Art+Logic

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Dembowski Consulting

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

TeacherWell is an educator-led initiative that champions teacher well-being and reimagines school culture through evidence-based practices and strength-based leadership.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Art+Logic to accomplish?

• To enhance the current onboarding experience and overall features of an app from another app developer
• To analyze the old code from another app developer

SOLUTION

How did you find Art+Logic?

Online Search

Why did you select Art+Logic over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Art+Logic were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Before finding Art+Logic I worked with another app developer and was seeing limited success.  I transitioned the code to Art+Logic, who analyzed the current code and provided recommendations for next steps. They ended up finding a messy codebase with too poor of a foundation for any enhancements. Despite this dismal discovery they worked tirelessly to find solutions and entrypoints for me as the client. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

After discovering that the code base work, completed by another app developer, was messy and not stable enough for any enhancements, Art+Logic went out of their way to seek out solutions.  Their work was compassionate, thorough and efficient. I was presented with 3 different options to accomplish our overall goals, each with different pros and cons.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The project management was rooted in compassion and understanding. The communication was on-point, never leaving me to wonder what to expect next, and able to share updates and ideas in a clear way. I've never worked with a more thorough and efficient team of people who truly seemed to want to help -- not just looking for the sale.

What was your primary form of communication with Art+Logic?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Even though it's a software development company, they don't put the software first -- they put the people first. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Art+Logic could have done differently?

No, very impressed with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Director of a financial services company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are our clients' expert R&D tax credit firm, applying our efficient, client-centric, technology-assisted process to streamline the due diligence work of claiming and defending federal and state R&D tax credits.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Art+Logic to accomplish?

Develop a proprietary data collection web application

SOLUTION

How did you find Art+Logic?

Referral

Why did you select Art+Logic over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Art+Logic were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Our project iteratively built a proprietary web application designed to ease the task of data collection we conduct for our clients' R&D tax credit studies. Key deliverables included: 

• design mockups of each stage of data-entry UX
• a suite of automated regression tests
• CI/CD pipelines
• staging and production environments hosted in a containerized AWS solution
• two continually QA'd and iteratively delivered applications: 
  • an API to a database containing client data
  • a Next.js SPA interfacing with that API

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

70+ 14-day sprints each delivering a bug-free iteration of the product. Each sprint ending in a chance to readjust priorities and build the most important remaining necessary features. We will be onboarding our first users to the application this year and fully expect the product to meet expectations of reducing friction in our clients' data-gathering tasks and increasing our team's efficiency.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The incremental approach taken by project management ensured that our product was ready for release every two weeks, with the highest priority features having been developed, tested, and delivered to a production-like environment. After 70+ sprints, only 1 or 2 ever resulted in missed delivery of the sprint goal. The A+L team is exceptionally good at what they do.

What was your primary form of communication with Art+Logic?

Virtual Meeting

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

Art+Logic engineers are easy to work with, sharp, skilled, and highly experienced. The quality of developers in the Art+Logic roster is exceptional, and the leadership at the company is principled. We find a strong overlap in values with this professional relationship.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Art+Logic could have done differently?

Every project results in lessons learned. Perhaps we could have had a longer discovery phase that would have resulted in a more shared understanding of the end product we were after. But all things considered, that would have delayed development and perhaps not resulted in the product we have today, which we're pleased with. So ultimately, no, no notes.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the principal engineer at a consumer electronics company. We develop consumer electronics from scratch, including mechanical hardware and software design, doing embedded work on low-powered microcontrollers. We also build tools that live in OS X and iOS to work with our embedded electronics. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Art+Logic?

We were looking for a software development team that understood the creative and compositional process behind development since we work with light and sound devices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We first engaged with Art+Logic when we built some compositional tool prototypes based on basic plug-ins. We had initial calls where we showed the team our prototypes, and they assigned a project manager to us. Then, Art+Logic’s engineers designed the architecture’s big picture and started off building the required plug-ins with the knowledge that we would expand into embedded and iOS applications later. Art+Logic has created a large-scale plan with many features and goes one by one. 

Art+Logic has revamped our original plug-ins and built a whole ecosystem of tools using JUICE. The team has also helped us with embedded work and low-level programming on microcontrollers. Furthermore, Art+Logic has built a set of iOS applications in one system architecture that communicates with the firmware and our device. 

One of the mobile apps that Art+Logic has developed is a consumer-facing iOS app that communicates with our device over Bluetooth and is basically a controller for our device. The team has built the iOS app in tandem with an embedded device and works on both ends, the embedded side and the iOS side, to ensure the communications and protocols work correctly. 

We work on small projects in this architecture and have meetings to review the design and functionality specs. Then, Art+Logic delivers one or two rounds of functional builds tested by their QC team, and we also do testing ourselves. Art+Logic has delivered six different pieces of software, and a frontend developer has also worked on some of these products.

What is the team composition?

Art+Logic’s team composition has changed over the years, depending on our needs and what we need at the time of the project. We’ve worked with around six teammates, including Kendall (Sales Manager), Jason (Senior Software Engineer), a project manager, a full-time engineer, three extra software engineers, and a QC engineer. 

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I’d like to shout out Jason's work, our head software engineer. He’s one of the best engineers I’ve worked with. He has been able to work on every required platform, including JUICE, iOS, and embedded systems. I’ve found that it's uncommon to find engineers who work on low-level systems, and Jason’s ability to blend embedded systems and other platforms is incredible — he’s flexible and a pleasure to work with. 

How did you come to work with Art+Logic?

One of my co-workers met an Art+Logic team member at a digital music conference. Art+Logic has experience with digital music and controllers for creative processes; that’s why we went with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with Art+Logic since January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Art+Logic has delivered six pieces of software in the time we’ve been working together, all of which are robust and have been tested. Art+Logic provides fast and robust development work, the number of different platforms required is large, and they’ve helped us save costs since we don’t need to hire different groups to work on the iOS and embedded system development. The ability to do it with one company is incredibly helpful for us. 

How did Art+Logic perform from a project management standpoint?

Art+Logic’s project management is very good. They communicate clearly and break down the delivered work for us to understand. For communication, we use email, Slack, and virtual meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Art+Logic has a unique blend of extreme technical competence and creativity and a fantastic ability to work on embedded and high-level development. All the engineers I’ve worked with are very competent and excited to develop creative solutions that have helped us thrive. 

Art+Logic is able to tackle unique and non-standard problems. They don’t deliver out-of-the-box mechanical solutions; instead, they take the time to develop interesting and correct solutions that combine hardware and software.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We don’t always have a full understanding of the Art+Logic team assigned to us. When we have additional requests, Art+Logic has assigned additional developers, and I think resources could be optimized. However, that’s a very small thing that we could ask for. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend you not to hold back in asking Art+Logic for hard work. Sometimes, when working with a contractor, we pull the string back because things seem like they could be out of our budget or hard to complete in the required timeframe. 

I suggest telling Art+Logic your wildest hopes and dreams for your development project and see what they come up with because Art+Logic will likely come up with a solution, whether you implement it or not. Don’t hold back on the features you want.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of research and development for an equipment manufacturer. We manufacture ultrasonic non-destructive testing equipment. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Art+Logic?

We engaged Art+Logic for the development of custom software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We approached Art+Logic to develop PC and cloud software. They utilized Django and Microsoft platforms.

Initially, we laid out some requirements with them early on. They quoted the effort, and we developed a few pieces of software over the next two and a half years with various releases of the software. We had initial releases, added features, and took care of bug fixes. Since then, they've worked with us in a lesser capacity for ongoing software maintenance.

What is the team composition?

We had 2–3 people working on the project at any given time. Over the years, about 10 different people have been involved from their side. 

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I want to give a shout-out to Bob (President), who has been great. 

How did you come to work with Art+Logic?

We have known Bob for many years. 

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve invested around $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our initial discussions with Art+Logic began in November 2014, and it’s an ongoing partnership.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We utilize the software Art+Logic developed, and we’re happy with it. Throughout the development, we periodically had various issues, and the team always took them seriously and tried to resolve them as quickly as possible. Overall, I’m very happy with the quality of their work.

How did Art+Logic perform from a project management standpoint?

The Art+Logic team met the deadlines successfully. The budget was always a moving target. We primarily communicate with them via phone calls or email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Bob, in particular, because of his experience in our field, really helped the project succeed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

From time to time, I think the project management could’ve been a bit better. We had a very long project, and sometimes people moved on. Occasionally, we had new developers join us, which could be challenging, but we overcame it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When working with a software development company or if software isn’t your core expertise, spending significant time upfront defining requirements is crucial.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of IT of Theatre Development Fund, Inc 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

TDF is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to bringing the power of the performing arts to everyone.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Art+Logic to accomplish?

• Development of Mobile App
• Multiple Custom integrations with Tessitura CRM
• Development of a Website dedicated to Accessibilty

SOLUTION

How did you find Art+Logic?

Referral

Why did you select Art+Logic over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Art+Logic were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Art & Logic has worked with TDF in multiple multifaceted projects including the development of the TKTS app with integration into our Times Square digital displays. TDF relied on the expertise of Art & Logic for planning, design, development, implementation and management. In addition, Art & Logic has developed custom web integrations for our online Ticket sales and a dedicated custom website focused on accessibility.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Milestones were documented and deliverables were provided on time and on budget through the project lifecycles

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Responding to our needs is where Art & Logic truly excels. Due to a variety of factors, our requirements changed dramatically throughout the lifecycles of the individual projects. The Art & Logic team has always been tremendously responsive and flexible. And, when necessary, they've pulled in additional resources to get the problem solved.

What was your primary form of communication with Art+Logic?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Art & Logic is unique in that their developers are not only accessible, but they work directly with our internal teams to answer questions or provide feedback. While there is always a dedicated (and very talented) Art & Logic Project Manager, the developers take on a level of ownership over the project and become a responsible go-to which we find accelerates development.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Art+Logic could have done differently?

We work with a number of vendors and I can honestly say that Art & Logic is the measure by which I judge them. This is in no way a paid endorsement, but I very sincerely cannot think of a single thing I would want Art & Logic to do differently. They have always been a pleasure to work with and a most reliable partner.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a building performance specialist at a housing construction innovation company. We develop new products and technologies for the home building industry. Our company offers a combination of hardware and software for innovation. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Art+Logic?

We use Art+Logic as a consultant on several projects since we don’t have internal software development resources. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The engagement started with the discovery phase, where Art+Logic interviewed us and compiled various user stories and requirements to develop our software. Once we agreed on the broad requirements, we selected the highest-priority features to include in the initial release of the software. The team worked on developing an MVP from there. Since then, we’ve been able to release the initial version of our products. They’ve continued to improve upon it through tweaks, revisions, and bug fixes. 

For features, the software is fundamentally an HVAC commissioning system. Once a new home has been built, HVAC technicians can use the software to commission the HVAC system properly. It has two main components. One is a management portal that allows the home builder to upload the house’s design specifications. This way, the contractor knows how to commission the system. 

The second main component is the field app, which is a web app used by the field technician to enter measurements and field data. The software analyzes the data and tells the contractor how to commission based on the measurements. For technologies, we’ve used Figma for the mock-ups. The server side runs on Django, and the software is based on various JavaScript libraries such as React. We’ve also used Amazon Lambda. 

What is the team composition?

Five teammates have worked on the project. The team is composed of Sam (Software Developer), a UI/UX designer, a project manager, an AWS deployment specialist, and a senior database architect. 

How did you come to work with Art+Logic?

We met and identified a number of companies, and Art+Logic ultimately fit the bill. As a smaller corporation, they were hands-on. Our team got to know their staff a little bit better than a larger corporation. At the same time, they had enough depth in terms of resources — they could provide us with full stack development services. 

How much have you invested with them?

In total, we’ve invested around $400,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in September 2019, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Art+Logic has delivered a high-quality app that has received positive feedback from users. It’s simple and easy to use and delivers good value for what we’ve paid the team. 

They resolve the technical issues we’ve experienced quite quickly. It usually takes 1–2 days to resolve such issues; if it’s a major one, they resolve it within a week. In terms of uptime, we’ve never had any field users who have suffered any detrimental experiences. Any maintenance or downtime is scheduled to not interfere with the normal user and business operations.

How did Art+Logic perform from a project management standpoint?

Art+Logic meets deadlines and stays on budget. They communicate any changes to the timelines or budget in an upfront manner. This way, we can plan accordingly and reallocate resources if necessary. 

For tools, we use Jira and Slack. However, we don’t have a formal project management tool. We simply use Excel Spreadsheets to track tasks and issues. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Art+Logic has a small team with low staff turnover. As a result, we’ve built lasting relationships with the project manager and the developers throughout the course of the project. This has helped things to move quickly and efficiently without us having to retrain or get new people up to speed.

Sam is highly competent and excellent while working on feature requests. He ensures the code is written in a stable and easily maintainable manner. He’s also pleasant to work with and responsive throughout the project. If something comes up, he’s able to solve it quickly. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The app we’re developing is simple, and we’re quite happy with what Art+Logic has delivered. However, if we were trying to build a more sophisticated product, we may have to push them a bit more to create something that would be more user-friendly while performing more complex tasks. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the chief administrative officer for the Ozark Center, a community behavioral health center.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Art+Logic?

We wanted to create an app that could provide users an opportunity to learn about resilience. We wanted the app to be easy to use by children in any country to help parents and loved ones understand how to interact with each other following a major disaster.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Art+Logic created the Super Me! app for us from scratch based on the general outline and messaging our team provided. They designed the UI and uploaded the app on various app stores.

The app allows users to create an avatar of themselves, along with a family and home that mirrors their own from options in a menu. Users can interact with other neighborhoods and people, including a mentor. There are also cultural components that contain music and art throughout the game.

What is the team composition?

My first point of contact was Joshua (Senior Sales Executive, Art+Logic), but I also worked with a project manager and a team of people on graphics and design.

How did you come to work with Art+Logic?

I researched various vendors online and liked Art+Logic's website and the type of work they'd done for other well-known companies. As a nonprofit, I also appreciated that they spent some time working on projects that don't necessarily generate any revenue.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from January to December 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've been very pleased with the qualitative feedback we've received on the app thus far—most people are amazed by it. The funder of the project has been very pleased with the overall outcome and the level of engagement it's received from different countries around the world. We haven't received any complaints or concerns relating to the app.

How did Art+Logic perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was exceptional. They made themselves very accessible, even late into the evenings. We mostly communicated through phone and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

About half-way through the project, Art+Logic's team commented on how pleased they were to take part in some of our meaningful work as a nonprofit. They've since expressed interest in making sure that more of their time is spent on similar projects.

I was also impressed by how quickly they were able to understand our vision, despite our lack of technical knowledge. The app they created was right on target.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. There's nothing I would've had them do differently. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don't be too concerned about the manner in which you present your vision or your lack of technical knowledge. Their team is extremely approached and talented when it comes to turning rough ideas into well-designed products.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of an R&D lab that creates technologies for enhancing sports productions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Art+Logic?

We needed additional resources for our development projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of the projects is a stand-alone robot with automated control for a specific task. It’s externally controlled with computer vision. I created a specification and interface, and Art+Logic is adhering to them. We used Go for the programming language.

We’re also developing an exploratory project that is an interactive interface using a Unity platform.

We are working on a third project as well; it is much more technically challenging, causing more struggle but not because of the level of the development. It’s not all on them. They’ve been working closely with me to get beyond the challenges.

What is the team composition?

My contact is Joshua (Senior Sales Executive, Art+Logic). I gave him the requirements and he put me in touch with a talented lead. Once we had the scope determined, he brought in another person who co-developed with him.

How did you come to work with Art+Logic?

I found them in an online search.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $1 million–$5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They helped us find talent to work with me. The first two projects are the most positive.

How did Art+Logic perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s been helpful to me. I’ve been able to get a lot more productivity by working with people that are self-starters. We do weekly Google Hangouts and calls and we also use Slack.

They were open and flexible with the tools that we needed to use. They were fluent in adapting to technologies, languages, and approaches.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re no-nonsense and have good technical abilities. They achieved fluency quickly in the programming language. There have been no issues. I’m impressed with how it’s going.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. We’ve worked with a couple different groups and I’m really happy with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a dealer-to-dealer automobile auction house that lets dealers auction off vehicles they can’t sell. I’m the retiring IT director; my successor is currently onboarding.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Art + Logic?

We needed our entire auction management system rewritten. Initially, we reached out to them for advice but soon realized we couldn’t do it alone. We decided to hire them to develop and design a new application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The legacy system was written in C code with various pieces in CGI-BIN, Windows Mobile, and C#. Art + Logic architected the servers to migrate everything to a Python backend and JavaScript frontend environment. Full-stack development coincided with UX/UI design. They also helped train our team on the new technologies.

The project focused on enhancing the vehicle management process: receiving vehicles, inventory, recording transactions, titles, and dealer and customer management. Our customer management services include payments, status, and work orders. The team also added a variety of enabling packages to increase functionalities.

While most people still use the legacy application, the new system is currently under development.

What is the team composition?

We had a dedicated project manager, a primary backend architect, QA testers, and frontend designers and developers working on this project.

How did you come to work with Art + Logic?

I’m not positive, but I think we found them through a Google search. We had a few conversations and liked what we heard. Based on their feedback, we decided to use them for development.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $1 million–$5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started April 2016 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

A few people have access to the new system. We’ve gotten good feedback, but it’s too early to have hard data. Qualitatively, we’ve been very happy with them. There are a few issues, but we resolve them and move forward. We plan to include them on future development projects.

How did Art + Logic perform from a project management standpoint?

Art + Logic has met us in person a few times for “all hands on deck” meetings. They’re very good; we decided to take a more active role after seeing their progress. I can’t speak to specifics, however, because my replacement is tracking their work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have great depth of skills. The team always has the right expertise for what we want.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Project management could be better, but in general, I have no complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a concrete vision to avoid scrambling at the beginning of development. We went in unprepared to define the project and application fully. I would’ve liked to have started differently.