It is with great pleasure that we introduce the new Clayman & Rosenberg site–just launched today!   It was produced by SD in tight collaboration with the Clayman and Rosenberg team.  We expect our clients to enjoy their new site, which we think delivers an appropriately terrific image of a great boutique law firm.  And it’s a shining example of what firms can do with their online presence.

When PAPYRUS wanted to redesign their custom printing website, they didn’t want some templated “custom” site straight out of a box with limited functionality and features. They wanted a completely revolutionary way to create and buy greeting cards and invitations online. They also knew exactly where to turn to make this happen.

Their previous custom site used old technology and wasn’t integrated into their main site, which is reason enough for a complete redesign. Factor in  outdated CMS, incompatible data feeds, and limited features that couldn’t be changed and you’ve got an e-Commerce UX nightmare.

We knew this was going to be a big job when PAPYRUS first approached us with it, but we had no idea how big it was going to end up becoming. The card customizer, the crux of custom printing, needed to start with a base card or invitation and then allow the visitor to change the wording, the fonts, the ink color and the location of the content. It also needed to allow the visitor to add different motifs and monograms if they wanted and choose different printing techniques, envelope liner colors, and order quantities. While all this is going on, the user needs to be able to navigate the creative process without getting lost. Oh, and one last thing – it needed to work on an iPad.

From a technical perspective, there were several relatively major hurdles to overcome to make the site work properly and efficiently. This site had to organize products in the Magento e-Commerce platform without having to sift through 100’s of thousands of potential SKUs (which slows down processing times), it needed to factor in a complex pricing structure due to different card features that could be customized, and it needed to be updated quickly and easily if new styles or effects became available.

After considering the technical part, we looked at the user experience and identified programs that would make this card customizer function the way PAPYRUS wanted it. When we talked about cross-browser compatibility, type-fonts on cards that weren’t standard in the web world, and iPad usability it became clear that JavaScript was the answer.

The result represents the future of custom card design by blurring the line between the virtual and physical world. Half customization tool, half online store, PAPYRUS Custom Printing invites anyone to be a designer.

Online shoppers have high expectations nowadays when it comes to your website and mobile apps. They increasingly expect companies to continually provide a compelling User Experience (UX) that is useful, usable, and desirable. But how do you accomplish that?

This presentation is aimed at helping you learn about the seven (7) fundamental building blocks in e-Commerce website design that lead to an improved User Experience (UX):

• User Needs
• Information Architecture
• UI Design
• Visitor Behaviors
• Business Objectives
• Look and Feel
• Content

Who Should View this:

Happy Halloween everyone! In honor of all things spooky today, we’ve curated 4 articles that reveal some of  the scariest things about the internet – all happening right now.

The Internet is Making Us Dumb:

“People who read text studded with links, the studies show, comprehend less than those who read traditional linear text. People who watch busy multimedia presentations remember less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner. People who are continually distracted by emails, alerts and other messages understand less than those who are able to concentrate. And people who juggle many tasks are less creative and less productive than those who do one thing at a time.”

Google knows Who You Are and Can Predict Where You Are Going:

“Speaking at the Techonomy conference in the US, Schmidt said that, in the interests of stopping criminal or anti-social behaviour, governments will demand a more active role:  “If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence we can predict where you are going to go,” said Schmidt. “Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos!

(skip ahead to 8:30)

Hacktivist group Anonymous:

“Anonymous  is a group spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. The term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, chaotic, global brain. It is also generally considered to be a blanket term for members of certain Internet subcultures, a way to refer to the actions of people in an environment where their actual identities are not known. In consideration of its capabilities, Anonymous has been posited by CNN to be one of the three major successors to WikiLeaks.”

Cyborgs Among Us:

“Scientists at Intel’s research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people’s brains.”

Happy Birthday to us – we just received three awards for some of our work today and, well, we are just ecstatic. It’s not everyday that something like this happens to an agency, but we’re looking to make it a regular thing. So, what are the awards you ask? Great question – they are (and in no particular order):

2011 American Graphic Design Award from GD USA for Madison Square Park Conservancy website design

2011 American Graphic Design Award from GD USA for The ELMA Philanthropies website design

2011 Webby Award Nominee for The Partnership at Drugfree.org

Thanks to all who worked tirelessly on designing and developing these websites. Your commitment and dedication (and late nights and weekends) paid off. Congrats.