Afterglow Studio

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of software company. We're building software-as-a-service solutions to help support professionals in the Barbering, Hair Salon and Tattoo industries.

For what projects/services did your company hire Afterglow Studio?

We hired Afterglow, initially to design our landing page and then decided to work with to help with high-fidelity UI/UX design for our mobile apps.

How did you select this vendor?

We searched online for the best UI/UX design companies in the market. We landed on Afterglow's Dribbble / Behance pages and were super impressed with their portfolio of work!

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Our technical team consists of 1 product manager and 3 full-stack developers and myself handling Sales/Customer facing activites. We've spent an entire year conducting user interviewers, UX research and writing up our PRDs.

Once we narrowed down on our MVP feature set, then brought on a UX lead to help us translate our ideas into wireframes to help communicate with a design team that we wanted to hired. We landed on Afterglow, shared our wireframes and documentation with them and we setup a kick-off call with Lana to help bring her, and her team, up to speed on the platform that we were looking to build.

Lana and her team then spent a few days putting together our styleguide and then spent another 2 weeks designing our landing page. After finishing the web design, Lana's team then spent another few days to put together a styleguide to use for our mobile app UI design.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with Lana, their project manager, primarily and collaborated a bit with 2 of their designers in Figma.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We were extremely happy with the design deliverables that we got back from Lana and her team. They were extremely patient when understanding our ideas/visions and taking notes to make sure they captured everything we want.

This is also to make sure they and always provided us with multiple options to choose to make sure that We walked away with a complete landing page design and a good chunk of our initial mobile app designs which were incredible and exceed our expectations by far.

We ultimately had to take on the rest of our work ourselves since we are bootstrapping our company and had to use our budget to take on some relatively expensive costs on the infrastructure / dev side. But we'll be bringing Afterglow's team back on as soon as we launch in 1 month! The Afterglow team's designs have become the foundation for the rest of our upcoming design work.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Lana was incredible! They  brought an upbeat, positive energy into every call and They showed a lot of passion for the project, which we very much appreciated. Lana made us feel like she was part of our in-house team!

Once we settled on our styleguide, we had weekly calls to check in on the design work which worked really well for us. In between calls, we collaborated quite a bit in Slack and Asana.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their designers are pure artists. Not only do they have an incredible eye for UI design but they're able to put together illustrations by hand which makes theirs design work incredibly unique. They even sent me a hand-drawn birthday card, their artistic skills blew me away!

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

The team was so good that we wished they could have covered us with front-end development for our mobile apps too. But their team consists primarily of designers and their talents exceed our expectations.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a mobile software company focusing on consumer technology in the UK.

For what projects/services did your company hire Afterglow Studio?

We started a new mobile app project focusing on plant-based diet. We hired Afterglow to make the full UI designs for both the app and the web landing page.

How did you select this vendor?

We worked with Afterglow on our first app project in 2020. They were outstanding in their design and hit the exact tone of voice we looked for. We decided to re-select them for this new project.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We needed 3 key outputs from the project:

1) the UI for prototype wireframes,

2) app icon, and

3) landing page web design. We provided some very basic wireframes of how the app should look, with design styles we found online that we liked.

Afterglow took our initial ideas and performed further style research, before building the main screens They took a fast iterative approach, where we constantly reviewed their design ideas, discussed, and fed back. We were able to see multiple styles at the same time for comparison. Afterglo also worked very patiently to try many different ideas with us to achieve the ultimate result. This approach was found throughout all 3 project objectives.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had a dedicated project manager who was prompt, patient, empathetic, and outstanding. There was a dedicated UI designer for our app that we interacted with comments on a daily basis. There were separate illustrators and icon/ logo designers. It was a pleasure working with them all. They were very quick and creative in turning our feedback into new design variations.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We budgeted for 1 month. for this project. The Afterglow team started working on the project as soon as we agreed, and through their fast, iterative, and hard-working approach, we finished on time. We achieved all of our objectives set at the beginning - a beautiful app UI, an eye-catching icon, a stylish logo, and a great landing page design.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The Afterglow team would send us daily updates for feedback. This approach was really effective as we could provide fast comments. Where needed, we were able to set up prompt meetings with the project manager to further deliberate our view. Overall, the process was smooth.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The creative talent within Afterglow was very impressive. I have worked with them twice and am really happy with both sets of designs. Furthermore, I really enjoyed their communication style, where we could get things moving as fast as possible. I felt we really worked as a team.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I do not have an area to highlight for this section.

Introduce your business and what you do there?

I’m a director at a software solution provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with Afterglow Studio?

We needed their team's design expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Afterglow Studio provided design and branding solutions for a dating app that we developed. We initially had a brainstorming phase to discuss our branding concepts and preferences with their team, and they then formulated solutions based on those. Their team then devised and executed branding strategies, including our theme, color palette, and font selection. 

Upon producing their initial deliverables, Afterglow Studio then converted our ideas into UI/UX design solutions to help us build the frontend of our iOS- and Android-friendly application. Additionally, they assisted our team in building a promotional website with an administrative web panel for the app.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact was their project manager, and we worked with a team of graphic and UI designers.

How did you come to work with Afterglow Studio?

Apart from being recommended to us, we saw Afterglow Studio's  Dribbble profile and found it impressive. We then arranged a meeting with their team and built our partnership from there.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from May–October 2021.

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

It was a pleasure to work with Afterglow Studio. They brought new ideas and perspectives to the project and successfully produced design deliverables that accurately matched our needs. We're currently implementing and converting the work they produced into our product, so there are no quantitative metrics to share at this point. Afterglow Studio impressed us with their craft, and we plan to engage their team again in the near future.

How did Afterglow Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Slack to communicate and relied on Figma for project management. Afterglow Studio kept us in the loop at all times and met our timelines without issues. They also explained any design changes they made in a comprehensive manner.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Afterglow Studio was dedicated to delivering professional and creative solutions while maintaining a client-oriented approach. We also liked how passionate and delighted their design experts were while performing their tasks — their work ethic helped us build more confidence in their team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Afterglow Studio could consider expanding their team to serve more clients.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clearly define your vision and goals, and I also recommend setting a fixed quote — apart from their team's design expertise, that's all you'll need to have the smoothest engagement possible.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Digital Marketing Specialist at Solvoyo, a Supply Chain Planning and Analytics Software company based in Boston.

For what projects/services did your company hire Afterglow Studio?

Solvoyo is an intelligent supply chain planning and analytics platform. Powered by AI & ML, we convert complex supply chain decisions into simple ones and make them autonomous. The brand identity of Solvoyo is "Magician". Our current website did not reflect our brand identity and the sense of simplicity we provide with our software.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We looked for web designers at Upwork. One of our previous employees suggested Afterglow as they had a great working experience with them before. His reference was important for us. After looking at their previous work and our intro call with Afterglow, we were convinced that they were very professional. As a result, we believed we would become good partners on this project.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

After a series of discovery calls to discuss our goals, we received 3 initial designs for the home page on Figma. As we were not happy with the initial designs, afterglow continued to create new ones according to our feedback. Once we choose a theme for the main page, they applied it to the rest of our page categories. They designed a character illustration for our brand and created 17 different posses of it. They also prepared an animation of the character to be inserted into the home page.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

As far as I realized, we worked with 4 people, including the Co-founder, the project manager, and 2 designers.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The design and each illustration they created truly represent our brand identity and business values. They provided clear and thorough documents that our developer team could easily use.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was easy to communicate with and provided us frequent feedback. We had in-person meetings and communicated through Slack. The PM was very responsive every time. They also received my feedback through Figma and they quickly applied all the feedback we gave.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were good at creating the character with crisp colors and cute poses. Also, they were very impressive in applying a next-generation-looking design to the overall website. They were very responsive to our feedback.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

It took us time to agree on the design theme. Unless you show clear, visual examples of what you would like to see, they have difficulty applying your words and vision into a design. We went back and forth several times until we reached the final design, but the quality was more important than speed and we ended up with a perfect design.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the general manager at The Profs. We are an EdTech company that matches experienced and high-quality tutors with students.

What challenge were you trying to address with Afterglow Studio?

We were looking to refresh our website, taking into account UI/UX. Essentially, we wanted a new website design and animations. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a fully functioning website, but it felt quite outdated — it didn’t target our demographic. We called Afterglow Studio to help us with the redesign and update. In the initial stages of our collaboration, we did some consulting with their team. We gave them lots of documentation, so they would understand the scope of our project in regard to the UI/UX, design, and mood boards.

They provided us with different concepts and ideas made on FIGMA, and after several revisions, we decided on one. From there, they were able to start with the home page and so on. They are also helping us with the frontend development.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact is Lana (Co-Founder) and a lead designer.

How did you come to work with Afterglow Studio?

I was looking for designer agencies and freelancers on Dribbble, and we probably had at least 30–40 prospects. We chose Afterglow Studio because of their designs and the relationship we built with them. They were super friendly, flexible, accommodating, and we got along really well. 

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested somewhere around £3,000–£5,000 (approximately $4,000–$7,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started collaborating in October 2020, and it’s still ongoing. Currently, The first phase of the project has ended, but we contact them whenever we need something designed.

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

The website is still not live, so I’m not able to give specific feedback. However, I can say that we were quite hesitant to color changes as we were quite attached to our website colors. However, after Afterglow Studio’s team made the redesign to the website, it looks more modern and more accessible to people; we are happy to be working with them.

How did Afterglow Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

We have regular meetings, and we mostly use Slack and FIGMA for project management. In the first few weeks of the collaboration, we met every 3–4 days. They are extremely communicative, and I am able to jump on calls with them within 24 hours’ notice. If they aren't able to meet a deadline, they tell us immediately. We are able to plan for that turnaround. Afterglow Studio is really outstanding.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their professional design is what makes Afterglow Studio stand out. They’re fascinating, thorough, different, patient, and playful. Also, the cost is a big benefit for us. They are significantly cheaper than a lot of the other agencies we met.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is no area that I can think of. If there are any issues, we will speak to them and resolve them.

Any advice for potential customers?

Definitely go for it. They will let you know if the project is something that they can handle since they are very open about what they can and can’t do. They're a really safe pair of hands to go with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an online courses website, and I’m the co-owner of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Afterglow Studio?

We’d been on the market for two years, and we wanted to upgrade our initial site. We wanted to give it a more professional look and feel, and to implement a technology stack better fitted for Google SEO.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I gave them my requirements, and I provided them with the necessary information regarding personas and the "About Us" section, so they would get familiar with these data. Lana (Co-Founder) walked me through the whole design process, and she showed me the way we would cooperate, both in Figma and in Slack.

By using Slack and communicating heavily, we went from one page to another. We started with the homepage, and they provided us with two completely different design approaches, out of which we selected one. Once we decided on the general design parameters, we carried on with the other pages of the site. Currently, I'm waiting for them to extract all the graphics and put them into the final Figma file.

What is the team composition?

About 4 people from Afterglow Studio are assigned to this project.

How did you come to work with Afterglow Studio?

I found them by searching on Dribbble. I went through many portfolios and I was astonished by Afterglow Studio's design style. The second reason was that Lana called me and walked me through the whole process of how the project would be performed.

Since I already had an idea of how the collaboration would look like, I decided to go ahead with Afterglow. Soon after that, Lana introduced me to their project manager and design team.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $4,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2021, and the project is close to completion. All the designs are done, and we’re just waiting for the final file.

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

I'm really amazed by Afterglow Studio's designs. We've just signed the contract for the development part, so we’re in the first phase. After the implementation phase, I’ll be able to measure the impact of their work.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication has been really great, and I'm satisfied with their work. With the use of Slack for direct communication, all of my issues and concerns have been met and resolved immediately. All my comments have been assigned to the team's designer and implemented well. 

They set up email as our key communication channel. When we discussed the project's expectations, we had 1–2 meetings per week. Currently, our communication with the rest of the team is done on a daily basis. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They produce great creative designs, and their project management process is very strong. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They have no areas to improve, and the process has been smoothly and professionally implemented, and we haven't had any problems. Overall, I'm looking forward to doing our next project with Afterglow Studio.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They’re a big company, but I’ve only worked with a few of them. I'd advise their future clients to pick the same project manager that I did.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a co-founder of a marketing agency based out of South Bend, Indiana.

For what projects/services did your company hire Afterglow Studio?

We were working with a video agency and wanted to create a highly creative and unique landing page that would speak to the video agency's strong design skills and creativity. We hired Afterglow to help design that landing page.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We're always on the lookout for strong designers - it's so rare to find good ones. Many designers have "fake" portfolio projects and what stood out to me about Afterglow was that their projects looked great and it was obvious they weren't fake projects but actual projects, with real clients and real objectives.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

After reaching out to Afterglow they scheduled a call with me to show me their portfolio. This was really enlightening to me because they took me behind the scenes of some of their projects and showed me their processes, which were super helpful.

After signing the contract, I sent them wireframes. From there they sent a few mood boards and I gave them feedback on those. After that stage, they sent me a variety of design options (header only).

After confirming which direction we wanted to go with they designed the rest of the page. We were thrilled with the results. We had a few rounds of revisions and never did I get the vibe that they were bothered by revisions but instead they clearly understood they were a part of the process and fully understood our requests.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I believe I worked with three primary people. The first was their sales person, the second was the project manager, and the designer. Although, I never actually interacted with the designer. :)

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I was very happy to see the designs. When sharing the designs with our client, they, too, were thrilled. Afterglow made us look really good.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were extremely easy to work with. Very kind, very organized, and strong communication throughout the entire process.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was thoroughly impressed by the ability to interpret my vision for the project. They delivered a product that far exceeded my expectations. In part, because I didn't feel like I gave them very clear direction.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nope - they are rockstars in my book.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Change Your Energy is a leading online education platform for energy, chakras, yoga, and guided meditation. We provide online courses, webinars, live classes, and workshops to help people experience a positive change for the body, mind, and spirit. I’m a Business Development Manager.

For what projects/services did your company hire Afterglow Studio?

We hired Afterglow to revamp the home page and member's section. Our goal is to clearly communicate the new free-trial offer on the home page and to help members navigate the site more easily and enjoy the newly-developed content customization service.

How did you select this vendor?

We liked their simple, elegant design style. Their experience on mobile application projects played an important role in our decision because we want the site to work seamlessly on any device.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

They delivered about 20-page designs in desktop and mobile view. After an initial online meeting, they asked us to provide a project brief to understand further our goals, needs, and the style we were looking for. Based on the brief, they provided 3 styles to choose from.

After we chose a style, they fine-tuned the design based on the detailed feedback we provided. They allowed us several rounds of feedback. The team used Figma for the design, which we found very effective. We could leave feedback and comments directly on the Figma files they were working on and could provide them with any proprietary image files they needed.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

2 people, a Co-founder, and the project manager.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The final design was simple and elegant and gave a fresh look and clear direction to the website. We’re pleased with the deliverables from their team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was easy to communicate with and provided us with daily updates. Their communication was very prompt and clear. We communicated through Slack and it was very effective.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They came up with different solutions and design ideas very quickly to meet our needs. They were also very dedicated to finishing the project regardless of any external factors (the war).

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

They were supposed to work on the front-end development but couldn’t do it due to the war, which was out of their control.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am co-founder at Linguix.com, an AI-based writing assistant and writing skill improvement app. We develop SaaS software that helps people to fix mistakes in their writing and take personalized language training to boost their language skill in the long run.

For what projects/services did your company hire Afterglow Studio?

We are working with Afterglow on our website, its visual language and UX as well as animations development. These are crucial elements for our success, improving conversion, and onboarding users as we offer multiple features that people need to understand right away.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We looked for references on Behance and Dribbble and were impressed with the quality of designs folks at Afterglow were able to create for their previous customers.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We had several introductory conference calls, where we described the product, our mission and goals. Afterwards, the first version of the design was created in a couple of weeks. It was a big surprise for me, that experts at Afterglow were able to grasp the spirit of the project very fast.

So, there were only minor amendments made before a renovated website gone live. Later on, we've worked on smaller tasks when we were releasing new features, etc. This summer (2021), we've teamed up for a massive redesign again, involving illustration preparation and new animations development, and again, everything went through perfectly!

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

In total, we've worked with five people: Pavel (founder), Lana (project manager) Illustrator Designer Motion designer

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I can't say a lot here, just go visit our homepage, review the perfect graphics and animation, and you'll understand the level of quality there guys can deliver for your project: https://linguix.com/

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Workflow was good, I was always able to receive timely reponse on the status of our project. If there was a need to move the deadline or reschedule something, guys reached out to me in advance, so that we could discuss the possible changes.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

My top three things here are:

• The quality of the outcome. It really looks perfect
• Its adaptability, it was easy to take it and build something new upon it with our in-house design professionals.
• The communication: it was always friendly and professional

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

They need to grow the team, so that they could work even faster, ha-ha

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of Insurance Services and the leading provider of private flood insurance in US.

For what projects/services did your company hire Afterglow Studio?

Complete website and UI re-design.

How did you select Afterglow Studio and what were the deciding factors?

An impressive portfolio of past projects.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Their team was provided with wireframes and ran with the project from there.

How many resources from the Afterglow Studio team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with a very organized project manager who was super responsive and always available.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The quality of the design down to the smallest details was the work of world-class professionals. Not only was the design beautiful and engaging it exhibited a deep understanding of best practices user interface design. I would put the studio's level of expertise on par with the largest and most well-known design studios in the world.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Their workflow and project management exceeded our expectations, and the level of professionalism was mind-blowing. Met every schedule and deadline and over-delivered on every expectation. It is very rare to work with a remote team that operates so flawlessly. The communication was outstanding.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The website design and user experience design were expert level. It was flawlessly down to the smallest detail. I have engaged dozens of designs studios and have been responsible for millions of dollars of web design work over the last 20 years. AfterGlow ranks as one of the best studios I have ever worked with.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

My only regret is that I wasn't introduced to them 10 years ago.