would throw that out there.

What were the goals for the new site?
We wanted a site that was easily updatable, showed our ability to utilize many different technology's, conveyed our personality, and didn't pull any punches. From a behind the scenes perspective we are gathering all of the interaction that occurs on the site, so that we can add information and new sections as needed.

Where did you guys get your inspiration for the new site?
Besides emo kids and skinny jeans I would say we really wanted something that was easy to use, and functional. We use so many different types of technology every day that we wanted a place to communicate with our clients. We are a very open transparent company, with little to no filter, we tend to call it how we see it. I would say the core inspiration was just honesty, not trying to be someone whom we are not.

What story were you trying to tell with the new website?
The story is one of 4 dudes trying to escape the agency life, and create work we are proud of. Our site definitely has a bit of cynicism to it, and a bit of inside humor from the hilarity that is the state of Utah. While we love living some place where the mountains are 20 minutes from our office doors, this place is straight up weird. Fortunately... we are too.

What technical, logistical or budgetary challenges were presented during the project?
The largest challenge for us was time. We had a spectacular first year, and have not slowed down since we put up our 2 second splash page in February of 2008. We are a small shop, and that makes it really difficult to take the time out from our busy development schedule. The comp for the site actually sat on my desktop for 6 months, and I would open it up every couple of weeks and tweak it. The week after Christmas while many of our clients were busy with their families, we put our headphones on and got it to Beta.

How valuable is the new site to the agency? Is it your main form of external communication?
To date it has been a wonderful conduit for us to rally around. I have to admit there is a certain sense of validation when we see how many projects we worked on in our first year, and a testament to how much can get done when you just put your head down and work hard.

The site is our primary form of external communication; however, it also re-purposes our content that lives all around the web. From the ability to tweet directly onto the site, to seeing what is currently playing on any machine in the office, to the blog's consolidation of flickr images via tags, we are attempting to harness the best of the technology thats out there, and allow it to do the heavy lifting.

If you want follow our twitter feed at
http://twitter.com/welikesmall/

or our site feed at
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/welikesmall-feed