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Process

How to succeed (and sometimes fail).

We’ve written 95 blog posts about Process. View all topics »

My Paperless Trail

7/7/11

by Ryan Irelan

In a previous Cognition post, I shared my experiences of working remotely over the last 5 years. In the last section of that post, I made a quick reference to DEVONthink Pro Office, which I described as a “powerful database tool” that “allows you to easily store, tag, classify, and search for documents.” That is still true and, just as I mentioned in the post, I use DEVONthink Pro Office to store all of my documents, notes, URLs, and other files. As a follow-up, I want to share some more details on how I use DEVONthink Pro Office to organize some of my Happy Cog project documents.
(Someday You’ll Find It) The Client Connection

6/30/11

by Rawle Anders

Every successful project needs an Awesome Blossom moment: when your relationship with a client enables the project to transcend deadlines and goals to more acutely capture the spirit of creating something great.

It all starts with finding the humanity in the project and sharing a sense of excitement with your client team members. As they have chosen your company to help build their web experience, the client has placed a great amount of trust in you. Your job, over the length of the engagement, is to solidify: a sound strategy based on the goals of the project; a transparent, trusted, and respectful working relationship with your client contacts; an agile, yet progressive, project process; and an open line of communication that can extend beyond the project.
Not everyone's a technophile

6/16/11

by Mark Huot

When you engage Happy Cog in a full scale web redesign, you typically come out of the project with a fully integrated content management system (or CMS). The implementation of a CMS implies that you and your team will have access to a tool that will facilitate updating content across the entire website. The system creates an abstract of the website using simple forms to enable content entry. Completing those forms will generate all the necessary callouts, sidebars, related links, archives, etc. from which your site is built.
The Secret Ingredient

6/2/11

by Chris Cashdollar

Variety is a blessing. Here at Happy Cog, each and every design project is radically different. Show me the day when any two client design challenges are exactly the same and I’ll turn in my font library, ergonomic chair, and scribble-filled Field Notes. Retirement at 34? Sounds good. Now, where’s my fishing pole…
The Devil is in The Invoice

5/12/11

by Greg Hoy

If you run a creative services business and haven’t seen Mike Monteiro’s F*ck You. Pay Me. talk, take 40 minutes and watch it. In his ever-so-subtle style, Mike provides a real world overview of the red flags that result in you not getting paid for your work. A lot of the talk focuses on the importance of having a sound contract and a lawyer’s ear, both of which are crucial. While Mike’s talk hit on the big points, there are also some smaller details that can a make big difference. For example, how you invoice.
The Art of Details

5/5/11

by Brian Warren

“Whether the type is set in hard metal by hand, or in softer metal by machine, or in digital form on paper or film, every comma, every parenthesis, every e and in context even every empty space, has style as well as bald symbolic value. Letters are microscopic works of art as well as useful symbols. They mean what they are as well as what they say.”
— Robert Bringhurst The Elements of Typographic Style
The Challenges of Working Remotely

3/24/11

by Ryan Irelan

Last Monday, Happy Cog’s Greg Hoy led a SXSW session about company culture. I wasn’t able to attend SXSW this year, but Leslie Camacho wrote up a detailed summary of the session. Of particular interest to me was the discussion about working remotely.
A Method(ology) to our Madness

2/17/11

by Dave DeRuchie

In some circles, the words “waterfall” or “agile” can ignite a spirited discussion about which methodology is better. But is a methodology truly what makes a project successful? I say no. When it comes right down to it, you need to do what works for you, your client, and your project. Learning to adapt the way you work to meet the goals of a project might be tough, but sorting out the details from the start is a formula for success that you and your client can feel good about.
Watch Your Language

2/10/11

by Chris Cashdollar

He invoked a sense of dread every Monday and Wednesday from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. At the age of 18, “color theory” wasn’t something I necessarily “got.” Yet the facts were unavoidable. The class was mandatory. All design majors had to take it and endure it. And almost all of us were clueless in the art of discussing design. We were at the mercy of the scariest design professor this side of the Bauhaus, Keith Newhouse.
An Open Letter to 37signals

1/27/11

by Kevin Hoffman

Good day to you, Signals!

Basecamp has greatly enriched our work life. It deftly reduces the incredibly complex noise of a large, busy project with many moving parts into exactly what each of us needs to get our jobs done. It has allowed us to isolate and document critical conversations, and therefore collaborate with our clients and each other more effectively. Smooth integration with e-mail makes it possible to respond at the speed of thought. And the recent integration of accounts makes hopping between the many different Basecamps in the Happy Cog universe a breeze.

Process

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