Fresh Design Studio

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the co-owner of SOLA Group Inc, a B2B media company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Design Studio?

We were looking to migrate our websites to WordPress.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fresh Design Studio migrated our website from our proprietary system to a WordPress multi-site for our three websites. Later, they migrated from a multi-site to single-sites. They provide some development services as well, ensuring all of our site functionality was kept intact. Their team continues to provide maintenance and support services.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a couple of people from Fresh Design Studio, but there were a few developers behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Fresh Design Studio?

After talking with several people in the Chicago area, Fresh Design Studio’s name came up and we selected them from a pool of several others.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Fresh Design Studio began in May 2016.

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

Our traffic and engagement have both grown. Fresh Design Studio is very responsive to our needs. They continuously help us solve problems and are always there for us. We lean on them quite heavily but they’re always there for us.

How did Fresh Design Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a great job managing their projects. Fresh Design Studio responds in a timely manner and always has fresh ideas for managing the sites. 

Our teams use a tracking spreadsheet to streamline reporting. We also manage the project through Asana, but we can always contact them over the phone or by email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They take a real interest in making things right. Fresh Design Studio works to understand who we are and what we do and apply that knowledge to solutions for us. They’ve never let us down, they have incredible customer service.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything has been great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you ask, they’ll do it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the creative director of dotGREY Lifestyle, a men’s lifestyle brand. We’re currently selling a men’s skincare collection, and I’m responsible for representing the brand correctly, creating proper demand, and reaching out to the correct audience with the right message at the right time.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Design Studio?

We’re new to the market and virtually unheard of. We needed to get our name out there and get exposure in a creative way on a tight budget.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fresh Design helped with social media marketing and advertising, as well as developing the Shopify website. They helped us design a storyline to pitch to potential customers. From there, we created a presence on Instagram, which included reaching out to influencers and creating images and Instagram posts. We then started developing a more elaborate scope.

The website is robust but also a standard e-commerce site. It has checkout and credit card processing, as well as retargeting and Facebook pixels that link back for retargeting ads. We spent our time making the website conversion-driven, clean, and a style that would appeal to our customer base.

What is the team composition?

The account manager is my main point of contact. They provide about 3­­–4 other people, including a designer and developers.

How did you come to work with Fresh Design Studio?

They were a referral. We were looking at three other companies, but we felt Fresh Design understood our project a bit quicker and better. We needed someone who could penetrate the noise of our competitors, and I felt they had the mindset and creativity to do so.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent between $25,000–$50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since December 2017.

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

We’re happy with their work and have received lots of compliments about the branding. Fresh Design created a brand that gets people to trust us and follow our mission. Given the short timeline they had, I’m impressed with their work.

How did Fresh Design Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Fresh Design handles project management very well. I’ve had bad experiences in that area with other firms, but I’m pleased with our communication and how Fresh Design has managed expectations. We’ve never had problems getting in touch with them if something comes up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We had a different design direction in the beginning but switched halfway through. Even with such an abrupt change, Fresh Design was still able to deliver within the timeline. I don’t know if anyone else could’ve done it that quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They only do digital right now, but I wish they did more. We have to find a different company for print and traditional marketing, which is unfortunate because their work is amazing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Meet with them in person. You don’t get the full scope of what they can do by just exchanging emails. They didn’t stand out to me until we met in person, so I suggest at least doing that before making any decisions. It helps you understand their culture and mindset, which is helpful when hiring a creative team.

If you’re into non-traditional design, you’ll like working with them. If you want something more typical and safe, you can probably find someone else to do it cheaper.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

First American Metal Corporation is an electronics and metal recycling and brokerage company. I’m the president.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Design?

We were looking to refresh the brand of our company. Our image and website had been developed internally quite some time ago, and not with any real expertise. We wanted a newer approach to our logo, our brand, and our web environment. We had hired another marketing company to do web design but what they came up with didn’t work for us. We dropped them and hired Fresh Design.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, they redesigned our logo which became part of our collateral for trade shows as well as featuring on our letterhead, etc. After that, they provided us with a refresh of our whole image and redid our website from scratch. The site is promotional and informational with no e-commerce.

We wanted something edgy and concise that spoke well to our enterprise. It needed to be mobile friendly and work well for our social media platforms too.

What is the team dynamic? 

We worked with a sales manager who was very knowledgeable and great at sorting through the commentary we provided. He helped us nail down a target of what we were trying to accomplish and developed the internal team. 

They brought in specialists in graphic arts and with language skills to develop an image and context for the content, and to reduce the size and complexity of our previous website and marketing material.

How did you come to work with Fresh Design?

A member of my staff met them at a conference in Chicago and was impressed by their energy. We were in the process of looking for companies to do the work. We liked their attitude and they came up with an aggressive timeline at a reasonable price.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000 and $15,000. It was unbelievable that they completed what they did, and at the price they did. I would’ve paid twice that to get what I got — they delivered an exceptional product.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2017, and the work was implemented in September 2017. They are currently training us to do some of the maintenance ourselves.

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

We were at a trade show recently and people noticed we had a new image that wasn’t as cluttered. Our old booth looked like something we’d thrown together. The feedback was positive and my team felt encouraged by that. One person who looked up our website on their phone said it was very mobile-friendly.

How did Fresh Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They were fabulous. They always kept to their timeline and used tracking tools to manage the projects and keep accountability in terms of what was done and by who. They followed up with us when we were falling behind to keep things on track. They pushed us and kept track in a way that was polite and friendly. They weren’t impatient or frustrated. The project probably would’ve been completed three months early if they hadn’t been waiting on us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They took the content that we described and articulated it into content that we couldn’t have imagined but absolutely loved. Their ability to do that was spectacular.

We’re very happy with the results they generated and their team dynamic. We liked the way they used different platforms, kept to a very aggressive timeline, and had the ability to manage the timeline diligently to keep us on track. They managed that in a very professional and friendly way. It was very positive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any criticisms. They developed a product that was beyond our expectations. At one point, our project manager moved onto a different company and they transitioned that really well. They told us what would happen in the handoff and so it was seamless. They had online share screen chats where we went through and developed things. They were reasonably priced.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a program manager at the Global CSR Foundation, a corporate platform for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

For what projects/services did your company hire Fresh Design Studio?

We hired Fresh Design Studio to overhaul our previous webpage by creating a new, engaging site that had an air of professionalism.

What were your goals for this project? 

We wanted to rapidly deploy a professional website.

How did you select this vendor?

We heard of them through word of mouth and decided to try them out.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail. 

The Fresh Design Studio team worked hard and fast to deliver our website.  

What was the team composition?

It was a small, lean team led by Anson (Managing Creative Director, Fresh Design Studio) and Brian (Account Manager, Fresh Design Studio).

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We recently launched the website and got a lot of compliments.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it? 

Fresh Design Studio was accessible throughout the entire process, meeting us wherever we were and using email or WeChat when applicable. They were always available to answer any questions from my team to move us along to the next step. 

What did you find most impressive about this company? 

I appreciated that they moved fast and had great attention to design. 

Are there any areas for improvement? 

No, nothing comes to mind