Rareview Blog

Trust is Earned in Client Relationships

Chuck — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:37:36 +0000

The client-agency relationship can be great. It can be inspiring, it can be one of mutual respect, collaboration, and creativity; or it can be not one of those things. Turbulent relationships often get off on the wrong foot where one or both parties don’t have the same expectations. Speaking from the agency side of things, and looking at ourselves in an attempt to grow and become a better agency, one of the biggest problems is trust. Many agencies, ourselves included, expect new clients to come to the table with a great deal of respect and admiration for the work that we have done. And while most of them do, the problem is that the client doesn’t want the work that we’ve already done; they want something new.

You see, as an agency, we live by our portfolio. We gain new business and work on great projects based off the work that we have done, word of mouth, the awards we have won, the acclaim that we have gained. Thus, we have a certain level of expectations that new clients should trust our judgements and opinions above all else based on our previous experience. If history repeats itself, this makes sense; at least to us.

However, the client’s experience with us has only just begun. Yes, they love the work we’ve done and the design flair we bring to the table. They like our ideas, our passion, and our skill sets. But to gain their trust, we must prove ourselves each and every time, with each and every new client.

So if we shift our mindset from one that expects trust to be their from the onset to one that knows trust is earned, things will go smoother. Rather than shooting down ideas from clients who may not have the same level of expertise that we have, we have to find ways of taking their ideas, incorporating them, working with them, and making them better. If you get the client involved, give them a voice, AND produce high quality work, then you have created a receipt for success, and you have just earned their trust. From this point forward, your opinions will probably hold more weight than they did before and the process will likely go faster and be much smoother, which makes everyone happy and hopefully results in the best possible product.

We’re not perfect and this is an ongoing lesson for us. Each client brings new opportunities and new challenges. But it’s important to us as an agency to adapt, grow, and be flexible enough to change. If you work on the Web like we do, you know that things change incredibly fast. So must we

Posted in Lessons Tagged: client relationships, portfolio, trust, working with clients

Experimenting: Flash AS3 Grid Sorting

Andrew Knapp — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:45:16 +0000

Working on a project that required us to sort out a grid layout, we were experimenting with what the best methods would be to visually communicate the items on a vertically scrolling grid when resizing the window. Using a little AS3, I managed to code a few mad nerdy little examples. Of course, there isn’t any scrolling in these examples, but you get the point. Check them out here:

1) Left flush no-resize sorting : In this example, everything is flush left, and the grid items do not resize. Visually, it keeps the spacing consistent and everything in order, but leaves some whitespace.

2) Auto justify no-resize sorting : In this example, the grid items space out evenly to fit the screen and also do not resize. Visually, makes a good use of the gutters, but might look kinda funny.

3) Auto resizing, full screen sorting : All the grid items resize horizontally and vertically to fit the width of the screen. Visually, it makes the best use of the gutters, but stretches the images. So I guess this depends what sort of content you’re placing in the items. You may or may not want to stretch them.

4) Left flush no-resize smart sorting : This is the same as #1, but I call it smart, because it keeps the screen looking more filled. Once you resize the browser, you’ll notice that when your window is covering half of an item, it will appear/disappear. This hides some of the item, but gives some padding to make it feel more comfortable.

Download source files for all 4 examples here.

A lot of times, when you’re immersed in the design/development, you lose sight of the obvious and/or lose sight of what you’re actually trying to achieve. Are there other obvious options? Which method is the best out of these?

Let us know if you find these handy, or if you have any suggestions or comments!

Posted in flash, Projects Tagged: as3, experimenting, flash, grid, grid system, resize, scrolling, sorting

Some New Work…

Chuck — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:43:55 +0000

Normally, we’d post these on our website, but we’ve been slammed lately with some really exciting work! However, we wanted to share just a few recent sites that are completed and live now; for your viewing pleasure:

http://www.24hour.com
http://www.jobberwoky.com
http://www.projecturf.com (completely re-designed and simplified)

We hope you enjoy!

We have a lot of new stuff coming early this year, including some of our own projects, so stay tuned!

Posted in Projects

Rareview’s Makeover

Chuck — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:04:56 +0000

With steady growth over the last few years, it’s natural progression for things to change. We’ve always believed that we need to stay flexible and able to adapt to changing technologies, strategies, and directions. As such, we believe it’s time for a change with our brand.

This is a precursor to what is eventually coming, but we have made some minor, yet very significant changes to our identity. Specifically, our logo has gotten a makeover.

We haven’t fully rolled this out yet, but we want to share it with our community. In our existing logo (we’ll call it “old”), the rv in the center of the orb is just a standard typeface. The same is true for the text rareview and our tagline. After careful consideration and various explorations, we have decided to leave our orb in place (for brand recognition purposes, and because we still like it!). However, we have changed the text, removed the tagline, adjusted the proportions, and created our own unique rv inside the orb. Although these changes are somewhat minor, we believe they will have a major impact on our brand.

As a custom shop that prides ourself on the highest quality work, it’s very important to us to have a unique image. The new logo accomplishes that. It’s no longer a standard typeface, but custom drawn letters that flow much better, and represent a futuristic path; one where we are always changing and adapting to the ever changing landscape on the Web.

You’ll also notice that we dropped our tagline. We believe our firm is more recognized now and we didn’t want to be pigeonholed into a certain category. While it’s true that we still focus the majority of our time on interactive design and development, we are also expanding and exploring other avenues. We have a software company (Projecturf, which is also getting a makeover), for one, and we have other initiatives on the horizon.

So while this change may not be considered a drastic variation of our existing brand, it’s certainly a better indication of who we are. We’re excited to roll this out, as we continually work to enhance and solidify our brand with clients, staff, fans, and the industry at large.

–
Posted by Chuck

Stolen Identity: Digital Theft

Chuck — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:40:22 +0000

Thanks to one of our fans Rajiv, we have discovered yet another case of stolen identity. JMJ Technologies, a company out of India (why are we not surprised), has an exact replica of Rareview’s site online and is passing it off as their own. This is a pretty bad case, where the company has stolen our Flash files, decompiled them, and then used them to build their own site. Unfortunately, they have really missed a lot of the little details that make us Rareview Interactive.

While flattery is nice, thievery is not. We can’t help feel that our identity has been stolen in yet another case of digital theft. If you want to help support us, and other creative folks that have original works stolen online, then please bombard these guys with emails to take the site down.

Regardless of the outcome, we find this slightly humorous and wanted to share with the community. The most ironic part is their claim that they create “original designs” in their opening Flash movie. We also like that the content is identical to ours and they even have taken the quotes from me; amazing!

Here’s some screenshots and a link to their website. It’s very, shall we say, original? Enjoy.

www.jmjtechnologies.com

UPDATE (July 30, 2008)!

We have received an email from JMJ Technologies. Here it is verbatim, for those who are interested in seeing some resolution to this hassle.

———– Email ———–

JMJ
Bangalore

Hi Chuck,
Do accept our apologies for the hassle. We actually were too busy doin client work that we quite let the initial site lie. Our mistake and we regret our actions. The site will be replaced with the new design within
the next 48 hours.

Albeit .. this design was beautiful. Kudos to your designers. Watch out for our upcoming site .. we will look forward to your comments.

Regards,
Lennold D’Almeida
JMJ Technologies

———– END: Email ———–

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see the new site.

–
Posted by Chuck

New Office Space in Redondo Beach, California

Chuck — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:14:27 +0000

It’s official. We have signed the lease on some new office space in Redondo Beach, California. This move will offer more space to support our growing needs as we continue to expand not only our team, but our offering of services as well. Our new address is:

Rareview Interactive
811 N. Catalina Avenue, Suite 3006
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(866) 611-0207 toll free
(310) 373-9303 direct

We are now located in the Redondo Technology Information Center, less than one mile from the beach, so any of you great designers or developers that want to work with a great team, in a great part of Los Angeles, please reach out.

–
Posted by Chuck

Rareview Interactive Launches The Basic Resources Network of Websites

Chuck — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:13:34 +0000

After many long months of work, Rareview Interactive and Basic Resources have finally released a network of new websites!

Basic Resources is an international trading exchange and website network dedicated to oil & gas, commodities, energy, metal & mining, agriculture, forestry, recycling and investments. Rareview teamed with Basic Resources to develop their growing network of websites, which entailed making them multi-lingual, enabling international payments, creating the overall look and establishing the brand (we also designed and created the Basic Resources logo and styles), as well as building a custom CMS that enables the management of all the sites in the network, all translations, the ad-serving engine, and payment transactions.

To see the various components of this larger network, check out the following sites:

basicresource.com (main simple corporate landing site)
oil.net (oil & gas trading exchange on the network)
commodities.org (commodities trading exchange on the network)

To read more, check out the full case study on our website at http://www.rareview.com/?#work/bar.

–
Posted by Chuck

We’re Moving!

Chuck — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:29:42 +0000

To support our growth, Rareview Interactive is moving to a new office. We’re working out our lease terms now, and although this announcement is a bit premature, we’d like to ask any really good developers (specifically ASP / ASP.NET and Flash AS3) who live in the South Bay area (Los Angeles) to send us your portfolio and resume. We’re hiring designers as well, so if you have a strong background in designing creative and unique projects, please reach out.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be announcing our new location officially. Until then, thanks to all our clients, staff, and fans who have helped us grow through encouragement, challenges, and respect.

–
Posted by Chuck

New Search Engine Marketing Division of Rareview Interactive – Rareview SEM

Chuck — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:46:07 +0000

Search engines are the #1 resource used by consumers looking for products and services from local businesses. Are they finding you?

We all know that Search Engines play an absolutely pivotal role in driving business to your website. That’s where Rareview Search Engine Marketing (SEM) comes into play. For years we’ve built high-quality, dynamic websites and applications for customers in virtually all industries. But after the site was completed, they’d ask us, “site’s built. now what?” It’s a natural evolution for us to help our clients get their websites seen, which is why we have started Rareview SEM as a division of Rareview Interactive. We have a team led by a professional with 10 years of experience working on the client side as well as working for a big SEM firm. He’s attained the highest level of certification from Google, Yahoo, and MSN and is helping us start, run, and manage this new business.

To find out more about it, check out www.rareview.com/sem/.

If you’re interested, give us a call at (866) 611-0207. We can help you maximize your site traffic and website ROI regardless of who built your web

-
Posted by Chuck

Rareview’s Start a Resolution Featured in Web Designer Magazine

Chuck — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:23:13 +0000

We are pleased to announce that our microsite Start a Resolution has recently been featured in a full page, color spread in Web Designer Magazine. In issue 141 titled Hot 100 – The Talent, Sites, and Tech You Cannot Afford to Miss in 2008, Start a Resolution by Rareview Interactive is featured on pages 8-9. We were very excited to see our site in full color across big pages of a magazine, but even happier to be recognized for the hard work that goes into a Flash website.

Fortunately the issue was very popular, but is now out of stock. If anyone can get their hands on a copy, or has an extra, we’d love to get one!

In addition to the magazine, Web Designer also listed us on their website. Issue 141 has it’s own page that says, “Another month and we have yet another collection of digital inspiration for you to feast your eyes upon. This month we have a range of sites that take you from the slick to the abstract, with plenty of fun to be had along the way.”

-
Posted by Chuck