Black Antelope

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a project coordinator at UMass Boston. UMass Boston is a public research institution and a Minority Serving Institution for AANAPISI populations (Asian American, Native American, Pacific Islander Serving Institution). I work in the School for the Environment, a transdisciplinary department and manage a few different projects.

One of them is a grant funded project from NASA's Office of STEM Engagement under the MUREP INCLUDES program. Our project, Partners Aligned to Heighten broad participation in STEM (PATHS) kicked off in September of 2021 with a goal to increase diversity in engineering in Massachusetts.

For what projects/services did your company hire Black Antelope?

PATHS needed a website that functioned as a place for our community to gather online. A place to find events and opportunities, connect with other BIPOC engineers or engineering students, share our video stories, and visually see the data we were going to collect. We hired Black Antelope to help us create this online space with our limited budget by modifying existing Wordpress themes.

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

We knew of Black Antelope from their prior work on ClimateInterpreter.org. We spoke with several web designers, but Black Antelope came back with the best quote that also fit our budget.

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

After setting a scope of work and contract in place, Black Antelope set up accounts on Basecamp and InVision for us to manage the work and see it in progress. These worked very well as we are on separate coasts (I'm on the East Coast, Black Antelope on the West Coast).

The site was built on Pantheon and also hosted there. The team at Black Antelope worked with us to design our logo, decide which features were most important, and then to build a site that incorporates them. To do lists and comments were organized on basecamp.

InVision used most successfully with the logo design and back and forth comments. The page launched in May, but Black Antelope is still available by email if we have an issue, or if we need a few more plugins installed (just happened last week). I am able to do most of the daily maintenance and content adding myself.

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

In total we worked with 3 people, though only 2 directly. Scott managed the project and did much of the web design, Leo is the designer who did the logo, and Eric is a programmer who helped with trickier bits.

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

We now have a website, www.pathspartners.org, where we continue to build our community and advertise events and opportunities.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Task list for the different work items were maintained on Basecamp and sometimes through email. Their team was very used to Basecamp, however ours was not. Luckily email would post to basecamp as well, and if it didn't, their project manager updated Basecamp where necessary to keep work organized.

The workflow was separated by different time zones and space, but for an online project it worked well and we became accustomed to asynchronous work and for us, connecting in the afternoon for anything pressing.

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

This is a small company, but I was impressed with their ability to offer what we needed at the small budget that we had written into the grant. They are willing to do, or figure out how to do, what we needed. I felt they genuinely cared for the work they were doing.

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

The theme we chose was complicated, Join Up. It is a social media type theme that allows people to join the community and communicate -exactly what we wanted. But it is complicated and there are parts of it that I still don't fully understand, and I believe parts of it that the designers at Black Antelope also don't fully understand.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We help people from all over the world get into MBA, Master's, and Ph.D. programs. There are some required tests for students looking to get into these programs, including GMAT, GRE, and TOEFL. We have 8 teachers on staff and work on standardized test prep and application essay review.

I am the founder and owner of the company. I train the teachers, create the curriculum, take care of marketing, and generally make sure everything is working.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

We have been active for three years. The company was growing, so we needed a more professional-looking website to help show that we provide quality education. In particular, we wanted to express the idea that we really care about our students—because we do. Our goal was to increase our student count by 100% within the year. Furthermore, there had been a large increase in the number of competitors in our field over the last five years, so we needed to make sure our image was top notch.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Black Antelope helped with the look and feel of the site, making up sketches and wireframes for its different pages. Black Antelope created the design for our logo and all site pages. My brother was the one who developed the website. I worked with two people from Black Antelope's team.

I had some ideas about the placement of certain elements, but Black Antelope came up with the look of every page. They included pictures which transitioned from black and white to color when the mouse cursor hovered over them. It was a small detail, but it was something I liked.

We made some redesigns one year later. Black Antelope delivered the work in a format which I couldn't open, so I went to a graphic developer for help. Usually, I received graphics in PDF form, since I wasn't using Black Antelope's software.

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

My brother is a web developer in San Francisco; he offered to help but told me that we needed a graphic designer. His wife is a Drupal developer herself and knew Black Antelope's team. She contacted them and I eventually had a 15-minute Skype call with Black Antelope's principal. In particular, we liked the warm feeling coupled with the classy look that some of their websites created when you visited them.

How much have you invested with Black Antelope?

The cost of Black Antelope's work was $6,000. My brother handled much of the development. He has built many high-profile websites, and Black Antelope's team was happy to work with him, which had an impact on the price.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Black Antelope three years ago. The project duration was between six and nine months. We weren't in a rush and preferred to take our time and do the project well.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I doubled my clients after the new site was launched. This was in large part due to the convincing professional look of the new site. I made many changes in that period, including getting a new office location, so it's a bit hard to state what the most significant impact was. However, when I talked to people about the site, they said it was exactly what a page of its kind should look like.

One of the things I was sensitive to was its friendly look, which would convey the same message about ourselves. It's easy to make a bad website, and it's difficult to make a simple one. In particular, the imagery with the logo was expertly chosen, and the color themes have helped us relate the feelings and message that we want to get across. Furthermore, the page layout has done a good job in accomplishing the goals that we set out for each page. My site is easy to use, functional, and beautiful.

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

We weren't pressed for time, so I had multiple discussions with Black Antelope around the design, and also consulted with my brother and people in my co-working space. Because of this triangular relationship, things progressed more slowly, but the collaboration was overall good.

Because the project took place three years ago, it's a bit hard to say exactly how we worked together, but I remember that I communicated with Black Antelope almost exclusively through email and Skype. I was sent long emails containing ideas and sent back my own response to Black Antelope.

What did you find most impressive about Black Antelope?

I haven't worked with many other graphic designers. There are many options available on the market; the ones I've used in Paris are much cheaper, but they are good. The difference between great and excellent isn't significant, but at the same time, it's a lot. Using the right shade of a specific color is an art and it's a craft that they've mastered. I've used designers who made acceptable choices which we ended up using, but being a notch above everyone else is what Black Antelope was able to give us.

Are there any areas Black Antelope could improve?

During one particular Skype call, Black Antelope's principal looked like he had just woken up. This may not look professional, but he's an artistic person, so that may simply be his way of being. We had a more casual relationship, and had he been working with a bigger client, he may not have done that. This really isn’t worth mentioning but I can’t think of anything else that’s negative related to Black Antelope’s work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work on the network management support team for the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

The network has been growing a lot over the years, and we’ve been using a website as an online hub for the network’s activities. As we’ve grown, we’ve had different needs from the site, so we hired Black Antelope to redevelop the site to better meet the community’s needs. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team handled both web design and development for our site. The platform is built on Drupal. 

What is the team composition?

We mostly worked with Scott (Project Manager & Designer) and Eric (Partner & Owner & Lead Developer). Scott worked on the account management and design side of things, and Eric was focused on the development. 

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

Black Antelope had been existing contractors on the site, but we did consider other options when we knew we wanted to redevelop the platform. Black Antelope just had unique expertise and were really responsive and easy to work with. They were uniquely interested and invested in the success of our organization, which made them the best fit for us.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2017–October 2020. They’ve been working on other things for us in the interim, though. 

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

Originally, our goals were based on user feedback and a user needs assessment. We got really feedback from users who saw their concerns and needs being addressed through the launch of the redesigned site. 

Their work has allowed the network to continue to grow its activities to train climate communicators across the country. Over the years and with Black Antelope’s support, we’ve been able to train hundreds of climate communicators who communicate with millions of people as a result. Their team’s support in making sure our site could operate and meet those needs was an integral part of the project. 

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

It was really easy to manage the process virtually with them because they had a lot of great systems in place. We used Basecamp to manage the workflow and InVision to share, comment, and approve design concepts. We also did web conferences for longer discussions and they were available by phone or email if something more timely came up. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their level of investment in our goals made them unique. They went the extra mile to understand our goals as an organization and thought of the website in terms of how it served those goals. That was very impressive and not necessarily something I’d expect from any web design studio. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that really comes to mind. We were really satisfied with their work. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are people who you can just consider partners on your projects. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of marketing and communications for SPCA International. We are a U.S.-based nonprofit and are active worldwide.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

We initially hired them to do ongoing site maintenance and some design improvements. We later hired them for Salesforce integration work and email template builds.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They integrated multiple technologies into our website. We needed them to build modern, good-looking CSS donation pages that worked well with our new donation app. They designed beautiful, mobile-responsive pages that we’re very happy with. We had a difficult time finding experts in concrete5—the software we use—but they do a great job with our system maintenance. They do their research and find the solutions we need.

We have small, weekly projects and we go to them when we have a problem with our website or our Salesforce database. They’ve cleaned up our database, optimized email templates, and do a lot of technological work for us.

What is the team composition?

Scott (Project Manager, Designer, Black Antelope) and Eric (Partner, Owner, Lead Developer, Black Antelope) are our main contacts. They are both very responsive. We typically work with Scott on the design side and Eric acts as a developer. They work well together and their skills complement each other. They’re a very good team.

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

I found them on LinkedIn ProFinder. They were local to our area, so we had our first meeting in person. Since then, we work remotely.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $25,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

The initial phase was from about February–July 2017. We’re now in the second phase with them. We have them on a retainer and work with them on other projects.

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

We leverage the email templates they built for us on a daily basis. We can easily access things and make changes on the backend of our website and email marketing platform. With their help, we reach hundreds of thousands of supporters each month.

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

They know their stuff. We work with them through Basecamp, which is their preferred platform. They do a good job.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re responsive to our needs and requests and are so knowledgeable. They’re really easy to work with, creative, technically savvy, and willing to fill gaps in our staffing. All of that is really helpful and we don’t know what we would do without them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am one of the communications officers and the multimedia editor at a research institute at UC Berkeley. I also manage the website.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

We needed someone to maintain the website for our institute, which we already had developed. Originally, we hired Black Antelope to perform some tweaks here and there and support us with maintenance issues that arise. 

We eventually took them on for other projects. Just a few hours ago this morning, we announced an update to a 15-year-old PBS website that serves as a companion to a documentary series that came out in 2003 called Race: The Power of an Illusion. The producers approached us about hosting it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Black Antelope resolves any bugs we encounter. They develop the custom templates we need for our website, which is built on Drupal 8. Regarding design work, they've given some pages a facelift. They’ve also tweaked aspects of the CMS to provide it with further functionality. They provide everything we need in terms of web support.

We first brought them on to maintain our main website, but our institute runs several platforms and has released new ones since then. Another developer had built the site beforehand, but it still needed a ton of work after our contract ran out. Based on notes from the other vendor, Black Antelope felt confident they could finish the job, so we handed it over to them.

We updated the site with a new look and content because its themes are still relevant today. It's much more complex in nature than our than our institute's website and requires several different types of development tools including the React programming language. Black Antelope has also worked with our other partners on campus at UC Berkeley to develop brand-new websites. 

What is the team composition? 

From what I understand, the team only includes two people. Scott (Project Manager and Designer, Black Antelope) took care of the business side while Eric (Partner, Owner, and Lead Developer, Black Antelope) focused more on the technical aspects. I think they both work on the development, though, and deserve equal credit. 

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

One of our contacts at UC Berkeley referred us to Black Antelope. I know they work with a few different departments on campus. The reference we found them through was really happy with them, so we got in touch. We're very thankful we did. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together about a year ago in March 2018. Our engagement is ongoing. We renewed our contract with them and are definitely happy with their services. 

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

We've gotten very good feedback from our partners. We set up analytics for the new site they just finished after we announced it, and we've been getting quite a few hits. Everyone who has reviewed their work has been really impressed. They should be very proud.

Black Antelope did a phenomenal job of developing our website, including the CMS and design. They were able to work with anything we threw at them, and the finished product came out perfectly. 

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management has been great. I appreciate how Black Antelope communicates. We used to send them tasks by email, but they transitioned to Basecamp. As an online tool, it helps facilitate interactions between the client and the vendor. 

Now, we use it to put in all our requests, and they always get back to us quickly. We have running threads within the forum that include comments, posts, and images. This tool has streamlined our process and been very successful.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm most impressed by the level of one-on-one personalization they offer. They have excellent design judgment and provide better alternatives to our suggestions for placement and functionality. 

Black Antelope is such a small team that they feel more like a family-owned business than a bureaucratic corporation. We never get automated ticket responses to the task requests we send. 

Since the developers run the project themselves, there are never layers of divisions to communicate through. They respond very quickly, even though I work unusual hours including after 10:00 PM. Even at night, they usually get back to me right away. They’re willing to support us beyond the standard workday whenever the need arises. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I really have nothing to complain about. Black Antelope has been doing a phenomenal job. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We always let them know our priorities and which less important items can wait. Since we know we're not their only client, we respect their time. Make sure you’re addressing what's most important. Delineate urgent matters like deadlines and be clear about what you need the most, so they don't get bogged down. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Mapar is a big tech startup. I was the director of web development in the company. My job was to manage our website in terms of CMS [content management system], SEO [search engine optimization], design, and hosting.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

We needed to redevelop our website. The old one was outdated, with a bad design and poor performance. It had been created when we were a small startup.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Black Antelope was brought on as our web development vendor. They were in charge of both design and development in the beginning, but I also engaged another person for the design. Even though Black Antelope did offer creative design abilities, I chose to work with another company.

In terms of technology, Black Antelope was very professional. They converted the designs we gave them into a Drupal CMS. Black Antelope gave us some excellent advice. I hired some temporary Drupal contractors after our project with Black Antelope was completed. They were very impressed with how the site had been put together.

We also worked with Black Antelope on extending our site to other languages. They created a unified Drupal management system which featured translation modules.

I don't know exactly what the size of our team was. We mainly communicated with two developers from Black Antelope, but there may have been other resources. I can think of no real faults in Black Antelope's execution. I'm very satisfied overall.

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

One of our members picked out a few Drupal companies. She strongly recommended Black Antelope. I met them in a coffee shop and interviewed them to find out about the work they'd done and to get a feel for Black Antelope. I decided to hire them as a result.

How much have you invested with Black Antelope?

The total cost of Black Antelope's services was in the $30,000 to $40,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Black Antelope 2 years ago. Our work is complete. We had a very tight deadline. Everything had to be finished within 4 months of our engagement with Black Antelope.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

When we started working with Black Antelope, our company only had about 150 members. I had no team of my own and was working exclusively with vendors. I had to rely on Black Antelope as my technical advisors as well, in terms of site hosting. I was also able to reach out to Black Antelope later on for consultation, which is something that I greatly appreciated. Black Antelope knew our site and needs, so they provided valuable technical advice for free.

Our company has close to 500 employees at this time. Our website traffic increased tremendously. Even though not all of this is attributable to Black Antelope, having a much more robust website contributed tremendously to our success. We had significant peaks of traffic at times, but the site never went down.

Black Antelope helped us with initial SEO implementations, giving us core advice for this area. We definitely saw an uptick for Google search results.

Six months after we stopped our engagement with Black Antelope, we hired our own SEO person. Until then, Black Antelope acted as our advisor. Because the site was faster and more professional, our rankings went up, which was great.

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

The only negative feedback I have in this sense is that I was sometimes nervous about Black Antelope's ability to deliver something on time. I didn't see many of the intermediate steps at certain points, even though the work still got done in time. I know now that Black Antelope is a competent company, but since I wasn't familiar with them in the beginning, I had some doubts.

Many project vendors suggested using project management tools, but I'm usually resistant to this. I always preferred having calls and using email for our collaboration with Black Antelope.

What did you find most impressive about Black Antelope?

Black Antelope has good technical abilities and I always felt that I could trust them and ask their advice on hosting packages, what types of resources we should hire, and so on. Black Antelope didn't have a get-in-and-get-out approach. At one point, I wanted to use Black Antelope for maintenance. They were upfront about the fact that they don't prefer working on retainers as a business model. Black Antelope could have taken my money and strung me along for a while, but they didn't. Black Antelope did offer assistance for any urgent issues, even though their suggestion was for me to hire someone in-house. I appreciated this level of honesty and professionalism.

Are there any areas Black Antelope could improve?

I would appreciate more visibility into milestones. If Black Antelope is working remotely, the client needs to have a level of comfort.

Please describe your organization.

We are a major teaching and research university.

What is your position?

I manage the department of economics, which is one of the largest teaching and research departments on campus. It's a very prestigious department, ranked in the top five in the world, with more than 1,000 students and tens of thousands of enrollments each year. We have a large number of faculty and staff, a lot of research is done within the department, and we issue many contracts and grants. 

What business challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

We needed to rework our website two years ago. Our original Drupal site had been done in-house and with the help of another contractor, but I wasn't the manager at the time. It did not look good and had many issues before we started working with Black Antelope.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Black Antelope worked on our website, transitioning it to the newest version of Drupal. We only worked with one person from Black Antelope, although there may have been other resources behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

I was talking with people on campus. It came to my attention that Black Antelope had upgraded the political science web page a few months ago. I liked the look of that page, so I reached out to Black Antelope. I believe that Black Antelope has since worked with other departments of the university as well. I received a few phone calls in time, asking for recommendations, but I don't know for sure that they've worked with anyone else.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Black Antelope two years ago and we rolled out our website in January 2016. We have an ongoing relationship with Black Antelope.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

In terms of site design and aesthetics, everyone's been very pleased with it. It works well for our needs. It has content and event streams, as well as a large gallery of photos, which we were able to publish. Much of the color and photo management is done in-house, but the design done by Black Antelope is great. Overall feedback has been nothing but positive. Our technical contact from Black Antelope is very accessible and competent.

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

We were hoping to roll out the site in November 2015, but we finished it in the first week of January. There were some add-ons included later into the project, so the delay was expected. Black Antelope has been very good at working with project management tools, keeping us posted throughout the process and making everything clear. The work was essentially done on time.

Black Antelope used a web-driven project management tool through which I could log in and look at mockups and the project timeline. It was a fairly sophisticated tool with which we shared document and were kept updated.

What distinguishes Black Antelope from other providers?

I found our contact's accessibility to be very good. In my experience with tech consultants, they will drift at times. Black Antelope always responded to us within 12 to 24 hours to any email communication. I was also impressed with their technical skills. In my experience, there is a lot of pushback from developers when asking for anything that doesn't fit a particular theme. Black Antelope was able to produce anything we asked for, which was impressive. They did much of custom work, without being boxed into a particular theme. With Drupal in particular, working with themes requires knowledge for customization. Black Antelope's accessibility, ability to get work done on time and their high-level technical skills set them apart.

Is there anything Black Antelope could have improved or done differently?

The only challenge was working with Black Antelope remotely. I never actually met the team, but I was fine with that. I believe that Black Antelope was working nights, and their principal [Scott Hildebrand] is in Hong Kong, so it was sometimes tough to have a conversation on certain issues and to clarify Black Antelope through email. I don't think that there's something that can be done about this. It's simply the nature of the business. Black Antelope's skills, responsiveness and ability to get the work done on budget more than made up for this shortcoming. They could try to connect more to clients during business hours.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an assistant director for marketing and outreach at UC Berkeley. I work for a program called the Berkeley International Studies Program where we work with visiting international students from around the world, to study at UC Berkeley.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

We needed someone to migrate our website to a new design and a new backend system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Black Antelope provides web development and web design services. The first phase of the project was to migrate our WordPress site to Drupal’s infrastructure. The second phase is when we start reorganizing the site’s structure. Additionally, they’re currently in the process of adding Google Analytics to our website for SEO integration.

We had requested Scott to provide us with several recommendations of different sites — so we can identify the direction of the design for our website. We agreed on a more travel and promotional approach, to highlight different cultural events international students could learn about through our website.

Scott (Project Manager & Designer) has shared some ideas on how to utilize Google suites on our site to help us track inquiries, and improve our content marketing moving forward. Right now, we have not asked them to focus on that, as they’ll likely be diving into that aspect during phase two.

What is the team composition?

I work closely with Scott, Eric (Partner, Owner & Lead Developer), and another team member who does the design work.

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

Black Antelope came highly recommended from the Department of Sociology, who’ve previously hired them to redesign their website. Additionally, they’ve also completed multiple websites throughout campus — which means they were already comfortable with the UC Berkeley system.

They understood that we’re a large university and that there are certain design aspects we have to take into consideration. However, their portfolio is aligned with what we’re looking for, and we felt comfortable with the designs they shared with us.

How much have you invested with them?

I believe it’s around $45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started talking to them in April 2020, but the official start of the first phase was in June 2020. The partnership is still ongoing.

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

The first thing is that they are easy to collaborate with. My teammates and I have very specific ideas about what we want with the site, and Scott and his team are very receptive to all of them. They would offer us different design considerations as we develop the framework of the overall feel of the site — this process is incredibly helpful for us to get ideas.

Their communication is also very quick and thorough. If something is brought back to them, they usually turn it around as quickly as possible. The design aspect is fast, efficient, and top-notch.

There was a lot of trust that was established early on and we felt like we were in good hands. The website launch and backend migration went very smoothly. 

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

We decided to launch the site in the middle of January, so we can be ready for our fall recruitment cycle. It was a fairly ambitious timeline, but they were very open to it. We keep track of everything and establish deadlines through Basecamp.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would say, first and foremost, their ability to communicate and support the client is superb. The delivery itself is also excellent, and we’re very happy and proud of the website. It’s very different from the older version.

They are able to provide the visual for when we explain some of the key things we were looking for. They were also really receptive to the changes we made to the design that they initially shared. They listen and are able to navigate what our needs are.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything specifically, as we just have a very positive experience with them. We’re very pleased with the way everything is going and obviously, we’re going to continue to use them for our phase two development.

I would highly recommend them in the future.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise them to establish the lines of communication early on and determine the goals you need to prioritize.

We initially talked about what our goals were and how to prioritize them. We then discussed what was feasible in the first phase of the development. After a more in-depth exploration, we ultimately decided to break the project into two phases.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of the department of statistics at the University of California at Berkeley.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

We wanted to design and develop a brand-new website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

As a department, we wanted a new website to use as an outward-facing branding and marketing tool. It also had to prioritize user-friendliness for iinternal stakeholders, including students, faculty, and staff. Black Antelope created an overall look that was representative of our branding and a navigation system that was intuitive.

I was direct with them about the ideas I had for the branding. We wanted a photo slider, a particular set of icons and graphics with a statistics feel, and more. The overlays also had to be statistics oriented. We gave them all that as a guide, and then they showed us what they created. They built the site in Drupal because that’s what we were familiar with.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Scott (Project Manager, Designer) and Eric (Software Developer), specifically. Scott was involved with the design and ran the first half of the project. Eric handled the development half of our relationship.

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

They’d done some websites on our campus already, and I loved their work. The department Black Antelope had previously worked with highly recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

I would estimate that we’ve spent between $40,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since March 2018.

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

We judged their work by how well our faculty likes it, as the website is a home for them. They’re very pleased with it and say that it is very much an authentic representation of them. We’ve also seen a decrease in emails coming to the department administration about how to do tasks on the website. Finally, in the week we’ve been live, many people have asked us who built our website because they like it so much. We’ve gotten incredible feedback.

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

We used InVision and Basecamp to collaborate. InVision allowed us to say yes or no to designs, and we communicated the development to-do list over Basecamp. There were about three in-person video meetings throughout the project, which is a pretty amazing number. I hate having to have a lot of meetings, and Black Antelope saved a lot of time by using InVision.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I gave them a sketch of the homepage on a piece of paper, and aside from one other conversation about how I wanted it to look that was all they had. They really heard what I said and translated that into visuals that matched exactly what I asked for. Their instincts about what looks good are spot-on.

Our company has very specific branding guidelines, and I’m not an expert but I didn’t need to be. Black Antelope already knew UC Berkley’s guidelines. That was so helpful for me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

This isn’t a negative for them as much as evidence of me not being a website developer. I was expecting someone on their side to set the timeline and take the lead on how we managed the project. We had to contact them a few times to see what was going on or if they needed anything from us. In retrospect, I’d have a conversation with them at the beginning about how we’re going to keep the process moving.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be upfront with them about how you’re going to structure project management. Don’t expect them to be super, super proactive; they’ll assume that you’re busy and that you will communicate with them when you want to. Block out your calendar for your project and have a conversation with them about the timeline; perhaps assign someone from your side to stay on top of the project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and editor-in-chief of the World’s Best Wedding Photos. We promote wedding photographers and we have an extensive database that allows us to tag and put all the information for their images. It’s essentially a subscription model. People who are posted pay for the exposure that we give them, but it’s by invitation only.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Antelope?

There are a lot of wedding photography businesses that have an old school look. I chose Black Antelope to design my site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with design and then moved into development. One big challenge was our database, which was quite robust. So they worked with the backend and the way that it interacts with the website. Things went quickly. We had a ton of changes, and they did a great job getting into the photographer’s mindset, and into our mindset, about what we were trying to create and how it was different.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Scott(project manager & designer)  and Eric (owner & developer), and they brought in another team member for graphics.

How did you come to work with Black Antelope?

I met Scott in a coffee shop and we talked for like an hour. I liked the work they had done. I felt like he was a super nice guy. Very approachable, they responded quickly, and offered a good budget. Once we went back and forth over the numbers and what they could provide, I decided to go with them. We received bids from four different companies, but they delivered a timely and detailed proposal.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in June 2019 and we launched in January 2020.

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

A lot of the developers I’ve worked with in the past haven’t put in a lot of effort for SEO, but Black Antelope really built that into the site. Within a few weeks, we were on Google for the search terms that we were looking for. It was much faster than I anticipated.

I couldn’t be happier with the site. We haven’t had any bugs and it’s been clean since the launch.

How did Black Antelope perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Trello as our management system. They methodically went through things as we put them up. We communicated efficiently and things were done really easily.

They were available, so I could call them whenever I needed them. When things weren’t clear, I was able to get ahold of them. And they were very patient with me, even when they were super busy.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The database is amazing. And really the whole thing. I love the look of the site and the ability to go into the database and come up with editorial ideas for both my own business, and also for media aggregates. Now I have visual and editorial content ready to share whenever I need it. Now we can create content very easily and keep things running.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. We had zero problems.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get your three-year business plan together, understand what you want to do after you launch, what your next markers are. For example, we’re going to be launching other sites with them as well, and that was all built into our site, so it could easily be duplicated for other purposes.  It’s all standard business advice—think big.