Propane

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the creative director at an electric company under a division that provides field service software solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Propane Studio?

We needed to redesign our corporate website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Once we started working together, we met quite a few times to go over strategy and our business objectives. They interviewed our management team to make sure their goals for the website aligned with ours, picking up on any nuances of what the managers wanted to see on the site. Our team engaged with them on design and we developed the site on our end, collaborating closely as they rearranged content and iterated as needed.

What is the team composition?

Neil (Partnership and Chief Experience Officer, Propane Studio) helped us with the strategy of the website. We also worked with a few others, including a content advisor, art director, and a designer.

How did you come to work with Propane Studio?

We selected vendors to interview from a shortlist of the top agencies on the West Coast and set up two interviews with each company. Ultimately, we liked Propane's presentation the best; it was the most well-thought-out and strategic we'd seen.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started engaging Propane in the Fall of 2015. The project kicked off in January 2016 and wrapped up by that April.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Propane helped us achieve our goal of increasing leads from the website by 10%. They strategically laid out content in a more user-friendly and engaging way.

How did Propane Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They were on top of everything and timely about checking in; we never had an issue with their team. We utilized their internal project management tool to proof design iterations, allowing us to easily make comments as needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Propane is an extremely talented strategy and branding company. Their biggest strength is web design.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend working with Propane. You're going to meet the goals and objectives you want if you choose to work with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

My organization is [a wholly owned subsidiary of a global leader in car manufacturing], specifically the electronics research laboratory.

What is your role at the company?

I’m a senior industrial designer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Propane Studio?

We requested them to do the graphic design for a mobile application for the vehicle entertainment system. They had to make the concepts for the graphics and the look and feel of our application. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We broke it down into three steps. The first one was to get the input for the look and feel of the application, the second milestone was to execute and create the graphical assets for us to be able to build the application, and the third one was to create iconography for our application.

Why did you select Propane Studio with which to work?

We used our own internal purchasing process based on different quotes. Propane Studio was the most qualified from the three bids and had the best pricing.

Can you provide a sense of the size of the work?

There was a lot of technical work that had to be done. So, I would say it was a medium-sized project, about 20 screens that were very detailed and had to work for the vehicle environment. It’s not a mobile application that you can look at on your phone, but it’s an application that is integrated into a production car. So, that elevated the complexity of the project.

How long did the work take?

The project was about six months, mostly because of our timeline. They had to adjust their work schedule with our agile process to develop software, so they had to fit into our timeline. The project started in January [of 2014] and went to July.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the work?

The creative work was straightforward. I’m happy with the quality of the ideation phase. There’s a challenge to the integration of the graphics into our industry, and they showed good flexibility in adapting to our processes and internal deadlines.

I think the technical knowledge of the platforms is something that could be improved, in terms of following guidelines and recommendations for a specific platform, and documentation of the specifications of how to apply the graphics in our framework, or on our software. That was something that could have been much better.

Did this have a negative impact on the project overall?

I think so, but I also don’t know of any company that has a solution for that yet. This is something we’ve been learning together to improve. There’s no benchmark of how to do these things, but it could be a good improvement to look into better technical tools to share those particular specifications better, so that the developers are able apply their graphic concepts in a more straightforward way.

What were the results of the work?

Right now, the only feedback would have to be internally. The product hasn’t launched officially yet. Their technical knowledge of the graphics and how the Android operating system and development tools work have been appreciated. That did have an impact. From the creative side and graphical side, I’m happy with the quality of the work. Unfortunately, as our platform is a little bit older, you don’t have the cool screens that you have on your desktop or your phone. So, we really need to be careful which graphics we use, otherwise the quality will be perceived by our customers as a low quality of our displays and hardware. I think that was the best example of the shortcomings of the project, but I also understand it’s a specialized area they were working on here.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

They were quite good with communication and project management. They have a good suite of tools to communicate with us and show us their progress. They have a good setup to share files, and they delivered all the work up to the specifications and requirements that we agreed upon in the beginning of the project. I have a really good relationship with them. They really did quality work.

They also have good client relations to make sure they’re not missing anything. They get all of the information that is required to perform the work. They communicate on a weekly basis to make sure milestones are achieved. I have a good impression of their professionalism, their deliverables, and their commitment to their work. I think overall it’s really positive feedback, and in comparison with other companies we have worked with in the past, they were best able to adapt to our way of working. It can be really hard for them, especially as we’re so large and have all these really bureaucratic processes, so with purchasing and payment and communication, I think they did a really good job being patient with us, to be able to do their work.