Qualified candidates will have extensive experience replicating design comps into web applications using CSS and HTML requiring a keen eye for design and a comprehensive understanding of CSS and inheritance as well as managing cross browser quirks. In addition Javascript and JQuery expertise would be beneficial. Familiarity and experience with platforms like Wordpress, Magento and/or Drupal is certainly a plus but not required. You will be part of a nimble team working in an aggressive, fast-paced environment. You’ll help with requirements gathering and participate on product design.
The Front End Developer will be taking tasks from our issue queue and working with the guidance of our senior developer. These tasks will range from front-end work (WordPress / Magento theming) to back end development (Depending on the candidates desire to explore this avenue). You will work in a local development environment where you and the senior developer can review code before it is pushed to our staging site for QA review. Specifically, you will be responsible for the following tasks (but not limited to):
- WordPress, Magento / Drupal Theming
- Participate in requirements gathering and product design
- Deployment of new WordPress / Magento sites
- Improve existing WordPress / Magento sites
Essential Experience
- Ability to work in a team environment, from making pixel perfect sites that meet the design requirements to integrating code with the back-end development team
- Working knowledge of Photoshop; able to cutup comps from the design team
- Deep understanding of CSS inheritance and how to use it to your advantage
- A good ideology for managing maintainable, scalable and cross-browser code across large sites
- Familiar with source control principles and comfortable with Subversion
- In-depth knowledge of IE quirks and how to address them
Exciting News!!!…The Skadden Start Here iPhone/iPad app from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates took second place in the Recruiting category of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Your Honor Awards.
As the agency of record, Something Digital produced the app, focusing on the 2nd- year law school student seeking a summer associate role. The three primary goals were to increase a candidate’s awareness of the firm, demonstrate Skadden’s unique offerings, and ease the candidate’s management of the recruitment process.
Skadden Start Here has delivered on its promise. It has aided the summer associate recruitment process and enhanced Skadden’s digital portfolio, reinforcing the firm’s image as an innovator and an exciting place to work.
The LMA Your Honor Awards program recognizes excellence in legal marketing by promoting projects and programs that provide innovation and return on marketing dollar investment.
LAUNCH Media covers and celebrates new startups, products, services and technology on the LAUNCH blog, an email newsletter and an in-person conference. This year the festival is being held in beautiful San Fran at the famed Design Center. Naturally, we’re stoked to be here, but we also can’t help thinking about how close to Napa we are. We’ll share some details later, but wanted to let you know about some of the things we’ve learned so far:
there are some really cool people here
the technology being debuted at LAUNCH is even cooler
we don’t care how fresh the spinach and artichokes are here, we still ain’t touching that dip
A few months back I wrote a post about my quasi-research study on putting video on a website. You can read that here.
To piggyback on that post, there was recent article in MediaPost that highlighted some research conducted during the holiday season. To synthesize the findings:
Online video e-commerce company Invodo said that its online retail partners saw a 9 times increase in video views on their sites at the start of the just-completed holiday shopping season.
The jump is likely due to increased sharing, as well as growing usage and interest in video to help make shopping decisions.
Facebook and email each comprised about 43% of sharing of product videos via social networks on Cyber Monday.
Retailers reported that customers who watch a product video are more than twice as likely to add that product to their cart.
Forrester has said that video on a site greatly improves the search results. “Any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index.”
comScore has reported that shoppers who watch video spend more time on a site (not surprisingly since it takes time to watch a video), but are also 64% more likely to buy compared to others. That’s a promising stat as it shows videos are converting browsers into buyers. Read more
“Wow. That’s pretty damn impressive,” I thought to myself. Product video as a marketing tool is getting a lot of love from digital marketing writers and bloggers. At lot of that love may be because online video – in the form of product review and demos – has gained traction on large e-Commerce sites; companies like Overstock, Amazon, HSN, Nike and Target have all incorporated video as a part of their e-Commerce sales strategy. If you haven’t seen anything like this yet, here’s an example from Zappos:
And another from one of our clients, Theodora & Callum:
One reason that product videos are being adopted so quickly among marketers has to do with the technology – many consumers have the fast connections and computers required to display videos without stalling, or buffering, and also that video production has become quicker and easier. But the most compelling reason for high adoption rates, for me at least, is the proof from research reports like the one from MediaPost’s article indicating that videos increase conversion over the same product pages that have only static images.
Where does your e-Commerce website stand on the video as a product demo? Are you finding success with it? Let me know in the box below.
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.
